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What We’re Watching: The CIA returns to LatAm, Russia faces oil squeeze, China cracks down on church network
Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro prepares to leave at the end of a press conference, days after he said Venezuela would deploy military, police and civilian defenses at 284 "battlefront" locations across the country, amid heightened tensions with the U.S., in Caracas, Venezuela, September 15, 2025.
Does Trump want regime change in Venezuela?
The 1970s called: US President Donald Trump confirmed a report yesterday that he authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to conduct covert operations in Venezuela, the latest military escalation from the White House against the Latin American nation. The exact nature of the operation is unclear, though Trump said he’s exploring land operations. Venezuelan bonds have jumped amid the escalation. So far, the US military has bombed several ships that have come from Venezuela, killing 27 people, but has yet to hit Venezuela within its borders. The US has been rapidly expanding its military presence in the region, which begs the question of whether Trump actually wants to remove Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from office.
Is Russia about to face the squeeze?
Indian oil refiners are reportedly preparing to cut purchases of Russian oil, a move that could have major consequences for the Kremlin’s war effort in Ukraine. Moscow stands to lose a large tranche of export income: Oil comprises the bulk of its exports, and India is the second-largest importer of this fossil fuel behind China. The move comes as the US explores sending tomahawks missiles to Ukraine – Trump is set to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington tomorrow to discuss further military support. There is some debate, though, over whether India will actually turn off the taps – Delhi wants to maintain good standing with Moscow, and appeared to deny the report. For more on why India values its relationship with Russia, read here.
Attending a “house church” in China could get you arrested
China has arrested dozens of Christians in its largest crackdown in years. The arrests are believed to target Zion Church’s underground “house church” network, which operate in private homes outside strict Chinese regulations on religious life. Rights groups say this may signal a wider campaign against underground churches as President Xi Jinping tightens control. US officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio have condemned the arrests, while Zion Church’s leaders say persecution will only strengthen China’s underground faith.
Former UK prime minister Tony Blair and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi attend the world leaders' summit on ending the Gaza war, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on October 13, 2025.
At first glance, it might seem odd that Tony Blair is leading the Western proposal for the future of Gaza.
It’s been 18 years since Blair exited 10 Downing Street, ending a historic decade in power that featured three election victories – including two landslide wins – that marked the peak of the Labour Party’s powers in the United Kingdom. Yet he played a major role in brokering the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and is now part of the “Board of Peace” that, under the ceasefire deal, will aim to ensure a permanent cessation of fighting in the region.
To better understand the former UK prime minister and his interests in Gaza’s future, it’s worthwhile to go back and examine his record.
From a domestic perspective, many praised Blair’s time in power, which ran from 1997 to 2007. He introduced a national minimum wage while bringing the unemployment rate to its lowest level in decades. He created a program called “Sure Start” to boost education for young children in low-income areas, the benefits of which the UK is still realizing. Annual growth rates averaged about 3% during his time in power, the likes of which his successors could only dream.
“But Iraq.” These two words have become modern-day parlance in the United Kingdom for a fatal flaw. For all his domestic success, Blair’s decision to join US President George W. Bush in invading the Middle East country in 2003 prompted a major backlash. Between one and two million took to the streets of London that year to protest the decision in what was the largest demonstration in the city’s history. Though Blair retained power after the 2005 election, his legacy would be tarnished forever. In case you missed it, the decision to invade Iraq backfired, leaving Iraq in ruins and exacerbating the issue of terrorism.
Blair’s foreign policy wasn’t a complete bust. He is considered a hero in Kosovo after he helped gather an international coalition to end the Serbian crackdown on the enclave in 1999. Many young boys there are now named after the former Labour leader.
But he still wants to have a say in the Middle East. In truth, Blair never stopped caring about the region. The same day he resigned from UK office, he was appointed as special envoy of the Middle East Quartet, a group comprising the United Nations, the United States, the European Union, and Russia that tries to mediate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Bush administration had pushed for his appointment, but he didn’t achieve much, and resigned from the post in 2015 after eight years. The next year, he set up his think tank, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. With help from the world’s one-time richest man – which has drawn some scrutiny – the group has become arguably the most influential UK think tank, and was even involved in drawing up plans for the future of Gaza.
