Today In Issues:
FDD Research & Analysis
The Must-Reads
Board of Peace head unveils 15-point Gaza roadmap AEI’s Michael Rubin: Israel should deport European flotilla activists to Sudan Iran moved billions through Binance to fund regime—continuing into this month Iran and Oman in talks over Strait of Hormuz ship payment system Who runs Iran now? A hard-line military band of brothers. US and Iran still at odds on key issues, but both sides report signs of progress Russia holds nuclear drills on land, sea and air, joined by its ally Belarus Former Ukraine’s deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Reznikov and AEI’s Dalibor Rohac: Ukraine has made itself indispensable to the West As U.S. war redraws Middle East, Turkey braces for rivalry with Israel US hits nine Hezbollah-aligned individuals in Lebanon with sanctions Khosro Isfahani: I saw America vilified in Iran. Then came the culture shock. Taiwan prosecutors investigate 3 people over Nvidia chip smuggling to ChinaIn The News
Israel
Israeli authorities are currently deporting 37 French nationals who were part of the group of activists on board a Gaza-bound aid flotilla to Turkey, France’s Foreign ministry spokesperson said on Thursday. – Reuters
Poland wants to ban Israel’s far-right police minister Itamar Ben-Gvir from entering the country, a foreign ministry spokesperson said on Thursday, after outrage in Warsaw over the detention of Gaza flotilla activists. – Reuters
Israel Aerospace Industries and other defense companies in Israel have presented the Defense Ministry and the IDF with a range of solutions to address the threat of explosive drones operated via fiber optics. – Jerusalem Post
The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), Maj.-Gen. Yoram Halevi, demanded on Thursday that the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) immediately stop transferring any aid or support to the Turkish organization IHH, which has been designated by Israel as a terrorist organization. – Jerusalem Post
The whole world was shocked out of its wits on September 17-18, 2024, when the Mossad brought the mighty 150,000-rocket-wielding Hezbollah terror army to its knees in an instant with a “fleet” of exploding beepers. – Jerusalem Post
Two armed terrorists were identified early Friday morning by IDF lookouts several hundred meters from the Israeli border in southern Lebanon, the military said. – Ynet
Is Israel’s Arab political camp moving toward renewed unity? After months of disputes, disagreements and uncertainty over the future of Arab representation in the Knesset, recent days have seen significant progress in talks to form a new joint slate between Ra’am, Hadash-Ta’al and Balad. – Ynet
Yael Bar tur writes: For us Eurovision is a chance to be a normal country like any other, one where we can go out to bars without calculating where the nearest bomb shelter is and listen to a favorite song without being interrupted by a missile-attack alert […] The hatred from so much of the global community has hurt us, but we still want to have a seat at the table. I watched the Eurovision finals at a bar in Hell’s Kitchen, holding a small Israeli flag that I waved at first a bit hesitantly, and then proudly. People noticed — and one after the other came up to me to say how much they loved my country’s entry, including one Swedish-Syrian woman who told me her whole family voted for Israel. – New York Post
Iran
As Iran braced for conflict with the U.S., a key regime financier built a secret payment network to keep money flowing to its military forces. At its core was Binance. Until as recently as December, the network, run by Babak Zanjani, an Iranian who is a self-described “antisanction” operator, made $850 million in transactions over two years on the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, mostly on a single trading account, internal Binance compliance reports show. – Wall Street Journal
Iran has discussed partnering with the Gulf state of Oman — an American ally — in a system charging fees for vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz, ignoring the Trump administration’s warnings against demands for payment to pass through the critical international waterway. – New York Times
Senior Iranian officials maintain that all key matters are run by the 56-year-old heir. Decision making, however, extends beyond one man, experts say, guided by a small, elite band of mostly current or former senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. It is not the Guards as an organization that is exerting control, they say, but a hardened “band of brothers,” whose seminal experience was the brutal, eight-year war between Iran and Iraq that began in 1980. – New York Times
The U.S. and Iran stuck to opposing stances on Thursday over Tehran’s uranium stockpile and controls on the Strait of Hormuz, although U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said there had been “some good signs” in talks. – Reuters
