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100: On Friday, 100 boats carrying over 10,000 of the world’s top athletes will float down the River Seine in Paris to kick off the biggest global sporting event. For the first time in Olympic history, the opening ceremony will not be held inside a stadium — a decision that stirred plenty of controversy due to concerns about the river’s cleanliness. France invested $1.5 billion to clean up the river ahead of the Summer Games.
2-1: Morocco defeated Argentina 2-1 in the opening match of the Olympic football tournament on Wednesday, after Moroccan fans stormed the field to protest a goal by Argentina that tied the score. The game was suspended for nearly two hours before the goal was ruled offside and disallowed; play then resumed – in an empty stadium.
30: Russian-lawyer-turned-French-chef Kirill Griaznov wasarrested on Sunday and faces up to 30 years in jail for charges over an alleged Russian plot to destabilize France during the Olympics. In a raid on his apartment, documents were found linking the chef to Russia’s secret service organization, the FSB. Details first emerged two months ago based on a call French intelligence intercepted in which Griaznov reportedlytold a Russian intelligence agent, “The French are going to have an opening ceremony like there has never been before.”
70: Hundreds of thousands have traveled to Paris to watch and compete in the Olympic Games, but trade in the City of Love hasgone down by 70% this past week. Heavy security measures from the Louvre to Île-Saint-Louis have left many shops and monuments entirely inaccessible and other areas restricted to those granted a special QR code in advance.
Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez and Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado greet supporters during a campaign rally for the presidential election in Valencia, Carabobo State, Venezuela, July 13, 2024.
Who isEdmundo González? He’s the opposition candidate with a chance, at least on paper, to unseat strongman President Nicolás Maduro in this weekend’s Venezuelan election. It’s a surprising position for this 74-year-old former diplomat who has never run for office and was virtually unknown to Venezuelans a few months ago. It’s more surprising that polls show him running ahead of Maduro.
But in a sense, Edmundo González is María Corina Machado, who won more than 90% of the vote in an open opposition primary in late October. Maduro-aligned judges on Venezuela’s supreme court then ruled her ineligible for election. After Machado’s first chosen replacement was also banned, she turned to the soft-spoken González, whose deliberately anodyne campaign message is that all Venezuelans must “come together.”
Meanwhile, it’s Machado on the campaign trail working hard to get out the vote while González remains safely on the sidelines. A vote for González is a vote for the popular Machado.
In the end, none of these opposition gymnastics are likely to matter. Maduro will almost certainly rig the election to stay in power, and it appears the military remains on his side. But this weekend’s vote is still one to watch.
For more on this weekend’s election, check out GZERO’s Viewpoint interview with Eurasia Group expert Risa Grais-Targowhere.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the Harris for President Campaign Rally on Tuesday July 23, 2024 at West Allis Central High School in West Allis, Wis.
Barack and Michelle ObamaendorsedKamala Harris as the Democratic nominee for US president on Friday, joining other high-profile Democratic Party leaders in backing the vice president’s bid for the White House.
“We called to say Michelle and I couldn’t be prouder to endorse you and to do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office,” the former president told Harris.
The announcement capped a big first week for Harris. Her campaign raised a whopping $231 million in just a few days, and Harris has already started to narrow Donald Trump’s lead in key swing states. Although she is still behind in four of the five states, she has substantiallyclosed the gap left by President Joe Biden.
Trump’s biggest lead is in Arizona, where he stands 5 points above Harris. But when Biden was the nominee, Trump was ahead by 10 points. The former president is now ahead of Harris by only 2 points in Georgia and Pennsylvania; by 1 point in Michigan; and in Wisconsin, the candidates are tied.
As Harris narrows the gap, she is alsobreaking fundraising records and galvanizing youth voters. But it is too soon to tell whether this momentum is sustainable or just a short-term swell of enthusiasm following Biden’s decision to exit the race.
President Joe Biden meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S., July 25, 2024.
While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was visiting the US this week, Hezbollah released drone footage of an Israeli air base located roughly 31 miles south of the Lebanese border.
The drone footage once again raises questions about Israel’s air defenses, which also failed to intercept a recent Houthi drone that killed one person in Tel Aviv. But the fact that Hezbollah publicized the footage is more about sending a message on its capabilities than a warning of an impending attack; the militant group has been clear that it does not seek a wider war in the region.
Israel and Hezbollah, the powerful Iran-backed militant group in Lebanon, have repeatedly traded cross-border fire since the war in Gaza began in October. Hezbollah has said it would stop attacking Israel if a cease-fire was reached in Gaza.
Both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were expected to urge Netanyahu to work toward a truce in Gaza when they met with him at the White House on Thursday. The meetings came a day after the Israeli leader’s controversial address to Congress, which was met with criticism from Democratic lawmakers. The speech also prompted anger in Israel and protests in Tel Aviv, with demonstrators calling for Netanyahu to focus his energy on a deal that would free the remaining hostages in Gaza.
Before heading home, Netanyahu is set to meet with former President Donald Trump in Florida on Friday, and we’ll be watching to see what emerges from that.
US artistic gymnast Simone Biles practices during an official training session at Bercy Arena in Paris on July 25, 2024, ahead of the Paris Olympics.
Every year, they try to tell us the Olympics aren’t political — and every year, we are reminded that’s nonsense.
From its earliest beginnings in ancient Greece, the on-field athletics have been a forum for off-the-rails politics: alliances, conflicts, and intrigues among the city-states. And in its modern incarnation, the Games have been no less political.
