Today In Issues:
FDD Research & Analysis
The Must-Reads
UK, Italy among states considered to verify Hezbollah disarmament, sources say Hamas announces intention to run in PA elections Trump says Hormuz is under U.S. control. Few ships are listening. Iran says no progress on reviving interim peace deal with US Counterterrorism analyst Erfan Fard: Mojtaba Khamenei isn’t preparing for war with Israel. He’s preparing for war with Iran War is squeezing another global chokepoint: the Black Sea Russia's Putin visits Japan-claimed islands for first time; Tokyo protests Putin says Russia will start seizing European vessels if its ships targeted Jailed Istanbul mayor Imamoglu joins new opposition party amid political turmoil Officials say US forces on track to complete Iraq pullout by Sept. 30 Taiwan says it was targeted last month in AI-driven hacking campaign RSF renews assault on Sudan's al-Obeid as drones strike capital, witnesses sayIn The News
Israel
An Israeli airstrike critically wounded a Palestinian man in the Gaza Strip, in an attack the Israeli military said targeted a Hamas commander planning attacks against Israeli troops operating in the territory. – Reuters
Israel and Lebanon have agreed on Britain, Italy, Switzerland and Indonesia as potential contributors to a proposed mechanism that could see foreign troops deployed to Lebanon to verify Hezbollah’s disarmament, people familiar with the matter said. – Reuters
Israeli troops clashed with Jewish settlers on Wednesday while trying to disperse them from a West Bank outpost they set up directly in front of Palestinian homes, and later withdrew from the area after failing to clear the settlers, witnesses said. – Reuters
Israel’s election in two months may see out Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s religious-rightist government, but a major shift in West Bank policy would be needed for there to be peace in the territory, the top Palestinian diplomat said. – Bloomberg
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week publicly rejected President Donald Trump’s latest Gaza peace plan. The Trump administration can live with it — for now. The administration says it’s less concerned with what Netanyahu says than what the Israeli Defense Forces do. – Politico
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz visited southern Lebanon on Wednesday, vowing to destroy infrastructure and keep troops in a so-called “security zone” as well as in Syria and Gaza. – Agence France-Presse
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) operation to remove nuclear material from a site in Syria may be used as a model for a similar operation to extract Iran’s highly enriched uranium, Israeli security officials assessed this week. – Jerusalem Post
The Board of Peace on Wednesday denied that there is any “financial agreement” with Hamas, after the Kan public broadcaster reported that the body agreed to cover $400 million of Hamas’s debt to outside parties as part of its roadmap for the terror group’s disarmament. – Times of Israel
Hamas intends to run in upcoming Palestinian Authority (PA) legislative elections as part of the widest possible unified coalition, a senior official in the terror organization’s political bureau stated Wednesday. – Arutz Sheva
Assaf Orion writes: The more the LAF demonstrates it can enforce state authority in disarming Hezbollah, the less Israel will be compelled to continue its operations, and the more it will be inclined to gradually withdraw—though neither side can succeed without sustained U.S. leadership, a clear verification mechanism, and appropriate limits on international involvement. Through it all, only the United States is capable of coordinating the political, military, regional, and international dimensions of this process. And only Washington can do so in a manner that preserves momentum and prevents spoilers from derailing an opportunity to replace decades of ineffectual conflict management with a more durable security framework. – Washington Institute
Iran
President Trump said Wednesday that the U.S. has total control of the Strait of Hormuz. The reality on the water tells a different story. Ship-tracking data shows that just 14 vessels on Tuesday crossed a waterway that routinely handled more than 130 a day before the war. – Wall Street Journal
Iran and the United States remain at loggerheads over efforts to agree a permanent end to the war in the Gulf, according to a senior Iranian source, who said there had been no progress in talks to revive the interim deal agreed in June and define a time frame to implement it. – Reuters
Acclaimed Iranian photojournalist Yalda Moaiery has spent much of her career documenting moments of dissent and the lives of women in Iran. The work has repeatedly brought her into conflict with the authorities, and on Iran’s National Journalist Day on Saturday she learned she had been sentenced to 15 years in prison. – Reuters
