Flagship

Gaza ceasefire deal further out of reach

A Gaza ceasefire agreement appears increasingly elusive after Hamas said Tuesday it was backing out of upcoming talks. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly blamed the lack of progress on the militant group. But a New York Times report said that he has privately added new, uncompromising demands that his “own negotiators fear have created extra obstacles to a deal.” US President Joe Biden acknowledged Tuesday that reaching a deal was “getting harder,” adding, “I’m not giving up.” The lack of an agreement would raise the risk of a Middle East escalation after reports suggested only a Gaza ceasefire could deter an impending Iranian attack on Israel.

China courts Thailand, Myanmar

China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, headed to Thailand and Myanmar Tuesday as Beijing continues to court the Global South. In a piece in state media, Wang wrote that China is striving to improve “the global governance system” and safeguard peace. “China understands the West’s arrogance and the weakness of the West’s approaches in developing countries,” a Tsinghua University academic told The Washington Post. But Beijing’s foreign policy has seen mixed results in Southeast Asia: It has alienated the Philippines with aggressive South China Sea tactics, failed to stabilize war-torn Myanmar, and disenfranchised Thai factory workers with cheap imports.

Trump praises Xi, Putin, Kim

Donald Trump expressed admiration for the leaders of China, Russia, and North Korea during his interview with Tesla CEO Elon Musk on X. “They’re at the top of their game, they’re tough, they’re smart, they’re vicious, and they’re going to protect their country,” the former US president said, referring to Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, adding that he hopes to “get along with them again.” Both Russia and North Korea would likely welcome a second Trump presidency, but an economically vulnerable China will feel the blow of his proposed tariffs much more this time around, The Wall Street Journal wrote. Trump “will be putting his elbow into the Chinese economy as it deflates,” said one geopolitical strategist.

Indian doctors protest murder

Hospital services in major Indian cities were disrupted Tuesday as hundreds of thousands of doctors took to the streets to protest the rape and murder of a female junior doctor. The crime that took place in a government hospital in the city of Kolkata shows “the glaring deficiencies in security within our medical institutions across the nation,” said a leading doctors’ union that is pushing the federal government to pass a law standardizing the definition of violence against medical staff. More than 75% of doctors in India have faced violence at work, according to a 2015 survey, with women practitioners particularly vulnerable to sexual assault and harrasment, the president of the Indian Medical Association told NDTV.

Pakistan arrests former spy chief

Pakistan arrested a former spymaster Monday on corruption charges in an unprecedented move against the country’s powerful intelligence agency. It is the first time Pakistan has charged a current or former head of the ISI, which has played an integral role in installing and toppling the country’s governments. The arrest of Faiz Hameed, a retired military leader and ally of imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan, is a “clear signal to all politicians that no one is above the law,” an Islamabad-based security expert told Nikkei. Hameed celebrated the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan and was linked to militant groups, so his arrest “could be the beginning of the Pakistani military’s break from policies associated with him,” said a former Pakistani ambassador to the US.

Google unveils AI-powered phone

Google unveiled its latest generation of AI-powered smartphones Tuesday. It’s part of the tech giant’s efforts to make waves in a “hardware market that has mostly ignored it,” The New York Times wrote. Some of the Pixel phone series’ exclusive AI features include a more conversational voice assistant and a tool allowing users to edit photos by typing out modifications. Google represents just a sliver of worldwide smartphone sales — about 5% in the US — in an Apple and Samsung-dominated market, but its artificial intelligence push heats up the race with Apple, which is expected to unveil AI-powered Macs and iPhones later this year.

Your personal briefing on critical developments in the Middle East. Receive insightful, non-partisan analysis and commentary from the Middle East Institute’s leading regional experts on breaking news and the pressing issues shaping this dynamic region. Get the latest updates delivered straight to your inbox twice weekly — subscribe for free.

German economy pessimism

Analysts are increasingly pessimistic about the future of the struggling German economy. A new survey conducted by a German economic institute found that only about 35% of local experts and investors believe Europe’s largest economy will improve in the next six months, down from about 50% in the July survey. The outlook is similarly downbeat for the eurozone economy, bolstering the case for a further interest rate cut by the European Central Bank next month. Experts said the gloomy forecast is driven by global uncertainty around interest rates, the US economy, and the Middle East. One economist likened the European economy to the River Seine’s water quality: “Some days it may look okay but overall, it’s poor enough to continuously worry about it.”

Mars and Jupiter get friendly

Jupiter and Mars will be closer together in the night sky Wednesday than any time until 2033. The two neighbors will be just one-third of one degree apart, about a third of the width of the moon in the sky. In reality, they’ll still be 350 million miles apart, but sky watchers will be able to line both up in their telescopes with ease. The two planets’ orbits bring them into line every three years, but minor variations change their relative position each time: In 1761, they were so close as to appear a single object. The best views will be in the eastern sky before daybreak, and the conjunction coincides with the Perseid meteor shower.

Earliest writing code cracked?

A furniture carver in London may have deciphered the earliest known precursor of writing. The Lascaux caves in France contain hundreds of beautiful Stone Age images of animals, some of them 35,000 years old — more than 20,000 years before the first writing appeared. Next to many of those images are apparently abstract dots and lines. Bennett Bacon noticed that the number of dots seemed to correlate with the number of months after the springtime snow melt when the animals would tend to appear: He wrote a paper with five academics arguing it represented a “proto-writing system.” Not all archaeologists are convinced, but a scholar of ancient scripts told the Financial Times the theory was “tantalizing” and “persuasive.”

Burning Man fails to sell out

Burning Man failed to sell out, a rarity that regulars blame on extreme weather events and equally extreme ticket prices. The Nevada desert festival released a last-minute pool of 3,000 tickets as fans stayed away. It may be partly due to memories of last year’s event, which was nearly washed away in uncharacteristic desert rains, leaving 77,000 people stranded and forcing celebrity attendees like Chris Rock to flee cross-country. The year before, temperatures reached 39°C (103°F), with some needing treatment for heatstroke. The fact that it costs at least $780 to enter the festival with a vehicle may also have influenced sales.

August 14:

• Thailand’s Constitutional Court decides whether to remove Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin from office.
• John Woo’s latest action film, The Killer, premieres in Los Angeles.
• A Russian cargo spacecraft sets off from Kazakhstan to resupply the International Space Station.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York unveiled its latest blockbuster showing of Japanese art. Spanning 1,000 years and 10 galleries, The Three Perfections takes its name from that traditionally given to painting, poetry, and calligraphy in East Asian cultures. Co-curator Monika Bincsik described the exhibition as a “true multi-sensory experience,” from the hypnotic chanting of 11th-century poetry, to calligraphy by Zen monks in medieval Kyoto, and ceramics that evoke the delicate ritual of the tea ceremony. “You have to slow down, take your time, and almost imagine like it’s a piece of art in your own apartment,” she told The Guardian. “That’s very different from our 21st-century mindset, especially a New York lifestyle.“

• Kamala Harris campaign races to stay one step ahead of online backlash.
• US campuses brace for renewed pro-Palestinian protests.
• Conservative indie publishing boom turns to bust.