Today In Issues:
FDD Research & Analysis
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Israel, Morocco agree to upgrade diplomatic ties, Israeli government says Iran’s attempts to get around the Hormuz blockade are hitting a wall U.S. probes Iran link to cyberattacks on Texas-bound energy tankers Trump hopes Iran war nearing end as Houthi-Saudi fighting escalates Amnesty says Iran committed ‘crimes against humanity’ in crackdown on 2022 protests Russia says there is still time to stop an arms race in space after US orbital weapons admission Paris hosts military leaders to weigh post-UN mission in Lebanon WINEP’s Zohar Palti: Building an effective train-and-equip mission for Lebanon post-UNIFIL ‘Red line’: Houthis accused of targeting Mecca for first time in current flare-up Trump says allowing Canada to become associate member of EU could be ‘hostile act’ U.S. intelligence warns of China theft over sale of F-35 jets to Saudis State department extends visa ban on Abbas, other Palestinian officialsIn The News
Israel
The foreign ministers of Israel and Morocco agreed to upgrade diplomatic ties including opening embassies and appointing ambassadors, according to a statement on Wednesday by the official Israeli government account in Arabic on X. – Reuters
Gaza rescuers on Wednesday searched through the wreckage of a bombed-out apartment building that collapsed overnight, killing at least 20 Palestinians including children and trapping dozens of others beneath the rubble. – Reuters
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Wednesday to pass a law to revoke the citizenship of anyone who defames Israel’s soldiers, his latest threat against the Israeli directors of “NAZA”, a documentary about soldiers’ killing of Gaza civilians. – Reuters
The United States remains committed to disarming Hamas, and Defense Minister Israel Katz’s statement claiming that “everyone understands” that it will not happen goes against the Board of Peace’s efforts, a source close to the BoP told KAN News on Wednesday. – Jerusalem Post
Israel is considering additional steps against the Netherlands over its decision to ban trade in Israeli products from the West Bank, east Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights after a court in The Hague rejected a legal attempt to stop the measure, a diplomatic source said on Wednesday. – Jerusalem Post
The IDF killed a Nukhba commander in the Khan Yunis area last week who had been involved in the abduction of several Armored Corps soldiers during the October 7 massacre, the military announced on Wednesday. – Jerusalem Post
The Jerusalem District Court convicted four residents of Jerusalem’s Beit Safafa neighborhood on Wednesday in a case involving an alleged Iranian-directed plan to kill an Israeli nuclear scientist and his family, the State Attorney’s Office said. – Jerusalem Post
The Israeli mission to the United Nations and other critics have pushed back against an upcoming UN commemoration of the 2001 Durban conference against racism, an event that critics see as a landmark in contemporary discrimination against Jews. – Times of Israel
Iran
Iran vowed to respond to a U.S. blockade by pushing more trade overland. On the ground, it isn’t going according to plan. Hundreds of Iranian truck drivers are currently stuck at Iran’s border with Pakistan, unable to send their goods into Tehran’s neighbor. – Wall Street Journal
The U.S. is investigating whether Iran is behind the cyberattacks of two energy tankers bound for American ports, said U.S. officials familiar with the probe, which has sparked concerns that Tehran is looking for novel ways to widen the war in the Middle East. – Wall Street Journal
U.S. President Donald Trump said he hoped an end to the war against Iran was near, as the conflict, in its seventh month, escalated with Saudi aircraft pounding Yemen and Houthi fighters launching drones and missiles at Saudi cities. – Reuters
Commodity vessel transits through the Strait of Hormuz dwindled to just three ships on Wednesday, down from 12 a day earlier and well below the 10-day average of about 17, preliminary ship-tracking data showed on Thursday. – Reuters
Iranian authorities committed crimes against humanity in the crackdown on 2022 protests that left hundreds dead, Amnesty International said Wednesday, adding that Tehran’s suppression of new mass demonstrations earlier this year bore the “same hallmarks” but on an even wider scale. – Agence-France Presse
Sweden said Wednesday it had expelled an Iranian embassy employee and summoned the country’s ambassador, accusing Tehran of making threats against Jewish and Israeli interests in Sweden. – Agence-France Presse
Iran this week scored a diplomatic win at the UN’s atomic watchdog by securing a seat at the group’s organizing committee over US objections. That’s set to raise further hurdles for diplomacy on nuclear power. – Bloomberg
Iranian drone and missile attacks on US bases in the region during Operation Epic Fury might have been aided by Russian spy satellites, CNN reported on Wednesday. – Jerusalem Post