Iran will soon join the New Development Bank, the development lender established by the BRICS group of nations, central bank governor Abdolnaser Hemmati said in a state media report published on Wednesday ahead of a BRICS finance meeting in India. – Reuters
Editorial: Rather than issuing more threats, the White House ought to be building a broader consensus that any solution to the strait must comport with international law and be blessed by the UN’s International Maritime Organization. The most directly affected nations — the other Persian Gulf littoral states — were already supposed to be consulted, according to the failed June memorandum. […] Seeking international support isn’t the first instinct of the current White House, which has mocked the weaknesses of the “rules-based” global order and championed the virtues of military might. Now that it’s run up against the limits of the latter, it might want to reconsider the value of the former. – Bloomberg
Erfan Fard writes: The tragedy is not simply that Iran is governed by a security state. It is that the security state has come to regard Iran itself — its youth, its women, its intellectuals, its restless cities, and its demand for a life beyond fear — as the danger from which it must be defended. Khamenei is repairing a command structure damaged by war. But he is doing more than replacing commanders. He is constructing the machinery of his own rule: an old guard around a new ruler, military force joined to intelligence, ideology joined to surveillance, and the defense of the state increasingly indistinguishable from the repression of the society beneath it. These appointments do not merely tell us who may command Iran’s next war. They reveal whom Khamenei trusts when war abroad and fear at home become one and the same struggle. – Washington Examiner
Charbel A. Antoun writes: But installing a former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander atop the body that sets Iran’s security and foreign policy, one day after that body’s outgoing secretary issued the war’s most maximalist public demands, is a hard fact to read as an olive branch. Washington is betting that time and economic pain will bring Iran back to the table on manageable terms. Tehran’s response has been to raise the price of a deal and place a former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander at the head of its top security council. The question is no longer whether Iran wants concessions. It is who in Tehran is authorized to accept less than a settlement Washington cannot give. – The Hill
Russia and Ukraine
The Black Sea, a hub for global grain trade and Ukraine’s lifeline to the world economy, has been transformed this summer. Attacks by Russia and more recently Ukraine have set ships and port infrastructure ablaze at both ends of the sea, an ominous sign for the rest of the world. – Wall Street Journal
President Trump’s Air Force One subterfuge was a stunning episode of official deception. But it pales in comparison to the secrecy surrounding President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, whose activity is shrouded in so much mystery that journalists have tried to track it by assessing the wilting of his office plants. – New York Times
Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Iturup, a Japan-claimed island at the end of the Kuril chain near the island of Hokkaido, Russian media said on Thursday, a day after major naval drills and a missile firing by ally North Korea. – Reuters
Russia struck the area around Ukraine’s largest Danube port of Izmail overnight, causing damage and setting off a fire, regional authorities said on the Telegram messaging app. – Reuters
A major Ukrainian attack on Russia’s Black Sea port city of Novorossiysk hit warships at a naval base and forced two major grain terminals to halt operations on Wednesday, according to Russian and Ukrainian officials as well as grain industry sources. – Reuters
Russian said on Wednesday that Ukrainian strikes on its grain and agricultural infrastructure were pushing up global food prices and exacerbating grain shortages, something it said served the interests of some Western countries. – Reuters
President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russia will respond in kind if European countries start to seize Russian merchant vessels and the commander of Russia’s Pacific Fleet said his forces were ready to “inspect and detain” foreign vessels from what he called hostile states. – Reuters
Ukrainian defense tech company Fire Point’s first ballistic missile will be ready this fall, its CEO told POLITICO — a crucial development if Kyiv hopes to survive the growing ferocity of Russian missile attacks. – Politico
