Today In Issues:
FDD Research & Analysis
The Must-Reads
Trump's Board of Peace planning pilot humanitarian zone in Gaza, official says Trump says he thinks Israel will withdraw troops from southern Lebanon U.S., Iran exchange fire after Trump declares ceasefire over Iran is leveraging Khamenei’s martyr-like legacy to rally support abroad Trump: Iran attacks in Gulf are 'out of control, they badly want to make a deal’ WSJ Editorial: Trump tells the truth about Iran In shift, Trump praises Zelensky, will let Ukraine build Patriot missiles Iraq agrees to U.S. demands to halt dollar flows to Iran-backed militias WINEP’s Devorah Margolin and Gabriel Wein: Iraqi visit can help shape the future fight against the Islamic State As Erdogan hosted NATO, his jailed challenger was in court Former Kurdistan Regional Government official Heyrsh Abdulrahman: Trump should never trust Erdogan again Trump to remove Syria from US terrorism sponsor listIn The News
Israel
Donald Trump’s Board of Peace is planning a pilot humanitarian zone for Gazans as a way to kickstart the U.S. president’s stalled peace plan, regardless of whether a deal is reached with Hamas on the peace plan’s second phase, a board official said. – Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he thought Israel would withdraw troops from southern Lebanon because it wanted to take that step, despite comments from Israel’s leader indicating otherwise. – Reuters
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth canceled a meeting that had been scheduled for Wednesday to discuss the possible sale of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, an Israeli source told Reuters. – Reuters
A United Nations inquiry on Wednesday expressed concern at reports of abuse against a prominent Palestinian doctor seized by the Israeli military in Gaza in December 2024 and still being held in Israel and urged his release. – Reuters
President Isaac Herzog said Wednesday at the graduation ceremony of the National Security College that Israel’s security and law enforcement bodies are committed to the state and the public, not to any individual or political camp. – Jerusalem Post
The Yashar Party, led by Gadi Eisenkot, overtook Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party by a small margin in a poll released on Wednesday by Channel 13. – Jerusalem Post
Few foreign diplomats have experienced a posting quite like Frédéric Journès. Arriving in Israel just before one of the country’s most traumatic periods, the outgoing French ambassador has spent nearly three years navigating war, hostage diplomacy, regional escalation, and one of the lowest points in modern Franco-Israeli relations. – Jerusalem Post
Nearly 40% of Israelis believe Iran won the war against the United States, according to a survey conducted between June 16 and June 22 by the Institute for National Security Studies and published last week. – Jerusalem Post
The main entrance to Haaretz’s Tel Aviv office was smashed by a masked vandal on Wednesday morning, the newspaper confirmed. Security footage showed the individual reaching through the entrance grates and tossing two bricks at a glass door, which punched a hole through the entrance before he fled. – Jerusalem Post
Editorial: Received with gratitude by local Jews and acknowledged by its interim president, Israeli uniforms in Venezuela are a reminder that the caricature the world sometimes portrays of Israel collapses a different reality appears. The state so often accused of cruelty sends experts to help save lives and rebuild homes, even to those who do not wish diplomatic relations with us. Israel’s humanitarian instinct is part of the country’s national character. That does not mean Venezuela will change course diplomatically. But it does mean the Venezuelan people have seen, on the ground, Israelis there helping day in and day out since the disaster occurred. Because Israel shows up, and when it does, even its fiercest critics have no choice but to say thank you. – Jerusalem Post
Liron Rose and Avnet Kleiner writes: This means expanding strategic ties with emerging centers of power such as India, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore, while simultaneously deepening regional partnerships with Greece, Cyprus, and Egypt. It also requires cultivating long-term relationships in Africa, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. […] Israel possesses a rare combination of military power, technological superiority, intelligence capabilities, innovation, and human capital. The question is not whether Israel has the tools to shape its environment. The question is whether it possesses the strategic will to use them. Ultimately, Israel must decide whether it wishes to remain a state that primarily reacts to regional developments or evolve into a power capable of shaping the regional order itself. – Jerusalem Post
Seth Mandel writes: It is yet another example of the dangers of the world’s obsession with Israel. The UN’s refugee agency has been coopted by Hamas. The Committee to Protect Journalists is facing an internal revolt over the possibility that the organization might stop referring to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists as “journalists.” The International Committee of the Red Cross’s callous disregard of Israeli hostages and its participation in Hamas’s own public mistreatment of those hostages has disgraced its work. Unfortunately, I could go on. But the point should be clear. Allowing anti-Zionist radicals to hijack human-rights groups has left genuine humanitarianism and genuine justice hobbled. This is the destruction left in the wake of an industry that destroyed itself because it was solely focused on destroying Israel. – Commentary Magazine
Iran
The U.S. and Iran exchanged fire again on Wednesday night after President Trump pronounced the end of an eight-week ceasefire. The U.S. pounded targets that included missile and drone sites near the Strait of Hormuz, while Iran fired on Kuwait and Bahrain, which host U.S. military bases, according to a senior U.S. official. – Wall Street Journal