Editorial: Mahsa Amini never saw the movement that grew from the outrage over her death or the millions of people around the world who came to know her name. The Iran of September 2026 remains repressive, and many of the freedoms demanded by those who marched in 2022 remain unrealized. The shuttered shops in her hometown on Wednesday showed that four years after her death, Mahsa Amini remains a powerful symbol of the freedoms many Iranians are still demanding. – Jerusalem Post
Kamyar Behrang writes: The strategic formula is ultimately simple: Washington should stop treating the survival of the Islamic Republic as the necessary price of containing its behavior. It should prepare to help Iranians change the regime while preserving their country. If American power can be aligned with Iranian national leadership, institutional continuity, and the legitimacy of the ballot box, the end of the Islamic Republic need not inaugurate another Middle Eastern catastrophe. It could instead mark the end of one of the region’s longest-running strategic crises. – Jerusalem Post
Russia and Ukraine
Russia’s one-way attack drones—known as Gerans—are now equipped with turbojet engines. Relatively inexpensive to make, they are evading Ukrainian air defenses and hunting down their targets more quickly than their propeller-powered predecessors. – Wall Street Journal
Ukrainians are used to revelations of corruption in their government. But one case that emerged this month has managed to grab their attention, in part because of a vivid turn of phrase. – New York Times
Russia believes there is still time to prevent an arms race in space by drawing up a legally-binding international treaty to outlaw the deployment of offensive weapons there and called on the United States and other nations to set aside their scepticism about the idea, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Wednesday. – Reuters
Ukrainian drone forces killed a Russian general in eastern Ukraine on Saturday, a little over two weeks after he received a Hero of Russia award for his wartime service, Ukrainian drone commander Robert Brovdi said. – Reuters
President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday framed participation in an upcoming parliamentary election as a barometer of support for Russia’s war in Ukraine and urged Russians to vote. – Reuters
Russian air strikes injured 18 and damaged buildings in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and in the Black Sea port city of Odesa, among other locations, in the early hours of Thursday, officials said on the Telegram messaging app. – Reuters
A Russian court has convicted a Russian-Canadian national of treason and sentenced him to seven years in a penal colony for work he did for for separatist movements based outside Russia, the RIA state news agency reported on Wednesday. – Reuters
Russia carried out air attacks on Ukraine overnight as Ukrainian drones hit one of the largest Russian oil refineries, a fresh indication the sides haven’t agreed to an energy truce despite claims by US President Donald Trump. – Bloomberg
Russia is increasingly mobilizing North Korean workers to build military drones for use against Ukraine in defiance of international sanctions, giving Pyongyang a key source of revenue to fund its unlawful weapons programs, the US and its allies said in a report. – Bloomberg
Ken Harbaugh writes: The MAUL goes in when other options have failed. After every rescue, it is cleaned and disinfected. Vitaly, call sign “Ash,” is a medical-evacuation coordinator with the 1st Separate Medical Battalion. (He asked to be identified only by his first name and call sign for security reasons.) “You scrub and scrub,” he told me, “but the smell—it never goes away.” I asked Ash what MAUL stands for. “It’s not initials,” he explained. “It’s a Star Wars thing—you know, Darth Maul? We’ve got a few nerds here.” The name is in all caps because the battalion’s stencil kit has only capital letters. – The Atlantic
Maksym Skrypchenko writes: Ukrainian military trainers are showing partners where legacy training clashes with battlefield reality. In the Persian Gulf in early 2026, as the Iran War ramped up, countries acquired Ukrainian-designed interceptors to counter incoming Iranian Shaheds, then returned to Kyiv for help using them. As Davyd Aloian of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council noted, “The interceptor drone is only a drone. It doesn’t mean that you will be able to shoot down Shaheds with it.” Russia isn’t waiting. In August 2024, Moscow created Rubicon, a dedicated drone center employing some 5,000 personnel as of spring 2026 to help copy Ukrainian innovations and develop new systems. While Washington buys access one contract at a time, Russia is attempting to carry battlefield lessons directly into its forces. – The National Interest
Turkey
The authorities in Turkey have arrested dozens of people since early Sunday as part of a broad crackdown on L.G.B.T.Q. activists and associations, according to officials, rights groups and lawyers for the detained. – New York Times