Vladimir Kara-Murza writes: Yabloko may have been removed from the ballot, but the millions of Russians who oppose the war remain — and it is only a matter of time before Putin’s regime is confronted again with this reality. Watching the videos from outside the Supreme Court in Moscow on Monday, where hundreds of young people demonstrated in support of Yabloko, chanting, singing, laughing in the face of the police, I couldn’t help thinking that these kids in their late teens and early twenties, the age of my children, are the future of Russia — and that the septuagenarian dictator in the Kremlin is not. – Washington Post
Ani Chkhikvadze writes: Few conflicts present themselves in such stark relief. This is a story of good and evil, and Ukraine stands on the side of freedom and liberty. Standing behind people defending their home is the right thing to do. Presidents are remembered for the decisions they make at moments of consequence. Trump armed Ukraine when others hesitated. The question now is whether he will do so again when the stakes are higher and the case stronger. Standing on the right side at the hour of Europe’s largest war in generations will shape how history remembers this president. – Washington Examiner
Turkey
Longing to be reunited with her son, Ayten Elhaman was glued to the television all day as Turkey’s parliament debated and passed a law this week enabling Kurdish militants to return home under a peace process to end their decades-old insurgency. – Reuters
Jailed Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu said on Wednesday he was joining the newly formed New Party, after a court order removed the leadership of his former Republican People’s Party (CHP) amid an unprecedented legal crackdown on the opposition. – Reuters
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday accused the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu of seeking to “remove Palestine” from the world’s agenda. – Agence France-Presse
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday he hoped more countries would join a defense agreement signed last week between Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan that they say is aimed at stabilizing a region wracked by conflict. – Agence France-Presse
Gulf States
An oil spill from a Russian shadow fleet tanker that ran aground two months ago has spread its long, black tongue across a remote, ecologically sensitive swath of the Arabian Sea, according to satellite data and statements from Oman’s government. – New York Times
Six months ago, exporting oil from the Persian Gulf was fairly straightforward: Produce crude at the cheapest price possible, export it through the fastest route and sell it to the countries that can pay the most. – New York Times
Increasingly dragged into a war it did not choose, Saudi Arabia is building regional defensive alliances that it hopes will keep its enemies at bay and help it respond more robustly to attacks by Iran and its network of regional allies. – Reuters
Middle East & North Africa
As the cars advanced down the coastal road here at the southwestern tip of Lebanon, the flags came into view. The yellow and green banner of Hezbollah. The red, white and green tricolor of Iran. Finally, a few miles from the border, the blue and white standard of Israel. – Washington Post
Syria received its first shipments of wheat and cement materials this week at a berth previously used by Russian forces, according to officials at the Tartous port, where Reuters reporters saw Russian forces packing up materials and moving out of parts of the pier. – Reuters
The U.S. military is on track to pull all of its forces out of Iraq by the end of September, officials said Wednesday, marking the end of a presence that started with the 2003 invasion against Saddam Hussein. – Associated Press
Morocco said Wednesday it has beefed up security along its border with Spain as calls resurfaced on social media for mass crossings into the Spanish city of Ceuta, raising concerns of another surge, similar to the one last month when tens of thousands of migrants rushed the border. – Associated Press
Mohammed Ayoob writes: Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan increasingly appear unwilling to accept a regional system in which Israel possesses near-total freedom of military action. At the same time, Washington alone determines when and on whose behalf American power will be used. Their answer is not confrontation with either Israel or the United States. It is achieved by pooling indigenous capabilities so that they possess greater influence over the regional equilibrium and can avert the disastrous consequences of Israeli and American actions. If the pact develops integrated military planning, intelligence cooperation, joint missile and air defenses, and defense-industrial coordination, and especially if other major Muslim states such as Egypt eventually associate themselves with it, the Mecca agreement could become the foundation of a new security architecture. – The National Interest
China
Zhu Rongji, a brilliant economic policymaker and a driving force behind China’s economic opening to the world, died Aug. 12 in Beijing. He was 97. – Washington Post
