Welcome to CFR’s Daily News Brief. Today we’re covering a Washington meeting on the future of Gaza, as well as... - New plans for artificial intelligence (AI) investments in India
- Peru’s new president
- The succession race at the European Central Bank
Our daily coverage of the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics continues today. Scroll down for news about giant slalom, plus the Italian food ingredient that has become a breakout star. |
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U.S. President Donald Trump’s international Board of Peace meets today in Washington to discuss the future of Gaza. While at least twenty-seven nations are officially members of the board, envoys from some forty-five are expected to be present at its first meeting, underscoring Trump’s significant role in orchestrating the postwar plans for the enclave. Outstanding questions still loom about next steps of Trump’s peace plan for Gaza, including how Hamas’s demilitarization could unfold.
The details. Countries will pledge at least $5 billion toward Gaza’s reconstruction today, Trump said earlier this week. The United Arab Emirates and Kuwait are each expected to pledge $1.2 billion of that total, an unnamed U.S. official told Reuters. Many of the board’s members are Gulf Arab and Central Asian countries. Israel joined last week, while no Palestinian group is currently represented; a separate committee to administer Gaza’s day-to-day governance will be made up of Palestinian technocrats. Besides the United States, no other permanent member of the UN Security Council is on the board. U.S. Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz said the board’s structure is justified because the “old ways” of addressing conflict “were not working.”
The latest on the ground. Since Israel partially opened the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt earlier this month, the UN and partner agencies have helped medically evacuate at least 108 patients, while at least 269 people returned to Gaza, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Monday. It added that a handful of planned humanitarian missions in Gaza this month have been blocked by Israel or security risks on the ground. Israel is still conducting near-daily strikes against what it says are Hamas threats in Gaza; both Israel and Hamas accuse each other of violating the current truce. Israel has not allowed members of the U.S.-backed Gaza technocratic committee to enter the territory.
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“If a process of [Hamas] disarmament takes hold, Trump’s peace plan, including a pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, will begin to look less aspirational and more realistic…Conversely, if Hamas chooses not to disarm and Gaza does not reunify, the future looks bleak. At best, the territory will remain partitioned, with Gazans living under Hamas’s tyranny or Israeli occupation. At worst, Gaza will once again become a war zone.”
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—the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Dennis Ross and David Makovsky, Foreign Affairs |
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Civil rights leader and longtime Council on Foreign Relations member Reverend Jesse L. Jackson Sr., who died Tuesday, advocated across racial, class, and party lines to build a freer country, CFR President Michael Froman writes in memoriam. |
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U.S. military buildup near Iran. The U.S. military is amassing its greatest airpower buildup in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Wall Street Journal reported. Iran’s foreign minister said that talks held Monday to reach a nuclear deal and stave off an armed conflict had resulted in shared “guiding principles.” U.S. Vice President JD Vance said yesterday, however, that Tehran was still not acknowledging certain U.S. red lines.
AI investments in India. Indian tech giant Reliance Industries will invest around $110 billion across the country over the next seven years on AI infrastructure, the company’s chair announced at an AI summit in New Delhi today. The announcement follows a pledge earlier this week by Adani Group to invest $100 billion in data centers across India by 2035.
Verdict for South Korea’s Yoon. A South Korean court sentenced former President Yoon Suk Yeol to life in prison today for insurrection in a case stemming from his December 2024 declaration of martial law and deployment of troops to the opposition-controlled legislature. Yoon argued during the trial that his actions were intended as a warning. He had already received a separate five-year sentence, in part for attempting to obstruct his own detention by investigators. In today’s ruling, he avoided the death penalty that prosecutors recommended.
Peru’s new interim president. Peru’s legislature elected leftist lawmaker José María Balcázar as interim president yesterday following the Tuesday impeachment of José Jerí. Balcázar will serve only for a few months, as the country plans to hold presidential elections in April. He is Peru’s eighth president in the span of only a decade.
UK’s Andrew arrested. United Kingdom (UK) authorities detained former Prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor today as part of a probe into his suspected misconduct while in public office. The investigation follows the January release of documents that suggest Mountbatten-Windsor might have shared confidential information with the late convicted U.S. sex offender Jeffrey Epstein while he was working as a UK trade envoy. King Charles confirmed his brother’s arrest, and said “the law must take its course” and that authorities have his full cooperation in the probe. Revelations from the Epstein files already prompted the removal of the then-UK ambassador to Washington, Peter Mandelson, in September.
ECB succession race. Spain’s government openly voiced its ambitions for a leadership position at the European Central Bank (ECB) yesterday, hours after the Financial Times reported that current bank head Christine Lagarde aimed to leave her term before it is due to expire in October 2027. Three of the top six jobs at the bank would be vacant by the end of next year, though the ECB said yesterday that Lagarde had not decided about her departure. Spain has never held the top position in the bank’s near-three-decade history.
IMF warning on China. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) called for a major shift in China’s economic policies yesterday, saying the country should switch to a growth model led by internal consumption rather than exports. China’s exports were causing “adverse spillovers” for its trade partners, the IMF said, in an unusually strong critique that echoes analysis made by officials in the United States and Europe. Early next month, China’s National People’s Congress is due to announce its economic targets for 2026.
Gabon’s internet restrictions. Platforms including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and WhatsApp were experiencing outages in the country yesterday, watchdog NetBlocks said following a government announcement that it would suspend social media “until further notice.” Authorities claimed that social media was being used to spread false information, cyberbully, and share unauthorized personal data. The country has experienced a series of labor strikes in recent weeks.
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A recent meeting in Washington discussed a multilateral approach to addressing China’s near-monopoly on the rare earth processing ecosystem, CFR expert Heidi Crebo-Rediker says in this YouTube Short. |
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Today, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto visits Washington, DC.
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Today, Madagascar President Michael Randrianirina visits Moscow.
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Tomorrow, Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae delivers her first policy speech in Tokyo since a sweeping election victory.
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What You Missed: 2026 Milan-Cortina |
Every morning the Daily News Brief team will share the latest highlights from the 2026 Winter Olympics! Without further ado, here’s what you might have missed since yesterday.
Skiing sensations. Team USA skiing star Mikaela Shiffrin won gold in slalom yesterday in two runs that lasted a combined one minute and thirty-nine seconds. Shiffrin has the most alpine World Cup titles of any athlete—male or female—but had not won an Olympic medal since 2018. Also in skiing headlines yesterday, U.S. Vice President Vance commented on San Francisco-born skier Eileen Gu’s decision to compete for China rather than the United States. Gu said last week that “sometimes I feel like I’m carrying the weight of two countries on my shoulders.” She took silvers in slopestyle and big air.
One-athlete delegations. A handful of countries, including Bolivia, Colombia, Nigeria, and Venezuela, are represented by only one athlete at these Olympics. Speaking to The Athletic, several of these athletes—sometimes born or raised outside of the country for which they chose to compete—described a desire to strengthen their ties to part of their heritage and to raise the profile of winter sports in the countries they represent. But the journey to Milan has often not been easy, and for some included piecing together financing from day jobs and funds for under-represented athletes. In the process, the solo athletes have bonded with each other.
Fuel of choice. A giant Nutella dispenser in the dining hall for Olympians has delighted athletes and become a standout on social media. The chocolate-hazelnut spread was created in Italy in the 1960s. The dining hall is not the only place Nutella has played a role at this tournament. It was also an athlete’s successful alibi during a doping accusation: Italian biathlete Rebecca Pasller said she shared a Nutella spoon with her mother, who was on medication that was later detected in a doping test.
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