President Trump was preparing to leave the White House for Turkey on Monday evening when his top national security aides walked into the Oval Office with reports of new Iranian attacks. – Wall Street Journal
Iran has designed its weeklong funeral for slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei not only as a show of defiance against the West, but to boost the late ayatollah’s religious stature among the more than 200 million Shia Muslims worldwide. – Wall Street Journal
The latest cracks in the cease-fire between the United States and Iran have jolted an oil market that in recent weeks seemed to think durable peace between the countries was within reach. – New York Times
Control over the Strait of Hormuz has become a “golden weapon” to Iran, for which it is willing to risk new escalations with the United States, and is a bigger priority than a nuclear programme for which it accepted decades of sanctions. – Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump’s struggle to extricate himself from the unpopular Iran war has hit a new roadblock with the latest exchange of attacks between the two sides, leaving him with few good options and a faltering ceasefire. – Reuters
Eight members of the Iranian army were killed in U.S. attacks on southern parts of Iran early on Wednesday, state media reported. The victims belonged to the air force and navy and died due to strikes in Bandar Abbas and Bushehr, it added. – Reuters
US President Donald Trump claimed on Thursday that Iran had called wanting to make a deal, after having previously said that the Memorandum of Understanding was over. – Jerusalem Post
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed responsibility for strikes on the Gulf States on Thursday morning, claiming to target two US military bases in Bahrain and another two in Kuwait. – Jerusalem Post
Taha Naderi, 18, was fatally shot by Iranian security forces outside an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps headquarters in Shahreza, near Isfahan, according to testimony his family gave to The Jerusalem Post on the six-month anniversary of the January 8-9 massacre. – Jerusalem Post
Wednesday and Thursday mark six months since the two-day bloody crackdown against nationwide protests in Iran, when the Iranian security forces responded with force. The retaliation from the Iranian government resulted in over 30,000 Iranian citizens’ deaths. The Jerusalem Post gathered testimonies from the relatives and friends of many of the victims of the massacre. – Jerusalem Post
Editorial: If Mr. Trump shows that Iran can’t stop the flow of energy, while the U.S. can blockade Iran anytime, that’s victory—and leverage. If he can remove Iran’s nuclear material and destroy the Pickaxe Mountain site, that’s victory, too. In both cases the goal is to free the U.S. and the region from dependence on the cooperation of Iran’s regime. We’ve played that game before, and maybe Mr. Trump is tired of it. Better to reopen the Strait or destroy the nuclear program ourselves and let Iran’s regime struggle under pressure while it’s at its weakest. – Wall Street Journal
Editorial: That doesn’t mean the U.S. needs to go back to full-on war. But the administration can ratchet up sanctions pressure, impose an embargo on Iranian oil and take limited kinetic action when necessary. That won’t result in Iran becoming Switzerland overnight, and it threatens an uptick in oil prices. But it might prevent the weakened regime from wreaking more havoc in the aftermath of the war’s high-intensity phase. Trump wants Iran out of the headlines for political reasons, but the country’s leaders might not give him that luxury. There will be pressure to go back to the tired playbook of bribing the regime into good behavior, but that hasn’t worked recently and it won’t work again. – Washington Post
Marc Champion writes: There’s no doubt that the Pentagon has military options available for trying to break this stalemate. These reportedly were shown to Trump already, only for him to reject them. The choices are unlikely to have been good; it’s hard to envisage why a few further days, weeks or months of bombing would succeed where previous months of bombing failed. It’s hard, too, to understand why the costs of escalation to Gulf allies — seen as too high before the ceasefire — should now have become acceptable. As a result, we may be in for a prolonged period of uncertainty that looks neither like peace nor war. – Bloomberg
Erfan Fard writes: The distinction matters because any future policy toward Iran will be judged not only by whether it constrains the regime, but by whether it helps create the conditions for a more stable, accountable, and nationally oriented political order. A durable strategy cannot simply punish Tehran. It must also prevent the regime from reconstituting itself while opening space for a different future. Trump’s remarks may therefore reflect something larger than a momentary escalation. They may indicate that Washington is finally thinking in terms of systemic change rather than behavioral adjustment. If so, the significance is immense. The question is no longer whether the U.S. can pressure the Islamic Republic into better conduct. The question is whether the regime’s capacity to generate instability can finally be dismantled. – The Hill
