Flagship

Jordan-Israel border shuts after shooting

Israel shut its border with Jordan after a Jordanian national shot and killed three Israelis at a crossing point in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the attack, linking it to Israel’s broader conflict with Iranian-backed militant groups, and particularly the war in Gaza. Jordanian citizens — many of whom are of Palestinian descent — have been intensely critical of Israel’s campaign. Amman, however, “has to stay out of the fray,” one analyst told Al Jazeera, as any broader Israel-Iran conflict would “put Jordan on a tightrope.” The shooting comes days after a Turkish-American woman was shot and killed Friday during a protest against Israeli settlers, sparking international condemnation.

Venezuelan opposition leader flees to Spain

Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo González fled to Spain Saturday, a blow to groups contesting President Nicolás Maduro’s evidence-free assertion that he won a highly-contested July election. González, who had a warrant out for his arrest, was apparently allowed to leave by Venezuelan officials, Maduro’s vice president said. Venezuela has threatened arrest in the past to force opposition figures into exile, The Caracas Chronicles noted: Authorities “could have apprehended [them] at any moment,” but the threat proved enough to achieve a similarly beneficial end for Maduro. Other prominent anti-Maduro figures have gone silent since the crackdown, the outlet wrote, but María Corina Machado — the opposition’s de facto leader — likely does not want to “squander the broad support that surpasses that of any other opposition leader.”

Huawei, Apple launch dueling phones

Huawei will go head-to-head with Apple’s new iPhone 16 with a triple-folding smartphone as the two battle over the Chinese market. Apple’s launch Monday will be its first since it announced Apple Intelligence, its in-house artificial intelligence, in July, Bloomberg noted, adding that it’s “still a work in progress.” Huawei’s Mate XT phone, set to launch the next day, is designed to grow its market share in China as a domestic alternative to Apple, Nikkei wrote, doubling down on the Chinese telecom giant’s resurgence there in the face of rising tensions over advanced technology with the US. Reservations for Huawei’s new phone had already amounted to about 1.3 million within seven hours of opening, the outlet added.

Typhoon disrupts Asia supply chain

Super typhoon Yagi wreaked havoc in Asia over the weekend, laying ruin to manufacturing and shipping hubs that will likely drive up prices and take weeks to resolve. Yagi, which killed at least 14 people in Vietnam and drove a million to evacuate in southern China, forced factories and transportation networks to close in Guangdong province, Hainan, and Hong Kong, creating a mounting shipping backlog. The industrial region of Haiphong in Vietnam also suffered significant damage. China’s factory activity had already fallen below expectations even before Yagi hit.

Boeing reaches tentative union deal

Boeing reached a tentative deal Sunday that could avert a major union-led labor strike, a win for the embattled company’s new CEO. Robert Kelly Ortberg took on a laundry list of problems in August, including major airplane quality issues, problems with its space capsule, Starliner, and increased financial pressure — it reported a $1.44 billion second-quarter net loss. The agreement would raise wages for Washington-based workers by 25% over four years, and has a commitment to launch its next commercial airplane in the state, as well as giving workers more say over safety issues. “Boeing is in the middle of trying to fix its factory floor,” one analyst told the Financial Times. “Labour is a real important part of that.”

India’s Gandhi arrives in US

India opposition leader Rahul Gandhi kicked off a three-day US tour in Texas Sunday. Gandhi’s trip is widely seen as a mission to court the powerful Indian-American diaspora, a large source of political donations that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Hindu nationalist BJP party have largely won over. Since reclaiming the opposition leader role in June, Gandhi “is proving to be a far more formidable opponent than expected,” Asia Sentinel wrote, and he hopes to reset the reputation of his Indian National Congress party abroad. Meanwhile, US politicians could also court Gandhi to help sway a sizable US voter block, as they have in the past — notably, former President Donald Trump, who attended pro-Modi rallies as part of his 2020 re-election bid.

France faces political crisis post-Paris 2024

The 2024 Paris Games wrapped Sunday with the end of the Paralympics, returning the country to political turmoil. The six-week games had “produced a sense of escapism from the country’s divisions and woes,” AFP wrote, underscored by a pre-Olympics snap election that left it with a divided parliament and a caretaker government. French politicians had “respected the idea of an Olympic truce,” one expert told the outlet, but now President Emannuel Macron has to deal with the opposition to his appointment of conservative Michel Bernier as prime minister, and a growing belief he “has lost his touch,” a French journalist told the BBC.

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Fusion startup aims for breakthrough

A Shanghai startup is seeking $500 million to develop nuclear fusion technology. Energy Singularity is one of the many companies across the world trying to perfect nuclear fusion, which works by slamming hydrogen isotopes together to release energy, akin to what happens inside a star. Despite that immense potential, nuclear fusion reactors so far “have barely generated enough energy to boil a kettle,” the Financial Times wrote. As China races with the West to commercialize what would be a groundbreaking source of clean and abundant energy, Beijing is putting an estimated $1.5 billion into fusion research — double Washington’s figure. But the country still lacks in-house specialists to develop fusion technology, as well as the infrastructure to process fuel and manage radioactive waste.

Japan’s first casino set to open 2030

Japan’s first casino could break ground in Osaka as soon as this month. The casino, originally approved in 2023, is set to open by 2030, Nikkei reported. The 5.3 million square-foot resort is expected to attract 20 million visitors a year and inject more than $700 million annually into the country’s declining tourism industry. But critics fear it will also attract crime and encourage gambling addiction — while gambling is largely illegal in Japan, pachinko and sports betting are extremely popular, with the former generating 14.6 trillion yen in sales in 2020.

Alleged AI music fraud revealed

A musician was charged with fraud after allegedly making $10 million by using bots to boost the streaming of his music — some generated with artificial intelligence. US federal prosecutors allege Michael Smith created thousands of fake streaming accounts to play music by non-existent artists with names such as Calorie Screams and Calvinistic Dust on repeat from various computers. Over the course of seven years, his songs garnered billions of streams on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music. Initially he wrote the music himself, but started using AI instead in 2018, prosecutors said. By 2019, Smith allegedly earned $110,000 a month off what he described as “instant music,” according to The New York Times. He denied the charges.

September 9

• The UN Human Rights Council opens its four-week session in Geneva.
• The US Congress returns from summer break.
• Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre visits China.

As New York’s annual Armory Show gets underway, one of the exhibits is preparing to travel the country in the run-up to the November presidential election. The collection of contemporary art, entitled Body Freedom for Every(Body), aims to humanize abortions and spark discussion about autonomy over people’s bodies, according to organizers Project for Empty Space, an art non-profit. Featuring a rotating selection of more than 100 artists’ works, the collection will travel in a 27-foot truck branded with the phrase “your body is a battleground.” The mobile exhibit is apparently designed to call attention to the fact that not all women in the US have access to spaces to openly discuss abortion, even though the procedure is “also a fact of life,” Artnet wrote.

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