Today In Issues:
FDD Research & Analysis
The Must-Reads
U.S. says Hamas has agreed to broad plan to disarm Iran war is entangling a growing list of Mideast nations IRGC officials urged Hamas not to sign disarmament deal during late-stage negotiations Iran's Araqchi presses European counterparts over use of bases in US operations Russia used N.Korean missile for deadly strike on Ukrainian village, Zelenskiy says Saudi Arabia forms new military coalition to deter Red Sea attacks Yemen's Houthis are attacking Saudi Arabia from Iraq, sources say WINEP’s Michael Knights: How to prevent militias from disrupting Iraqi-Saudi relations China's military, coast guard, patrol contested shoal in South China Sea North Korea state media says US Forces' Japan expansion raises risk of Korean peninsula clash Lula says Brazil denied visas to US officials over election meddling concerns Milei empowers Argentina to bar or deport foreigners over hateful remarks about the countryIn The News
Israel
Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups agreed to a plan that, if followed, would see the groups disarm and lose power in the Gaza Strip as long as Israel withdraws from the enclave, U.S. officials said. – Wall Street Journal
The South Sharon Regional Council informed residents that it had received an update from the military and police in recent minutes regarding a suspected security incident, prompting forces to be deployed to the area. – Jerusalem Post
Two Israeli civilians who crossed the border into Syrian territory from the Mount Hermon area were located and returned by IDF troops on Thursday, the military said, in the latest of a series of repeated crossings by right-wing activists. – Jerusalem Post
IDF troops patrolling villages and towns in southern Lebanon under the military’s operational control have uncovered weapons, terrorist infrastructure, and publications produced by Mahdi, the publishing house of Hezbollah’s Imam al-Mahdi Scouts youth movement. – Jerusalem Post
Ahead of the 26th Knesset elections, scheduled for October 27, 2026, TikTok has published new guidelines for politicians, political parties, public figures, and content creators. – Jerusalem Post
US President Donald Trump will be “very disappointed” if Israel doesn’t allow for the advancement of his 20-point plan for the reconstruction of Gaza, a senior US official said on Thursday. – Times of Israel
The Israeli military blew up a Hezbollah tunnel system beneath the Beaufort Ridge in southern Lebanon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz announced late Thursday night in a joint statement. – Times of Israel
Iran
A resurgence of fighting in the war with Iran is expanding the scope of the conflict across the Middle East and further threatening shipments of oil and other products crucial to the global economy. – New York Times
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi urged Bulgaria to reconsider its decision to allow the temporary deployment of U.S. military aircraft at the Bezmer air base, Iranian state media reported on Thursday. – Reuters
The United States on Thursday issued new sanctions on Thursday targeting global networks supporting Mahan Air, the Iranian carrier Washington says transports Iran’s Revolutionary Guards personnel, as well as weapons and drones. – Reuters
Officials from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) urged Hamas delegation members not to sign Thursday’s disarmament deal, Axios reported on Friday, citing a source familiar with the matter. – Jerusalem Post
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed that it killed several US soldiers and destroyed three F-35 aircraft in an attack on Jordan’s Al-Azraq Air Base in a Thursday message on Telegram. – Jerusalem Post
Tom Rogan writes: As Trump has now recognized, the probable costs for the U.S. of persisting in the pursuit of regime change are grave. Even in the very best-case scenario, it would further deplete the already gravely degraded U.S. priority interest of deterring China. Considering Communist Party Chairman Xi Jinping’s salivating gaze over Taiwan and what China is doing near daily to U.S. treaty ally the Philippines, this is no small concern. Hence why Trump is using military force against Iran for a narrower objective: to persuade the Iranians that they can either cut a deal they can live with, or they can face continuing punitive destruction of a kind they can endure, but only with great and escalating pain. Trump knows that just as state failure would harm U.S. interests, it would also obviously harm regime interests. Which is why he believes his calibrated military pressure will ultimately see Iran cut a deal. – Washington Examiner
Emzari Gelashvili writes: The citizens who understand that instinctively are ahead of the commentators who are already sorting it into their usual columns. I have watched governments treat intimidation as a nuisance and treat networks as a legal inconvenience. They learned, slowly and at a price, that an adversary escalates precisely as far as it is allowed to — and that the moment to answer is the first one, not the fifth. My own country learned that lesson the expensive way, and is still paying the tuition. Tehran has told the, on video, exactly what it wants Americans to feel. The only reply worth giving is to make it feel a cost instead. – Washington Examiner