Iran’s leaders are splashing propaganda posters across Tehran boasting of national unity and victory over a global superpower, just months after crushing protests with mass killings and as war worsens economic pain for their people. – Reuters
Iran’s Supreme Leader has issued a directive that the country’s near-weapons-grade uranium should not be sent abroad, two senior Iranian sources said, hardening Tehran’s stance on one of the main U.S. demands at peace talks. – Reuters
Iran has already restarted some of its drone production during the six-week ceasefire that began in early April, one sign it is rapidly rebuilding certain military capabilities degraded by US-Israeli strikes, according to two sources familiar with US intelligence assessments. – CNN
Iran could potentially be planning a surprise attack involving missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles against Gulf States and Israel, intelligence officials warned on Thursday. – Jerusalem Post
Bernard-Henri Lévy writes: A nuclear program slowed for years. Stockpiles of enriched uranium whose question isn’t where they are hidden, but at what moment Washington will decide (or not) to seize them. And a regime that a few months ago dreamed of ruling an empire stretching from Beirut to Sana’a, and now finds itself isolated, weakened and reduced to dragging the region into the suicidal logic of its coming downfall. If the U.S. stopped the war today, it would already have achieved a large part of its objectives. There would remain the decisive question of regime change. But do tyrannies ever fall in a single day? Doesn’t history teach us that they crack slowly, gradually lose their grip, and see fear change sides before collapsing? That is precisely what this intervention—with its shortcomings, its flaws, and its share of cynicism—will have begun to set in motion in Iran. Whatever anyone says, that is a victory. – Wall Street Journal
Mike Evans writes: Ayatollah Khamenei once referred to his forced acceptance of a ceasefire in the Iran-Iraq War as “drinking the poison chalice.” He did it because economic collapse and military pressure had left him no choice. Iran needs to drink the poison chalice again. You cannot kill a demon with a bullet.The ideology driving terror in Iran will not disappear. This is an ideological war, a media war, a proxy war, and a spirit war. It is a battle against principalities and powers, against demonic spirits. And you can be sure of one thing: demons lie. Iran has no intention of honoring its promises. The spine of the regime will have to be broken, either economically or militarily. – Jerusalem Post
Russia and Ukraine
The U.S State Department said on Thursday that it has approved the potential sale to Ukraine of equipment to sustain the Hawk Missile System for an estimated $108.1 million. – Reuters
The Russia-controlled part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region was experiencing emergency power blackouts on Friday, Russia-installed governor Yevgeny Balitsky was quoted as saying by the Kommersant newspaper. – Reuters
The Kremlin on Thursday dismissed as false a Reuters report that China’s army secretly trained about 200 Russian soldiers in China late last year, some of whom went on to fight in Ukraine. – Reuters
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a regular breifing on Thursday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was pursuing escalation of the conflict between the two countries. – Reuters
Russia said on Thursday that it would provide active support to Cuba despite attempts by the United States to intimidate and tighten the “sanctions noose” around the Communist‑run island republic. – Reuters
Trucks carrying intercontinental ballistic missiles rumbled over forest roads, atomic-powered submarines set sail from Arctic and Pacific ports, and crews scrambled into warplanes as Russia and neighboring Belarus held the final stage of their joint nuclear drills Thursday. – Associated Press
Ukraine and its allies are increasingly confident that Russia’s invasion is running out of steam as Kyiv stabilizes the front line and stalls a spring offensive by Moscow. – Bloomberg
A Ukrainian offensive against Russia earlier this year retook about 400 square kilometers after thousands of portable Starlink internet terminals operated by Russian forces were deactivated, according to the US Defense Intelligence Agency. – Bloomberg
The Baltic states have hit back against a Kremlin “disinformation campaign” claiming that they’ve opened their airspace to allow Ukrainian drones to strike Russia. – Bloomberg
The Czech Republic’s top general said Ukraine should join NATO in the future as the next “logical step.” “Ukraine is not just a security consumer, it’s also a security provider,” the chief of the Czech defense staff, Gen. Karel Řehka, told POLITICO’s Speakeasy on the sidelines of the GLOBSEC forum in Prague Thursday. – Politico
Oleksii Reznikov and Dalibor Rohac write: Ukraine’s recent successes at inflicting pain on Russia do not mean that victory is at hand. Indeed, the situation remains precarious. So the West needs to ask itself whether it’s better off with a sovereign, technologically advanced Ukraine, or with a defeated and occupied one. Investing in Ukraine is an investment in European security. It buys time and helps prepare Europe, and the West more broadly, for all the wars to come. It turns out that Ukraine is not the West’s problem. It is, in fact, a solution. – Washington Post
