Fdd's overnight brief

Israel

An explosion of old munitions in northern Israel on Tuesday injured six Thai migrant workers, with two sustaining serious injuries that required surgery, Thailand’s Foreign Ministry said. – Associated Press

Hamas said on Tuesday that it remained committed to the US-backed Gaza disarmament deal, a day after a source told The Times of Israel that the Board of Peace is considering abandoning its original framework, which would have seen the terror group disarming in phases, in favor of an all-at-once process supported by Israel. – Times of Israel

A senior Palestinian Authority official expressed “concern” on Tuesday that the United States was “replicating” what he said has been Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategy of bolstering Hamas at the expense of the PA. – Times of Israel

The Israel Defense Forces on Tuesday struck what it said was a meeting of Hamas commanders and elite operatives in Gaza City, in an attack that the Hamas-run civil defense agency killed six and wounded 14. – Times of Israel

Abdullah Gergawi, who was indicted Tuesday over an alleged plot to carry out a terrorist attack near the Forum nightclub in Beersheba, told investigators that he intended to target people dancing at the venue. – Jerusalem Post

Defense Minister Israel Katz’s announced proposal last week to transfer authority for handling extremist Jewish activists’ problems from the IDF to the police was not coordinated with the relevant authorities and may yet be blocked, The Jerusalem Post has learned. – Jerusalem Post

Neville Teller writes: As for the 20-point Trump peace plan for Gaza, there is no evidence that any major anti-Hamas militia has formally adopted the plan as its platform. Some – especially the Popular Forces – have objectives that overlap with key parts of the plan, particularly supporting a post-Hamas administration after ending Hamas rule. Others – anti-Hamas though they are – seem more intent on pursuing their own narrower interests. – Jerusalem Post

Ariel Cohen writes: The joint statement by the eight Islamic nations should not be allowed to obscure the core dynamic: Hamas has spent two decades perfecting the art of being indispensable enough to negotiate, yet durable enough to survive every deal and continue its bloody business to the detriment of the Palestinian Arabs. The Board of Peace roadmap is the most serious framework yet assembled—but its success depends on enforcement, not Hamas’ word. Kushner’s Cairo meeting may have been necessary diplomacy. Whether it was productive depends entirely on what happens when the cameras turn off. – The National Interest

Russia and Ukraine

In addition to targeting Russia’s oil and gas sector, Ukraine is targeting sites linked to Russia’s largest online marketplace, Wildberries. The attacks on warehouses for the online store come as both sides ramp up their aerial campaigns. – Wall Street Journal

Russians are pulling billions from the country’s banking system ― a record cash outflow amid intensifying Ukrainian drone attacks and rising fear that the Kremlin could start seizing deposits to finance its war. – Washington Post

Ukraine’s ousted Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov called for wartime elections in ​a bombshell address on Tuesday, arguing the nation faced a crisis of governance, in the biggest internal challenge to ‌President Volodymyr Zelenskiy since Russia’s invasion. – Reuters

Britain will support Ukraine “100%” against Russia and remain at its side “in ​its hour of need”, Prime Minister Andy Burnham said on ‌Tuesday after Moscow warned London of “consequences” for supplying drones to Kyiv. – Reuters 

Russia delivered a strong protest to Japan’s ambassador to Moscow on Tuesday over what it ​called anti-Russian remarks by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in a dispute ‌over a group of Russian-controlled islands off northeast Japan. – Reuters

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia had the ​right to regard the ‌direct involvement of Britain in strikes on Russian territory as participation ​in the war in Ukraine, ​the Interfax news agency reported. – Reuters 

A Russian missile attack killed 10 ​people on Tuesday in a village in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, President ‌Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, adding that Kyiv would respond. – Reuters

Waves of Ukrainian drones targeted the massive logistics center outside Moscow overnight. The next morning, it was still ablaze, dark smoke rising into the sky from what was one of Russia’s largest retail warehouses. – Associated Press

Emily Hamilton writes: Ukraine’s largest online store and marketplace, Rozetka. “The only way forward,” Mr. Polituchyi says, “is to stop Russia. They want to destroy our imagination.” Russia is up against a dogged enemy. Lt. Oksana “Ksena” Rubaniak is a 23-year-old poet. “As a soldier,” she says, “I defend our land. As a poet, I defend the written word. Because words outlive even ruins. While every destroyed book is an attempt to silence a generation, the Ukrainian voice cannot be burned or erased.” – Wall Street Journal