Arash Azizi writes: Even in these dark times, Iran still roils with unrest. Shopkeepers in bazaars have staged sit-ins, not unlike those that preceded the January protests. And just in the past few days, farmers have protested for lack of water, residents of Zanjan have demonstrated for housing, oil and gas employees have rallied in several facilities in the south, and several prisons, including one in Rasht, have become flash points for crowds registering their opposition to the continued executions. Having fought off several rounds of nationwide protests since 2017, the Iranian regime knows full well that many of its citizens detest it. The response it reaches for is always the same: repression, which has never yet produced social peace. As the Islamic Republic seeks to manage its military conflict with the United States, it will likely find that the home front remains the hardest to win. – The Atlantic
Russia and Ukraine
Russian overnight airstrikes on Ukrainian cities killed at least eight people, including children, and wounded more than 50, according to Ukraine’s emergency services, as Moscow continued its heavy missile and drone barrages against the country. – Wall Street Journal
If there is one group of people happy to have artificial intelligence take their jobs, it is Ukrainian soldiers. Two of them, on a break in a Kyiv coffee shop, asked to have their picture taken with the man trying to take them off the front, the recently fired Ukrainian defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov. – New York Times
Ukrainian drones struck two more warehouses belonging to Russian online retailer Wildberries overnight, sparking fires at both sites, the company and a regional official said. Ukraine has attacked about a dozen Wildberries sites since July 18 in a bid to disrupt the operations of the company, a linchpin of the consumer economy that is often described as Russia’s answer to Amazon. – Reuters
Russia used a North Korean missile for a strike on a village that killed five members of the same family, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday, in what would be the first time such a weapon has been fired in the war in nearly a year. – Reuters
Ukraine is looking to other allies for vital supplies of air-defense missiles after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s White House visit this week yielded no pledge of new supplies, Kyiv’s ambassador to Washington said. – Bloomberg
A Ukrainian drone attack damaged infrastructure at Russia’s Black Sea port of Taman, according to local authorities. The strike affected port facilities and injured several people, the Southern Transport Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement Thursday. The authorities didn’t specify the extent of the damage or whether operations had been disrupted. – Bloomberg
Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s former defense minister whose removal sparked mass protests, said his dismissal was linked to his efforts to overhaul spending on military procurement. – Bloomberg
Alexander Gabuev, Alexandra Prokopenko, and Tatiana Stanovaya write: As long as Putin is convinced that he has an advantage over Ukraine with the destructiveness of his ballistic missiles and that Ukraine is vulnerable because of its lack of interceptors, he is likely to keep trying to wear Ukraine down—no matter the damage to his country. He views uncoordinated calls from Americans and Europeans for talks or for a cease-fire as a ploy to buy Ukraine more time. […] Ukraine and its allies need to prepare for a long and bumpy road. Kyiv may be in the best position in the war since late 2022, but the Kremlin believes it will crush the will of Ukraine and its friends this winter. Russia may be struggling, but Putin has not exhausted his options. He still wants to fight for as long as possible. – Foreign Affairs
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia is forming a military coalition to protect shipping in the Red Sea as attacks by a Yemeni militia imperil a crucial route for Saudi oil exports and further threaten the global economy, according to the Saudi defense ministry. – New York Times
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis attacked Saudi Arabia this week from Iraqi territory in coordination with Iraqi armed groups, according to assessments by Saudi Arabia and regional partners, reflecting growing coordination among Iran-aligned militias, two officials in the region said. – Reuters
Douglas Bloomfield writes: With its enormous oil and natural gas reserves, does Saudi Arabia really need a nuclear power program? Is the American interest here strategic or transactional? Does this deal serve the interest of regional and national security? Or is it driven by the administration to funnel billions of dollars of business into American companies to build, train, maintain, and supply the Saudi civilian nuclear program? – Jerusalem Post