John Christer Tønnessen writes: The central challenge is not merely to respond to Russian actions, but to understand the system that produces them. The decisive question is not how to facilitate a diplomatic opening, but how it is possible to negotiate with a system that perceives peace itself as an existential threat. Political change is unlikely to emerge from diplomatic breakthroughs or incremental internal moderation. History suggests that highly personalized authoritarian systems more often change under conditions of significant internal or external pressure. But this does not necessarily mean that catastrophic collapse is the only possible outcome. If we invert the Kremlin’s own logic, sustained pressure across political, military, and economic domains — combined with mounting internal strain — could gradually increase the costs of confrontation until they outweigh its value as a mechanism of internal stability. – Center for European Policy Analysis
Turkey
As the Trump administration searches for a viable — and victorious — path out of its war against Iran, Turkey is preparing for a changing balance of power in the Middle East, including a growing rivalry with Israel, and pushing to build new security partnerships. – Washington Post
A Turkish court on Thursday removed the leaders of the country’s main opposition party, a surprise judgment likely to further weaken opponents of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan before the country’s next presidential election. – New York Times
Turkey is moving to buy 100 expendable unmanned surface vessels for its navy, Defense News learned during the SAHA Expo 2026 defense exhibition this month. – Defense News
Middle East & North Africa
The United States on Thursday announced sanctions against nine individuals, including Iran’s designated ambassador to Lebanon, for obstructing the peace process in the Middle Eastern country and impeding the disarmament of the Iran-backed Hezbollah group. – Reuters
Iraq formed a high-level committee to investigate drone attacks on the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, as the new Iraqi prime minister appears to align with US President Donald Trump’s goal of limiting Iran’s influence in the OPEC nation. – Bloomberg
Five Middle Eastern countries have formally rejected Iran’s establishment of the Persian Gulf Strait Authority to control transit through the Strait of Hormuz. – Bloomberg
Korean Peninsula
Korea Post is seeking to invest funds it manages in AI data centres and multi-family houses in Europe and North America, as its postal service is squeezed by mounting losses from the mail business, its president told Reuters. – Reuters
Some 89,000 unionised Samsung Electronics’ , workers in South Korea will begin voting on Friday on a pay deal that has been hailed as a win for the company as well as its memory chip workers. – Reuters
South Korea and the U.S. discussed potential changes in how parts of the heavily fortified border with North Korea are managed at recent defence talks in Washington, Seoul’s defence ministry said on Thursday. – Reuters
China
Asia-Pacific trade envoys gathered in China are expected to discuss multilateral cooperation, trade imbalances and supply chain resilience in the face of global shocks, including the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. – Reuters
The Hengli Group, built by a husband and wife duo over three decades from a bankrupt textile mill into a Fortune Global 500 giant and one of China’s largest private oil refiners, has been thrust into the centre of a geopolitical power struggle. – Reuters
A Chinese-operated container ship was among the few to cross the Strait of Hormuz in the past 24 hours, data showed on Thursday, as uncertainty grows around reopening the critical waterway with talks over a deal between the U.S. and Iran deadlocked. – Reuters
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi told visiting Moldovan Deputy Prime Minister Mihai Popsoi that Beijing “cherishes” ties with the Eastern European country and aims to deepen them, a statement on Friday said, despite differences over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. – Reuters
China said on Thursday it firmly opposes the United States “abusing judicial means” and pressuring Cuba after Washington charged former Cuban President Raul Castro for murder. – Reuters
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi will travel to New York and chair a high-level meeting of the UN Security Council on May 26, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Friday. – Reuters
Japanese Trade Minister Ryosei Akazawa said it would be natural to seek communication with his Chinese counterpart Wang Wentao when they both attend an international conference starting Friday, as Tokyo aims to engage with China amid strained ties. – Bloomberg