India’s foreign ministry said peace along its disputed border with China is critical to ties between the Asian neighbours, amid reports of renewed military tensions between the two countries’ troops in a remote corner of the Himalayas. – Reuters
The black box around Xi Jinping’s corruption crackdown has long fueled political gossip in China. Now, an underground market is emerging for selling purported secrets on who might be next to fall. – Bloomberg
Editorial: He often railed and acted against the evils of corruption, without admitting (or realizing) that this is inevitable in a political system such as China’s that ultimately relies for consent on political coercion. The Party on his watch continued to deny the essential link between political freedom and prosperity; cruelties such as the one-child policy persisted. It’s hard to know how China might have changed if Zhu’s generation of reformers had continued in power. But Zhu’s successors have reasserted party control over the economy’s commanding heights. That’s a tragedy for China, and for the world. – Wall Street Journal
Michael B. G. Froman writes: None of this work will be easy. But the alternatives are far worse. In this potential crisis, China would suffer more than the United States, irrevocably undermining its bid to stand alongside Washington—let alone replace it—as a responsible steward of the global economy, and damaging the relationships with middle- and low-income countries that Beijing has spent decades cultivating. But the fallout will not hurt China alone. It could cascade across the global economy in a way not seen since 2008–9. That is the real next China shock, and it should be at the center of U.S.-Chinese relations. The United States has an opportunity to put it there—and a clear interest in doing so. – Foreign Affairs
South Asia
India’s Hindustan Aeronautics, reported a nearly 15% rise in first-quarter profit on Wednesday, buoyed by robust execution of defence orders and steady progress on project deliveries. – Reuters
Half of Afghan women now leave their homes only once or twice a month as Taliban-imposed restrictions curtail their freedom of movement and participation in public life, according to data released by U.N. Women on Wednesday. – Reuters
Pakistan’s ruling party appeared poised to win a majority in Pakistan-administered Kashmir’s local assembly, even as some of the most closely watched constituencies had yet to vote amid deadly unrest. – Reuters
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said on Wednesday that three Pakistani nationals were killed in a Houthi attack on a civilian commercial vessel in the Red Sea. – Al Arabiya
Sadanand Dhume writes: Since June, security forces have killed at least 30 people in Pakistan-administered Kashmir who were protesting poor economic conditions and a lack of political representation, according to a civil society organization. The Islamist group Tehreek-e-Taliban, which finds sanctuary in next-door Afghanistan, has stepped up attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Separatists in Balochistan, home to valuable resources including natural gas and copper, have countered military repression with economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare. The army has responded with brute force and a harsh clampdown on the media. “Nobody can take the risk of reporting or even writing about Balochistan,” Ms. Shaikh says. For Gen. Munir, glowing headlines abroad may distract from growing troubles at home. But domestic realities have a way of catching up. – Wall Street Journal
Tricia Bacon and Daniel Byman write: The Taliban’s U.S.-assisted campaign against ISKP has also had serious drawbacks. To prevent defections to ISKP, the Taliban has become even more repressive. In addition, the clampdown on ISKP’s operations in Afghanistan seems to have encouraged the group to turn to international terrorism, because it was no longer as effective locally. Cooperating with repressive regimes or onetime enemies will always incur costs, both moral and strategic. The job of U.S. policy makers is to constantly assess whether the costs outweigh the security gains that these partnerships can offer, not only to the U.S. but to societies around the world. One of the clearest foreign-policy lessons of the past five years is simple, if uncomfortable: The best counterterrorism option is sometimes the least bad one. – The Atlantic
Asia
New Zealand’s security agency said it disrupted an attempt by a Chinese state-linked observatory to install satellite-tracking infrastructure in the country, highlighting the case in its annual assessment of an increasingly dangerous espionage environment. – Reuters
Indonesia’s navy said on Wednesday that joint exercises which China said took place east of Taiwan were routine and not related to “war fighting”, after Taipei expressed alarm and called them dangerous. – Reuters