Michael Knights writes: The trick now is how to maintain positive momentum with Zaidi while still “showing up” for Gulf partners when they need U.S. security help. For its part, Tehran will undoubtedly continue using Iraqi proxy attacks on Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states in an attempt to cut Zaidi off from the broader Arab support he needs to make progress on his rather optimistic pledge to bring all arms under state control by September 30—the same day that U.S. combat forces are expected to vacate Iraq. […] With militias frequently striking sites run by American investors and forcing them to shut in much-needed oil exports, this should be a priority mission for the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. And if the Iraqi government cooperates on reducing militia attacks, it should also receive expedited access to these in-demand defense systems for key leadership locations. – Washington Institute
Zineb Riboua writes: Chinese diplomacy did not prevent Iranian weapons from reaching the Houthis, attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea continued and Chinese purchases of Iranian oil remained a critical source of revenue for Tehran’s regional proxy network. Military operations over the past year instead demonstrated the effectiveness of the US-led security framework, where integrated intelligence, air defence, and operational coordination produced tangible results against common threats. Washington therefore possesses an opportunity that may not remain available indefinitely. Conditioning civil nuclear cooperation on Saudi accession to the Abraham Accords aligns US technological leadership with its broader strategic interests, strengthens a regional coalition confronting Iran and limits opportunities for China and Russia to establish long-term influence through critical infrastructure. Using that leverage now could shape the Middle East’s strategic balance for decades. – News24
Gulf States
In the decades since Kuwait’s liberation in the first Gulf War, the U.S. has used the oil-rich emirate as one of the Army’s biggest logistics hubs in the world, hosting thousands of troops, Abrams tanks and heavy artillery. – Wall Street Journal
Major Gulf bourses ended lower on Thursday as investor sentiment weakened amid mounting concern over escalating hostilities between the U.S. and Iran. – Reuters
An Iranian attack hit a building belonging to a Chinese company in northern Kuwait, killing a worker and inflicting significant damage, the Kuwaiti defense ministry spokesperson said on Thursday in a post on X. – Al Arabiya English
Middle East & North Africa
An explosion at a port on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast that set fire to two ships, including a U.S. gas-storage tanker, was caused by a drone attack, Egyptian authorities said Thursday, the first targeting of the country during the current Iran war and a new threat to a vital energy corridor. – Wall Street Journal
Egypt has secured alternative sources to cover its energy demands after a drone attack on Wednesday caused damage to a gas vessel at Damietta port, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said on Thursday. – Reuters
Turkey is interested in participating in a new security initiative for Lebanon when the 7,500-member U.N. peacekeeping mission in the south of the country expires at the end of the year, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said during a joint press statement with his Lebanese counterpart on Thursday. – Associated Press
A proposed information law in Lebanon, already approved by joint parliamentary committees in July, has raised concerns among journalists and press freedom advocates over provisions that would punish the “dissemination of false or harmful information” with up to three years in prison and the possibility of forced labor, according to Lebanese media reports. – Jerusalem Post
Carice Witte writes: For China, Turkey’s influence presents a different challenge. It is focused on Ankara’s ability to shape the identity of a Syrian Uyghur generation that remains connected by ethnicity, language and history to western China. The concern is that identity formation, transnational connections and political networks could eventually reinforce separatist movements and produce new security threats. For Israel, the issue is regional military balance. For China it’s about the long-term security implications of identity formation, transnational connections and the potential reinforcement of separatist movements. Both stem from the same underlying development: Turkey’s expanding ability to project power and influence beyond its borders. China is looking west from Xinjiang. Israel is looking north from the Golan. Increasingly, both lines of sight pass through Turkey. – Jerusalem Post
Korean Peninsula
An editorial carried by North Korean state media KCNA on Friday criticised the expansion of the U.S. Forces Japan command, warning that a clash on the Korean Peninsula is now a matter of timing rather than just a possibility. – Reuters
Japanese and South Korean authorities stepped in to buy their currencies in the open market in what sources described was a rare and an unprecedented coordinated market intervention, possibly alongside the United States. – Reuters
South Korean military inspectors will visit an army corps on Friday to review an incident in which troops nearly shot down an unidentified aircraft near the border with North Korea before determining it was a U.S. drone taking part in a joint exercise, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said. – Reuters
China
A closely watched indicator of Chinese manufacturing unexpectedly signaled a contraction in activity for the first time in five months as factories were hit by extreme weather, raising pressure on Beijing to support growth. – Wall Street Journal