South Asia
The U.S., Japan, Australia and India will hold a meeting of foreign ministers of the ‘Quad’ grouping in New Delhi on May 26, Japan’s foreign ministry said on Friday. – Reuters
India and the African Union (AU) have decided to postpone the India-Africa Forum Summit scheduled to be held next week in New Delhi, due to the “emerging public health situation” in Africa, India’s foreign ministry said on Thursday, in an apparent reference to the Ebola outbreak. – Reuters
India wants to secure the return of its ships stranded in the Gulf before sending any vessels back to load fuel, a senior government official said on Thursday. – Reuters
Myanmar’s military-backed government says it has regained control of two towns near the country’s borders with India and Thailand, marking a significant advance in the civil war as it seeks to reassert control of regions long held by resistance forces. – Associated Press
Asia
A second group of Australian women and children linked to the Islamic State (ISIS) extremist group have departed a refugee camp in northeast Syria and may be returning to Australia, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported on Friday. – Reuters
Taiwan’s presidential office said on Friday it had not received any information about the U.S. adjusting military sales, after a senior U.S. official suggested there was a pause due to the need to have enough arms for the war with Iran. – Reuters
The United States is expected to reach a deal on the long-term framework for an economic security zone with the Philippines “sooner rather than later”, a senior U.S. official said on Thursday. – Reuters
Australian populist party Pauline Hanson’s One Nation said it wanted to create a Norway-style sovereign wealth fund and for the government to take a share of offshore production licences in federal waters as it unveiled its energy policy at the Australian Energy Producers conference in Adelaide on Thursday. – Reuters
Europe
Greenlanders held a spirited protest on Thursday against the opening of a new American Consulate building in downtown Nuuk, Greenland’s capital. – New York Times
Germany’s federal prosecutor on Thursday announced it had charged two men with plotting to kill prominent leaders of the Jewish and Israeli communities in Germany on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. – New York Times
Andy Burnham, an insurgent British politician who wants to be the next prime minister, has begun his campaign focused not only on voters but also on the bond market. – New York Times
Polish President Karol Nawrocki thanked U.S. President Donald Trump for his decision to send additional U.S. troops to Poland. The expression of gratitude came after Trump said on Thursday the United States would send 5,000 more troops, citing his relationship with conservative nationalist Nawrocki as the reason. – Reuters
Hundreds of people protested outside Ireland’s parliament on Thursday to express outrage at the death of a Congolese-born man after he was restrained outside a Dublin department store in an incident some compared to the 2020 killing of George Floyd. – Reuters
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Thursday dismissed any notion that Belarus would be dragged into the Ukraine war, but said Russia and Belarus would jointly defend themselves in case of aggression, Belarusian state news agency BELTA reported. – Reuters
Lithuania and Latvia each detected drones in their airspace on Thursday and urged some inhabitants to seek shelter while NATO fighter jets scrambled to intercept the devices, the latest in a series of such security incidents in the Baltics. – Reuters
A court in Georgia sentenced a senior opposition figure to 2-1/2 years in prison on Thursday on charges of sabotage and inciting a coup at local elections last year, the Interpress news agency reported. – Reuters
Cyprus votes on Sunday in parliamentary elections which could reshape the island’s political landscape, as frustration over corruption and the rising cost of living boosts support for political newcomers. – Reuters
Hungary’s ruling Tisza party submitted a constitutional amendment to parliament late on Wednesday that would allow prime ministers to serve for a maximum of eight years and would effectively bar former premier Viktor Orban from holding the role again. – Reuters
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is on his latest mission to assuage nervous U.S. allies in Europe about the Trump administration’s intentions with NATO or at least put a friendlier face on whipsawing changes and uncertainty about American troop reductions. – Associated Press
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said he plans to call an early election to be held between late September and mid-November as he confronts more than a year of anti-government protests. – Bloomberg
If the European Union has a red line in Serbia’s relationship to China, President Aleksandar Vucic may be getting close. The Balkan nation, the only European buyer of advanced Chinese weaponry west of Belarus, upgraded its arsenal this year to include supersonic missiles from China. Next may be fighter jets, a possible discussion topic when Vucic visits China next week. – Bloomberg
