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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang speaks to media members after the opening ceremony for the China International Supply Chain Expo in Beijing, China July 16, 2025.
What We’re Watching: China targets Nvidia, Trump administration in Israel, Hezbollah rejects disarmament, Myanmar prepares for election sham
China targets Nvidia over security fears
Beijing has summoned Nvidia execs over allegations that the US company’s H20 AI chips pose a security risk, claiming they can track locations and be remotely disabled. This comes just weeks after Congress approved sales of the highly-coveted chips to China despite lingering concerns about helping Washington’s biggest tech rival. Beijing, for its part, wants Nvidia chips to help grow its AI sector, but also worries that Nvidia could crowd out domestic chipmakers like Huawei.
Trump sends his Middle East Man to address Gaza crisis
Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff is en route to Israel to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The trip comes amid rising international outcry over Israel’s restrictions on the entry of aid to the besieged strip – Trump himself even disputed Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that there is “no starvation” there. However, Trump also slammed Canada’s new pledge to recognize Palestine this fall, saying that the move – which follows similar pledges from France and the UK – would wreck US-Canada trade talks.
Hezbollah rejects calls to disarm
The Lebanese militant group flatly rejected recent calls to lay down its weapons, saying that to do so would only serve Israel’s interests. The US is pressuring Lebanon to disarm the Iran-backed group as part of wider peace negotiations with Israel, which has continued to pound the group’s strongholds despite a ceasefire. Hezbollah, heavily weakened after the most recent war with Israel, has privately weighed scaling back their arsenal. Read about what it would take for Hezbollah to disarm here.
What we’re ignoring: Myanmar’s power move
Myanmar’s military has lifted the country’s state of emergency and handed power to a nominally civilian-led interim government ahead of December elections. But Min Aung Hlaing, who led the 2021 coup that entrenched the junta, remains in control as acting president and army chief. The elections, which come as the junta battles several armed insurgencies, are seen as a farce meant to legitimize the army chief's rule. Opposition parties are either barred from running or boycotting the vote.
Palestinians gather to receive food from a charity kitchen, amid a hunger crisis, in Gaza City, July 28, 2025.
What We’re Watching: Trump undermines Bibi’s starvation claim, Ceasefire between Thailand and Cambodia, Taiwan recall fail
Trump contradicts Bibi on Gaza humanitarian crisis
US President Donald Trump on Monday acknowledged that there’s “real starvation” in Gaza, an unusually direct contradiction of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had claimed there is “no starvation.” International condemnation of Israel for the deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza has swelled recently, focused especially on starving children and the killing of hundreds of Palestinians at US- and-Israeli run aid distribution sites. But no global voice rings as loudly in Israel as the US president’s. Israel over the weekend announced a brief pause in military operations to allow for the entry of more desperately needed aid. The US will also start setting up its own food centers in the strip, Trump said. (Is Bibi losing MAGA? See here.)
Thailand and Cambodia reach ceasefire deal
Thailand and Cambodia agreed to an unconditional ceasefire at peace talks in Malaysia on Monday, bringing to an end five days of border clashes. The conflict dates back over a century but this was the worst flareup in more than a decade: at least 33 people died and another 150,000 have been displaced since Thursday. Ahead of the talks, which were co-organized by the US and Malaysia and attended by China, US President Donald Trump had declared he would not resume tariff negotiations with either country until a ceasefire was reached.
Taiwan’s historic recall fails
An unprecedented effort to oust a fifth of Taiwan’s entire legislature fell flat Saturday, as all 24 opposition lawmakers from the China-friendly Kuomintang party (KMT) survived their recall votes. The outcome is a big blow to President William Lai’s pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, which had championed the recalls as a strategy to wrestle a legislative majority away from the KMT. Now, though, the KMT-led coalition’s interest in halting Lai’s agenda may be keener than ever. Click here for more on the historic recalls.Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a beachfront cafe amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas in Deir Al-Balah, Gaza Strip, on January 14, 2025.