Turkey’s Capital Markets Board filed criminal complaints against 38 people whom it barred from trading on Borsa Istanbul for two years over alleged manipulation of the shares of three listed companies, it said in a bulletin early on Wednesday. – Reuters
Turkey’s Capital Markets Board approved the liquidation of six funds managed by Golden Global Portfoy, according to its bulletin, following U.S. sanctions imposed on companies linked to the group over Iran-related activities. – Reuters
Ankara considers Greece’s militarization of the Aegean Islands a security threat, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said, as tensions between the two neighbors rise. – Politico
Lebanon
European and Arab military chiefs will meet in Paris on Thursday to assess the Lebanese Armed Forces’ needs and discuss the looming end of a United Nations peacekeeping mission, amid fears of a renewed Israeli military campaign in southern Lebanon. – Reuters
Kicking up a column of dust, the United Nations peacekeeping vehicles were the only cars on the road as they passed bombed-out buildings on their way to Christian towns deep in southern Lebanon’s Israeli-occupied zone. – Reuters
Israeli Ambassador to Washington Yechiel Leiter met with his Lebanese counterpart, Nada Hamadeh Moawad, in Washington on Tuesday night, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel, after a round of peace talks between the two countries was postponed. – Agence-France Presse
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun told AFP in an exclusive interview that he wants a security agreement with Israel once it withdraws its troops as a possible prelude to a peace deal, and is determined to disarm Hezbollah without a confrontation. – Agence-France Presse
Zohar Palti writes: For the international community, ending UNIFIL would give officials a chance to redirect resources and decades of accumulated experience toward better objectives: a stronger Lebanese state, a Lebanese army that is capable of controlling the south, a Hezbollah that is unable to rebuild its military capabilities, and an Israel that can withdraw without leaving a security vacuum. UNIFIL was a solution for a different era. A strengthened LAF, temporarily supported by a credible international capacity-building mechanism, can serve as the bridge to a new era—one in which emerging diplomatic channels between Israel and Lebanon develop into a comprehensive peace and security agreement. – Washington Institute
Arabian Peninsula
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels said Wednesday that they shot down a Saudi F-15 jet fighter and released video footage that appeared to show charred aircraft debris, as the deepening conflict on the Arabian peninsula worsens energy-supply disruptions. – Wall Street Journal
Debris discovered in Yemen indicates that Saudi Arabia has fired a Chinese-made ballistic missile in combat for the first time, Yemeni officials and weapons experts said, in a move likely aimed at signaling to the kingdom’s Houthi rivals that it has other weapons in its arsenal. – Wall Street Journal
US officials met representatives of Yemen’s Houthis in Oman over the weekend, five sources familiar with the matter said, days after the Iran-backed militia seized a strategic stretch of the Red Sea coast in a sweeping offensive that routed Saudi-backed forces. – Reuters
Abdul Malik al-Houthi, an elusive figure who commands a battle-hardened force, scored his biggest military victory in years when his Iran-aligned Houthi militant group swept through Yemen’s Red Sea coastline and tightened their grip on a vital shipping waterway, rattling oil superpower Saudi Arabia. – Reuters
The Saudi-led coalition battling Yemen’s Houthis accused the rebels on Wednesday of targeting Islam’s holy city Mecca, sparking outrage across the Muslim world and deepening the conflict roiling the region. – Times of Israel
Saudi Arabia struck the Al-Barh bridge in southwestern Yemen early on Thursday morning, Ynet reported citing the Houthi-linked news channel Al-Masirah. – Jerusalem Post
Middle East & North Africa
A destroyed aircraft, shredded tents, trailers that have been ripped apart: images taken by US troops show significant damage from Iranian strikes targeting American military assets in the Middle East, CBS News reported. – Agence-France Presse
Hundreds of oil tanker trucks were stranded in northeastern Syria’s Kurdish region Wednesday after demonstrators blocked a major highway near the town of Tal Tamr in protest over rising fuel prices. – Associated Press
A former Syrian military official convicted of torturing prisoners during President Bashar Assad’s regime is facing a possible decades-long prison sentence in the U.S. – Associated Press
A Jewish man who has been imprisoned in Iraq for 11 years was released today following a coordinated international effort. – Jerusalem Post
Korean Peninsula
His nation is now a de facto nuclear power. Its economy is growing at the fastest pace in years. He has been courted by the leaders of China, Russia and the United States. – New York Times
North Korea’s vice defence minister said on Thursday that a growing U.S.-led military buildup and what he called an expanding nuclear alliance among Washington, Seoul and Tokyo justified Pyongyang’s efforts to strengthen and expand its nuclear forces. – Reuters
Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, denounced the International Atomic Energy Agency’s general assembly that discussed the denuclearization of Pyongyang, state media KCNA reported on Thursday, calling the meeting a “familiar silly talk.” – Reuters
Joseph Seeley writes: And this diplomacy did have some meaningful results — in 2018, for example, North Korea did not conduct a single major missile test. A new round of talks based on genuine U.S. efforts toward military deescalation in Korea is worth consideration. The current U.S. administration has shown that it is willing to shake up harmful status quos. This should include the dangerous status quo that keeps the Korean War going 76 years later. After 76 years of the Korean War, it is in everyone’s interest to promote measures toward a lasting peace. – The Hill
China
Beijing showed off its close ties to Tehran on Wednesday by hosting Iran’s top diplomat days before an expected summit between President Trump and China’s leader, Xi Jinping. – New York Times
US allies in Asia are growing anxious that President Donald Trump may be tempted to soften Washington’s support for Taiwan in return for an economic win with Beijing as he prepares to host Chinese leader Xi Jinping next week. – Reuters
Andrew Mertha writes: The CCP is not going to collapse: the file system exists precisely to prevent elite fracture, and it has worked. What is likely to emerge instead is a state that is militarily weaker and politically stronger than most assessments suggest. The greatest source of uncertainty now is Xi’s eventual succession. Beijing’s own theorists are watching this, too, because they know that even a well-engineered system of rectification that has kept the party strong for a century has no answer for an elite power struggle over who comes next. – Foreign Affairs
Orville Schell writes: After all, it only took two months after Trump kowtowed to Xi in Beijing for glints of his hawkishness to resurface. Claiming once more that he had defeated Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential race, Trump cited new, unverified evidence that Beijing had tampered with the election. Next, he announced new tariffs against China, justifying them as efforts to discourage forced labor there and needling a longtime sticking point in U.S.-Chinese relations. Should Trump end up feeling so unrequited at this next meeting with Xi that he starts hurling more lightning bolts at China, this summit could end up being even less productive than the one in May. – Foreign Affairs
South Asia
The rescue workers dug with bare hands and squeezed through drowned crevices, hoping six men at a Nepali hydropower project had survived the floods that inundated a Himalayan river corridor last month. But on Wednesday, their search turned up human remains. – New York Times
India warned that a US bill allowing President Donald Trump to impose tariffs of as much as 100% on top buyers of Russian oil could hurt ties between New Delhi and Washington and disrupt global energy markets. – Bloomberg
Kriti Upadhyaya writes: The operational gap also shows up in funding. India’s dedicated defense AI agency was set up with about $12 million spread across five years, and Indian military AI spending overall has been estimated at roughly $50 million a year. In sharp contrast, the Pentagon requested $13.4 billion for AI-enabled systems in a single fiscal year. The gap in military AI use and development is a partnership problem. For two decades, interoperability between the United States and India has meant platforms and plumbing. The foundational agreements signed by the two countries between 2002 and 2020—GSOMIA, LEMOA, COMCASA, BECA and ISA—were built to let the two militaries share secure communications, cooperate on logistics, and share geospatial intelligence. – The National Interest
Asia
Fiji has declared a national crisis amid an extraordinary rise of H.I.V. cases, with health officials raising the alarm about an epidemic that has emerged alongside an increase in injectable drug use. – New York Times
Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto has called for stricter regulations and sanctions against those who use slash and burn methods to clear land, as the country struggles to contain wildfires that have been raging for weeks. – Reuters
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Thursday retained key ministers in a cabinet reshuffle, including her reflationist ally Minoru Kiuchi as economy minister, pointing to no change to her flagship spending plans. – Reuters
Myanmar’s military-backed government on Wednesday freed U.S. citizen Adam Castillo, who had been detained since June following a business dispute, after what a group involved in securing his release said were efforts by the Trump administration. – Reuters
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said on Wednesday he would invite Myanmar’s junta chief-turned-President Min Aung Hlaing for an official visit in return for his government accepting the return of thousands of Rohingya Muslim refugees. – Reuters
