Situation Reports

The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan issued expressions of optimism about a peace treaty despite verbally sparing in front of Russian President Vladimir Putin about the future of the Nagorno-Karabakh region and regional transit corridors, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported on May 25.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo met with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao in Washington, where they discussed China's recent treatment of U.S. companies and U.S. economic restrictions on China, Reuters reported on May 25.

Zimbabwean election watchdogs urged the government to implement electoral reforms to ensure that the August elections are free, fair and credible, New Zimbabwe reported on May 26.

The Nigerian Supreme Court dismissed the opposition People's Democratic Party (PDP) lawsuit seeking to overturn the victory of President-elect Bola Tinubu and Vice President-elect Kashim Shettima in the February 2023 election, Business Day reported on May 26.

Five large insurers are quitting the Net-Zero Insurance Alliance (NZIA), one of the alliances under the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), the Financial Times reported on May 26.

U.S. technology company Neuralink announced that the Food and Drug Administration approved the company's first in-human clinical study for the Link implantable brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), which aim to enable people with extreme paralysis to control external technologies using neural signals, BBC reported on May 25.

A congressional committee passed a bill in a 15-3 vote that seeks to strip Brazil's environmental and Indigenous affairs ministries of their oversight powers in a broader effort to boost the agribusiness sector in Brazil, Folha de Sao Paulo reported on May 25.

South Korea will reportedly send hundreds of thousands of unitary artillery rounds to the United States, which will then send them to Ukraine, according to The Wall Street Journal on May 25.

One of the largest observed cyberespionage campaigns by Chinese threat actors dubbed "Volt Typhoon" targeted a broad array of critical infrastructure in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States and the U.S. territory of Guam, according to a May 25 report by Microsoft.

The European Commission approved Hungary's request to amend contracts with Russia's state-owned Rosatom to allow for the construction of two new 1.2-gigawatt water-water energetic reactors (VVERs) at its Paks nuclear power plant, Reuters reported on May 25.