Roast the Week
On Hold. Please stay on the line.
Iran: diplomacy, but make it conditional
Iran offered a seven-day ceasefire and a phased reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. The US said no, but talks are still continuing through Qatar.12
So, encouraging news: peace is still possible.
It just currently has the terms and conditions of a mobile-phone contract.
Artificial Intelligence: voluntary safety, naturally
Google, Anthropic, Meta, OpenAI, xAI and Nvidia have signed a voluntary Artificial Intelligence safety accord.3
Which is reassuring.
Nothing says “we’ve got this under control” quite like the companies building the technology promising to supervise themselves — with no penalties if they don’t.4
You asked for regulation.
Instead, you got a group project.
US–China: the truce now has spreadsheets
The US and China have finally published lists of goods that could receive lower tariffs. About $30 billion on each side.5
Semiconductors, electric vehicles and batteries are largely outside the deal, obviously — because resolving the easy stuff first is how you know the difficult stuff is going brilliantly.6
The trade war isn’t over.
It has simply discovered Excel.
Ukraine: the ceasefire that forgot to cease fire
Washington floated a limited ceasefire covering energy infrastructure.7 Russia then attacked Ukraine’s power grid.8 Ukraine continued attacking Russian refineries.9
Technically, the proposal is still alive.
In the same way a restaurant reservation is still alive after both parties have gone somewhere else.
Tigray: peace agreement, terms may vary
The Pretoria Agreement ended the last major war in Tigray in 2022. Nearly four years later, fighting has returned, airports have been seized, Ethiopia has expelled Eritrea’s diplomats, and Eritrea has cut ties.101112
The agreement remains the official framework for peace.
Which is useful, because apparently everyone involved has misplaced the actual peace.
The week in one sentence
Five stories, five sets of negotiations, and remarkably few people agreeing on anything.
Welcome to On Hold — the week when world affairs discovered the spinning loading icon.