China’s President Xi Jinping on Friday urged efforts to deepen the fight against corruption in the military to advance the modernisation of the national defence, state news agency Xinhua news agency reported. “Barrel of the gun must always obey the party,” Xi said at a Politburo group study session. – Reuters
As Spanish regions jostle to draw Chinese battery and carmakers to produce on their turf, many of the same players are also pushing Brussels to lock in tough, EU-wide foreign investment rules to ensure Spain’s economy isn’t harmed by a race to the bottom. – Reuters
China’s military and coast guard conducted patrols in the airspace and waters near the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea on Thursday, separate statements showed. – Reuters
A total of 51 people have been confirmed dead after a landslide in southwestern China’s Chongqing on July 17, while 10 are still missing, the local government said in a statement late on Thursday. – Reuters
China made a diplomatic protest to New Zealand on Thursday after Foreign Minister Winston Peters characterised a Chinese-born lawmaker as a “loudmouth” whom he urged to “go back to your own country” during a debate in parliament. – Reuters
Former Morgan Stanley Asia Chairman Stephen Roach has revived a debate over whether Hong Kong’s recovery demonstrates its enduring international appeal or a growing dependence on mainland China, prompting an apparent rebuttal from a senior official. – Bloomberg
Top American and Chinese officials raised points of friction between their countries in a recent phone call, even as they lay the groundwork for the next summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in September. – Bloomberg
Editorial: China is a strategic challenger of the West and all that, but the damage from a deflationary spiral on the world’s second largest economy wouldn’t stay in China. Absent from all this, as usual, is any market reform to empower China’s many entrepreneurs to go about creating jobs and prosperity without Party direction. President Xi Jinping wants the Party-state apparatus to control the commanding heights of the economy (and many of the less commanding heights, too), and preserving this political control is more important than reversing the stagnation into which China appears to be falling. That leaves exports, which remain Beijing’s only growth strategy of note. The yuan debate is a warning that the rest of the world is growing less enthusiastic about buying. China may need a new plan sooner than Mr. Xi admits. – Wall Street Journal
South Asia
India has summoned executives from U.S. tech giant Meta, a senior official said on Thursday, after its Facebook platform briefly restricted a post by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week. – Reuters
Two tankers carrying Saudi crude for Indian refiners have exited the Red Sea through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait by sailing “dark” after Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis announced a blockade on Saudi shipments, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said. – Reuters
At least 18 coal miners were killed after an explosion buried parts of a mining complex in Pakistan’s Balochistan province on Thursday, the Balochistan government said. A rescue operation is still underway to find and recover the remaining 14 trapped miners, the government said in a statement. – Reuters
India’s Central Bureau of Investigation has filed charges against 13 people in connection with leaked question papers for the national medical college entrance test, days after youth-led protests over the scandal forced the education minister to quit. – Reuters
As a wave of student-led protests swept India last week, Satvik Soni spent hours buried on Instagram broadcasting protest locations, explaining detainees’ rights and calling on demonstrators to report police misconduct. His tersely worded posts quickly racked up tens of thousands of views. – Bloomberg
India’s main opposition Congress Party has sought the resignation of Home Minister Amit Shah, a close aide of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, over the police crackdown on student protesters in New Delhi last week. – Bloomberg
Asia
For the fourth time since the end of the Vietnam War, a U.S. aircraft carrier made a port call in Vietnam on Thursday, promoting joint security ties at a time when tariffs and the war in Iran have hurt American influence across Asia. – New York Times
Hirosuke Shimada’s home emerged largely unscathed from this week’s earthquake in southwestern Japan, but the violent shaking left him, his wife and their three daughters too frightened to sleep inside, forcing them to live in a tent in the front yard. – Reuters
Indonesia arrested a Malaysian pilot who allegedly smuggled 26 kilograms of the mind-altering drug MDMA into the capital Jakarta while on the job and under the influence of drugs, the customs office said on Friday. – Reuters
The Pacific island nation of Nauru has officially changed its name to the Republic of Naoero, reverting to its traditional designation in a move it said was aimed at strengthening national identity and cultural heritage. – Reuters