Samand Muhammadshahi writes: In a suffocating political environment, the Baloch people are using the windows of opportunity presented by events involving repressive regime measures to express their sentiments and promote feelings of communal solidarity. These limited avenues for political expression cannot suffice for an organized political movement. However, they do cause public opinion to converge around mutual grievances and build consensus on holding the regime responsible for Baloch suffering. […] Thus, while the regime appears to be using the post-war situation to strengthen its control by intensifying political repression and taking revenge on opponents, incidents of highly visible injustice have also served to rally the Baloch people to defend their fundamental rights and demand an end to systemic marginalization. If the regime continues its oppressive policies and colonial approach toward Baluchestan, it risks drawing more widespread protests and broader resistance. – Washington Institute
Russia and Ukraine
Ukraine is running out of U.S.-made Patriot interceptor missiles, leaving its cities nearly defenseless against Russia’s escalating barrages of ballistic missiles. – Wall Street Journal
President Donald Trump heaped praise on Ukraine’s president and war effort Wednesday, speaking in unusually positive terms about Kyiv’s deep strikes inside Russia and appearing to grant one of Ukraine’s long-held requests: the ability to produce U.S.-designed Patriot air-defense missiles on Ukrainian soil. – Washington Post
The Ukrainian police have searched a major military drone manufacturer and the home of its owner, who is also a part owner of a prominent news outlet that has been critical of the military, escalating concerns about government pressure on independent media. – New York Times
Tensions between Russia and other European nations have grown as NATO leaders convened for their summit in Turkey, with the Kremlin directing extra hostility at countries that back Ukraine in the war with Russia, while showering positive words on President Trump. – New York Times
Russia introduced a ban on diesel exports on Wednesday as part of a raft of measures to support the domestic fuel market after systematic Ukrainian drone attacks on oil refineries triggered gasoline shortages and price spikes. – Reuters
Russian drones and missiles killed four people across Ukraine on Wednesday in attacks before dawn and at midday, as Moscow kept up its pressure on the capital of Kyiv in the latest phase of the over 4-year-old war. – Associated Press
Editorial: The global supply chain for Patriot components may be a limiting factor beyond Kyiv’s control. Mr. Trump said the U.S. would consider providing “some” Patriots in the interim, and Ukraine will need them to protect new production lines it stands up. Ukraine has been willing to share its hard-won counter-drone technology and expertise with the U.S. and its allies. “What I like about that is [it’s] a defensive situation as opposed to an offensive,” Mr. Trump said. But Ukraine has also been using its own drones and missiles to carry out long-range strikes on Russian military and energy targets. These attacks are “an escalation, but it’s also an escalation that could help lead to an end,” Mr. Trump added. The more pressure on Mr. Putin, the sooner he may conclude he needs an exit from the war of aggression he started. – Wall Street Journal
Gregg Opelka writes: According to January data from the Levada Center, the country’s independent polling organization, roughly 76% of Russians said they support the Russian armed forces’ actions in Ukraine, although Russia’s strict control of information flow makes this number hard to trust. Another friend of mine from Omsk, Marina, who left her hometown in the mid-’80s for a better life in the U.S., texted me on hearing of the drone attack: “It pains me to see that so many of the population still support Putin and the war he started.” As someone who lived and worked there, it pains me too. – Wall Street Journal
Seth Mandel writes: Which explains the second Trump shift today. He and Zelensky met on the sidelines of the NATO conference and the president decided to grant Ukraine the license to produce Patriot missiles. “Just a little birdie told me this, about the fact that we’ll give them the right to make Patriots, we’ll show them how to do it,” Trump said. “It’s very complex, actually, but it’s — you’ll figure out the complexity quickly.” This is excellent news. Ukraine has helped the U.S. war effort in Iran by aiding Gulf allies with intercepting Iranian drones. That, in turn, helps Ukraine as well, because the Iranians were supplying Russia with those weapons and anything that weakens Iran weakens Russia’s war machine against Ukraine. This is because the U.S., Israel, and Ukraine are all on the same side of the same war. And that reality can only be ignored until it can’t. – Commentary Magazine
Elisabeth Braw writes: Last November, Russia dramatically failed to secure reelection to the IMO’s governing body. Now, the IMO’s members should unite in formally condemning the practice of placing machine guns on tankers in waters that are completely free of pirates. To be sure, an IMO condemnation of Russia’s latest maritime steps would not stop the Kremlin. But there are other steps IMO member states could take individually. One would be for governments to announce that they will not provide armed merchant tankers with port state control—that is, they will not service them or clear them for departure when they dock. Another would be to say they will not let their citizens serve on armed Russian ships. Russia’s actions are reckless. The world must show that such actions will only leave Russia and its fleet more isolated. – Foreign Policy
Iraq
Iraq has agreed to new controls aimed at preventing U.S. dollars from flowing to Iran and its militia allies in exchange for the Trump administration lifting a four-month suspension in shipments of American currency to Baghdad, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials. – Wall Street Journal
Mourners marched through Iraq’s holy city of Najaf on Wednesday, following the coffin of slain Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as his six-day funeral procession, which drew huge crowds in his home country, pressed on across the border. – Reuters