Former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte appeared in public for the first time on Wednesday since being transferred to the International Criminal Court 18 months ago to face murder charges related to his war on drugs. – Reuters
Taiwan’s coast guard is planning its first visit to the Philippines in decades, strengthening ties as China boosts naval activity in the region. Funding for the visit is included in Taiwan’s 2027 budget, though it’s unclear if more than one vessel would be dispatched. – Bloomberg
Georgia’s ruling party expanded a legal push to outlaw the parliamentary opposition, moving to initiate a ban of the final major group remaining in the legislature. – Bloomberg
Gordon G. Chang writes: Gatling said the Japanese government, when speaking about Veer Guardian 26, has emphasized “capacity-building, bilateral trust, and Indo-Pacific stability.” Japan’s newspapers, however, are more plain-speaking. Asahi Shimbun, not known for nationalistic views, dares to mention the word “China” in this context. Candor in the Japanese capital is needed. China is engaging in belligerent air and naval maneuvers in its campaign to seize from Japan eight uninhabited islands and rocks in the East China Sea and is now laying the groundwork to claim the Ryukyu chain from Tokyo. Although there is still reluctance in Tokyo’s governing circles to speak clearly, China is the reason Japan is sending jets a long distance to India. – The Hill
Europe
The European Union’s top official said she would work to make Canada the bloc’s first associate member, a major shift indicative of the new ties traditional U.S. allies are forging with each other in the face of hostility from the Trump administration. – Wall Street Journal
An international tribunal convicted the former president of Kosovo of war crimes during the separatist war against Serbia and sentenced him to 25 years in prison, one of the final verdicts in a series of landmark trials arising from the bloody dissolution of the former Yugoslavia. – Wall Street Journal
Belarus on Wednesday released 25 political prisoners after a visit from President Trump’s envoy, continuing a thaw in relations between the United States and the Eastern European nation’s autocratic leader, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko. – New York Times
Sweden’s centre-left opposition has defeated the incumbent right-wing governing bloc by the slimmest of margins, public broadcaster SVT said on Wednesday, after 99% of the votes in Sunday’s parliamentary election had been counted. – Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy to Belarus, John Coale, told Reuters on Wednesday he expects to visit the country again around one month from now, hoping to secure the release of hundreds more prisoners. – Reuters
Voters looked set to reject constitutional changes that would bar Switzerland from cooperating with NATO or imposing sanctions on other countries, two polls showed before a referendum on the issue later this month. – Reuters
The European Union needs a NATO-like mechanism to better respond to drone incidents, acts of sabotage and cyberattacks across Europe, many of them blamed on Russia, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday. – Associated Press
Britain should not feel “locked into” pre-Brexit EU environmental rules as it tries to rapidly boost its nuclear power capacity, a top adviser to the government has warned. – Politico
Germany will deploy Eurofighter jets to Latvia to help protect its airspace during next month’s parliamentary election as repeated drone incursions have raised security concerns along NATO’s eastern flank. – Politico
Africa
Scores of people died and dozens of others were missing after shafts collapsed at an artisanal gold mine in Sudan, a charity group said on Wednesday. – New York Times
The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation said on Wednesday it would invest up to $155 million in African digital infrastructure provider WIOCC, underscoring Washington’s support for projects seen as critical to the expansion of U.S. technology companies. – Reuters
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on Wednesday for countries providing weapons to the warring parties in Sudan that are used to attack civilians to be held accountable. – Reuters
The World Health Organization said on Wednesday there were encouraging signs measures to contain an Ebola epidemic in Democratic Republic of Congo were gaining ground, though it warned the outbreak was “far from over.” – Reuters
South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir has replaced the head of the election commission, only about three months before the first national election since independence in 2011. – Reuters
The Americas
Billionaire oil baron Harold Hamm signed a tentative agreement Wednesday to venture into Venezuela to explore one of the Latin American country’s undeveloped heavy-oil fields. – Wall Street Journal