Mark Rutte has a new plan to keep Donald Trump from turning his back on NATO: Promise new defense deals that benefit the U.S. – Politico
A Russian surveillance ship was loitering near an ongoing NATO submarine warfare exercise in the Norwegian Sea, NATO’s Maritime Command said Thursday. – Defense News
The Netherlands has opened talks with the US government to acquire more AGM-158B Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile Extended Range (JASSM-ER) weapons for its fleet of F-35 fifth-generation fighter jets, according to a national defense projects document. – Breaking Defense
Joseph C. Sternberg writes: America’s vulnerabilities tend to arise from our failure to constrain an excess of animal spirits, while Europe’s malaise arises from its struggle to summon any. Again, which of these dilemmas you’d rather have isn’t a moral question. But it’s definitely a pressing political one. Europe’s emotional hypersensitivity to any discussion of these issues at root is a reason to be optimistic about the Continent, for those of us who want it to be more prosperous. A genuinely contented polity would be indifferent to such criticism. More Europeans are wondering how contented they truly are. – Wall Street Journal
Mihir Sharma writes: It will have to find the strength to face down critics from both left and populist right if the welfare bill is to ever be contained. And local authorities cannot be allowed to keep blocking house-building. Can any of Starmer’s challengers credibly promise to reexamine these constraints? Can they present something that differs from Starmerism in substance, and not just in presentation? They probably can’t. But they don’t need to in order to win. For that task they face a smaller constituency than the country as a whole. They merely need to placate their fellow party members who’ve been spooked by a year of disastrous opinion polls. And the Labour Party may decide that winning a second mandate requires different skills than winning a first — even if their promises stay the same. – Bloomberg
Africa
Medical personnel in the Democratic Republic of Congo know what it takes to get an Ebola outbreak under control. They have confronted 17 episodes of the disease in the past 50 years. – Washington Post
Uganda will tightly restrict travel to and from the Democratic Republic of Congo because of an Ebola outbreak, Ugandan officials announced on Thursday, as health workers in the region rush to stop the virus from spreading. – New York Times
Upon learning through the U.S. embassy that President Donald Trump was looking for African nations to take in deported third-country migrants, Eswatini was one of the first to volunteer despite questions over the legality of the program. – Reuters
Kenya’s President William Ruto said on Friday the government would cut the price of diesel in the East African country to provide relief to consumers after protests over soaring energy costs caused by the Middle East conflict. – Reuters
Nigeria’s anti-drug agency said it had dismantled a methamphetamine syndicate in the largest seizure of its kind in the country, seizing drugs and chemicals worth about $363 million and arresting 10 suspects, including three Mexicans. – Reuters
Police fired warning shots and tear gas as part of a dispute in northeastern Congo over the burial of a suspected Ebola victim, a footballer who played for local teams, that saw protesters burn down tents for Ebola patients, Reuters witnesses said. – Reuters
A global vaccine coalition official said on Thursday that cases so far identified in the Congo Ebola outbreak represent just the top of the iceberg and it may be hard to develop a safe, effective vaccine within a target time of three months. – Reuters
Her husband is one of more than 8,000 people who have gone missing during Sudan’s three years of war, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. – Associated Press
The US sanctioned a Tanzanian police chief over the alleged torture of detained human-rights activists in the lead-up to last year’s disputed presidential elections. – Bloomberg
The Americas
Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz was swept to power last year, shunting aside nearly a generation of socialist rule in this landlocked country and winning friends in the Trump administration for his pro-market views. – Wall Street Journal
The largest U.S. energy company, Exxon Mobil, is in talks to acquire rights to produce oil in Venezuela nearly two decades after it was effectively expelled from the country, according to several people familiar with the matter. – New York Times
Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro is seeking a meeting with President Donald Trump in Washington, two people familiar with the matter said, as the presidential hopeful looks to turn the page on news of his ties to a scandal-hit banker. – Reuters
