Gaza/Board of Peace
(Reuters/Al Arabiya) Donald Trump’s Board of Peace has received only a tiny fraction of the $17 billion pledged for Gaza, preventing the US president from pushing ahead with his plan for the shattered Palestinian enclave’s future, sources told Reuters. Ten days before US-Israeli attacks on Iran plunged the region into war, Trump hosted a conference in Washington that saw Gulf Arab states pledge billions for the governance and reconstruction of Gaza after a two-year pulverization by Israel. – Trump’s peace board faces cash crunch, stalling Gaza plan, sources say
Hungary
(Ray Furlong and Zoriana Stepanenko – RFE/RL) Hungarians are voting in parliamentary elections on April 12 as war continues to rage in neighboring Ukraine and their government’s relationship with Russia is under intense scrutiny. Opinion polls suggest that after 16 years in office, Prime Minister Viktor Orban may be about to lose power to opposition leader Peter Magyar. But Orban has defied the polls in the past. The outcome of the elections will not only be closely watched in Kyiv and Moscow. Hungary’s troubled relationship with many countries in the European Union means that EU nations are also keenly interested in the outcome of the vote, while Washington has expressed strong support for Orban. – As Hungary Votes, They’re Watching Closely In Kyiv, Moscow, And Beyond
Israel/Spain
(AFP/Al Arabiya) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday accused Spain of waging a diplomatic campaign against Israel after he barred Madrid from taking part in the work of a US-led center created to help stabilize post-war Gaza. Relations between Israel and Spain have deteriorated significantly since Madrid recognized a Palestinian state in 2024. – Netanyahu accuses Spain of ‘hostility’ toward Israel
Kazakhstan/China
(Meiirim Baqytzhan – RFE/RL) In a trial that could be the latest bellwether for growing Chinese influence in Kazakhstan, 19 activists who organized demonstrations against China’s mass internment camps in Xinjiang are expected to be sentenced by a Kazakh court. In a small courtroom in Taldyqorghan, a town close to Kazakhstan’s southeastern border with China, the activists delivered their final statements on April 9 in closed-door proceedings that have been under way since late January. The court announced that the judge will deliver a verdict on April 14. “I can’t say anything else because the judge has forbidden the participants in the trial from making the facts public,” Oralkhan Aben, who is serving as the public defender for her husband Tursynbek Kabi, one of the defendants, told reporters when she emerged from the courthouse after the session. “I disagree with the charges against my husband.” – Anti-China Demonstrators In Kazakhstan Awaiting Sentence In Closed-Door Trial
NATO
(Alex Raufoglu – RFE/RL) When NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte took the stage at the Reagan Institute on April 9, he delivered a message of pragmatism rather than panic: NATO is not a spent force in crisis, but a cornerstone in transition. “This alliance is not ‘whistling past the graveyard,’” Rutte declared, a pointed rebuttal to the oft-heard narrative of institutional decline. Instead, he sketched a vision of rejuvenation — a “stronger Europe within a more robust NATO,” anchored by the indispensable weight of US leadership. Yet beneath the polished optimism of the podium lies a more jarring reality. The central question of his Washington visit remains: Has Rutte successfully reconciled the deepening transatlantic tensions, or has he merely found a more sophisticated way to describe them? – Between Reassurance And Rhetoric: The High Stakes Of Rutte’s US Diplomacy
Oil World Order
(Emily Peck – Axios) The energy shock from the Iran war may drive long-lasting change in how the global multitrillion-dollar oil market operates — turning a relatively open and smoothly functioning system into something weaponized and fractured. Such a reordering would mean, at a minimum, higher energy prices and inflation, and in the long term could even shake the foundations of the dollar-based global economy and with it, U.S. power. Iran still has the critical Strait of Hormuz effectively locked down, and oil prices have resumed climbing. The price of oil is now about 50% higher than before the war began. And prices in the physical market for oil are at record highs as countries and companies compete for increasingly scarce barrels. – How the Iran war could create a new global order in oil
US