The United States has removed Venezuela from its list of countries which have failed to demonstrably combat illegal drug trafficking for the first time in more than 20 years, U.S. President Donald Trump said in a statement on Wednesday, adding he may consider removing neigboring Colombia. – Reuters
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado faces a growing dilemma over when to return home from abroad to rally support amid reticence from the Trump administration about her homecoming, four opposition sources and two political analysts said. – Reuters
A U.N.-mandated probe said on Wednesday that Venezuela’s apparatus of repression remains largely intact despite a reduction in some abuses following President Nicolas Maduro’s removal from power earlier this year. – Reuters
Tony Frangie Mawad writes: When Funvisis technicians went to recover the readings the sensor had stored, they found that the machine had gone missing. More than two months after the earthquakes, the organization still does not know who carried it off. The absent sensor is but one gauge of a state that has lost the capacity to govern. Venezuela once operated 250 to 300 seismic-monitoring stations; today, no more than five still function. Many of the engineers, physicians, nurses, firefighters, and rescue workers a country depends on when disaster strikes have long since left Venezuela—part of a generation-long exodus of skilled professionals from state institutions. – The Atlantic
North America
President Trump said Wednesday that allowing Canada to become an associate member of the European Union could be a “hostile act” and threatened additional tariffs on European countries. – Wall Street Journal
Canada, seeking to diversify its defense ties away from the United States, has formally applied to join the British-led Joint Expeditionary Force military coalition, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s office said on Wednesday. – Reuters
Editorial: Carney’s willingness to align with von der Leyen reflects the degree to which Trump has alienated traditional allies. But time is a great healer. In this case, Canada and the U.S. are due for a reset in just over two years. A new president will take office in January 2029, and the disastrous results of tit-for-tat tariffs, if they continue, will be even more apparent on both sides of the border. By then, though, Canadians could find themselves firmly in the grip of Brussels bureaucrats. – Washington Post
Will Freeman writes: They should have no illusions that Cuba’s leaders, with fewer sanctions, will be able to rebuild state institutions, lower inequality, or restore social cohesion. The leadership’s objective is to remain in power. A third way may still be possible: a new offer of targeted sanctions relief, focused on alleviating the humanitarian crisis, in exchange for specific political and economic reforms that could weaken the regime’s control. Even if Havana has rejected such deals before, it is worth attempting. But whatever path Washington chooses, it must consider the costs of delay—already high and only rising. – Foreign Affairs
United States
A top Democrat said he would oppose President Trump’s planned $2.8 billion military aid package for Israel, saying it raises “grave, unresolved concerns” about how the heavy bombs would be used in densely packed areas in Gaza and Lebanon. – Wall Street Journal
The House passed legislation Wednesday that gives President Trump new authority to level tariffs and is intended to squeeze the biggest importers of Russian oil and gas, a measure designed to punish Moscow for the invasion of Ukraine. – Wall Street Journal
U.S. intelligence officers have expressed concerns in internal reports about possible Chinese espionage related to a pending sale of dozens of advanced F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia valued at $24 billion, according to American officials. – New York Times
The State Department announced Wednesday that it would continue to deny visas to Palestinian officials because of actions taken by their governing and political groups that “internationalize the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” including trying to bring cases to international tribunals. – New York Times
Democratic and Republican U.S. senators asked President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday to declassify and release all information about a proposed agreement with Saudi Arabia on civil nuclear energy, including two classified “side letters” reached with Riyadh. – Reuters
U.S. prosecutors have charged five people allegedly working for Russian intelligence with conspiracy to finance terrorism and, in three cases, conspiracy to commit murder for hire. – Politico
Cybersecurity
After White House artificial intelligence adviser David Sacks got President Trump to scrap a planned executive order in May that would subject AI models to an extended government review, senior administration officials including Scott Bessent and Susie Wiles were caught off guard and unhappy. – Wall Street Journal
The European Union’s top official said Brussels has plans to stop children under 13 from accessing social networks and restrict what teenagers can do online. – Wall Street Journal
