Trending Now
We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
{{ subpage.title }}
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands as they make joint statements to the press at the Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem on Feb. 16, 2025.
Gaza: The battle of the plans
When it comes to the future of Gaza, the only thing regional players agree on is that they don’t agree. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supports US President Donald Trump’s vision of an American-controlled “Riviera of the Middle East,” relocating approximately 2 million Palestinians to neighboring countries – a move widely criticized as ethnic cleansing. Egypt is formulating a reconstruction plan that would rebuild Gaza’s infrastructure, exclude Hamas from governance, and ensure Palestinians remain on their land. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, is developing an alternative strategy, advocating for Gaza’s reconstruction, a two-state solution, and no displacement of residents.
Who’s talking to whom? US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Netanyahuon Sunday and declared that Hamas “cannot continue as a military or government force … they must be eliminated.” On Monday, the Israeli cabinet met to review “phase two” of the ceasefire with Hamas, and Defense Minister Israel Katz began the process of creating an agency to facilitate the “voluntary” relocation of Palestinians from Gaza. And where would they go? Katz said the Israeli military should prepare land, sea, and air exit options for Gazans to move to “any country willing to accept them.”
Also on Monday,Rubio met with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh. A statement issued afterward by the palace made no reference to Gaza, noting only that the two men “reviewed aspects of the bilateral relations between the two friendly countries and ways to enhance and develop them in various fields.”
What’s next? On Feb. 20, Saudi will host a meeting with Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, to discuss Egypt’s proposal – and a “representative of Palestine” could be invited as well. The meeting is a precursor to a larger regional summit on Feb. 27, which may now be delayed for “logistical reasons.”Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro, right, and President Donald Trump's envoy Richard Grenell shake hands at the Miraflores Palace, in Caracas, Venezuela, on Jan. 31, 2025.
Hard Numbers: Venezuela releases Americans, Balochistan fighting kills Pakistani soldiers, Syrian leader visits Saudi Arabia, Queensland faces floods, Zelensky decries airstrikes, Groundhog sees shadow
6: On Friday, Venezuela released six detained Americans, sending them home with Richard Grenell, the US envoy for special missions, following his talks with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. President Donald Trump said Saturday that Venezuela had agreed to take back the Venezuelan migrants facing deportation from the US and to “supply the transportation.”
18: Pakistan said Saturday that 18 of its soldiers were killed while fighting separatist insurgents who had set up a roadblock on a key highway in the restive Balochistan region. Twenty-three rebels were also killed in the fighting, and the roadblock has been removed, according to security forces.
1: Syria’s newly named interim president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, on Sunday made his first international trip since leading his rebel group in the overthrow of former President Bashar Assad in December. Al-Sharaa landed in Saudi Arabia, where he met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who pledged his support for Syria.
4.2: Northern Queensland, Australia, is facing its worst flooding in 60 years. One woman has died and thousands have fled their homes as 4.2 feet of rain fell on the region over the weekend. More rain was predicted for Monday.
1,400: Russia launched more than 1,400 airstrikes against Ukraine last week, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is appealing for more Western support. On Saturday, he accused Moscow of hitting its own civilians in the Kursk region.
6: If you’re tired of the cold weather, this is going to come as bad news: Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow on Sunday, Groundhog Day, and predicted six more weeks of winter. Bundle up!Saudi Arabia's Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman meets Syria's newly appointed Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shibani, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, January 2, 2025.
Syria’s new leaders visit Saudi Arabia
The Saudis welcome a government in Syria that is no longer an Iranian ally and a transit route that allows Tehran to rearm Hezbollah, its proxy in Lebanon. The Saudis would also like to see an end to the smuggling into the kingdom of dangerous narcotics from Syria. For Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, these are developments that can help stabilize the region after more than a year of expanding war and decades of a delicate balance between Iran and the Gulf Arab states.
The new leaders in Damascus hope the Saudis and other deep-pocketed Gulf Arab states will see the new Syria as a “big investment opportunity,” in the words of the country’s de facto leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, until recently known by his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed al-Golani. Rebuilding civil war-torn Syria and welcoming back large numbers of Syrian refugees from abroad will be an enormously expensive project, and the Gulf Arabs are by far the likeliest potential donors to see self-interest in major investments.
