Category: Semafor

Concerted Canada-EU efforts to deepen ties reflect a global order accommodating itself to a more unpredictable — and less potent — US. The European Commission’s president called for the bloc to “reimagine our partnerships,” underscoring a pivot to building consensus among “middle powers,” Politico wrote. European fears are “no longer ...

Oil prices in China hit record highs Wednesday, as energy disruptions from an escalating Middle East conflict spilled into the world’s largest market for imported crude. China has helped keep oil prices in 2026 down by slashing its imports, but Beijing is “coming back off its crash diet,” an energy ...

The News This afternoon Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh sided with markets over President Donald Trump, voting with all other board members to hike interest rates by 0.25%. “The committee’s unanimous vote shows our resolve to achieve price stability on a timelier basis,” Warsh told reporters after. “I said in ...

Kenya will host the World Athletics Championships in 2029, in a first for the African continent. Nairobi beat London and Rome for the honor, after what the World Athletics president called a “compelling and emotional bid.” Kenya is the second-most successful nation in the history of the World Championships, and ...

David’s view If you don’t appreciate how quickly Democrats are entering attack mode against AI, just count the groups they’ve started since our last edition alone. There’s Tomorrow Together, the new PAC formed by veterans of the Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris campaigns, working to make theirs “the party that ...

The News AI makes hacking easier and faster, but human villains are still a large part of the process. Over the summer, a hacker was able to deploy frontier AI models to breach a European IT and software company in less than 10 hours — something that would ordinarily take ...

The Trump administration imposed new visa restrictions on South African officials that the US accuses of “government-sponsored discrimination” against Afrikaners. The measures target individuals deemed complicit in race-based discrimination and uncompensated land seizures, and may extend to their immediate family members. Washington’s ambassador to South Africa described it as the ...

South Africa’s treasury plans a three-year intervention to stabilize Johannesburg’s public finances, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said Monday. Implementation of the plan will continue through local elections, regardless of whether there is a new municipal administration, according to Godongwana. The move follows the treasury’s decision this year to withhold budget ...

The Middle East conflict threatened to widen as fighting intensified between Saudi forces and Iran-backed Houthi fighters in Yemen. Riyadh said it intercepted a Houthi drone near the holy Muslim city of Mecca; the Yemeni group denied the charge and said it downed a Saudi fighter jet. The US, meanwhile, ...

The US Treasury secretary will hold talks with a top Chinese official as part of efforts to head off a resumption of trade conflict, while tensions mounted between the superpowers across a range of issues. The talks on Sunday come ahead of next week’s leaders’ summit in Washington, DC; though ...