What’s his plan? The former UK leader released a 21-point proposal last month. This included establishing the Gaza International Transitional Authority to manage Gaza on an interim basis, a long-term goal of placing all Palestinian territories under the Palestinian Authority, and creating a security force – known as the International Stabilization Force – to maintain peace between Gazan residents and to nullify Hamas. Unlike some other plans, Blair’s one excludes any encouragement of the “voluntary migration” of Gazans out of the Strip.
The plan has been 14 years in the making, per the Vision of Humanity: Blair helped fashion a report in 2011 about building infrastructure and creating governance in Gaza.
Blair then helped US special envoy Steve Witkoff and former White House adviser Jared Kushner to create a US plan for Gaza this month, one that borrowed from the UK leader’s prior proposals. This plan – backed by many Arab states – would create a “Board of Peace” that will temporarily govern the enclave, with US President Donald Trump acting as its chairman and Blair as one of the board members. It doesn’t explicitly name any other leaders who would be part of this body. Drawing on Blair’s roadmap, Washington’s plan also calls to establish the International Stabilization Force.
Is Blair really going to govern Gaza? The plan isn’t set in stone, but it looks that way – especially after the Palestinian Authority endorsed the idea of giving him a role. Hamas has rejected giving a role to the former UK leader, but the plan also says the militant group can’t have a role in the future governance of Gaza, so their vote might not count for much. If Blair does nab a role, can he achieve some measure of redemption, and finally restore something that he cherishes now more than ever: his legacy?
Federal officers detain a man at the Immigration court office areas at the Jakob Javits Federal Builing in Lower Manhattan on July 28,2025 in New York City.
48: Pakistan and Afghanistan agreed to a 48-hour ceasefire after a series of skirmishes along their 1,622-mile long border over the last week. The two neighbors have long had a testy relationship, dating back to Afghanistan’s vote against allowing Pakistan to join the United Nations in 1947. Their current tensions center on the Taliban’s reporting funding for a militant group that seeks to undermine the Pakistani government.
14%: Soy plantations cover 14% of Brazil’s agricultural land – and they are now the subject of a major geopolitical muddle involving the US and China. At stake are Brazil’s rainforests. Beijing has stopped buying soybeans from the US amid a broader trade dispute, and seeks to fill the shortfall through Brazil, which could threaten President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s efforts to stem deforestation.
79: South Korea is working to rescue citizens trapped in Cambodia’s online scam centers, where hundreds have been trafficked, tortured, or killed after being lured by fake job offers. Officials say 79 remain missing. The crackdown follows US, UK, and Chinese actions against Southeast Asia’s multibillion-dollar cybercrime networks.Chart of the most consequential Supreme Court cases of 2025.
The 2025 Supreme Court term began this month, ushering in a slate of cases that could reshape American governance. No one will be watching more closely than President Donald Trump, whose efforts to expand executive power and limit independent oversight will be under the judicial microscope.
Here are the biggest cases to watch:
Is it time to end the Voting Rights Act? Louisiana v. Callais
Louisiana v. Callais will be argued today. It could upend the Voting Rights Act (VRA), the landmark 1965 law that outlawed discriminatory practices that were designed to limit people's access to the ballot on the basis of race. Before the VRA, African Americans in the South — though granted suffrage by the 15th Amendment in 1870 — were often disenfranchised by literacy tests, poll taxes, and gerrymandered districts designed to dilute their political power.
Today, Section 2 of the VRA is frequently used, most often by Democrats, to challenge electoral maps that diminish the voting strength of minority groups. Louisiana vs Callais arose after courts ordered Louisiana to create one more majority-Black congressional district in order to better reflect the state’s demographics. In practice, this would also create a safer district for Democrats in a state that is controlled by the GOP.