Palestinians carry an aid box distributed by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, November 4, 2024.
Gaza aid at lowest point in a year despite US ultimatum to Israel
Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he will nominate former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to serve as US ambassador to Israel. Huckabee is also an evangelical pastor and the first non-Jew to hold the position in 15 years. He has been a stalwart supporter of Israel’s right to defend itself and of its settlements in the West Bank throughout his career.
The announcement comes a month after the US gave Israel a 30-day ultimatum to boost humanitarian aid flows to Gaza or risk American military aid declining, a deadline that the UN says Israel has failed to meet. Instead, Gaza aid is at its lowest level in a year, according to the UN, and famine is imminent. Israel has also largely failed to comply with Washington’s other two demands: resuming access for commercial trucks and ending the isolation of the North.
Israel blames UN aid agencies for failing to distribute the aid, while the UN accuses the Israeli military of not ensuring safe conditions for distribution. The US State Department said that military aid will not be curtailed because Israel has made progress on its demands and is not in violation of US law.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmansaid during a meeting with leaders of Islamic nations on Monday that Israel is carrying out a “collective genocide” in Gaza. Although MBS and many of the leaders present have enabled severe human rights abuses of their own, his statement is likely in anticipation that the US will soon, either as a last-ditch triumph for Joe Biden or an early victory for Donald Trump, try to negotiate a deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Statements like these bolster MBS’s credibility with Israel’s enemies in the region, while also gaining leverage that may translate to Israel making – potentially empty – promises to support future Palestinian statehood in exchange for normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia.
June 16, 2023 - Paris, France: Saudi Arabia s crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman arrives at the Elysee palace for his meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron.
Hard Numbers: Aramco invests, Japan frets, Perplexity gets popular — and sued, UK sentences man in deepfake case
25: When surveyed, only 25% of Japanese respondents said that AI makes them nervous — the lowest mark of any of the 32 countries that Ipsos polled recently. But the country has been very slow to adopt AI or lean fully into its research. Stanford’s count of the “foundation models” for generative AI found that 182 of them originated in the United States, while none originated in Japan. The country is open to AI, but its tech sector just isn’t diving in yet.
350 million: Perplexity is an ascendant AI search engine — it fielded 350 million user queries in September alone. That’s a big uptick considering users asked only 500 million questions in all of 2023. As it’s grown, the company has come under fire from news publishers. Dow Jones, which publishes the Wall Street Journal, sued Perplexity last week alleging copyright violations. In response, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas said he won’t pay to license content from news publishers but is discussing a revenue-sharing agreement similar to how Spotify pays musical artists.
18: In a landmark court decision, a judge in the United Kingdom sentenced a 27-year-old man to 18 years in prison for using AI to create child sexual abuse material. The man pleaded guilty to using a US-based service called Daz 3D to transform real photos of children into explicit deepfakes in violation of British law.In this photo illustration, the Saudi Arabian Airlines (Saudia) logo seen displayed on a smartphone with an Artificial intelligence (AI) chip and symbol in the background.
A Saudi tech institute chooses the US over China
Sir Edward Byrne, recently named the head of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia, or KAUST, signaled that the institution will prioritize US technology and cut off ties with China if it jeopardizes its access to chips made in the US.
Byrne, an Australian neuroscientist, served as president at King’s College London from 2014 to 2021, and he was named president of KAUST last month. KAUST’s researchers depend on high-end chips from US companies such as Nvidia and AMD to train and run powerful artificial intelligence models and applications.
Both the US and China have vied for power in the Arabian peninsula, but the US has a clear advantage with most of the top chip and AI companies in the world — as well as strict export controls for US companies shipping to China or intermediaries.
Byrne is following the lead of others in the kingdom. In May, the chief executive officer of the Saudi Public Investment Fund-backed fund Alat also said that if asked to choose between the US and China, the fund would divest from China.
