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A Somali refugee girl carries her sibling in the Hagadera refugee camp near the Kenya-Somalia border, in Garissa County, Kenya, January 17, 2023.

REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

Hard Numbers: Somalia’s deadly drought, Yemen prisoner swap, North Korean war games, a happier world?

43,000: Somalia’s longest-recorded drought claimed 43,000 lives last year, with up to 34,000 more deaths projected in the first half of 2023, according to a new WHO report. The country has suffered several failed rainy seasons, and the crisis is being exacerbated by rising global food prices. Meanwhile, Somalia is being starved of aid as donors prioritize Ukraine.

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Diplomats from Saudi Arabia, China and Iran at a summit in Beijing.

Reuters

​Is China’s Saudi-Iran diplomatic deal for real?

“Welcome to the post-America moment in the Middle East,” one commentator wrote after the surprising news broke last week that China had mediated a diplomatic breakthrough between two forever enemies: Iran and Saudi Arabia. Others hailed the exciting prospect of peace between two countries that have long been locked in regional proxy wars.

But are these hot takes jumping the gun? Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s de facto decision maker known as MBS, once said Iran’s supreme leader “makes Hitler look good.” So why has he bought into this rapprochement – and why now?

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China brokers deal between Iran & Saudi Arabia | Quick Take | GZERO Media

​China brokers deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hello and good Monday morning to everybody. It's Ian Bremmer here, and a Quick Take to kick off your week. Want to talk about China and specifically this big announcement, a breakthrough diplomatic deal negotiated by Xi Jinping, between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Two countries with all sorts of problems between the two proxy wars and major security challenges. When they had the big demonstrations inside Iran against the government, they were blaming the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia for undermining and trying to overthrow the regime. And now instead, you have the Saudi and Iranian foreign ministers meeting together with the Chinese Foreign Minister and signing a trilateral agreement saying that they're going to open formal diplomatic relations within two months.

That's a big deal for a China that historically would have played no leadership role in any major negotiations outside of things that are of critical national security importance in Asia, in their backyard. And here we have Xi Jinping announcing a deal that the Americans, the Europeans, literally played no role in and couldn't play a role. The United States doesn't have diplomatic relations open with Iran. Should be welcomed by the world. It's better for everyone if these two major countries in the region are able to engage diplomatically with each other. But of course, it also shows a more significant footprint for Xi Jinping's China on the global stage. A country that right now has bad relations with the United States, no trust and increasingly heading in a confrontational direction.

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Paige Fusco

What geopolitics stories could still blow up the global economy?

Investors hate uncertainty. For now, most of them are trying to understand how central bankers, particularly at the US Federal Reserve, will calibrate changes in interest rates to slow inflation while avoiding recession.

But there are also three big geopolitical stories that will generate plenty more questions throughout 2023.

Russia’s war

After more than a year of war following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, two realities have emerged. Russia’s military isn’t strong enough to conquer Ukraine, but it is probably strong enough to prevent a complete Ukrainian victory. The war has now settled into a stalemate that continues to put upward pressure on energy prices and threaten further surges in food prices. (The current deal to allow grain exports through the Black Sea expires on March 18.)

To some extent, the consensus expectation for a war that lasts beyond 2023 will allow producers and companies to adjust their supply chains to new realities, to make alternative arrangements for diminished supplies of oil, gas, grain, and other commodities, and to find new trade partners.

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Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of Russia's Wagner mercenary force, speaks in Paraskoviivka, Ukraine, in this still image from an undated video released on March 3.

Concord Press Service/via REUTERS

What We’re Watching: Prigozhin’s precarious position, Israeli reservists vs. Bibi, Iran seeks schoolgirl poisoning culprits

The Russian warlord shaking his fist toward Moscow

Yevgeny Prigozhin is angry, and he wants the world to know about it. In a recent video that’s now making international news, the owner of the Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary force fighting in Ukraine, complains his men are not receiving ammunition he personally requested from Russian military chief Valery Gerasimov, and that the reason might be “betrayal.” He speculates his men are being “set up” as scapegoats in case Russia loses the war. Whatever the truth, Russian public infighting over the war looks to be intensifying. Russian forces have been “closing in” on Bakhmut for months, and Ukrainian troops still appear to be holding most of their ground. It may be a sign that Russia’s current advance won't accomplish much. According to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, “The Russian offensive to capture Bakhmut will likely culminate whether Russian forces capture the city or not, and the Russian military will likely struggle to maintain any subsequent offensive operations for some months.” Ukraine, meanwhile, continues to gear up for an expected counteroffensive in the coming weeks as Russian forces are depleted and new weapons arrive in Ukrainian hands from Western allies.

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The World’s Nuclear Threats and What the IAEA Is Doing About Them | Rafael Grossi | GZERO World

The world’s nuclear threats and what the IAEA is doing about them

Note: This interview appeared as part of an episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, "Rogue states gone nuclear and the watchdog working to avert disaster" on January 16, 2023.

International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi witnessed first-hand how close we came to another Chernobyl disaster thanks to fighting near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine. On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer asks Grossi about the world's nuclear threats and what the IAEA is doing about them. Grossi views himself as a mediator — if leaders are willing to listen to him.

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The Fight With Iran Is Growing | Quick Take | GZERO Media

The fight with Iran is growing

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi everybody. Ian Bremmer here, and a Quick Take to kick off your week. And we see over the weekend, strikes, drone strikes, explosive drone strikes against Iran, the city of Isfahan, and in particular a major military facility responsible for the production of drones and ballistic missiles. Oh, my.

Of course, Iran is under lots of pressure these days. And not a lot of people are happy with what's happening in that country, not inside the country, with months now of major demonstrations that have only been met with repression from the Iranian government, from its theocracy, from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. We're also seeing that the Iranians are through nuclear breakout capability. They have more than enough, a highly enriched uranium at 60% level, which has no civilian use or purpose. It's only for a military program in a deep, under a mountain at this facility in Fordo, which you can't... The Israelis, for example, don't have the military capacity to strike it or destroy it, a problem, of course, as you think about Iran increasingly becoming a nuclear state.

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Eyewitness footage shows explosion at military industry factory in Isfahan, Iran.

Reuters

What We're Watching: Iran weapons depot targeted, fierce battles in eastern Ukraine, Czechs back pro-EU president, McCarthy-Biden debt limit meeting

What we know about the Isfahan attack

In what’s broadly believed to have been an Israeli attack, three drones hit an Iranian ammunition factory in the central city of Isfahan, Iran, on Saturday night. Iranian state media said damage to the site was “minor,” but phone footage suggests that the compound – used to produce advanced weapons and home to its Nuclear Fuel Research and Production Center – took a serious blow. An oil refinery in the country's northwest also broke out in flames on Saturday, though the cause remains unknown. Then, on Sunday night, a weapons convoy traveling from Syria to Iraq was also targeted by airstrikes. US reports attributed the Isfahan attack to Israel – which has in the past targeted nuclear sites in Natanz and hit Iranian convoys transporting weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Indeed, this comes after Russia purchased hundreds of Iranian-made “suicide drones,” which it has used to pummel Ukrainian cities. While the deepening military alliance between Iran and Russia is a growing concern for Washington, it’s unclear if Uncle Sam played a role in the Isfahan hit – or whether Israel, which has to date refused to deliver heavy arms to Kyiv, agreed to carry out this attack in part to frustrate Iranian drone deliveries to the Russians. The escalation comes just days after CIA Director William Burns flew to Israel for meetings with his Israeli counterparts – and as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken heads to Israel and the West Bank this week. Crucially, it highlights the increasing overlap between Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and the longtime shadow war between Iran and Israel.

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