Welcome again to International Coverage’s State of affairs Report, the place we’re trying ahead to the massive occasion occurring on Friday: the beginning of the English Premier League season. (Did you suppose we meant one thing else?)
Alright, right here’s what’s on faucet for the day: what’s anticipated on the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska, Israel’s killing of journalists in Gaza, and the deployment of federal troops in Washington.
U.S. President Donald Trump is poised to satisfy with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday for a extremely anticipated summit on the Ukraine battle. The assembly, which is being held at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, is about to start at 11:30 a.m. native time (3:30 p.m. ET).
The 2 world leaders will first meet one-on-one with solely their translators current, adopted by a bilateral working lunch with the delegations from each nations, in accordance to the Kremlin. On the finish of the summit, the 2 leaders will maintain a joint press convention. Trump has additionally indicated he may do a solo press convention if the assembly goes poorly.
It’s unclear exactly who will attend as a part of the U.S. delegation, however Putin aide Yuri Ushakov on Thursday stated that, along with himself, the Russian delegation will embrace International Minister Sergey Lavrov, Protection Minister Andrei Belousov, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, and particular financial envoy Kirill Dmitriev.
The stakes are excessive, and the White Home has performed down expectations for the assembly. Trump on Thursday advised Fox Information Radio that he believes Putin will “make a deal,” however he additionally stated there’s a 25 p.c probability the assembly will probably be unsuccessful.
Right here’s what else it’s worthwhile to know forward of the assembly.
What Putin needs. Moscow seemingly views the summit as a giant diplomatic win and a possibility to reset relations with Washington, and has signaled that commerce and nuclear arms management may be on the agenda. Putin on Thursday praised the Trump administration for making “fairly energetic and honest efforts” to finish the battle in Ukraine.
However the Kremlin on Thursday additionally stated that it will be a mistake to foretell the end result of the summit and that there aren’t any plans to signal any paperwork.
“Putin truly doesn’t want to attain a lot from this assembly, aside from the assembly itself and never having to make any concessions,” Celeste Wallander, an adjunct senior fellow on the Middle for a New American Safety who led U.S. protection coverage in help of Ukraine below the Biden administration, advised reporters in a briefing on Thursday. “What he needs out of this assembly is solely the assembly—the optics of being invited to the USA whereas he’s below a global warrant for accusations of battle crimes.”
In the meantime, Russia has stepped up assaults on Ukrainian civilians and continues to push for management of extra Ukrainian territory. In keeping with the United Nations, July noticed the very best civilian casualties from the battle since Could 2022, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned this week that Russia is getting ready to conduct additional operations on the entrance line, getting ready tens of hundreds of troops for a contemporary offensive. Russia’s army made positive factors close to the northern metropolis of Sumy this week, in accordance to the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for the Examine of Battle.
What Trump needs. Trump has described the summit as a “feel-out” assembly, elevating questions as to why it couldn’t have simply been a telephone name—notably given how controversial it’s to ask Putin to the USA. Nonetheless, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio this week stated that Trump has spoken to Putin by telephone a number of instances however nothing got here of it, so the president felt a face-to-face sit-down was mandatory.
The summit comes after months of failed efforts by Trump to safe a deal to finish the preventing in Ukraine. Trump has signaled that if the Alaska summit goes nicely, he hopes to arrange a subsequent assembly between Putin and Zelensky that Trump may attend. He’s additionally warned Putin there will probably be “extreme penalties” if the battle doesn’t finish after the summit.
Although Trump has grown impatient with Putin because the battle in Ukraine rages on, he additionally has a historical past of taking the Russian chief’s aspect. Trump additionally didn’t comply with via on a menace to impose a slew of recent financial penalties on Russia if it didn’t finish the battle by Aug. 8.
What Ukraine and Europe need. Zelensky, who doesn’t imagine Putin genuinely wishes peace, is just not attending the summit, and Ukraine and its allies are anxious that Putin may persuade Trump to help a framework for a cope with dangerous phrases for Kyiv—similar to main territorial concessions to Moscow. Russia at the moment occupies round one-fifth of Ukraine, and Zelensky doesn’t wish to cede territory as a part of a peace deal.
European leaders, together with Zelensky, have scrambled to attract out clear purple strains forward of the summit, and held a digital assembly with Trump on Wednesday that was apparently fruitful. Attendees stated Trump agreed that he wouldn’t negotiate over territory on Ukraine’s behalf whereas supporting the notion of safety ensures for Kyiv. Nevertheless it stays to be seen whether or not Trump, who in latest days mentioned the necessity for a land swap between the opponents, will follow the script.
