What We're Watching: A big blast hits Iran, Serbia and Kosovo sit down again, Dominican Republic has a new president

Iran's main nuclear site gets hit: An explosion at the Natanz nuclear site, Iran's main nuclear facility, will likely set back Tehran's nuclear program by months, the Islamic Republic confirmed Sunday. A powerful bomb evidently destroyed infrastructure that Iran has used in recent years to build more advanced centrifuges to enrich uranium — fuel that can be used to make an atomic bomb. The attack has been widely attributed to Israel, though the Israeli government rarely acknowledges actions carried out by its intelligence agencies. Since President Trump walked away from the Iranian nuclear deal in 2018, isolating the US from its European allies, Iran has flouted its own commitments by ramping up its production of enriched uranium and blocking international inspectors from key nuclear facilities. Now, analysts warn that this latest episode could push Iran to move more of its enrichment programs in harder-to-find places underground.

Serbia-Kosovo to resume talks: EU-sponsored talks between longtime foes Kosovo and Serbia will resume this week, almost two years after a disagreement over territorial exchanges prompted Kosovo to slap 100 percent tariffs on Serbian products. The aim of the talks is to reach a peace deal between Serbia and Kosovo, the majority-Albanian region of Serbia that suffered a campaign of Serb-directed ethnic cleansing in the late 1990s and then declared independence with US and EU backing in 2008. Though the EU has long brokered talks between the rivals in the hopes of stabilizing the Western Balkans and strengthening their ties with the EU, the US has recently tried to play a more prominent role in overseeing a détente between the two sides, presenting a rival plan that riled the EU. Meanwhile, Kosovo's President Hashim Thaçi was forced to abandon a meeting with President Trump last month when the Hague announced they had filed war crimes charges against him.

The Dominican Republic has a new president: Opposition candidate Luis Abinader is poised to become the next president of the Dominican Republic after amassing an insurmountable lead over the incumbent, Gonzalo Castillo. Abinader, a US-educated businessman whose second surname is, as it happens, Corona, won despite having to briefly suspend his campaign to recover from the coronavirus himself. The vote had originally been planned for May but was postponed due to the pandemic. Abinader will be just the second member of the Lebanese diaspora to lead a Caribbean country after Robert Malval, who was prime minister of neighboring Haiti from 1993-1994. In addition to addressing the devastating economic blow of losing tourism inflows, Abinader will also have to manage a delicate issue with neighboring Haiti: the spread of COVID-19 in Haiti attributed to migrants returning home from the Dominican Republic.

More from GZERO Media

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attend a press conference, on the day they attend a virtual meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump and European leaders on the upcoming Trump-Putin summit on Ukraine, in Berlin, Germany, August 13, 2025.
REUTERS/Liesa Johannssen

During a planned group call later today, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and some of his fellow European leaders will press US President Donald Trump to consult Kyiv more deeply.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and then-Indian ambassador to Russia Pankaj Saran attend a ceremony to hand over credentials at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, on April 20, 2016.

REUTERS/Kirill Kudryavtsev/Pool

Amid US President Donald Trump’s tariff threats, GZERO spoke to former Indian Ambassador to Russia Pankaj Saran to better understand why India’s relationship with Russia is so crucial to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

This summer, Microsoft released the 2025 Responsible AI Transparency Report, demonstrating Microsoft’s sustained commitment to earning trust at a pace that matches AI innovation. The report outlines new developments in how we build and deploy AI systems responsibly, how we support our customers, and how we learn, evolve, and grow. It highlights our strengthened incident response processes, enhanced risk assessments and mitigations, and proactive regulatory alignment. It also covers new tools and practices we offer our customers to support their AI risk governance efforts, as well as how we work with stakeholders around the world to work towards governance approaches that build trust. You can read the report here.

Supporters of coalition parties PDCI (Democratic Party of Cote d'Ivoire) and PPA-CI (African People's Party of Cote d'Ivoire) march to protest the removal of their leaders names, Tidjane Thiam and Laurent Gbagbo, from the electoral list calling for an inclusive and peaceful election in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, August 9, 2025.
Matrix Image/Joseph Zahui

Africa is one of the youngest regions on earth. Yet several of its most powerful leaders are in their 70s and 80s – and they’re refusing to cede power, despite growing opposition to their rule.