Devorah Margolin and Gabriel Wein write: Of course, the IS threat is not limited to insurgent or terrorist operations, and other types of vital U.S. assistance reflect that fact. This year, for example, the State Department funded international organizations that support Iraqi detention facilities as well as camp management and services provision at al-Amal reintegration facility (formerly Jeddah-1), which has been a key tool for reassimilating former IS-affiliated families. The department also identified potential assistance to help Baghdad “detain, investigate, and prosecute” IS detainees. Elsewhere, the Pentagon’s Counter-IS Train and Equip Fund (CTEF) was used to assist with the recent transfer of detainees from Syria, despite not being used for Iraqi detention facilities for some time. – Washington Institute
Turkey
The difference was stark. In Ankara, the Turkish capital, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hosted NATO leaders in his palace and basked in the praise of President Trump. In Istanbul, a politician who planned to challenge Mr. Erdogan for the presidency sought to defend himself in court before being returned to his jail cell. – New York Times
Turkey put on a red-white-and-blue air show and named a new airport building after President Donald Trump, seeking to take its relationship with the U.S. to new heights at a NATO summit in Ankara, even as the U.S. leader lashed out at others in the defence alliance. – Reuters
Work is continuing with Italy and Turkey regarding the possible export of the SAMP-T air defence system to Ankara, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday. – Reuters
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that NATO allies must lift defence-industry restrictions among them, pressing the case for Ankara to break into some Europe-only initiatives. – Reuters
The UK and Turkey are poised to sign a security and defense partnership pact on the sidelines of the NATO summit, according to people familiar with the matter. – Bloomberg
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday dismissed objections from Israel and Greece concerning the possible US sale of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey. – Times of Israel
Amine Ayoub writes: That split tracks a question Israeli officials have pressed for years: whether Turkey’s value as a NATO ally outweighs what Ankara has already done with the arsenal it built outside NATO’s framework, in places like Libya. Erdogan has had seven years and two Libyan factions to demonstrate what he does with sophisticated technology once he has it. Jerusalem’s task now is convincing Washington that the F-35 question and the Libya question are, in substance, the same question, asked in two different theaters. Ankara has already given its answer. Washington is still deciding whether it was listening. – Jerusalem Post
Heyrsh Abdulrahman writes: As President Donald Trump arrives in Ankara for the NATO summit, Turkey is once again presenting itself as an indispensable ally deserving of Washington’s trust. The timing is no accident. Reports that the administration may ease sanctions, reopen defense cooperation, and explore a path for Turkey’s return to advanced U.S. weapons programs have created new optimism in Ankara. Washington should be careful. Turkey is not Iran. But in too many of the region’s most important crises, Ankara has pursued policies that undermine U.S. interests while still expecting to be treated as a trusted ally. – Washington Examiner
Gulf States
A Qatari LNG tanker remained stranded off Oman on Wednesday after a projectile strike sparked a fire in its engine room, though industry sources said the vessel’s cargo appeared secure and the risk of an explosion was low for now. – Reuters
UAE state oil giant ADNOC said on Wednesday it had signed a long-term energy security partnership with South Korea to expand cooperation on crude supply, emergency supply coordination and strategic crude storage. – Reuters
Saudi banks have been blocking or delaying financial transfers from the kingdom to accounts based in the United Arab Emirates, raising concerns among businesses that friction between the Gulf powerhouses is spilling over into trade. – Financial Times
Saudi Arabia is exploring a significant shift in the proposed India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), seeking to sideline Israel from the trade initiative by rerouting the corridor through Syria instead, according to two sources familiar with the discussions who spoke to The Jerusalem Post. – Jerusalem Post
Middle East & North Africa
President Donald Trump on Wednesday informed his Syrian counterpart Ahmed al-Sharaa that he had decided to remove the country from the U.S. list of designated state sponsors of terrorism. – Reuters
Lebanon is demanding that Israel fulfill its pledge to withdraw from two “pilot zones” in the nation’s south and hand them over to the Lebanese military before it agrees to participate in the next round of direct talks, scheduled for next week in Rome, a Lebanese diplomatic source told AFP Wednesday. – Agence France-Presse
The curriculum taught over the past two years by Syria’s Dar al-Wahi al-Sharif school network includes extremist material and portrays both Jews and Christians as enemies of Islam, according to an analysis of 65 official textbooks and workbooks conducted by the Alma Research and Education Center. – Jerusalem Post
Jose Lev Alvarez writes: Egypt maintains roughly 438,500 active troops, more than 3,600 tanks, and over 1,000 aircraft, all backed by a defense budget of around $5 billion. At the same time, it has pushed around 40,000 soldiers into the Sinai Peninsula, along with armored units, advanced air-defense systems, and extended runways suited for modern fighters. […] The Egyptian-Israeli deal centered on a genuine strategic buffer. Permanent infrastructure, forward-stored gear, and now a national command node that can direct operations in real time shrink that buffer in practice. Israeli officials have flagged this for months, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has raised the issue directly with the Trump administration. – Washington Examiner