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney discussed opportunities and challenges presented by artificial intelligence and agreed on the importance of governments and the technology sector working together to address shared concerns and protect online safety, Downing Street said on Wednesday. – Reuters
The United Nations chief urged global competitors in artificial intelligence on Wednesday to cooperate in addressing threats from the technology, warning that “the world cannot afford a race to the bottom on AI safety.” – Associated Press
OpenAI has disclosed six reports of “unexpected or concerning” behavior in artificial-intelligence models as the debate on AI safety becomes increasingly heated. – Associated Press
Anthropic’s policy chief Sarah Heck said Wednesday that the U.S. can’t make artificial intelligence safer if it falls behind China in the global tech race. – Politico
In early March, a three-word slogan appeared on X: “Hands Off Asia!” […] That was just the start of the political warfare. By the end of April, the slogan had a launch event chaired in Beijing. A conference in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, turned it into a signed declaration in July. – Newsweek
Ukraine’s parliament approved tougher criminal penalties for involvement in fraudulent call centers and the theft of personal data, following a corruption scandal in which prosecutors were accused of taking bribes to protect scam operations. – The Record
The International Meteor Organization (IMO) has continued tracking asteroids and meteor through its Facebook page, but its website now carries a static page notifying visitors of the cyberattack. – The Record
Editorial: Politicians are using the calls over the weekend for an AI slowdown by the CEOs of Anthropic, OpenAI and xAI to push for government control of AI. “The future of artificial intelligence must be decided by the American people through their democratically elected representatives in government—not by a handful of CEOs and billionaire corporations,” said Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday. The bigger risk is collusion between politicians and a handful of AI CEOs who write the rules for everyone else. – Wall Street Journal
Madhavi Singh writes: Why do these companies now claim they need an industrywide agreement to do what their own governance structures were designed to make possible? Blaming antitrust law rather than their own choices is at best a convenient excuse for abandoning the principles they were founded to uphold. At worst, the exemption is a Trojan horse: a vehicle to insulate incumbents from competition while doing far more than coordinate on safety. – Wall Street Journal
Defense
The defense leaders of Germany and the United States have signed an agreement positioning Germany as an additional production hub where workers can make scarce munitions for American weapons if stateside U.S. firms are overwhelmed by demand. – Defense News
The possibility of an adversary detonating a nuclear weapon in space to disrupt U.S. satellite infrastructure and the global communications networks that rely on it is no longer a remote scenario, according to multiple officials. – Defense News
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, emphasized that the joint force must prove readiness ahead of a conflict in a time when adversaries are becoming increasingly interconnected amid the changing character of war. – Defense News
The Air Force wants 100 new low-cost, long-range autonomous aircraft in its fleet by 2029 and 500 just three years later. – Military.com
The Pentagon is partnering with an organization focused on unmanned system competitions to run its Top Drone program, officials said this week, teeing up events that will pit remote pilots against each other under a core blueprint. – Defensescoop
John Spencer writes: Leaders can take a first step by prohibiting technology during meals, fitness or other routines. Service members need time to decompress and come together without phones. After traumatic events, they also need to process what happened face to face before returning to screens. This will allow leaders to identify signs of isolation and withdrawal before they escalate into a major mental health crisis (or a damaging headline that emboldens our enemies). The Lincoln’s crew accomplished its mission under extreme conditions. Their experience is another wake-up call our military needs to answer. – Wall Street Journal
Eric Ventimiglia writes: Whatever the truth may be, the dispute is a useful entry point to a much older problem, one that predates this war and seemingly will outlast it. Over the past several weeks, major defense contractors have issued a steady stream of announcements touting new production of critical munitions. But read the fine print and you see that these deals are somewhat less than meets the eye. “These are not contracts; they are agreements to agree,” Tom Karako, who directs the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told DefenseScoop. “I’m seeing a lot of cheerleading and a lot of premature celebration.” – Washington Examiner