Japan launched a new National Intelligence Bureau to bring together its fragmented system of collecting and analyzing information related to national security and public safety, marking a milestone in Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s efforts to make the nation more resilient to internal and external threats. – Bloomberg
Japan conducted its first test launch of a Tomahawk cruise missile from a warship, a milestone along the way to deploying the weapons as part of a new military strategy of being able to hit enemy targets from long range. – Bloomberg
Europe
Wildfires sweeping through pine forests west of Bordeaux have forced the closure of some of France’s most strategically important defense and aerospace sites, disrupting operations at companies including Airbus defense electronics group Thales and rocket-maker ArianeGroup. – Wall Street Journal
Thousands of migrants climbed over a border fence or swam onto the shores of Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta on Thursday, prompting a mobilization of the Spanish military and fueling political tensions on the Spanish mainland. – New York Times
After months of tensions between Pope Leo XIV and President Trump, the pontiff has announced that he hopes to make his first papal visit to the United States “soon,” or at least within a “couple of years.” – New York Times
Andy Burnham will give mayors in England a share of income tax revenue for the first time as part of the new prime minister’s push to devolve power away from London and decentralise the British state. – Reuters
Belgian authorities suspect a Canadian NATO intern arrested on suspicion of espionage was working for China, according to two sources with knowledge of the case. – Reuters
Linlin Liang is the face of Chinese business in Europe. She is best known for a one-liner she often delivers at Brussels conference panels: the EU’s Foreign Subsidies Regulation is a “nuclear weapon.” – Politico
Prime Minister Andy Burnham said he told President Donald Trump the UK won’t “ignore” its resources in the North Sea, suggesting that his government will pursue new drilling for fossil fuels. – Bloomberg
Dozens of people were arrested outside a London courthouse on Thursday after expressing support for Palestine Action, a protest group that has been banned as a terrorist organization by the British government. – Associated Press
The co-founder of Palestine Action has won permission to challenge the ban against the group at the UK’s highest court. The direct action group was proscribed as a terrorist organisation in July last year but its co-founder, Huda Ammori, has been fighting to have the ban overturned amid a mass civil disobedience campaign. – The Guardian
Editorial: Ireland’s policymakers are contributing to an atmosphere of rising hatred. Worse may be on the way. Irish lawmakers, the heirs of those who helped Adolf Hitler in the fight against Britain and the Allies, should hang their heads in shame anew. The U.S. Embassy in Dublin warned Ireland to “avoid pushing similarly unhelpful initiatives” at the European Union level, adding that doing so “risks real unintended consequences.” The EU, after all, conducts far more trade with Israel than Ireland does. The Trump administration should declare that any attempt to replicate the BDS law at the EU level will result in the United States enacting punitive economic measures of its own. – Washington Examiner
Mihir Sharma writes: It will also widen opportunity in precisely the areas Burnham claims to care about most, with his promise to improve the lot of all parts of Britain. […] Little wonder given the deluge of paperwork and their worries about taxes and whether they’re turning a profit this week. These are the people who keep neighborhoods alive, and someone should lighten their load. Most importantly, unleashing small business costs the exchequer nothing at all. In a country as broke as Britain, tax cuts and transport subsidies can’t be replicated endlessly. But cutting red tape can. Burnham will succeed not just by making pints cheaper, but by making it easier to earn a living pouring them. – Bloomberg
Rep. Abe Hamadeh writes: That admiration is precisely why so many Americans are paying close attention today. The strength of any is not demonstrated by how it treats its allies. It is demonstrated by how it treats its opposition. Political rivals should be defeated at the ballot box, not forcefully removed from the playing field. The Hungarian people alone will determine their nation’s future. But friends have a responsibility to speak honestly when they see troubling developments. America supported Hungary’s march toward freedom. We hope that journey continues. The world is watching. will judge whether this moment strengthened Hungarian democracy or weakened it. – Washington Examiner
Galip Dalay writes: What is required now is cross-regional, focused, issue-based cooperation between the global south and the global north on issues such as food security, arms control, peacemaking, climate, AI, global public health, and defense of international law and norms. The middle powers must chart a course that is both humble and ambitious. As recent wars illustrated, middle powers could not stop the militarism of great powers, but they can play a vital role in trying to bring these wars to an end. Similarly, they can’t remake the world, but they can redefine it through cross-regional cooperation between the middle powers of the global south and those of the global north. Before this norm- and law-informed middle-power multilateralism can be reached, however, European middle powers must adopt a new political psychology. – Foreign Policy