The state is arguing that all “race-based redistricting is unconstitutional,” even when it creates more demographically-balanced maps, and that the VRA “inherently rests on a racial stereotype: that all voters of a particular race must — by virtue of their membership in their racial class — think alike.”
The stakes: If the Court accepts Louisiana’s argument, it would overturn decades of precedent and would likely spur several states to redraw maps ahead of the midterms — which could cost Democrats seats.
“A ruling to strike down Section two would matter quite a lot to redistricting efforts in the South,” says Eurasia Group US expert Noah Daponte-Smith. “It would put a number of Democratic seats currently protected by the VRA at risk, bolstering Republicans’ narrow advantage in the ongoing redistricting war.”
Who controls US trade policy? Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump
Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump tests whether the president can use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose tariffs without congressional approval.
In February and April 2025, Trump invoked IEEPA to impose sweeping tariffs. First, on Canada, Mexico, and China, citing drug trafficking and immigration emergencies. Then, globally with “Liberation Day” tariffs that hit nearly all US trading partners.
Lower courts have unanimously ruled that there was no emergency and that IEEPA does not grant the president authority to impose unilateral tariffs — a power the Constitution explicitly assigns to Congress under Article I.
The Trump administration cites that IEEPA gives the president the power to “deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat…to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States,” and argues the threat of fentanyl and disadvantageous trade deals constitute a national security and economic threat.
The stakes: If the Court sides with Trump, it would effectively cede Congress’s constitutional power over trade to the presidency. If it rules against him, the tariffs could be struck down. A middle-ground decision could let the tariffs stand but narrow IEEPA’s reach. Either way, who will chart America’s role in the global economy hangs in the balance.
“The IEEPA case is one of the most significant in the court’s recent history,” says Daponte-Smith. “The implications for US and global markets, and for US politics, are enormous.”
Can the president fire members of the Federal Reserve? Trump v. Cook
The case with the greatest potential to expand executive power is Trump v. Cook, which centers on whether the president has the authority to remove Federal Reserve officials. The case stems from Trump’s attempt to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook over allegations of mortgage fraud. The Court has temporarily blocked her dismissal pending oral arguments in January.
Cook denies the mortgage fraud and argues that she is being removed for political reasons – namely that she was appointed by Former President Joe Biden and has a record of siding with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who Trump has disagreed with on interest rate decisions. Trump, in his letter firing Cook, said that the mortgage fraud allegations constitute “gross negligence in financial transactions that calls into question [Cook’s] competence and trustworthiness as a financial regulator.”
The stakes: “A Fed in which any governor can be fired by the president for cause is not truly independent,” says Daponte-Smith. Cook’s removal would open the door for Trump to install loyalists who could align monetary policy with his political goals. No President in the Fed’s 111-year history has ever successfully removed a sitting Fed governor, largely because the central bank’s independence is seen as a cornerstone of US economic regulation.
More to come?
While Daponte-Smith says rulings in these three cases could “substantially expand executive power, with little oversight, effecting a significant change in the manner in which the United States is governed,” he warns that the high-stake showdown between the Supreme Court and the executive branch may still be ahead.
“I would be watching the various cases percolating up through the court system on the legality of National Guard deployments domestically,” he says. “I’d expect at least one to reach the Supreme Court this term — likely on an emergency basis — and the administration has taken a confrontational tone with the courts on this issue.”
What We’re Watching: Trump makes conditional pledge to Argentina’s Milei, Syria’s new leader meets old foe, Cameroon’s opposition leader declares victory
US President Donald Trump and Argentine President Javier Milei react at the White House in Washington, D.C., USA, on October 14, 2025.
Trump pledges money to Argentina – if Milei’s party wins midterm
US President Donald Trump appeared to hand Argentine President Javier Milei a financial lifeline ahead of the South American nation’s midterm election later this month, pledging to grant the long-suffering economy a $20-billion bailout. But, the US leader added, “If he loses, we are not going to be generous with Argentina.” Trump denied that he was seeking to boost Milei ahead of the midterms, but Democrats criticized him for helping out a foreign administration while the US federal government is shut down. It’s also unclear what would constitute enough of a “win” for Milei in the eyes of Trump – the Argentine leader is hoping to win a third of Chamber of Deputies seats so that he can gain veto power.