Air raid sirens rang out and streets emptied in Taiwan’s capital Taipei on Thursday during annual air raid drills that also included the government deliberately limiting mobile internet access to simulate what might happen in the event of a Chinese attack. – Reuters
The case against a man accused of murdering 15 people at a Sydney Hanukkah celebration involved more than 800 witness statements and more evidence had yet to be examined, a prosecutor told a court Wednesday. – Associated Press
A Singapore court barred Pritam Singh, the chief of the main opposition party, from practicing law following his criminal conviction for lying under oath to a parliamentary committee. – Bloomberg
The Philippines’ plan for a massive increase in state borrowing to revive the economy could backfire by crowding out the private sector, analysts say. – Bloomberg
Gearoid Reidy writes: But keep in mind that Shigeru Ishiba, arguably the most left-leaning Liberal Democratic Party prime minister of recent times and one welcomed by Beijing, also called for nuclear sharing in Asia shortly before becoming leader. The outcome of the debate shouldn’t be a fait accompli. There are lots of arguments against possessing nuclear weapons or allowing US arms on Japanese soil. But if so, the argument should be won through discussion, rather than being declared off-limits before both sides have been considered. Lost in the fuss over Koizumi’s remarks was his most important point: That Japan can’t let fear of how others might react determine what it’s allowed to talk about. The country’s nuclear deterrence is already outsourced; the boundaries of its debate shouldn’t be. – Bloomberg
Europe
Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform U.K., Britain’s populist right-wing party, will face voters on Thursday in a special election that he initiated, hoping to return to Parliament weeks after resigning amid investigations into possible financial impropriety. – New York Times
Germany’s cabinet approved measures on Wednesday to grant intelligence services new powers to hack communications and disrupt foreign adversaries’ operations to counter what officials say is a growing threat from cyber and hybrid attacks. – Reuters
Myanmar’s former ambassador to the United Kingdom stood trial in a London court on Wednesday, charged with trespassing at a diplomatic residence that he refused to leave after being sacked for opposing Myanmar’s military coup five years ago. – Reuters
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government is increasingly unpopular among young voters, opinion polls show, a trend that could prove costly ahead of a national election due next year. – Reuters
The status of the North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla as Spanish territories is not up for discussion, Spanish officials said on Wednesday, after Morocco’s justice minister reiterated Rabat’s sovereignty claims over the cities. – Reuters
Prime Minister Andy Burnham is holding an emergency government meeting on the UK’s latest heat wave as the country grapples with widespread drought and proliferating wildfires. – Bloomberg
Germany’s counterintelligence warned of a coordinated Russia-linked influence campaign aimed at deepening social divisions ahead of regional elections next month, in which the country’s far-right party is expected to make major gains. – Bloomberg
The European Union should aim its sanctions at Russian imports of key minerals that feed Moscow’s ability to produce weapons for President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, according to a Kyiv-based think tank. – Bloomberg
Former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal is trying to jump-start his presidential prospects by taking advantage of his rivals enjoying France’s cherished August break. – Politico
Africa
At least 44 people are dead and an unknown number are still missing a day after a crowded ferry overturned in Zimbabwe’s Lake Kariba, the country’s president said on Wednesday. – New York Times
The Sudanese Rapid Support Forces renewed its assault on the city of al-Obeid on Wednesday and stepped up drone and land attacks across the country this week following losses on several fronts, according to witnesses. – Reuters
Zambia goes to the polls on Thursday in a general election widely expected to give President Hakainde Hichilema a second term, although frustration over the cost of living may dent his support. – Reuters
Chad’s independent anti-corruption authority (AILC) said on Wednesday that security agents detained and assaulted its inspectors while they were examining the state-owned Chadian Hydrocarbons Company’s (SHT) crude-oil operations, according to a statement. – Reuters
India and the five-member Southern African Customs Union signed terms of reference on Wednesday to start talks on a preferential trade agreement, as New Delhi seeks lower tariffs on exports including cars, pharmaceuticals and industrial machinery. – Reuters