Africa
The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has already become the second-worst on record, and it is spreading much faster than previous outbreaks, the nation’s health ministry reported on Thursday. – New York Times
Russian paramilitary group Africa Corps killed eight civilians, including three children, in Mali last month, Human Rights Watch said on Friday, during air strikes the campaign group called “unlawfully indiscriminate”. – Reuters
Detained prominent Ugandan opposition figure Kizza Besigye, who collapsed while in court on Wednesday, is unconscious and has been admitted to an intensive care unit, his wife said in an X post early on Thursday. – Reuters
Ghana’s government has accepted a recommendation to extend the presidential term from four to five years, the West African country’s justice minister said on Thursday. – Reuters
Nigeria’s arms control agency said on Thursday it destroyed 2,819 illicit, obsolete and decommissioned weapons in a bid to curb insecurity fuelled by the proliferation of illegal arms. – Reuters
The African Union has backed a broader discussion on migration, a South African government official said on Thursday, after Ghana made a proposal to place xenophobic violence in South Africa on the agenda of an upcoming AU meeting. – Reuters
Mali is facing its most serious security crisis in years as al-Qaida-linked militants and separatist rebels join forces to intensify attacks against its military. – Associated Press
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned Uganda’s crackdown on dissent, which it said was creating a climate of fear in the East African nation. – Bloomberg
The Americas
A Brazilian Supreme Court justice has authorized federal police to investigate the son of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva over suspicions he improperly helped a lobbyist in dealings with the health ministry, two sources with direct knowledge of the decision said. – Reuters
The Brazilian government has for weeks withheld the formal diplomatic approval needed for the next U.S. ambassador to take up his post, angering U.S. officials and deepening a rift between the Western Hemisphere’s two largest democracies. – Reuters
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva confirmed his government had denied visas to two U.S. officials who planned to travel to the country, accusing them of seeking to interfere in October’s general election. – Reuters
A first informal U.N. Security Council poll on Thursday showed former Costa Rican Vice President Rebeca Grynspan as the early frontrunner to become the next U.N. secretary-general, followed by former Guyanese Foreign Minister Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett. – Reuters
Argentina’s President Javier Milei on Thursday announced plans to reform the central bank’s charter, a move aimed at strengthening the institution’s independence and restricting its ability to finance government spending, which his administration blames for decades of high inflation. – Reuters
After a bruising World Cup defeat gave way to what many Argentines saw as a sweeping wave of hatred against their country, Argentine President Javier Milei on Thursday signed an emergency decree empowering the government to deny entry to or expel foreigners who incite discrimination or violence against Argentines because of their nationality. – Associated Press
Chile and Venezuela agreed Thursday to restore consular relations, laying the groundwork for President José Antonio Kast’s government to fulfill a pledge to deport irregular migrants. – Bloomberg
A high-level International Monetary Fund mission is visiting Venezuela for the first time in more than two decades as the government seeks to normalize relations with multilateral lenders after years of isolation. – Bloomberg
Henry Ziemer writes: At the end of the period, partner governments would have the option to either allow the contract and the capability to lapse, renew it, or purchase the now-depreciated equipment directly at a discount. This would have the advantage of enabling LAC militaries to acquire new capabilities quickly, but without locking them into a specific platform. While often overshadowed by more headline-grabbing developments around Cuba or Venezuela, the United States’ pivot to the Americas is driving critical tactical and technological innovation. Building on this momentum to test new autonomous and uncrewed systems and strengthen partner nation capacity will not only help advance security and stability in the Western Hemisphere, it will prepare U.S. forces to confront the changing character of future combat around the world. – Center for Strategic and International Studies
North America
Since a band of rebels led by Fidel Castro pushed out Cuba’s dictator in 1959, the island’s government has largely been defined by its defiance of its far larger neighbor to the north — and its ability to survive the intense pressure that friction has provoked. – New York Times