Gaza ceasefire seems tantalizingly close — how long could it last?
After months of negotiations mediated by the US, Egypt, and Qatar, Hamas on Tuesday accepted a draft ceasefire agreement that could bring an end to the fighting in Gaza – at least temporarily – if Israel’s cabinet approves it. Negotiators believe an agreement could be reached before Donald Trump is inaugurated on Jan. 20.
What’s in the deal? Hamas would release 33 of the roughly 94 remaining Israeli hostages — mostly women, children, and elderly or injured people — over six weeks in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian women and children imprisoned in Israel.
During this first phase, Israeli forces would pull out of urban areas and allow some 600 truckloads of aid to enter Gaza each day. The IDF would not pull out of Gaza entirely, however, and people attempting to return to their homes will find them largely demolished.
Then it gets tricky. The details of the second and third phases would need to be negotiated while the first phase is in progress — and Eurasia Group regional expert Greg Brew isn’t confident that the right incentives exist to find success.
“Hamas really has two sources of leverage,” he says. “The first is the hostages, and when they lose the hostages they lose any ability to influence Israeli action. The second is their continued ability to fight, and it is likely going to continue a low-level insurgency against Israel and any potential new government formed to govern Gaza.”
So why a deal? For Hamas, a respite from combat allows reorganization and rearmament. The outgoing Biden administration, meanwhile, is eager for a win before it leaves office — and it’s one Trump will surely claim even if it comes before his inauguration. Brew says the timing offers the incoming administration a fig leaf. “When the deal collapses, he can say, ‘Oh, there were flaws in place. This was a bad deal. It happened under Biden's watch.’”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu similarly gets to have his cake and eat it too by delivering the hostage releases voters have demanded without fully committing to end the war, which would infuriate his far-right coalition partners.
“Netanyahu gets everything,” says Brew. “He gets a deal that makes Trump happy, that delivers a win to the Israeli people, that quiets the opposition, and that strengthens his position.”
A renegade Congolese soldier stands at an outpost in Eastern Congo deserted town of Kanyabayonga December 16, 2004 which is deserted due to clashes in the area. The Democratic Republic of Congo has replaced its army commander in the eastern province of North Kivu, the scene of days of fighting between government reinforcements and rebel units, authorities said.
Humanitarian truce extended in Congo
A humanitarian truce in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo between government troops and M23 rebels backed by neighboring Rwanda was extended by 15 days, to Aug. 3, but fighting in the area continues, and the prospect of a wider conflict looms.
The background: Over a hundred rebel groups are fighting for control of mineral-rich regions in the eastern DRC along the Rwandan border. M23, formed by deserters from the DRC army, is the most powerful of the groups – its decision to launch an offensive to capture the provincial capital of Goma in 2022 reignited a decades-long conflict in DRC that has so far displaced more than 3 million people.
Rwanda’s history of ethnic tensions is part of the story. Thirty years ago, Rwanda’s Hutu majority committed a genocide against the Tutsi minority. Rwanda says some of the DRC-backed militias around Goma, such as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, are composed of Hutu genocidaires who escaped across the border to avoid justice.
The UN, meanwhile, says Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, a Tutsi, has deployed up to 4,000 troops to fight alongside the M23, against DRC forces.
Risk of regional outbreak. Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi has threatened war against Rwanda in retaliation for Kagame’s involvement.
Sudanese families wait outside a hospital while doctors and medical staff strike to protest late salaries, bringing the struggling health sector in the city of Port Sudan to almost a complete halt as thousands of displaced Sudanese flooded the city due to the raging war in Khartoum, Sudan, August 20, 2023.
Sudan’s paramilitaries shut key city’s last hospital
In more terrible news for civilians in Sudan, fighting in the country’s civil war has forced the closure of el-Fasher’s last open hospital. This city is the final stronghold of government forces fighting the RSF, a paramilitary group. Hundreds of thousands of civilians are sheltering in the city.
