Today’s briefing:
— You should know about these 3 conferences
— Saudi Arabia quits golf
— The stamp heard around the world
Good morning {{first_name | Intriguer}}. I’m somewhat ashamed to admit that my professional hobby is probably conferencing. Yes, you read that right - I love me a good networking icebreaker with total strangers and opportunities to have mandatory fun during organised activities. Throw in an exotic, secluded destination far away from all the usual humdrum and there’s a winning combo right there.
If that sounds like your idea of professional hell, you’re probably more sane than me and likely not alone. But international conferences in this virtual and increasingly multipolar day and age still have an important role to play for global agenda setting. As we’ll see in today’s top story, there are a few key conferences that we’re watching which tell a story about the state of our world.
Happy Friday y’all.
Number of the day
5
That’s how many jury-members (ie all of them) just quit the 2026 Venice Biennale, days before the prestigious arts festival is due to launch. They cite the inclusion of “those countries whose leaders are currently charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court”, ie Israel and Russia.
Meeting in the middle
Some Fridays we might drag you down the rabbit hole of China’s wild social media. Others we’ll tell you all about three wild conferences nobody’s talking about, like…
☢️ Going nuclear
~191 countries are in New York from this week for the five-yearly review of the world’s treaty to curb nukes, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
A human unfamiliar with the 1970 NPT is a bit like a fish unfamiliar with water — it’s everywhere yet invisible, making our entire modern world possible via a grand bargain: those without nukes pledge not to seek them; those with nukes pledge to (eventually) ditch them.
But the last two NPT conferences (2015, 2022) collapsed, first essentially over Israel’s undeclared nukes, then over Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Reaching agreement this time around (talks run through May 22) somehow looks even tougher:
Our spooked world is building new nukes faster than it dismantles old ones for the first time in nearly 40 years
The last US-Russia nuclear treaty expired in February, meaning they now have zero binding limits on their strategic nukes for the first time since 1972, and
Continued threats — whether Putin to Ukraine, Kim to South Korea, Xi to Taiwan, or even Trump to Iran — risk boosting the appeal of nukes as a deterrent, while…
DC’s alliance-scepticism is fuelling doubts around US nuclear pledges, with “let’s get our own nukes” debates emerging among allies like Poland, Korea, and Japan.
And… as if that weren’t enough, this week’s 11th NPT review kicked off with a nomination that one of the event’s vice-presidents should be… Iran! You can imagine how that’s gone down with the US, which just went to war on the premise that maybe regimes pledging to erase entire countries shouldn’t have nukes?
Anyway, let’s move from one doomsday to another, with…
⛽ Ditching diesel
Colombia’s major Santa Marta coal export hub just co-hosted (with the Netherlands) the world’s first ‘Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels’ conference this week.
After Dubai’s 2023 COP climate talks famously convinced the world to “transition away” from fossil fuels, Azerbaijan’s 2024 summit then made no progress, and Brazil’s 2025 text failed to mention fossil fuels at all!
So diplomats did what they always do in a deadlock: announce more talks. Involving 50 countries frustrated by COP’s failure (not the US, China, India, or Russia), this week’s Santa Marta was more about getting the process started, with hopes of drilling down into the specifics at next year's talks in Tuvalu.
Now, ready for a twist…?
🤫 Silencing critics
Maybe the reason you didn’t hear about this last conference is because… it didn’t happen! Just days before the world’s biggest conference on digital human rights (RightsCon) was due to kick off in Lusaka, Zambian authorities cancelled it.
Why? Zambia’s statement is vague, but one theory is its increasingly heavy-handed leader (Hichilema) didn’t want a bunch of activists in town ahead of August’s elections.
But an intriguing second theory suggests Beijing might’ve had something to do with it:
The conference agenda featured speakers from Taiwan (last year’s host, btw)
It included a spicy panel on authoritarianism in China, and yet…
Guess who actually bankrolled the conference venue? Ding, ding, ding! China.
So throw in Zambia and China suddenly announcing a new China-funded cooperation agreement and… we’ll let you connect the dots.
Intrigue’s Take
The big question here isn’t justice, climate change, or even nukes — it’s whether we humans are still even capable of working together to solve shared problems.
There’s hope in the fact that progress can (and does) still happen whether diplomats agree or not — EV registrations just doubled in parts of Asia, not because dignitaries got scolded by a Swedish teen, but because the tech itself is getting better and cheaper, and families like the idea of making it to soccer practice regardless of some distant war.
There’s even hope above, via the trend diplomacy nerds call plurilateralism: as the world hits roadblocks, more small-groups are breaking off and charging ahead. The above Santa Marta summit is just one of many now covering trade, security, and even AI (Bletchley Park) — when diplomacy fails, sometimes you just need to channel it in a new direction.