Turkey

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has signed into law a measure that would introduce a conditional pardon for thousands of Kurdish militants as part of a government peace effort with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. – Associated Press

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan urged US President Donald Trump in a call to continue talks with Iran to de-escalate tensions between the two countries, and offered Ankara’s support in peace efforts, the Turkish presidency said in a statement on Tuesday. – Jerusalem Post

Middle East & North Africa

The United States is working to establish a deconfliction mechanism among Israel, Turkey and Syria, U.S. special envoy for Syria Tom Barrack said on Tuesday after Israel struck a Syrian airbase ​near the Turkish border. – Reuters

Oil prices settled at their highest level in more ​than three weeks on Tuesday after Iran said it would adopt a more offensive stance and the Strait of Hormuz would remain ‌closed, while the United States ruled out extending a ceasefire. – Reuters

Mihir Sharma writes: Pakistan’s self-image, as the only Muslim-majority nuclear power, is elevated enough. Both the Saudis and Turkey, meanwhile, have long assumed that they, and they alone, deserve to lead the Sunni world. The House of Saud believes that its role in Mecca and Medina gives it certain privileges, but Istanbul remembers the four centuries when it was the seat of the caliphate. The reason they have been complaisant allies in the past is that each was willing, regardless of these supposed claims to prominence, to accept the US as a senior partner. But that does not mean they will accept each other as equals. If they ever do, then the Mecca Agreement stands a chance of success. – Bloomberg

Salma Annasse writes: Ultimately, commercial contracts will determine whether Morocco becomes a viable PPA partner, not government statements. Yet any further public steps taken by the Trump administration or Congress could influence how private companies decide to approach these commercial issues. The question is whether Washington is willing to start viewing Morocco not just as a longtime ally and an emergency fertilizer source in times of crisis, but also as a strategic partner in a broader effort whose importance will only grow in the coming years—namely, reducing U.S. and global dependence on China for critical minerals in the LFP battery supply chain. – Washington Institute

Noam Raydan writes: As it plans future pipeline projects, the Strait of Hormuz should be expected to remain a key outlet for Iraq’s crude oil exports. Iraq’s Oil Minister, Mr. Bassim Mohammed Khudair, said in a recent press conference that Baghdad has been in talks with Iran over “arrangements” to allow Iraqi oil exports via the Strait. However, this issue has not yet been definitively resolved, the minister noted. Pipeline projects in Iraq, and based on past experiences, are likely to face barriers, including changing governments that usually return some projects to the drawing board, in addition to security challenges. – Seatrade Maritime News

China

This literary genre has ballooned in popularity in recent years, as many Chinese have grown pessimistic about the economy. For a wide swath of society, wages have stagnated, youth unemployment is high and the promise of a better life in return for hard work has faded. – New York Times

China’s National Climate Centre has forecast the formation of a super El Nino that ​could be the strongest ever recorded, state ‌broadcaster CCTV said on Tuesday. – Reuters

Jeremy Furchtgott writes: Today, America’s China trade policy is remarkably blunt: U.S. rules mostly treat the world’s second-largest economy as a single economic counterpart. Beijing’s efforts to make itself more opaque create friction. The U.S. can adjust by defining paths for stable trade. Instead of waiting for Beijing to decide how China will open to America, Washington can decide how America will open to China. Deng Xiaoping opened China to the world on China’s terms. Reform and Opening 2.0 would open China on America’s terms. – Wall Street Journal

Juliana Liu writes: Yet nostalgia rarely turns on a precise account of the past. People aren’t yearning for mass layoffs or the meager living standards of 30 years ago. What they miss is the idea that painful change was leading somewhere. Three decades after Zhu helped set China on a path toward greater affluence and engagement with the world, his death has revealed that confidence about the future is itself an economic asset — something the leadership in Beijing should do much more to restore. – Bloomberg

Bill Cassidy writes: The threat from Beijing’s trade-based foreign policy is not going away any time soon. Washington should respond with a clear policy meant to last. The legislation is already written; what is needed now is the political will to pass it. Congress should work together to establish a lasting trade strategy that protects American industry, strengthens U.S. allies, and ensures that the United States—not China—sets the rules of the twenty-first-century global economy. – Foreign Affairs

