Hello,
Here are the five things you need to know today:
ISRAEL. PALESTINE. Trump declares victory, at least until the weekend.
UNITED NATIONS. A funding squeeze will be a false economy for global security.
FRANCE. Macron buys time to select a new prime minister.
RUSSIA. EURASIA. Putin assembles the fellowship in Dushanbe.
CHINA. New export controls are announced for critical minerals.
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ISRAEL. PALESTINE. Blessed are the newsmakers
Trump declares victory, at least until the weekend.
Benjamin Netanyahu said legislators would meet Thursday to approve a possible hostage exchange Monday. “BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS”, Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social. Hamas said its “sacrifices” would “not be in vain”.
INTELLIGENCE. Trump described this as phase one of a “Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace”. Israel and Hamas have been more circumspect, though celebrations were reportedly taking place in Gaza. Trump may hope the sudden announcement will deliver a Nobel Prize, due to be announced Friday. This may be just as well, with the fundamentals remaining poor for an enduring settlement. And per previous breakthroughs on Gaza and Ukraine, seeing is believing.
FOR BUSINESS. Trump will feel doubly hurt if he doesn’t get Friday’s Peace Prize, but the adjudicators may wish to see more evidence before giving another premature award to a sitting US president. The Israeli public may also want more evidence. Hamas’s continued refusal to disarm, and ongoing Arab calls for an independent Palestinian state, suggest this may be more the end of the beginning than the beginning of the end, even if the hostages are returned.
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UNITED NATIONS. Cursed are the peacekeepers
A funding squeeze will be a false economy for global security.
The UN will cut a quarter of peacekeepers due to a lack of funds, Reuters said Wednesday. The US Mission to the UN told the General Assembly Monday that Antonio Guterres’s proposed 15% budget cut should be “only a beginning.”
INTELLIGENCE. Like all bureaucracies, the UN is full of waste. And like all
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