U.S. State Division spokesperson Tammy Bruce carried out her ultimate press briefing on Tuesday, having been nominated by Trump (through Reality Social put up) as the brand new U.S. deputy consultant to the United Nations. “His intention was a shock, as was his request final Christmas asking me to turn out to be the spokesperson on the State Division,” Bruce, a former Fox Information host, advised reporters. “I used to be astounded then and stay deeply honored and grateful for the president’s belief in me.”
Dean Ball, who served as a senior coverage advisor on synthetic intelligence on the White Home Workplace of Science and Know-how Coverage, introduced he would depart the White Home and be a part of the Basis for American Innovation, a suppose tank. Ball performed a key function in placing collectively the Trump administration’s AI Motion Plan, which was launched final month.
What needs to be excessive in your radar, if it isn’t already.
Israel kills journalists. The Israel Protection Forces killed 4 Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza on Sunday, together with outstanding correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qraiqea. In a assertion, the community, which is partially funded by the Qatari authorities, described their deaths as “assassination[s]” and “one more blatant and premeditated assault on press freedom.” Photographers Ibrahim al-Thaher and Mohamed Nofal have been additionally killed, as have been two freelance journalists, Moamen Aliwa and Mohammad al-Khaldi.
Israel stated the strike, which hit a tent subsequent to Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital the place the journalists have been sheltered, focused Sharif particularly and claimed that he was “a jihadi terrorist on Hamas’s payroll.” Al Jazeera refuted that declare, as Sharif himself had earlier than his loss of life. The battle in Gaza has been one of many deadliest in historical past for the press, with the Committee to Defend Journalists estimating that greater than 190 journalists have been killed because it started two years in the past. Brown College’s Prices of Battle mission put that quantity even increased, estimating in March that not less than 232 journalists and media staff had been killed. That’s all regardless of Israel largely barring international journalists from reporting inside Gaza. A whole bunch of journalists from world wide have signed a petition calling on Israel to reverse that coverage.
Sudan’s cholera outbreak. Greater than two years right into a civil battle that has killed tens of hundreds of individuals and displaced hundreds of thousands extra, Sudan is now affected by an outbreak of cholera that threatens its inhabitants additional. The illness has 100,000 individuals over the previous yr and killed practically 3,000, in line with the nonprofit Médecins Sans Frontières, which described it as “the worst cholera outbreak the nation has seen in years.”
Sudanese well being officers have reportedly launched a 10-day vaccination marketing campaign within the capital, Khartoum, this week to attempt to curb the unfold of the illness, which is being exacerbated by water shortages and unhygienic situations within the nation’s many refugee camps.
Troops in D.C. U.S. Nationwide Guard troops arrived in Washington, D.C., this week after Trump deployed them to cope with what he described as “violent, menacing road crime” within the nation’s capital. Trump has been undeterred by figures that point out crime within the metropolis is at its lowest stage in 30 years.
Widespread indignation amongst D.C. residents on the president’s transfer exploded into view on Wednesday night when federal brokers arrange a checkpoint in the course of one of many metropolis’s hottest nightlife areas on 14th Avenue to cease autos and query their drivers. Dozens of onlookers gathered to heckle the brokers, with many shouting: “Go residence, fascists.”
Firefighters go away an space on a scooter as flames strategy throughout a wildfire close to town of Patras, western Greece, on Aug. 13. The nation has battled to include greater than 20 wildfires together with one menacing its third-largest metropolis, Patras, as a warmth wave stoked blazes and compelled the evacuation of hundreds in southern Europe. Aris Messinis/AFP through Getty Pictures
Sunday, Aug. 17: Common elections are scheduled to happen in Bolivia.
Monday, Aug. 18: Chinese language International Minister Wang Yi is anticipated to go to New Delhi.
Thursday, Aug. 21: Indian International Minister S. Jaishankar is because of meet Russian International Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow.
“I’d be afraid Putin would take me again to Russia.”
—Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, after telling reporters that he wouldn’t be attending the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska.
John wrote a useful piece final week laying out what we all know—and don’t know—in regards to the Gaza starvation disaster, with an support employee on the bottom describing the state of affairs to him as “apocalyptic” and “engineered chaos.” In the meantime, Rishi and FP reporter Keith Johnson dug into Trump’s controversial strategy to revitalizing the U.S. semiconductor business.
A “large and unforeseeable” swarm of jellyfish triggered a significant nuclear energy plant in France to quickly shut down this week. Jellyfish coming into the Gravelines nuclear energy plant’s filtration drums apparently led 4 reactors to robotically change off. Fortunately, this didn’t trigger any questions of safety on the plant. Many species of jellyfish want hotter water, and specialists say the swarm that invaded the plant may very well be linked to a latest warmth wave in Europe, which can have created the right situations for sure varieties of the gelatinous animals to breed quicker and in larger numbers.