Asia

A student livestreamed his attack on a junior high school in the southern Philippines on Tuesday that left one schoolmate dead, the authorities said. – New York Times

Wildfires burned nearly 95,000 hectares of land in Indonesia in July, almost doubling the damage ​done in the previous six months as the El Niño ‌weather pattern intensified, data provided by the forestry minister showed on Tuesday. – Reuters

The Philippines does not expect a reduction in military activities with its treaty ally the United States amid redeployment ​of some U.S. defence assets to the Middle East, ‌an official said on Monday. Reuters

Vietnam has proposed allowing land clearance to begin before compensation and resettlement plans are finalized, a major change that could speed up development projects but raise concerns about safeguards for residents. – Bloomberg

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim pledged to bolster the country’s defenses, citing concerns over a US-backed Philippine military outpost just miles from Malaysia’s eastern state of Sabah. – Bloomberg

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese expressed gratitude to his Thai counterpart Anutin Charnvirakul for an offer to supply jet fuel. – Bloomberg

Andreas Kluth writes: Even Republican strategists, provided they are not in the current government, increasingly acknowledge that this amounts to intellectual bankruptcy. The US must “husband military resources to defend the first island chain while encouraging allies to do more in their own defense,” observes Richard Fontaine, chief executive officer of the Center for a New American Security (and a national-security veteran who advised the late senator John McCain): “Ok. But how do moves in Venezuela, Iran, and possibly Cuba fit into the picture?” – Bloomberg

Africa

As campaigning for January’s elections begins on Wednesday, President Bola Tinubu’s pitch for a second term faces a politically fraught question: are Nigerians better off after more than a decade of rule by his ​All Progressives Congress? – Reuters 

The United States has lifted security restrictions imposed on vessels arriving from Nigeria after more than a ​decade, the Marine and Blue economy Minister Adegboyega Oyetola said ‌on Tuesday, in a move expected to cut shipping costs and boost the competitiveness of Nigerian ports. – Reuters 

At least 25 people were killed in an overnight attack on a ​village in Nigeria’s central Plateau state, local officials and ‌residents said on Tuesday, in violence that has heightened fears of violent reprisals in the restive region. – Reuters 

The number of confirmed Ebola cases in the ​Democratic Republic of Congo now exceeds 5,000, ‌government data showed late on Tuesday, as health officials warn that response efforts are failing to ​contain the deadly disease. – Reuters 

Liberia ‌has agreed to accept up to 1,200 third-country deportees from the U.S. in the next 12 months, with an initial group of 20 deportees expected to arrive on Thursday, the government said in a statement on ​Tuesday. – Reuters 

The Associated Press gained rare access into one of Ituri’s largest mines, in the locality of Iga-Barrière, where miners crowd into pits to dig for gold. Although there are no known reports of the outbreak reaching any of Congo’s mining sites, officials say it’s difficult to know the true situation in hard-to-reach areas. Most new cases and deaths are reported among groups not being monitored, they say. – Associated Press

A gold mining site collapsed Tuesday in the western part of Central African Republic, killing at least 30 miners and leaving others trapped, authorities and residents said. – Associated Press

The US is easing long-standing conditions on Nigerian vessels entering its waters, after ports in the West African nation were judged to have improved their anti-terrorism safeguards. – Bloomberg

Botswana’s transport and infrastructure minister, Noah Salakae, tendered his resignation to lawmakers, citing a probe into alleged corruption. – Bloomberg

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa appointed a US-sanctioned tycoon who backed his campaign to extend his term to the country’s senate. – Bloomberg

Michael O’Hanlon and Ananya Maddipatla write: Fortunately, most of Africa’s biggest states have moved past the need for this kind of intervention to tackle all their problems, instead relying on more localized or military forms of support through domestic policy or with the aid of the African Union.  None of this argues for any particular silver-bullet solution. It is simply a reminder that where violence continues, peacekeeping and multilateral cooperation remain tools with a track record of containing it, and right now, in the places that need it most, that tool is being gradually deprived of adequate resources. – The National Interest

Maurice Oniang’o writes: Though it is impossible to predict how the political transition will ultimately unfold, the gap between Uganda’s formal rules and the behavior of those anticipating a new order is widening. Politicians court Kainerugaba’s movement, foreign officials meet with him, and government institutions respond to his pronouncements. That does not make his succession inevitable, but it does mean that Uganda’s political system is already being reshaped around the possibility. Kainerugaba is accumulating the powers of a future president before the country has decided whether he should become one. – Foreign Policy