Korean Peninsula
South Korea’s Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a seven-year prison sentence handed to former President Yoon Suk Yeol for obstructing authorities’ attempts to arrest him over his short-lived imposition of martial law in 2024. – Reuters
South Korean AI chip startup Rebellions aims to list its shares on the Korean market in the first half of next year, followed by a potential listing in the United States, its co-founder and chief executive Park Sunghyun told Reuters on Wednesday. – Reuters
South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI stock index fell more than 5% on Wednesday, dropping more than 20% from a record close in late June and signalling that the market is in bear territory. – Reuters
China
China’s factory-gate inflation accelerated in June as the effects of the Middle East conflict continued to ripple through the economy, but consumer-price gains cooled, suggesting persistent weakness in domestic demand. – Wall Street Journal
The floodwaters that ravaged southern China this week look set to expand to other provinces with the imminent arrival of Super Typhoon Bavi, with scientists warning extreme weather would only grow more frequent this year. – Reuters
China only gave the United States a few hours notice ahead of a ballistic missile test launch on July 6 and provided insufficient detail, a State Department official said on Wednesday. – Reuters
China’s Nexchip Semiconductor said on Wednesday it aims to raise around HK$6.98 billion ($890.37 million) in its Hong Kong share sale by pricing the offering at the top end of its range to benefit from the city’s revitalised capital market. – Reuters
The U.S. State Department said on Wednesday it supports aspirations of Tibetans to preserve their culture and will continue to call on China to return to dialogue with the Dalai Lama, after a Tibetan man set himself on fire near the U.N. headquarters last week. – Reuters
China laid out a path to addressing deepening frictions with Brussels by calling for boosting trade with the European Union as Foreign Minister Wang Yi wrapped up his charm offensive in Nordic countries. – Bloomberg
China’s Dong Feng-17 ballistic missile has probably existed for more than a decade, quietly adding to the People’s Liberation Army arsenal of ever more modern weaponry. – Defense News
South Asia
After a 12-hour search by air and sea, Pakistan’s Navy has located the wreckage of a cargo plane that plunged into the Arabian Sea overnight, the nation’s aviation authority said Wednesday. – New York Times
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday India’s relationship with Australia presented “historic opportunities” for both countries to cooperate in nuclear and renewable energy, critical minerals and green hydrogen. – Reuters
Pakistan urged all sides to uphold their commitments under the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, its foreign ministry said on Wednesday, hours after U.S. President Donald Trump said the interim deal reached with Iran last month was “over”. – Reuters
Heavy monsoon rains triggered a landslide at a madrassa in a Rohingya refugee camp in southeastern Bangladesh on Wednesday, killing eight children and injuring five others, officials said. – Reuters
Pakistan’s military said on Wednesday that 42 police and army personnel have been killed in three militant attacks in the troubled southwestern province of Balochistan since July 6. – Reuters
Dularika Perera, 38, only found out her cousin was among 26 people killed in the worst Sri Lankan prison riot in years when his photo was sent to her on WhatsApp. – Reuters
It is crucial for Western nations to engage with Afghanistan to prevent the country from sliding back into instability that could have repercussions far beyond its borders, two top United Nations officials said. – Associated Press
Bangladeshi Prime Minister Tarique Rahman met Aminul Islam, the businessman the South Asian nation tried to have extradited in 2024 as part of a probe into alleged trafficking of migrant workers, during a state visit to Malaysia in June, according to people familiar with the matter. – Bloomberg
A sweeping US dragnet of Indian crime syndicates has brought renewed attention to one of the country’s most notorious crime bosses and his alleged role in carrying out political killings overseas, including of a well-known Sikh activist in Canada. – Bloomberg
Asia
On the day that China announced that it had successfully fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile into the middle of the Pacific Ocean, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia was in Suva, the capital of Fiji. – New York Times
New Zealand will consider joining a defence alliance between Australia and Fiji that both countries entered earlier this week, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said on Thursday. – Reuters
Japanese moon transport company ispace said on Wednesday it would start a new, lower-cost lunar cargo business using the Starship heavy rocket and moon lander developed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. – Reuters
Typhoon Bavi churned southeast of Taiwan in the Pacific Ocean on Thursday, its winds easing overnight to just shy of 200 kph (124 mph), as authorities urged residents to stock up on supplies and brace for what could be the most powerful typhoon since 2024. – Reuters
Australia’s Steadfast said on Thursday that Amwins Group and Dragoneer Investment had reaffirmed their takeover proposal valuing the insurance broker at A$7.7 billion ($5.34 billion), prompting a four-week extension of the exclusivity period. – Reuters
Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul is awaiting a crucial court ruling over whether roughly $12 billion of crisis borrowing is constitutional or not, a decision that could determine the fate of his flagship economic stimulus and energy transition agendas. – Bloomberg