The ongoing Ebola outbreak in Congo is on track to surpass the deadliest one in history, which erupted over a decade ago and killed over 11,000 people, the head of the World Health Organization said Wednesday. – Associated Press
South Africa’s Constitutional Court denied a direct application to appeal a lower court’s ruling that interdicted a committee from holding public hearings as part of a probe into whether the president should be impeached. – Bloomberg
Silabat Manaye writes: The trajectory of this relationship reflects a mutually beneficial recalibration. For Washington, a stable and economically dynamic anchor state in the Horn of Africa provides an essential counterweight in a volatile region. For Addis Ababa, direct collaboration with US defense, technology, and capital markets accelerates long-term modernization goals. As history demonstrates – from Menelik II’s court to the modern halls of diplomacy – the relationship between these two sovereign nations functions best when grounded in mutual respect and strategic alignment. Both capitals are restoring an indispensable partnership built for the modern era. – Jerusalem Post
The Americas
Diana Marcela Troncoso, a biomedical engineer, was just one of more than 200 people feared trapped alive on Tuesday in the rubble of Cali, the city perhaps hardest hit by the earthquake that rocked Colombia a day earlier. – New York Times
Far out in the Pacific Ocean, Ecuadorean fishermen have been attacked by unidentified “gringos” using drones, survivors say, spurring a mystery over whether the American military, the armed forces of another country or private military contractors were behind the strikes. – New York Times
The Brazilian Congress approved on Wednesday spending-control mechanisms proposed by the government in an effort to rein in the country’s debt. – Reuters
When Julio Cesar Largo’s daughter failed to show up for her son’s birthday celebration, his worst fears took hold. On the same day, a powerful earthquake had ripped through a large part of Colombia. – Reuters
Colombia’s President Abelardo De La Espriella on Wednesday vowed to set up an emergency fund to help rebuild hospitals, schools, homes and infrastructure destroyed by Monday’s earthquake, which killed 265 and left nearly 500 people unaccounted for. – Reuters
Bolivia’s government is proposing limits on the executive branch’s ability to enact expropriations and nationalizations of private investments in a bid to attract capital to its struggling economy. – Bloomberg
The decision by Colombia’s new president, Abelardo de la Espriella, to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights sparked a sharp diplomatic crisis between Bogotá and a number of Arab countries within days. – Jerusalem Post
Arturo McFields writes: The issue with Lula is not whether he is left-wing or right-wing. The problem is that, throughout his various terms in office, he has fostered close economic, political and even military ties with countries such as China, Russia and Iran. His administration has also defended and supported the dictatorships in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, despite their crimes against humanity and human rights violations. With the Brazilian election less than two months away, the new Monroe Doctrine faces one of its greatest challenges: whether to strengthen its commitment to allies within the Americas or allow a friend of China, Russia and Iran to win the election for a fourth time, thereby opening the hemisphere’s doors to its greatest adversaries. – The Hill
North America
From one end of their 800-mile-long, crocodile-shaped Caribbean island to the other, Cubans are suffering through hot, sleepless nights and trudging through exhaustion and hunger by day. – Wall Street Journal
At Northern Cables, the machinery that churns out steel-clad cable runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The push isn’t driven by a flood of new orders. It’s driven by fear. The Canadian company is rushing to fill warehouses across the United States. – New York Times
Canadian officials working to persuade Washington not to impose additional tariffs next week are unhappy with the latest U.S. offer to ease the measures, CBC News reported on Wednesday, citing two sources. – Reuters
United States
U.S. intelligence officials were skeptical of an Iranian assassination threat against President Donald Trump that was relayed by Israel and prompted an extraordinary clandestine maneuver that saw him secretly fly out of Turkey in an alternate military aircraft, current and former U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence said. – Washington Post
The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday charged 11 people in a decade-long scheme that arranged about 1,000 sham marriages to allow mostly Chinese nationals to achieve legal immigration status in the United States, according to court documents. – Reuters