The alleged leader of a criminal cell linked to Mexico’s powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel has been arrested for ordering the assassination of a mayor in Michoacan state, Security Minister Omar Garcia said in a post on X on Thursday. – Reuters
Voter registration began Thursday in Haiti’s capital and beyond, marking a critical milestone in the push for general elections even as concerns over widespread gang violence persist. – Associated Press
United States
The U.S. delegation at a global AIDS conference displayed a map of Africa that’s so wrong the State Department has been issuing apologies. The map, part of a presentation Sunday at the AIDS 2026 summit in Rio de Janeiro, purports to show six African countries that are receiving U.S. health funding. It gets each of them wrong. – Washington Post
A U.S. appeals court found Enbridge liable for trespass for running a pipeline under land belonging to a northern Wisconsin tribe, but gave the Canadian energy company more time to reroute the pipeline and ordered a recalculation of damages. – Reuters
President Donald Trump signed a measure Thursday that gives officials authority under the Defense Production Act to implement export restrictions on some industrial waste in a bid to retain critical minerals and rare elements contained in those products. – Bloomberg
The Trump administration is weighing a plan to charge international students $100,000 to stay in the country and work after graduating, according to a person familiar with the matter, in a potentially devastating move for student visa holders already squeezed by recent immigration crackdowns. – Bloomberg
Editorial: The outcome of the Iran war will be shaped in part by axis behavior. As much as the U.S. has degraded Iran’s missile arsenal, will China swiftly facilitate its rebuilding? Will Russia, indebted for the assistance in fighting Ukraine, help revive Iran’s nuclear program? Will either one provide more advanced air defenses? They will without U.S. pressure. While the Trump Administration has extended Iran sanctions to China’s isolated “teapot” refineries, it has hesitated to climb the sanctions ladder to the Chinese state-owned enterprises that service those refineries. Beijing is sanctions-averse; there’s opportunity here. Support from Beijing and Moscow “may play a decisive role in determining whether the current supreme leader is the last,” Mr. Bowman, Ms. Dezenski and Mr. Montgomery write. “The United States is not—and must not be—neutral on such a question.” – Wall Street Journal
Editorial: State leaders also hope that these campuses could jump-start an industry that could reprocess spent nuclear fuel so that it can be used again in reactors. The concept isn’t new. France has been doing it for decades. But it hasn’t yet proven commercially viable, since reprocessing is energy-intensive and would produce its own stream of radioactive waste products that need disposal. Nevertheless, nuclear start-ups such as Curio and Oklo are eager to prove the naysayers wrong. There’s no guarantee they will be successful, but market forces — not ideological hang-ups — should pave the way forward. Given how important nuclear energy will be to expanding clean energy capacity in the coming decades, it is heartening to see so many states competing to become the hub of the nation’s nuclear renaissance. – Washington Post
Marc Champion writes: More probable is that such punitive strikes against civilian lifelines would direct popular anger away from Iran’s hated regime and toward Washington. None of this is automatic. Neither the US, the Gulf states, China, India nor Europe want a wider war, because both reason and prosperity argue against it. Trump should engage them all to prevent an escalatory spiral. That’s a long shot, given that such a path would run against all of this US leader’s political instincts and almost certainly would obstruct his penchant for trade wars. It is the great irony of our new so-called multipolar world that the US remains for now the only country with the required leverage to play this convening role. With Trump as its president, that is itself cause for concern. – Bloomberg
Cybersecurity
The European Union formally launched a bidding process for large-scale artificial-intelligence factories in an effort to build out the bloc’s own tech capabilities and catch up with rivals like the U.S. – Wall Street Journal
Sri Lankan police are searching for six people regarding the murder of a Chinese national suspected of links to computer-related scams, an official said on Thursday, in a crackdown on cyberscam centres tied to transnational fraud networks. – Reuters
More than 8 in 10 Australian teenagers were still using social media three months after the government’s landmark ban on the platforms for under-16s took effect because the tech firms failed to implement effective age checks, the country’s internet regulator has found. – Reuters
Anthropic said it found three instances in which its models gained access to the live computer systems of outside organizations, according to a company blog post published Thursday. – Cyberscoop
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency published a guidebook for federal agencies Thursday to aid them on managing security risks with open-source software, touching on topics like patching and open-source AI models. – Cyberscoop