(David DiMolfetta – Defense One) The Central Intelligence Agency aims to integrate artificial intelligence-powered “coworkers” into analysts’ workflows in coming years, a top official said Thursday. CIA Deputy Director Michael Ellis said these AI coworkers would be housed in agency analytics platforms to help humans with basic tasks. “It won’t do the thinking for our analysts, but it will help draft key judgments, edit for clarity and compare drafts against tradecraft standards,” Ellis said in a speech at a Special Competitive Studies Project event on AI and the intelligence community. The AI tools would help triage and flag trends for human analysts to review. – CIA employees will get AI ‘coworkers’—and eventually run teams of AI agents, deputy says – Defense One
US/NATO
(Avery Lotz – Axios) President Trump can’t abandon NATO on his own, but he can still turn the relationship toxic as he rails at American allies who sat out his Iran war. America has been the backbone of the transatlantic alliance since 1949, but experts warn Trump’s rhetoric and behavior threaten to undermine NATO’s mutual trust even if the U.S. remains a member. “It’s already pretty well understood and feared amongst a number of Europeans that even if the U.S. stays in NATO, it’s unreliable,” Mark Webber, an international politics professor at the University of Birmingham, tells Axios. On Thursday, Trump wrote that “None of these people, including our own, very disappointing, NATO, understood anything unless they have pressure placed upon them!!!” following a closed door meeting with Secretary General Mark Rutte. – Trump rages against NATO: How he can hurt allies without a withdrawing
War in Iran/Middle East/Gulf and beyond
(Reuters/Al Arabiya) US Vice President JD Vance said on Friday he was looking forward to having positive negotiations with Iran as he left for talks in Pakistan with a warning to Tehran not to “play us.” – Vance warns Iran ahead of talks, says US open to ‘good faith’ negotiations
(AFP/Al Arabiya) Hezbollah said Friday it had targeted Israel’s Ashdod naval base with missiles, two days after deadly Israeli airstrikes on Beirut left more than 300 people dead. – Hezbollah says it targeted Israel’s Ashdod naval base with missiles
(Reuters/Al Arabiya) Israeli and Lebanese officials are expected to meet in Washington next week as US President Donald Trump seeks to calm weeks of Israeli fighting with Iran-backed Hezbollah that has threatened to derail a fragile US-Iran ceasefire. Both sides are under pressure from Trump to bring about an end to the fighting, a key demand by Iran in parallel talks due this weekend in Pakistan. – Israel and Lebanon are expected to hold talks. What do we know?
(Reuters/Al Arabiya) The majority of ships that have sailed through the Strait of Hormuz in the past day were linked to Iran, ship tracking data showed on Friday, with other vessels putting off making voyages despite a two-week ceasefire agreed this week between Tehran and Washington, according to data and shipping sources. – Iran-linked ships drive traffic through Strait of Hormuz– ship tracking data shows
(Al Arabiya) After just 40 days of war between Iran, the United States, and Israel, Tehran emerged with heavy losses and widespread damage to its critical and civilian infrastructure. Many Iranians lost their jobs, while factories, power plants, airports, and bridges were destroyed. – Iran suffers $145 bln losses, widespread destruction after 40-day war
(Thomas Novelly – Defense One) To President Trump and his defense secretary, the herculean rescue of two downed airmen in hostile territory was further proof that the U.S. military has full control of the skies over Iran. But the actual situation remains complicated and dangerous, according to former military officials and defense experts who said painting a simple picture overlooks the weapons that downed the F-15E—and that still hold vast swaths of airspace at risk. On Easter Sunday, Trump said in a social media post that the daring recovery underscored that U.S. forces had “achieved overwhelming Air Dominance and Superiority over the Iranian skies.” The next day, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said much the same. “We control the skies. You see we flew for seven hours in daylight over Iran to get the first pilot, and we flew seven hours in the middle of the night to get the second and Iran did nothing about it,” Hegseth said Monday at a White House press conference. But airpower experts, including Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, have been more measured. At press conferences, the former F-16 pilot has declared that air superiority exists over only certain areas of Iran; on Wednesday, he acknowledged the ongoing dangers that aviators face. “I’ve laid out the statistics, but it does not truly capture the nature of combat. This is gritty and unforgiving business,” Caine said. “It’s chaotic, it’s hot, it’s dark, it’s unpredictable and there’s always unknowns.” – The Pentagon claims ‘we control the sky’ over Iran. Experts say the air war isn’t that simple. – Defense One