Two senior Democratic U.S. senators on Wednesday pressed Trump administration officials on why they have paused imposing fresh sanctions on companies, banks and other entities that help Russia evade existing restrictions over its invasion of Ukraine, even though peace talks have not proved fruitful. – Reuters
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt will depart her role later this month, a move that will deprive President Donald Trump of his top spokesperson less than three months until the November midterm elections. – Bloomberg
Cybersecurity
North Korea has built a secret workforce inside American companies. Using stolen identities, AI tools and U.S. accomplices, its operatives have cheated their way into remote jobs in an effort to earn money for Kim Jong Un’s regime. The FBI says there are thousands of them applying for jobs across America. – Wall Street Journal
Facebook and Instagram owner Meta, on Thursday it had taken down more than 750,000 accounts it suspected were held by Australians aged under 16 since a world-first ban on teen accounts, and promised more action in the face of possible regulatory intervention. – Reuters
Starlink, the satellite internet service operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, has begun accepting orders in Vietnam, according to the company’s local website. – Reuters
Taiwan detected AI-assisted cyberattacks on government agencies last month coming from overseas but the affected bodies successfully “handled” the incident, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said on Thursday. – Reuters
Brazil’s data protection authority ANPD ordered chat platform Discord to suspend livestreaming features, citing failures to protect children and teens from exposure to content promoting violence, self-harm and suicide. – Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump signed a memo on Wednesday that the White House said was aimed at empowering federal law enforcement to use cyber tools against transnational criminal organizations that operate in foreign jurisdictions to attack Americans. – Reuters
Defense
Two soldiers were killed when a military helicopter crashed in central Texas on Wednesday afternoon, authorities said. Officials at the Fort Hood military base near Killeen, Texas, said an AH-64 Apache attack helicopter went down in a village not far from the base. – Wall Street Journal
U.S. Army troops faced off against Ukrainian drone operators at a military exercise in Germany earlier this year. It didn’t go well for the Americans. During the exercise, called Combined Resolve, Ukrainian drone units easily spotted and defeated U.S. troops and armored vehicles on rotation from Fort Hood in Texas, according to people familiar with the events. – Wall Street Journal
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth floated on Wednesday the possibility of joint strikes on Colombian armed groups, as he welcomed the nation into a military-led counter-narcotics coalition after its conservative president took over last week. – Reuters
US military facilities across the Pacific are in a worrying state of decay, the Pentagon inspector general warned, raising concerns about bases that are critical to deterring China. – Bloomberg
The Pentagon is moving to speed up the deployment of high-powered lasers and other counter-drone systems around key US facilities, amid increased threats from unmanned aircraft. – Bloomberg
Congressional Democrats demanded answers Wednesday about conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, following reports of food shortages, broken plumbing and mental health crises during the aircraft carrier’s record-setting deployment. – Agence France-Presse
The Army is opening military test ranges to private industry, the service announced this month, including a Michigan site where companies can test drones and counter-drone systems against electronic warfare conditions modeled after those in Ukraine. – Defense News
Bryan Clark, Tom Corben, Tomohisa Takei, and Peter Dean write: The proliferation of low-cost drone and missile capabilities among a range of state and non-state actors has challenged traditional notions of Russia-Ukraine and US-Iran conflicts, which have highlighted both the rapid nature of technological development and the importance of industrial capacity to sustaining and prevailing in this domain. These trends have clear implications for Australia, Japan and the United States (AJUS). Indeed, it is no coincidence that the three countries are already advancing their IAMD cooperation, creating a bespoke trilateral data-sharing arrangement and planning to hold a trilateral demonstration activity at Exercise Talisman Sabre 2027. This cooperation is being driven by a shared perception of the threat posed by China’s burgeoning arsenal of short-, medium- and long-range missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles, stealthy submarines and long-range bomber aircraft. – United States Studies Centre