The International Monetary Fund on Thursday approved a $1 billion disbursement to Argentina after completing a second review of its $20 billion programme, backing the government’s reform drive despite uneven progress. – Reuters
Gunmen opened fire in two separate attacks Thursday on the Honduran coast, killing at least 25 people, including six police officers, authorities said. – Associated Press
World Bank Group said on Thursday that it remains supportive of Bolivia’s reform agenda, as social protests spread across the country and the government announced a cabinet reshuffle. – Bloomberg
North America
Cuba’s armed forces once fielded tens of thousands of well-trained soldiers during the height of the Cold War, deploying to conflicts from Angola to Syria. Today, as the U.S. sends an aircraft carrier to the Caribbean in a pressure campaign to change the island’s Communist government, Cuba’s military is a ghost of its former self. – Wall Street Journal
The oil-rich Western Canadian province of Alberta will hold a vote in October asking its citizens if they want to remain a part of the country, or if they prefer to hold a binding referendum on seceding, its leader announced on Thursday. – New York Times
An Air France flight bound for Detroit was diverted to Montreal on Wednesday after it was denied permission to land in the United States because a passenger was from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where an Ebola outbreak is underway. – New York Times
Mexico’s dominant political party advanced legislation on Thursday to annul elections compromised by foreign interference, a clear shot at Washington after months of complaints from President Claudia Sheinbaum that the Trump administration is threatening Mexico’s sovereignty. – New York Times
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has told officials from her ruling Morena party to resign if they are involved in acts of corruption, according to two party sources, amid increased pressure from the U.S. against politicians in Mexico with alleged ties to the country’s powerful drug cartels. – Reuters
President Donald Trump and America’s top diplomat on Thursday again raised the specter of U.S. military intervention in Cuba, a renewed threat that takes on greater weight a day after the administration announced criminal charges against the island’s former leader, Raúl Castro. – Associated Press
Rep. Claudia Tenney writes: But this must start with honest and frank conversations between friends. I frequently meet with Canadian delegations and government officials who are happy to list their grievances with the U.S. in the trade space but some grow quiet and dismissive when asked about addressing U.S. concerns. We need to move forward constructively as billions in mutual economic benefits and cultural exchanges could needlessly be lost. With July 1 rapidly approaching, the time for political games and grandstanding is over. Canada must come to the table in good-faith by dropping its retaliatory actions and engaging seriously on the trade issues affecting both sides of our border. Together, we can build a stronger, more prosperous U.S.-Canada partnership. – The Hill
United States
The Trump administration said on Thursday that it would impose new entry restrictions for U.S. citizens who have recently been in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda or South Sudan, citing the Ebola outbreak in the region. – New York Times
Republican leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives unexpectedly canceled a vote on Thursday on a resolution seeking to end the Iran war unless President Donald Trump obtains Congress’ authorization, two days after a similar measure advanced in the U.S. Senate. – Reuters
U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Brian Mast has warned U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio of “Chinese malign influence” in a bid for a major contract in Argentina, according to a letter seen by Reuters. – Reuters
David Frum writes: American Jewish organizations spend an estimated 14 percent of their budgets on security, or about $765 million a year. These defenses exact a psychic toll as well as an economic one. The North American Jews of the 1960s and ’70s imagined that they had left the ghetto walls behind forever. Now new walls are rising around them, to protect against the violence stirred by campaigns of defamation. It’s all a long and sad distance from the brave declaration of belonging symbolized by the now-shattered windows of my boyhood synagogue. But the story is not over yet. There are Americans—and Britons and Canadians and Australians and Europeans, too—who remember that a society that turns on its Jewish minority eventually devours itself. The shots aimed at the windows of synagogues are aimed at larger targets. The advent of liberal modernity was announced by the dismantling of ghetto walls. The re-erection of those walls sounds a note of doom, and not only for the Jews. – The Atlantic
Cybersecurity
