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Azerbaijan dissolves breakaway region

Armenia accused Azerbaijan of “ethnic cleansing” after Baku dissolved the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, the culmination of a lightning military offensive launched last week. The sudden end to a decades-long dispute can partially be attributed to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. “Russia doesn’t have the resources to make everyone scared of it as it could before,” one analyst told The New York Times. But it doesn’t signal an end to tensions in the region. Baku remains focused on creating a corridor through southern Armenia connecting Azerbaijan and an autonomous Azerbaijani region. “This flashpoint could draw in other regional players like Iran and Turkey, threatening geopolitical stability in Eurasia and beyond,” the political scientist Ian Bremmer warned.

US defector returned from North Korea

Travis King, the U.S. Army private who fled to North Korea in July, is back in American custody. King bolted during a tour of the Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas, shouting “ha ha ha” as he did so, according to witnesses. Pyongyang said King, who had been recently released from a South Korean prison, was “disillusioned about inhumane treatment and racial discrimination” in the army and U.S. society, although his mother disputed that. Tensions between North Korea and the West are high: This month, Kim Jong Un visited Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin to discuss an arms deal. Washington made clear that while it had thanked Pyongyang for releasing King, the episode was not “a sign of some breakthrough.”

Jony Ive, OpenAI to make AI device

OpenAI is reportedly discussing the creation of a new AI-powered device with Jony Ive, Apple’s former head of design. Exactly what the product would be is unclear, or even whether it will happen at all, but reports in the Financial Times revolved around an AI-driven operating system for a reimagined phone. The interesting aspect, Jessica Lessin wrote for The Information, is that tech firms view AI as such an open space that partnerships can be fluid: Sam Altman’s OpenAI already works closely with Microsoft, but “imagine how Microsoft feels about Ive and Altman building something that could eventually compete with it in a new category.” In the Wild West early days of the field, “rather than forging ironclad alliances, everyone is just hedging their bets.”

EU-China trade ties worsen

Trade ties between Europe and China appear to be worsening, following a visit by the European Union’s trade chief to Beijing. The two sides agreed to exchange export-control information in a bid to dial down tensions, but the trip was marked by sharp exchanges: The EU official said European businesses were questioning their future in China, while Beijing expressed “serious concern and strong dissatisfaction” over a recently launched EU probe into Chinese electric-vehicle subsidies. Brussels is also considering launching a new investigation into China’s support for the medical-technology sector, according to Politico, while the EV inquiry “marks a major step in the EU’s slow shift to a more assertive approach to trade defense against China,” a former British diplomat wrote in ChinaTalk.

Trump looms over GOP debate

Once again, a debate of Republican presidential hopefuls was notable for who wasn’t there. While the candidates on stage argued over Ukraine policy, inflation, and immigration, they largely ignored the overwhelming frontrunner for the 2024 GOP nomination Donald Trump, who instead delivered a speech to Detroit auto workers. “He’s the elephant not in the room, and it is no service to voters to ignore him,” The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board complained. The debate’s venue — the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library — and Trump’s choice to skip it offered a reminder of how much the Republican Party has shifted in recent years. “There are some common areas of policy between the two,” CNN noted, “but much of what Trump represents is a repudiation of Reaganism.”

Argentina’s gathering economic collapse

Argentina’s poverty rate rose to 40% as triple-digit inflation rates battered the country’s economy. Experts believe that Argentina is headed for its sixth recession in a decade, fueling anxiety ahead of next month’s presidential election, which radical libertarian Javier Milei is favorite to win. Although Milei has built his electoral platform on ridding Argentina of what he describes as the economic mismanagement of the incumbent leftist government, economists warn that his cure may be worse than the disease: Milei has vowed to dismantle the country’s central bank and dollarize the economy, along with a number of other unorthodox measures that some believe could further wreck South America’s second-biggest economy.

New coup averted in Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso officials said they had thwarted a coup attempt, less than a year after those governing the country themselves seized power through a coup. The nation has been thrown into disarray after 35-year-old Ibrahim Traoré, a former army captain, stormed to power. Since fighting began last year, more than two million people have been displaced, many of them also fleeing the al-Qaida and ISIS-linked Islamist insurgents that have taken control of swaths of the country. Both the government and militants have been accused of war crimes in what the Norwegian Refugee Council called “the world’s most neglected crisis.”

Russian youth teams back in Euro soccer

UEFA, European soccer’s governing body, said Russian teams can re-enter European under-17 competitions. Russian clubs were banned from European competitions after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. UEFA said that children should not be punished for adults’ actions, but the Ukrainian football association said it would boycott any competition with Russian opponents, while the English, Swedish, Latvian, and Polish football authorities also said they would refuse to play any Russian teams. The issue is one affecting numerous sports: Over the summer, the International Fencing Federation disqualified a Ukrainian fencer for refusing to shake her defeated, Russian, opponent’s hand, while Olympic authorities have said Russian athletes will be allowed to take part in next year’s Paris games under a neutral flag.

Messi-less Miami defeated in final

Lionel Messi could only watch as Inter Miami lost to Houston Dynamo in the final of the U.S. Open Cup. Messi suffered a recurrence of an old injury against Toronto FC last week: He has scored 11 goals and set up five more in his 12 games, but in two games without him Miami have drawn one and lost the other. Messi’s arrival in the U.S. hasn’t just transformed his team’s fortunes: Subscriptions to Apple TV+‘s U.S. soccer broadcast, ticket sales, and Inter Miami’s jersey sales have all surged, ramping up increase in the sport ahead of the U.S.’s joint hosting of the 2026 men’s World Cup.

Game franchises come to Netflix

Netflix released first looks at adaptations of the video games Devil May Cry and Tomb Raider. The former is an anime, based on the 2001 game about a pizza-eating mercenary demon-hunter, while the latter, which will star Agent Carter’s Hayley Atwell, is the fifth adaptation of the quarter-century-old British video-game franchise. Video games, TV, and film are increasingly good at cross-pollinating: The Witcher and The Last of Us, adapted for TV from games, have been critical and commercial successes, while Hogwarts Legacy, set in the Harry Potter universe, is widely seen as one of the best games of recent years.

• Thailand’s Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin visits Cambodia to meet with his Cambodian counterpart Hun Manet.
• Israel opens crossing points with Gaza, allowing Palestinian workers to commute to their jobs in Israel and the West Bank, after days of closure prompted by border demonstrations.
• Some Hindus mark the conclusion of the Ganesh Chaturthi festival.

Ian Johnson is the author of Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future, which was released on Tuesday.

A U.S.-themed buffet chain developed in the Netherlands and serving up food from around the world is one of Iraq’s most popular eateries. ABC Restaurant has a branch seating 1,800 customers in the city of Irbil and another with room for 800 in Sulaimaniyah. There are over 600 dishes on the menu including Italian American spaghetti, Turkish kofta, and Iranian tahdig. It “is a testament to how people around the world interpret currents like globalization and Americanization according to their own surroundings and desires,” Eater reported, “transforming the global into the local and personal.”

• The world’s biggest climate fund wants to get bigger. But even more is needed to help developing economies decarbonize.
• Fox slashed ad prices for the second Republican debate. One ad buyer told Semafor the race “has become a snoozer.”
• A large cache of Iranian government correspondence and emails offers a rare window into how Tehran works behind the scenes to bolster its image abroad.