Syria and Russia meeting turn enemies into allies again
Syria’s new President Ahmed al-Sharaa visited Russia on Wednesday, meeting with one of the biggest backers of the Assad regime he overthrew. Both Syria and Russia have reasons to bury that hatchet. Al-Sharaa is seeking guarantees that Russia won’t rearm remnants of Assad’s forces, and could instead help rebuild Syria’s army. He also implored Moscow to hand over Assad to face trial in Syria. Meanwhile, Russia has lost or been restricted from accessing its military bases and naval ports in Syria, which provide Russia its only stopover points in the eastern Mediterranean for planes and ships traveling to Africa. Following the meeting, al-Sharaa said that Syria would honor all past deals struck between the two countries, suggesting that Russia’s military bases may be open for business again soon.
Cameroon’s opposition leader declares victory over 43-year incumbent
One might not expect that a battle between a 92-year-old and a 79-year-old — who happens to be his former friend — would necessarily have such major consequences for a country, but that’s exactly the case for Cameroon. Opposition leader Issa Tchiroma Bakary, 79, claimed victory yesterday over President Paul Biya, 92, following Sunday’s presidential election, and called on the long-time leader to “honour the truth of the ballot box.” Biya’s party denied Tchiroma’s claims, though the long-time leader hasn’t necessarily been the most reliable practitioner of democracy. The official results for Sunday’s poll have yet to be announced – the deadline for their certification is Oct. 26.
Hard Numbers: Kenya’s long-time opposition leader dies, World Bank doubles down on agriculture, US revokes visas of Charlie Kirk critics, & more
Kenya's opposition leader Raila Odinga addresses delegates after President William Ruto signed the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission Amendment Bill 2024, backed by the National Dialogue Committee (NADCO), at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre in Nairobi, Kenya, on July 9, 2024.
80: Kenya’s long-time opposition leader Raila Odinga, who unsuccessfully ran for president five times but served as prime minister from 2008 to 2013, died of a heart attack in the Indian city of Kochi on Wednesday, at the age of 80. Though Odinga was generally out of power, his populist ideals and combative style gave him an outsized influence on the East African country.
$9 billion: At the World Bank/IMF annual meetings this week, the Bank pledged to double its annual investment in agriculture and farming to $9 billion. The program, called AgriConnect, will help fund the 500 million smallholder farmers globally who produce 80% of the food consumed, aiming to create more jobs and financing opportunities for the sector.
250,000: El Fasher, Sudan, has been declared “uninhabitable” after 549 days under siege by RSF forces. Ninety percent of homes are destroyed, food and water are nearly gone, and acute malnutrition affects children and mothers. Constant bombardment, hospital attacks, and communication blackouts have left 250,000 civilians trapped and barely surviving inside the paramilitary force’s blockade of the city.
6: The US has revoked the visas of at least six foreigners who “celebrated” the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on “far-left radicals.” The move follows expanded social media vetting by immigration officials and mass visa cancellations. Trump also posthumously awarded Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Tuesday.
3.5 million: In a desperate bid to end France’s short-term political chaos, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said he will delay President Emmanuel Macron’s signature pension reform, a move he says will benefit 3.5 million people. Lecornu hopes that the move will bring Socialist Party deputies onside, ensuring that he lives to fight another day.
People walk past a jewelry store in the Diamond District of Manhattan, New York City, USA, on August 6, 2025.
If you’re thinking of slipping an engagement ring on your partner’s finger this year, you may find some deals out there.
The price of all diamonds, both rough and lab-grown, has plummeted in recent years. The price of a natural, one-carat diamond dropped 26% over the last three years. The drop is even bigger for their lab-grown equivalents: a one-carat factory-made diamond now costs much less than half what it did in 2022. Since 2016, the value of these one-carat lab-grown diamonds is down 86%.