When President Trump announced late last year that Nvidia could sell one of its most powerful chips to China, the deal looked like a rare win-win in a fraying geopolitical relationship. It would provide a major boost for China’s artificial intelligence ambitions, while handing a win to America’s leading chipmaker. – New York Times
A strong rally in tech stocks has largely gone under the radar against a darkening backdrop for European equity markets as the energy shock triggered by the Iran war dampens economic growth. – Reuters
Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O), Google, Meta Platforms (META.O), and TikTok were hit with complaints from European Union consumer groups on Thursday for allegedly failing to protect users from financial scams on their platforms, putting them at risk of regulatory fines. – Reuters
Malaysia will introduce new measures from June 1 to protect children and reduce their exposure to harmful content on online platforms, its communications regulator said on Friday. – Reuters
Malaysia said Thursday it has ordered TikTok to explain and address what it described as the social media platform’s failure to act swiftly against offensive, defamatory and fake content targeting the royal institution. – Associated Press
An Australian judge fined X Corp. 650,000 Australian dollars ($465,000) on Thursday for failing to provide information to an online safety watchdog in 2023 about how it tackled child sexual exploitation content. – Associated Press
Authorities in Taiwan are investigating three people on suspicion of using forged documents to smuggle computer servers containing advanced Nvidia chips to China, prosecutors said Thursday. – Associated Press
Large online streaming services must contribute 15% of their Canadian revenues to Canadian content, the country’s federal broadcast regulator said Thursday. – Associated Press
President Donald Trump said he called off the signing of an executive order that would address cybersecurity concerns raised by powerful new artificial intelligence models because he objected to parts of the directive, casting doubt on US efforts to respond to new risks posed by the emerging technology. – Bloomberg
The European Union will propose temporarily lifting sanctions on a major Chinese semiconductor supplier after automakers warned of impending supply chain chaos if the ban isn’t removed. – Bloomberg
European authorities took down a prominent virtual private network service and arrested the alleged administrator behind an operation that cybercriminals used to steal data, commit fraud and ransomware attacks, Europol said Thursday. – Cyberscoop
Securing some of the open-source technology that serves as the backbone for all modern digital infrastructure is going to require some “hard decisions” amid a wave of malware attacks, the leader of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said Thursday. – Cyberscoop
The federal cybersecurity agency has created a new pathway for people outside of the U.S. government to report vulnerabilities to its catalog of bugs that have been exploited. – The Record
The British government’s plans to overhaul the country’s main cybercrime law would offer such narrow legal protections that most security researchers would be left in the same position as today, multiple sources briefed on the proposals have told Recorded Future News. – The Record
Editorial: Unfortunately, the desire by some lawmakers to hold out for a far-reaching national regulatory regime has prevented steps to address the low-hanging fruit. President Donald Trump has successfully lobbied some red states not to forge ahead with their own bills this year. Yet executive action cannot preempt state laws. Relying on Congress to do its job is typically a bad bet, but the AI stakes should be serious enough to jolt America’s most underachieving branch of government into action. – Washington Post
Defense
The U.S. military has depleted much of its inventory of advanced missile-defense interceptors after expending far more high-end munitions defending Israel amid hostilities with Iran than Israeli forces used themselves, according to Defense Department assessments described to The Washington Post. – Washington Post
The U.S. decision to suspend planned biannual defense talks with Canada follows deepening concern that Ottawa is failing to take steps to become a “credible” security partner, including by hiking military spending and completing a review of an F-35 fighter jet acquisition, a Pentagon official said on Thursday. – Reuters
The US Army Corps of Engineers finalized an easement for a stretch of the Dakota Access pipeline that passes under a North Dakota lake, ending a years-long environmental review of the hotly contested oil conduit. – Bloomberg
The remotely piloted MQ-9 Reaper was the workhorse in the U.S. air campaign against Iran, Air Force leaders told Congress on May 20, even as the service’s fiscal 2027 budget request still pours the bulk of aircraft dollars into crewed fighters. – Defense News
In the coming weeks, the Army will introduce an online marketplace where the United States’ allies and partners can quickly purchase American-made defense systems. – Defensescoop