North America

President Trump said he would pause a 50% tariff on certain goods from Canada for three days while the two countries seek to finalize an agreement. – Wall Street Journal

Canadian uranium miner NexGen Energy is sharing information and “talking regularly” with mining ‌giant BHP, about its Rook I mining project in Saskatchewan, CEO Leigh Curyer told Reuters when asked about a potential equity stake. – Reuters 

Japan and the Organization of American States signed a deal Tuesday to award Haiti a $3 million grant to help it register voters as the troubled country prepares to hold general elections for the first time in more than a decade. – Associated Press

Cybersecurity

The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday unsealed new and updated charges against 17 individuals working with an Iranian ​company that it alleges carried out hacks and data theft ‌against U.S. universities, companies and government agencies.- Reuters

As opening statements kicked off Tuesday in a trial for Meta Platforms, advocates and parents of social media victims gathered outside the federal courthouse in Oakland, California, with a banner that stretched several feet across. – Associated Press

Discord, the popular platform for gamers to communicate online, said on Monday it suspended its livestreams in Brazil after criticism that it failed to protect children and adolescents. The move takes place in the wake of a suicide case. – Associated Press

The Social Security Administration is seeking feedback from the public on an enterprise artificial intelligence strategy that will inform how the agency leverages AI and agentic capabilities across its work. – Fedscoop

Federal cybersecurity agencies warned on Tuesday that troves of new victims of the Medusa ransomware gang have been identified over the last year. – The Record

Two Berlin state ministries have been cut off from the city government’s IT network after authorities discovered a security breach. – The Record

The University of Texas at San Antonio, which serves 40,000 students across six campuses, said its IT team identified threat activity on its academic campus over the weekend and took some systems, including phones, offline in response. – The Record

Ukraine’s agency responsible for managing assets seized from criminals and sanctioned individuals said Tuesday that it had been targeted by a cyberattack as it investigates a potential coordinated effort to disrupt its operations. – The Record

Julia R. Cartwright writes: The reasons are exactly the ones Simon’s framework predicts. Engineers built leaner models that do more with less. Chipmakers designed processors purpose-built for AI. And high electricity prices set off a scramble for new power — restarted nuclear plants, geothermal wells, gas turbines and solar farms — that suddenly made economic sense. None of this makes the grid strain imaginary or the pain in ratepayers’ bills any less real. It makes them a price signal for entrepreneurs to continue problem-solving. – Washington Post 

Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall writes: If the clinical trials system can be transformed, it will benefit consumers by strengthening the competitiveness of U.S. industry and onshoring more biotech production. Coupled with investments and incentives for the American biomanufacturing sector, these measures will build up the infrastructure necessary to secure Americans against biological risks. That, in turn, will enable the country to respond promptly in the event of a deliberate attack and make it less vulnerable to supply chain disruptions. The United States will establish deterrence and therefore reduce risks, creating a virtuous cycle in which Americans can begin to have greater confidence in a bioresilient future. – Foreign Affairs

Emily Otto writes: Given the rise in cyber fraud, the government cannot afford to leave qualified private-sector capabilities unused. Companies provide specialized personnel, infrastructure expertise, technical access, and operational capacity that the government cannot quickly reproduce or maintain. The new US policy recognizes the government’s limitations in confronting the growing, cumulative threat of sophisticated international scams. It’s also an acknowledgment of the reality of the global cyber war. – Center for European Policy Analysis

Jordan Kane and Hamza Chaudhry write: Institutions like MIT Lincoln Laboratory and Carnegie Mellon’s Software Engineering Institute already do classified evaluation work and could anchor this, and the sandbox and evaluation team Congress already authorized are natural vehicles. Congress should fund them, house part of the work outside the Pentagon, and require reporting on results. Operation Epic Fury showed that the Pentagon can use AI to prosecute a war at scale. The initial pace-setting projects, if they materialize, will show whether they can sustain that momentum across more systems. Yet neither effort guarantees the military can verify system accuracy in combat or catch critical failures before they happen. Addressing this gap is critical to driving broad adoption and ensuring that it lasts. – War on the Rocks