Yerkin Tukumov and Eldaniz Gusseinov write: Stability in Afghanistan will be built rather than declared. The architecture for it is taking shape across commerce, resources, water, and transport, and much of it now runs through Kazakhstan—the practical expression of a middle power accepting responsibility for its own strategic neighborhood. Kazakhstan’s policy toward Afghanistan is built on a simple premise: to engage with reality rather than illusion. By recognizing both risks and opportunities while remaining firmly committed to international law, Astana seeks not to revive the Great Game but to make the “Great Gain” a reality in the heart of Eurasia. – The National Interest
Europe
Europe’s leading populists, mired in allegations that might derail conventional politicians, are appealing to the only arbiter they think really matters: the court of public opinion. – Wall Street Journal
When President Trump landed here earlier this week for an annual summit of NATO leaders, U.S. allies weren’t sure which side of the president they would get: friend or foe. – Wall Street Journal
President Trump and leaders from across NATO’s 32 countries met here this week to show unity amid deep differences. Trump has blasted European NATO members for not helping the U.S. fight Iran or spending enough on defense. He has rattled allies by saying he wants to own Greenland, a territory of NATO ally Denmark. – Wall Street Journal
For Rüdiger Mahlo, the first sign that Germans were starting to fundamentally alter the meaning of Holocaust was when they started using it as a metaphor. – Wall Street Journal
Members of the International Criminal Court are preparing to meet this month to decide whether to remove its chief prosecutor over allegations of sexual misconduct. Under consideration will be an internal court report, obtained by The New York Times, concluding that the prosecutor, Karim Khan, had abused his authority by conducting a sexual relationship with a subordinate. – New York Times
President Trump, venting his longstanding animus toward Europe at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, singled out Spain with particular spleen on Wednesday. – New York Times
Western Europe just experienced its warmest June on record, EU scientists confirmed on Thursday, after an extreme heatwave at the end of the month smashed temperature records, disrupted power supplies and shut schools. – Reuters
Greenlanders attending a traditional kayaking championship in Nuuk rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s renewed call for U.S. control of the Arctic island on Wednesday, saying its future should be decided by Greenlanders themselves. – Reuters
Disputes between U.S. President Donald Trump and other NATO leaders showed the alliance’s democratic strength and should serve as a lesson for Russian President Vladimir Putin, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on Wednesday after a summit in Ankara. – Reuters
NATO has agreed to upgrade its decades-old Baltic air policing mission into air defence, giving pilots a wider mandate, including destroying “objects that pose a threat”, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said on Wednesday. – Reuters
France’s highest court, the Cour de Cassation, said on Wednesday that it could rule on an appeal lodged by far-right leader Marine Le Pen by early April 2027 at the latest, before the presidential election. – Reuters
President Donald Trump told NATO allies he wanted to keep the United States in the alliance at a leaders’ meeting in Ankara on Wednesday, a source familiar with the talks told Reuters. – Reuters
Greenland’s position above the Arctic Circle makes the world’s largest island a key part of security strategy. Increasing international tensions, global warming and the changing world economy have put Greenland at the heart of the debate over global trade and security, and U.S. President Donald Trump wants to make sure his country controls the mineral-rich island that guards the Arctic and North Atlantic approaches to North America. – Associated Press
Belgium may miss a NATO target to spend 5% of gross domestic product on defense by 2035, as it struggles to make-up for years of underspending in the sector. – Bloomberg
Italy is leading a rearguard effort to water down environmental rules in the EU’s next €2 trillion budget, opening a new divide that threatens to further complicate already thorny negotiations, according to three EU diplomats with knowledge of the discussions. – Politico
Emmanuel Macron left his last NATO summit without a bang — fitting for a president for whom fiscal constraints and the prospect of a far-right successor threaten his defense legacy. – Politico
Top European leaders attending a NATO summit in Ankara were given engraved pistols and live ammunition as a leaving gift. The elaborate firearms — and accompanying bullets and cleaning kit — were presented to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa on Wednesday by the host, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, two EU officials – Politico
Africa
The deadly Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is moving faster than efforts to contain it, raising fears about what might happen if it explodes in highly populated areas held by M23, the powerful rebel group that seized vast swaths of territory last year. – New York Times
Sudan’s RSF forces carried out mass killings, abductions of women and girls, mass gang rapes and forced starvation in a city they besieged and captured last year, as part of an intentional policy amounting to genocide, a U.N. probe said on Wednesday. – Reuters
Eleven more migrants deported by the Trump administration under a policy of sending them to third countries arrived in Eswatini from the United States on Wednesday, a U.S. lawyer following the case said. – Reuters