Artificial intelligence must be integrated into reengineered processes for federal employees, tech leaders from across the government and industry said at the Federal Emerging Technology Showcase on Thursday. – Fedscoop
Cyberattack tools and infrastructure used by North Korea’s Lazarus Group appear to have been shared with ransomware criminals targeting South Korean organizations, according to new research released Thursday alongside a joint advisory by four South Korean security and intelligence agencies. – The Record
The semiconductor company Analog Devices reported an intrusion into its systems and the exfiltration of data in a filing Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. – The Record
Selina Xu writes: The U.S. and China must work together to shore up evaluation capacity and mitigate shared risks. Banning open source at home won’t make the world safer. The U.S. can prohibit Chinese models domestically but can’t prevent the rest of the world from using them. Open software has been one of the biggest drivers of American technological dominance. It made possible nearly every facet of digital life, from surfing the internet to texting friends. Open web data allowed large language models to launch the AI revolution. Yet openness in the AI era is becoming synonymous with China, and protectionism with a faction of Silicon Valley. The U.S. doesn’t have to cede the mantle. The answer to China’s growing AI strength isn’t to construct an American version of the Great Firewall. It is to outcompete Chinese models. – Wall Street Journal
Brett J. Goldstein writes: A weapon that obeys no one threatens China as much as it does us. We should seek a shared way to measure worst-case capability and determine what is dangerous, as we have done for testing aircraft. The pitch does not depend on trust; it depends on a calculus for economic prosperity and political stability that is in each of our best interests. The warning shot has been fired. The next time there’s an attack like OpenAI’s, we may not even know about it. There is no chain of command to go through before deciding whether or not to launch a weapon. Now it’s a keystroke that uploads a dangerous model for the whole world to use. Everything we can do has to happen before the model goes out in the world. After that, no one can take the weapon back. – New York Times
Ryan Fedasiuk writes: Our modeling is more optimistic about Chinese capabilities than many other technology analysts currently predict, and we expect plenty of disagreement. Good. The current state of public knowledge about China’s chipmaking trajectory is not adequate for the decisions being stacked on top of it, and we hope this report opens a much wider conversation on how best to prepare for a China that is no longer compute constrained—whether it arrives in 2028, 2030, or beyond. Now is the time to cement U.S. hardware as the backbone of the global intelligence economy. – Choosing Victory
Patrick M. Cronin and Pinshan Lai write: If the Belt and Road Initiative created fears of debt dependence, AI Spark should become the United States’ answer to China’s emerging tech trap. The objective is not to force countries to choose Washington over Beijing. It is to ensure they have a meaningful choice. The United States cannot prevail simply by building the world’s most advanced AI. It must also become the world’s preferred partner in helping others build, deploy, and govern AI on their own terms. The contest is no longer simply about who builds the most powerful AI models. It is about who builds the world’s AI ecosystems, and whether those ecosystems expand freedom or entrench authoritarian influence. – The Diplomat
Defense
President Trump was sitting aboard Air Force One on the tarmac in Delaware last week having just watched the caskets of four U.S. soldiers killed in the Iran war arrive from overseas. He was huddling with his top war advisers—Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. – Wall Street Journal
Democratic lawmakers announced Thursday that they are opening an investigation into the Iranian drone strike that killed six U.S. service members in Kuwait earlier this year, citing doubts over the objectivity of the military’s internal review of the attack. – Washington Post
The U.S. Navy announced that it is awarding contracts for another round of ballistic missile and fast-attack submarines. – Defense News
The United States has depleted roughly two-thirds of its pre-war Patriot missile interceptor inventory during the conflict with Iran, according to a new analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies — a drawdown the think tank says could create readiness challenges if another major conflict erupts before stockpiles are rebuilt. – Defense news
The Air Force could bring up to six vendors into the early prototyping work of its second robotic wingman batch next year, according to the official overseeing the program. – Defensescoop
Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao appointed John Cremins — a former Navy SEAL and defense executive — to serve as the sea service’s top advisor on all policies, oversight and activities associated with intelligence, counterintelligence, security, irregular warfare and special operations. – Defensescoop
Cory Geisler is the new commander-in-chief of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), overseeing approximately 1.3 million members. – Military.com