The reasons for this are clear: with prospective spouses increasingly switching to lab-grown rocks for ethical, environmental and cost purposes, there is less and less demand for natural ones. A study from The Knot last year found that more than half of couples used a lab-grown diamond on their engagement ring, and that popularity for these alternatives has increased 40% in recent years.
Wouldn’t higher demand for lab-grown rocks increase their value? Ordinarily, yes, but the manufacturers are flooding the market as they seek to capitalize on the wave of new demand for factory-made gems.
The consequences of these changes stretch beyond the industry – Botswana, the largest producer of extracted diamonds, has particularly suffered. The sector accounts for over 90% of the southern African nation’s exports, per the World Bank, and a quarter of its gross domestic product. The diamond downturn has tanked the economy, with the unemployment rate reaching nearly 28% last year.
The country’s politics has been turned upside down, too: human rights lawyer Duma Boko capitalized on this economic downturn to win last year’s election and become Botswana’s president. He ousted the Botswana Democratic Party, which had ruled for nearly 60 years. Boko had pledged to create up to half a million jobs and to spread wealth across the nation.
To better understand why the diamond industry has tanked, and the consequences of this for geopolitics, GZERO spoke to its in-house diamond expert: Eurasia Group’s Commodities Director Tim Puko. This interview is edited for length and clarity.
GZERO: Why is the diamond industry crashing?
Puko: We’ve just seen a dramatic change in what’s available and who wants it. The thought formerly was you needed thousands and thousands of years to produce these things, and only the highest levels of authenticity were acceptable. But as we’ve seen with many other commodity products, even with diamonds, there are ways to replicate that get the job done just as well for consumers. And so you have this whole growth of lab-grown diamonds. That’s led the price down pretty precipitously.
GZERO: Which countries are worst affected?
Botswana is far and above the most affected. Russia and Angola, and some of Botswana’s neighbors in sub-Saharan Africa also make the list. But there’s nowhere that the amount of diamond sales, the revenue, matters quite as much as Botswana. Russia is a big diamond seller, but it just doesn’t compare to their oil industry. Botswana is kind of a one-industry country, right? It doesn’t have the alternatives for its economy. And so, even though Botswana has a pretty good reputation as being a place where diamonds are pretty ethically produced, if the whole market is going to crash like this, it’s a big, broad threat to Botswana on the whole.
GZERO: What are the political ramifications of the diamond price collapse?
We’ve already seen once-in-a-generation turnover of political power in Botswana. Even the new government – it still feels like their power is tenuous, because the economic downturn and political unrest around it has been so intense.
What’s more, Botswana had been the most stable, certainly the richest of all the sub-Saharan African countries, and a source of stability for the region. Botswana, in many cases, has been providing security forces in other countries that have had coups or destabilized events of one type or another. But if the number one source of its economic growth is gone, they’re just not going to be spending externally. How destabilizing is that for its neighbors that can’t count on Botswana’s help? And they’re not the only ones in the region facing problems like this. It might be the most intense for them, but the DRC has perpetual conflict on its eastern flank, a lot of that is related to copper and gold. This is a story that a lot of the neighbors in that region of the world are experiencing right now.
GZERO: Is it possible for diamond prices to recover? Or are diamonds no longer forever?
I always say the commodity cycle is undefeated, and all these things are cyclical, but the deck is really stacked against diamonds right now. And if you think about the direction that the world is heading on forces that have nothing to do with diamonds – world trade, inflation and interest rates, cost-of-living crises, the friction that’s happening around the world, often led by the richest countries – it trickles down to everyone and so many of the policies that, especially the protectionist policies that the United States and some of its peers have been exploring, make the world more expensive for everybody. And if the rich people in these rich countries, who used to be the number one source of demand for these diamonds, feel economic insecurity themselves, paired with ethical concerns that are predominant, will they value this type of luxury item? I’m not going to call the death of the diamond market forever, but for the foreseeable future, I don’t know what the saving grace would be for conventional diamonds and the countries that mine them.