The Democratic Republic of Congo said on Wednesday that suspected Ebola cases had been reported in a new province, highlighting the expansion of the ongoing outbreak as deaths hit 600. – Reuters
Tanzania’s central bank has bought about 28 metric tons of gold over the past 18 months to bolster its international reserves and support the shilling currency, its Governor Emmanuel Tutuba said. – Reuters
The Americas
President Donald Trump’s administration sought on Wednesday to rally Latin American nations behind a revamped Monroe Doctrine, the 19th-century policy asserting U.S. primacy across the Americas that critics associate with decades of U.S. intervention. – Reuters
The death toll from Venezuela’s twin earthquakes has risen to 3,811, according to figures released by National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez on Wednesday. – Reuters
Brazil’s federal police searched Jair Bolsonaro’s home on Wednesday for any unauthorized weapons, a court ruling showed, but the former president’s lawyer said nothing was found. – Reuters
International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva will visit Argentina at the end of July, IMF spokesman Pierre Mejlak said on Wednesday. – Reuters
President Donald Trump denied preventing Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado from returning to her country after the recent devastating earthquakes, a move that could pose a direct challenge to acting President Delcy Rodríguez. – Bloomberg
The US Department of Defense is pressuring Latin American nations to increase security spending to fight organized crime. A US delegation at a biennial conference of defense ministers from across the Americas hosted this week in Peru asked nations to increase defense budgets to close to 3.5% of gross domestic product as seen in other parts of the world. – Bloomberg
Arturo McFields writes: One thing is clear: The U.S. is not embracing the regime but rather dismantling its vital structure, one day at a time. CIA Director John Ratcliffe and U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine have visited Venezuela following Operation Absolute Resolve. Their presence sends a significant signal. They are not there to embrace the dictatorship, but to assess the situation on the ground first-hand. This is not improvisation; it is peace through strength. […] The situation in Venezuela is far from perfect, yet it is also far removed from what it was six months ago. The U.S. is clear that a new Venezuela cannot be built upon the foundations of the old dictatorial structure. That is why Trump’s speech at Mount Rushmore offers hope, accompanied by the promise to vanquish communism and do it quickly. – The Hill
Brian Winter writes: It may seem counterintuitive that a politician who launched his campaign for president in 2015 by accusing Mexico of sending drugs, crime, and rapists to the United States would be enjoying even qualified success in Latin America. But even some former Biden administration officials have privately conceded that Trump’s approach has been effective in unexpected ways. Some have wondered whether, had President Joe Biden threatened tariffs or other coercive action, the Mexican government of that era might have worked harder to control migration, thus possibly avoiding the crisis at the U.S.-Mexican border that many Democrats blame for their defeat in the 2024 election. Whether Trump will be able to sustain his successes, or whether his policies will go down as another chapter in more than two centuries of U.S. overreach and unintended consequences, there are signs that Washington’s big stick in Latin America may be here to stay. – Foreign Affairs
North America
The Trump administration’s pressure campaign against Cuba’s Communist government is zeroing in on the island’s most valuable export and one of its few remaining sources of hard currency: the doctors and nurses it deploys abroad. – Wall Street Journal
Two more Guatemalan nationals pleaded guilty in Texas on Wednesday to human smuggling charges stemming from the December 2021 crash of a tractor-trailer truck in Mexico that killed 55 of the 160-plus migrants crammed inside the vehicle. – Reuters
Mexican authorities on Wednesday arrested a man suspected of stealing bronze sculptures, including artwork by famed surrealist Leonora Carrington, from the courtyard of a church in an historic district of the capital. – Reuters
Mexico Finance Minister Edgar Amador said on Wednesday that he expects the economy to perform better than the latest projections by the International Monetary Fund. – Reuters
Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney arrived in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday — the first visit to the kingdom by a Canadian leader in 26 years — as he seeks to expand his country’s economic ties beyond its heavy reliance on the United States. – Associated Press
Brett Erickson writes: The mere existence of a national security threat is not an excuse for irresponsible economic warfare. National security policy requires nuance. The greater the humanitarian and political risks a policy creates, the stronger the justification for accepting those risks must be. Cuba may pose a limited threat to the United States, but it is not one that could reasonably justify a maximum-pressure campaign. Washington can confront the dangers Havana actually poses without disproportionately harming innocent civilians. Responsible statecraft is not measured only by how much pressure America can impose. It is measured by whether that pressure is actually justified in relation to the threat it seeks to address. – The Hill
United States
As the latest wave of military conflict flared in the Middle East, Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday tried to navigate the increasingly complex relationship between Israel and his fellow Democrats. – Wall Street Journal