At a global AI summit in Riyadh last month, the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority recently announced a deal to buy 5,000 Nvidia graphics chips to help develop an Arabic large language model, pending US government approval. The future of Saudi tech depends on the US and, it seems, the government and its most important institutions are signaling that while they don’t want to choose sides, the answer is clear as to who would win if they did.
Tourists visit the Torre de Belem (Belem Tower) in Lisbon, Portugal on October 19, 2021.
Hard Numbers: No tax for young Portuguese, Milton's death toll, Saudis fail at UN Human Rights Council, Nobel winners, UN wants its money back, US inflation cools
0: Portugal's government has proposed a novel plan to stem the flow of talented young people exiting the country for brighter job prospects in other countries. Beginning in 2025, young people earning up to €28,000 ($30,600) a year would pay zero income tax for their first year of work. They’d then get a 75% tax exemption from the second to the fifth year, 50% between the sixth and ninth years, and 25% in the 10th year.
12: More than 2 million Floridians still have no power as a result of Hurricane Milton, and the storm has been linked to at least 12 deaths, mostly on the eastern side of the Sunshine State.
7: On Wednesday,Saudi Arabia came up short in its bid to win a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council, a setback for the kingdom’s bid to remake its image. The Asia-Pacific group of candidates, which included Saudi Arabia, had six candidates vying for five seats. The Saudis won 117 votes, seven fewer than the fifth-place Marshall Islands.
121: Novelist Han Kang is the 121st winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature — and the first South Korean author to win the award. Kang was lauded for “her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”
105: The Japanese anti-nuclear weapons organization Nihon Hidankyo, a group of Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb survivors, has been awarded the 105th Nobel Peace Prize. The group received the honor early Friday “for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again," said the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which has been issuing the prize since 1901.
58.8: A United Nations tribunal has ordered a former high-ranking official to repay the UN $58.8 million of the organization’s money which he steered towards a British businessman in crooked deals. Vitaly Vanshelboim, a 20-year veteran of the UN who is from Ukraine, is accused of receiving interest-free loans and a Mercedes, among other gifts.
2.4: US inflation fell to 2.4% in September. That’s an improvement from 2.5% in August but fell short of the 2.3% analysts expected. The drop in inflation may not be enough to justify a 50 basis point rate cut when the Federal Reserve meets in November.Saudi Arabia plays host to AI world
Riyadh has invited the world’s governments and technology companies to its Global AI Summit from Sept. 10-12. Having launched in 2020, the summit’s third edition is an opportunity for the Saudi government to assert itself as a regional and global power in artificial intelligence.
So far, it’s doing a “decent job,” said Alexa Parks, an associate in Eurasia Group’s Middle East and North Africa practice, noting how the Saudis are building more physical infrastructure (such as data centers and chip manufacturing capabilities) to support their broader ambition of becoming a regional tech and AI leader. Having an authoritarian government helps, Parks noted, pointing to Saudi Arabia’s nimble policy-making and stable leadership, which allow for stable, long-term investments in industry.
Metrics of success. Participation is key, and Parks said Saudi Arabia’s success is reflected in the number of major companies attending, including Huawei, Nvidia, and Microsoft, which are listed as partners for the event. “The presence of so many heavy hitters in the tech space at the summit is a real victory for Saudi Arabia’s AI ambitions and shows how seriously many in the tech sector are taking Riyadh and its AI and tech goals,” she said.
But the US and China will be butting heads in Riyadh as they vie for influence in the region, especially with Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Last year, the influential Emirati fund G42 cut ties with China to appease the US. In May, Amit Midha, the chief executive officer of the Saudi fund Alat, which is supported by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, said that if asked to choose between the US and China, the fund would divest from China. That came mere months after Alat signed a $200 million partnership with Dahua Technology for surveillance technology for the kingdom’s smart cities projects.
While neither the US nor Chinese government is attending in an official capacity, according to the summit’s website, their top companies’ leaders certainly are. Parks is watching to see if Alat or other funds ink deals with American or Chinese companies at the summit as a sign of how the tides are turning. We’ll report back next week on any significant developments.
“Any agreements that emerge between Alat and American tech companies concerning smart cities during this summit,” she said, “could signal a more concerted American effort to try and start pushing Chinese tech companies out of the Saudi smart city space.”