On Saturday, RSF fighters reportedly opened fire, looted drugs and medical equipment, assaulted hospital staff, and stole an ambulance. The hospital had repeatedly come under RSF fire over the past two weeks.
The civil war has killed at least 15,000 people since April 2023, and nearly nine million have been displaced. The RSF is a collection of what was once the Janjaweed militia groups, which have committed atrocities in Darfur. Both the RSF and government forces have been accused of crimes against civilians during this conflict.
Doctors, with support from Médecins Sans Frontières, a medical relief organization, will try to shift hospital operations to a rundown Saudi-built hospital further from the frontlines, but that building doesn’t yet have electricity, fuel, or water. An MSF spokesperson says trapped and injured civilians in the city will not receive basic care for at least a week.
Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a house, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip May 7, 2024.
Biden threatens to cut off some weapons to Israel if Rafah invaded
“We’re not going to supply the weapons and the artillery shells used” in a seemingly imminent Israeli invasion of Rafah, US President Joe Biden said in a CNN interview Wednesday, his toughest language on Israel yet.
Still, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t seem all that intimidated. Israel massed armor and troops on the outskirts of Rafah Thursday morning, after seizing the city’s crossing into Egypt on Wednesday. Over a million civilians are sheltering in the last Gazan city Israeli troops have not entered, but Netanyahu seems determined to take out the remaining Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants based there.
Meanwhile, CIA director William Burns has been shuttling between Jerusalem and Cairo for urgent cease-fire negotiations that the US hopes could save untold numbers of civilians. Earlier this week Hamas said it would accept a cease-fire agreement, but it was modified in ways Israel found unacceptable.
If Biden does follow through with his threat, we’re watching for further acrimony in the already inflamed relationship with Netanyahu, as well as how his rivals with better reputations at the White House, like Benny Gantz, react.
Ukraine will define the future of NATO
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective on European politics from Stockholm.
How is the role of NATO evolving now as the 75th anniversary of the organization coming up?
Well, it's going to be Ukraine that's going to be defining the future of NATO. Two issues most immediately: One, if NATO can take on a stronger role for coordinating military aid to Ukraine, that's been done so far by an ad hoc coalition and US support; there’s a proposal on the table for taking that over. The second is, of course, what Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg proposed on the day of the ministerial meeting in Brussels, to set up a very large fund for financing the military support in the years to come. We'll see how these two proposals evolve over the time period up until the Washington summit. And then there's, of course, the big issues of Ukraine membership.
How will the willingness of different countries to give military support be affected by what we've seen in terms of attacks on humanitarian aid in the last ten days?
Obviously, a negative impact, and a vivid debate, not least in the UK, over this decision. But I think most will be dependent upon how Israel will react, whether it will change its way of operating in terms of allowing humanitarian access of a sufficient quantity in and respecting the rights of humanitarian workers and truly respecting military law. Open questions, remains to be seen,- NATO bares its teeth ›
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People take cover from gunfire near the National Palace, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti March 21, 2024.
Haitians flee capital en masse
Intense violence in Port-au-Prince led over 33,000 Haitians to flee the city in the last two weeks alone, according to the United Nations.
Gangs attacked two specialized police bases in Port-au-Prince on Saturday and continue to make advances. Over 2,500 people have been killed in the fighting this year. Violence has kept the air and seaports shuttered all month, making it difficult for aid organizations to bring supplies in. The World Food Programme now says Haiti faces a record level of food insecurity.
Small signs of hope. The transitional council meant to replace outgoing Prime Minister Ariel Henry saw a key breakthrough last week when former Senator Jean-Charles Moïse reversed his position and accepted a seat. All seven voting members are now in place, and could name a president as soon as next week.
Progress toward setting up a government could also remove impediments to the Kenyan-led intervention force that has been stalled and delayed for months. We’re watching for who ends up in charge, and whether Haitians buy into this unelected government.