President Donald Trump unexpectedly left Turkey on Wednesday aboard an older Air Force One rather than the newly renovated Qatari-donated jet that brought him there, but later boarded the new plane in Britain for the flight to Washington. – Reuters
The Federal Reserve’s rate-setting committee is split over whether inflation is likely to stay elevated or whether it will cool once the Iran war winds down, according to minutes released Wednesday. – Associated Press
Former Trump adviser Michael Flynn has reached another settlement with the Justice Department — this time for over $38,000 in retirement funds the Army had withheld from the former general after officials found he earned money from speaking at an event tied to the Russian government in 2015. – CNN
The highest-ranking news editor at the New York Times, executive editor Joe Kahn, is publicly distancing himself and the paper’s 2,200-person newsroom from a May 11 Times opinion column that accused Israel of using dogs and carrots to rape Palestinian prisoners. – The Washington Free Beacon
Cybersecurity
The cryptocurrency industry is starting to prepare for the threat of quantum computing as recent advances fuel concerns that the technology could soon be able to crack the cryptography that protects transactions and digital wallets. – Reuters
The EU General Court on Wednesday dismissed Apple’s challenge against how it was designated under the bloc’s Big Tech rules, handing the European Commission a significant victory in one of the first major judicial tests of the law. – Politico
The AI-focused executive order President Donald Trump signed last month gave the Treasury Department, the National Security Agency, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) 30 days to establish a new “AI cybersecurity clearinghouse.” The deadline passed last week. – CyberScoop
The Paris Peace Forum, a French non-profit that has convened world leaders on global security issues, is launching a new project to bring together international experts to assess AI-related threats to global internet infrastructure. – CyberScoop
Taiwanese authorities have charged two local businessmen with helping Chinese government-linked hackers carry out a sprawling espionage campaign targeting politicians, academics, journalists and civil society groups. – The Record
Eight Greeks who were snooped on by Predator spyware sued the surveillance tech manufacturer Intellexa on Tuesday, as well as 13 individuals tied to the company. The victims are asking for about €7.6 million ($8.7 million) total in compensation, their lawyer Zacharias Kesses told a local news outlet. – The Record
Editorial: A better approach would be to increase children’s digital literacy, much as schools have increased young people’s awareness around drugs and sex. Tech companies can also do more to make the algorithms less addictive and strengthen parental controls, which are already available on most platforms. Ultimately it’s the responsibility of parents to police their children’s screen time. Children mature at different ages and engage with the internet differently. That basic parental role can’t be outsourced to corporations and the government without unintended consequences. – Washington Post
Anne-Laure Le Cunff writes: I hope my former colleagues at Google and the engineers building similar tools elsewhere take these suggestions to heart, and that the industry develops best practices that protect curiosity rather than treating it as an afterthought. The space between a question and an answer has value, and that value should not be engineered away. The most important discoveries are often not the ones we set out to make. If we build a world that delivers only what is asked for, we will lose the capacity to discover what we didn’t know to ask. – New York Times
Larry Sanger writes: Here, then, is the ugly picture that emerges. Wikipedia is decidedly not a lovely, idealistic project staffed by students, scholars, and retirees who just want to share their knowledge to benefit the world. To be sure, there are people involved for whom this is true. But the site has manifestly been captured by a small clique of ideologically motivated bullies. They manipulate and intimidate the other participants, and anyone who does not fall in line — like me — is banned. They wield a lot of power in a petty and vicious way. Money clearly does change hands; in some cases, it resembles a shakedown. Considering the size of Wiki-PR and the like, it may be millions of dollars per year. Wikipedia is one of the most powerful media platforms in history. It is past time we learned who really controls it. – Washington Examiner
Defense
The Pentagon is exploring cheap, long-range drone options that may eventually replace the MQ-9 Reaper. The search comes after dozens of MQ-9s were swatted out of the sky during the Iran war, according to a May 13 Congressional Research Service report. – Defense News
When hidden deep in the vastness of the ocean, America’s ballistic missile subs are practically invulnerable. But berthed in port — or sailing on the surface while transiting to and from port — these powerful yet fragile boats can be sitting ducks for drones, mines and even anti-tank rockets. – Defense News
The Pentagon’s latest push to bolster the civilian cyber workforce is officially underway with the opening of the application window for paid apprenticeships at the Defense Department. – DefenseScoop
Colin Dueck writes: Assuming the US is serious about counteracting the growth of predatory Chinese practices and capabilities, it should work with its European allies to settle existing commercial differences and refocus on the common threat from Beijing. However, this will require a new readiness to act in European capitals—not just in Washington. If the world’s great maritime democracies do not hang together in matching China’s power, they may very well hang separately. That would be Mackinder’s nightmare come to life. – American Enterprise Institute