How could they not be? They’re a weaponless metaphor for war among nations. Who gets to host, compete, and win is a matter of priceless prestige and, of course, big money. What happens after the torch is lit is often a reflection of political battles that are going on elsewhere around the world.
This year will be no different. Here are three things to watch:
The US-China beef over dope. In 2021, nearly two dozen Chinese athletes tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs before the Tokyo Games.
The World Anti-Doping Agency, aka WADA, declined to investigate further because the samples were collected by Chinese anti-doping officials who said the athletes had been contaminated by hotel food (really, they said this). WADA had no authority to push further, it said. The athletes are now in Paris, ready to compete.
The US government, however, has opened its own probe into WADA’s response. This has greatly annoyed the Olympic bigwigs. On Wednesday, the IOC awarded the 2034 Winter Games to the US on the condition that American leaders fight to scrap the investigation. Fat chance of that happening.
The US and China locked in a dispute about science that a multilateral organization is feebly trying to tamp down? It’s COVID-24!
The long shadow of Gaza: In 2023, Russia — along with its mini-me, Belarus — was banned from Olympic competitions over the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.
This year, Israel has been in the spotlight over its invasion of Gaza in response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks. With the ICC having issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over alleged war crimes, pro-Palestine activist groups have called for Israel’s isolation and exclusion. A far-left French politician caused an uproar by saying Israeli athletes were “not welcome” in Paris. More officially, the Palestinian Olympic Committee has petitioned, in vain, for Israel’s exclusion on the grounds that the invasion has killed hundreds of Palestinian athletes.
Meanwhile, days before the opening ceremony, German sportswear company Adidas was in hot water for selecting Palestinian-American model Gigi Hadid, an outspoken supporter of Palestinian aspirations, to be the face of an ad reintroducing a 1972 model sneaker. Critics immediately pointed out that it was poor judgment: 1972 was the year Palestinian terrorists killed 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. Critics of the critics, meanwhile, said it was unfair to conflate support for Palestine with terrorism.
Whether it’s protests or political statements, expect the war in Gaza to figure prominently in the Games again before long.
The state of the stateless. In a competition among nation states, there is one group of athletes who represent none. This year there are 37 athletes on the IOC’s Refugee Team, the largest contingent of refugee and asylum-seeker athletes since the team was created in 2016.
They hail from 11 countries, including Syria, Sudan, Iran, and Afghanistan, which have seen some of the world’s worst refugee crises in recent memory. They include female breakdancer Manizha Talash, who fled the Taliban; weightlifter Yekta Jamali Galeh, a refugee from the Iranian theocracy; Syrian-born taekwondo fighter Adnan Khankan, who fled the civil war as a child; and Eritrean runner Tachlowini Gabriyesos.
The team itself has stoked controversy: Havana, for example, has disputed the inclusion of two Cuban athletes who it says are defectors and not victims of persecution or displacement.
But the refugee team’s growing size is a reflection of a broader, grim reality: There are currently 110 million people displaced from their homes around the world – the highest number since the World War II era.
The war in Sudan between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and Sudanese Armed Forces has created one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, and it is becoming increasingly apparent that the United Arab Emirates is playing a role in prolonging it.
Passports recovered from battlefields in Sudan suggest the United Arab Emirates is covertly putting boots on the ground to support the RSF — a charge the UAE denies. The allegations come after a UN report surfaced evidence the UAE has provided weapons to the RSF to the degree many analysts believe that “without the UAE’s alleged involvement, the conflict driving the world’s worst ongoing humanitarian crisis would already be over.”
Why would the UAE support the war? Sudan is key, militarily and economically, to the UAE’s strategy in Africa and the Middle East. Militarily, it has sourced fighters from both factions to join its conflict in Yemen. Economically, it is the primary importer of Sudan’s gold, and it plans to develop ports along its Red Sea coast. Meanwhile, Iran is supplying weapons to SAF, and Russia is supporting both sides in exchange for access to a strategic Red Sea port.
The United States plans to revive peace talks next month in Switzerland, where the UAE is invited to attend as an observer. US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield says Washington has “engaged” with the UAE on the issue. But Washington faces accusations of hypocrisy, as it calls for an end to weapons supplies in Sudan while continuing to provide billions’ worth to Israel during its offensive on Gaza.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken shakes hands with Chinese Communist Party's foreign policy chief Wang Yi during their bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia, Thursday, July 13, 2023.
On Thursday, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations met in Vientiane, Laos, to kick off a three-day summit focused on resolving Myanmar’s violent civil war and cooling tensions in the South China Sea. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are also attending – each with their own interests in mind.
In Myanmar, ASEAN nations have failed to make progress toward their “five-point consensus” unveiled in April 2021, two months after a military coup. Since then, the country has spiraled into a humanitarian crisis – with over 3 million displaced and more than 5,400 Burmese killed. ASEAN’s plan seeks an immediate cessation of violence, which has largely been ignored by junta leaders, calling into question the efficacy of the bloc amid fears of regional spillover.
This week’s talks hope to revive the much-criticized plan but are likely to face significant obstacles as competing geopolitical interests leave countries – including the US and China – supporting opposing factions.
On the South China Sea sovereignty issue, ASEAN is hoping to capitalize off the progress made on Sunday’s deal between China and the Philippines and to finalize a similar agreement of their own – a protracted code of conduct including China. Still, pessimism looms over how much these nations can achieve to ease these protracted issues in the region.
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