We rather like the stubborn optimism in an article by NPT review leader Do Hung Viet, reminding us that “failure cannot be normalized simply because it has happened before.”
Sound even smarter:
The NPT says peaceful nuclear energy is okay, subject to international safeguards.
Today’s briefing is presented by…
Works inside Cursor, Warp, VS Code, and every IDE.
Wispr Flow sits at the system level — dictate into any editor, terminal, or app with full syntax accuracy. No plugins needed. No setup per tool. 89% of messages sent with zero edits.
Meanwhile, elsewhere…
🇺🇸 UNITED STATES — Latest.
The Trump administration is arguing the fragile US-Iran ceasefire negates today’s 60-day War Powers Resolution deadline to either get congressional approval or end the Iran war. Meanwhile, reports are again circulating that Trump is mulling fresh strikes on Iran to break the current impasse. (Reuters)
🇸🇦 SAUDI ARABIA — Hole in none.
Saudi Arabia’s vast PIF sovereign wealth fund has announced it’ll stop funding the new LIV golf tournament it helped found to rival the PGA tour. (Guardian)
Comment: It’s all part of Saudi Arabia’s new investment strategy, focusing less on the flashy gigaprojects that have pushed the kingdom’s finances into the red, and more on productive investments. As for LIV’s golf legacy? Mike Beauvais put it amusingly like this: “Look, was LIV Golf successful? No. Did it bolster the reputations of everybody involved? Also, no. But was it fun? Once again, no.”
🇹🇼 TAIWAN — Maybe it’s easier if I come to you?
Paraguay’s Santiago Peña will visit Taiwan next week, receiving one of Taiwan’s top civilian honours from President Lai. (Focus Taiwan)
Comment: It’s a deliberate show of defiance amid China’s intensifying pressure on Paraguay to ditch Taiwan and recognise mainland China instead. Peña has consistently framed his country’s Taiwan ties as rooted in shared democratic values, not just economics.
🇹🇷 TURKEY — Our sphere of influence.
Turkey has warned fellow NATO member France against a planned troop deployment to Cyprus, arguing it’s both unnecessary and destabilises the security balance between the island’s EU south and Turkey-controlled north. (Al-Monitor)
Comment: It’s classic Turkish pushback against a deepening France-Greece-Cyprus alignment, including around their planned EastMed pipeline to pump Israeli gas into Europe without going via Turkey (France’s TotalEnergies has major stakes).
🇲🇲 MYANMAR — Home at last?
Myanmar’s military junta has announced it’s moving the country’s 80-year-old elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, to house arrest from prison, where she’s been detained since the military’s 2021 coup. (BBC)
Comment: The announcement looks like another junta move to ease its international isolation after recent ✌️elections✌️ consolidated its control.
🇨🇦 CANADA — Newfound cash.
19 unspecified NATO members and partners have reportedly wrapped talks in Montreal to launch a new Defence, Security and Resilience Bank, unanimously appointing Canada to host. The new bank aims to channel low-cost, long-term funding to accelerate member defence projects. (CBC)
Comment: It’s unclear if the US is a founding bank member — the unspoken aim is to help allies diversify away from over-reliance on US defence supply chains, though early blueprints pushed for US involvement to help secure the bank’s AAA credit. PS — thanks to those Intriguers who pointed out yesterday’s briefing on oil shifting West would be incomplete without citing Canada’s major oil output!
🇸🇩 SUDAN — Taking a stance.
The UAE has referred Sudan’s army chief of staff and several Sudanese firms to an Emirati security court over an alleged attempt to illegally supply Sudan’s military with ammo via UAE territory. (Reuters)
Comment: Given the UAE’s active (if denied) support for Sudan’s notorious rival RSF paramilitary, this in-absentia case could be an attempt to flip the PR script and frame Sudan’s military as the bad guys in Sudan’s civil war, especially given word of the RSF’s October war crimes in El Fasher (massacring 6,000 people in three days).
Stamp of the day
If the 1st of May had a CV, it’d be overqualified. That’s when England and Scotland stitched themselves together to form Great Britain in 1707. It’s when the labour struggles of the 19th century culminated in labour Day in 1890. And it’s even when Robert J. O’Neill shot Osama bin Laden dead in 2011.
Today, though, we’re rewinding to something a little quieter if still world-changing: the Brits issued the world’s first adhesive postage stamp (the Penny Black above) on this day in 1840. Featuring Queen Victoria, it’s since carried mail all across the world, and inspired that uncle of yours to become a collector.
Friday Quiz
Half a billion or so folks will today mark the Buddhist holiday of Vesak!