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      An Unusual G.O.P. Presidential Debate

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      The New York Times Audio app is home to journalism and storytelling, and provides news, depth and serendipity. If you haven’t already, download it here — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists who are covering them, all in about 10 minutes. Hosted by Annie Correal, the new morning show features three top stories from reporters across the newsroom and around the world, so you always have a sense of what’s happening, even if you only have a few minutes to spare.Eight candidates have qualified for the Republican debate on Wednesday.Associated PressOn Today’s Episode:Why Republican Candidates With Little Chance of Beating Trump Keep Running, with Trip GabrielUkraine’s Forces and Firepower Are Misallocated, U.S. Officials Say, with Eric SchmittIn a Hot Job Market, the Minimum Wage Becomes an Afterthought, with Ben CasselmanEli Cohen More

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      How European Officials View a Possible Second Trump Term

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      The prospect of a second presidential term for Donald J. Trump has many officials worried about alliance cohesion, NATO and the war in Ukraine.For most European governments, it is almost too upsetting to think about, let alone debate in public. But the prospect that Donald J. Trump could win the Republican nomination for the presidency and return to the White House is a prime topic of private discussion.“It’s slightly terrifying, it’s fair to say,” said Steven Everts, a European Union diplomat who is soon to become the director of the European Union Institute for Security Studies. “We were relieved by President Biden and his response to Ukraine,” Mr. Everts said, “but now we’re forced to confront the Trump question again.”Given the enormous role the United States plays in European security,” he added, “we now have to think again about what this means for our own politics, for European defense and for Ukraine itself.”The talk is intensifying as Mr. Trump, despite the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election and his various indictments, is running well ahead of his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination and is neck-and-neck with President Biden in early opinion polls.In general, Central Europeans are more convinced that they can manage a second Trump presidency, but Western Europeans are dreading the prospect, especially in Germany, about which Mr. Trump seems to feel significant antipathy.During his presidency, Mr. Trump threatened to pull out of NATO and withheld aid to Ukraine as it struggled with a Russian-backed insurgency, the subject of his first impeachment. He ordered the withdrawal of thousands of American troops from Germany, a move later overturned by Mr. Biden, and spoke with admiration of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.Mr. Trump with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Osaka, Japan, in 2019. Mr. Trump, who has praised the Russian leader, said he would end the war in Ukraine in a day.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesToday, with Europe and Russia locked in conflict over Ukraine, and Mr. Putin making veiled threats about nuclear weapons and a wider war, the question of American commitment takes on even greater importance. Mr. Trump recently said that he would end the war in a day, presumably by forcing Ukraine to make territorial concessions.A second Trump term “would be different from the first, and much worse,” said Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, a former German government official who is now with the German Marshall Fund in Berlin. “Trump has experience now and knows what levers to pull, and he’s angry,” he said.Mr. Kleine-Brockhoff said he remembered talking with then-Chancellor Angela Merkel the night she returned from her first meeting with Mr. Trump as president. As usual, she was “all about managing the man as she had managed dozens of powerful men,” he said. “But no one will think” they can manage “Trump Two.”Several European officials declined to talk on the record about the prospect of another Trump presidency. They do not want to engage in American domestic politics, but they also may need to deal with Mr. Trump if he is elected, and some say they remember him as vindictive about criticism.Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany engaging with Mr. Trump during a Group of 7 summit in Canada in 2018. Many of their exchanges were notoriously frosty.Jesco Denzel/German Federal Government, via Associated PressFor many European officials, Mr. Biden restored the continuity of the United States’ commitment to Europe since World War II: a dependable, even indispensable, ally whose presence eased frictions among former European rivals and allowed the continent to cohere, while providing an ironclad security guarantee.In the view of Mr. Trump and his supporters, that relationship allowed Europe to shirk spending on its own defense, a resentment that fueled Mr. Trump’s threats to reduce or withdraw American commitments.“The NATO alliance is not a treaty commitment so much as a trust commitment,” said Ivo Daalder, a former American ambassador to NATO. Given the doubts Mr. Trump raised in his first term, his return as president “could mean the end of the alliance, legally or not.”In conversations with Europeans, Mr. Daalder said, “they are deeply, deeply concerned about the 2024 election and how it will impact the alliance. No matter the topic, Ukraine or NATO cohesion, it’s the only question asked.”Jan Techau, a former German defense official now with Eurasia Group, said that in the worst case, a United States that turned its back would set off “an existential problem” for Europe at a moment when both China and Russia are working avidly to divide Europeans.President Biden delivering a speech in Lithuania during meetings with NATO leaders in July. In remarks, he affirmed his support for Ukraine in the war.Doug Mills/The New York TimesAbsent American engagement, “there would be a destructive scramble for influence,” he said.For Germany, Mr. Techau said, there would be the difficult question: Should Berlin be the backbone of a collective European defense without the Americans, or would it try to make its own deal with Russia and Mr. Putin?France would most likely try to step in, having long advocated European strategic autonomy, but few believe it can provide the same kind of nuclear and security guarantee for the continent, even together with Britain, that Washington does.President Emmanuel Macron of France has made it clear that he believes a politically polarized United States, more focused on China, will inevitably reduce its commitments to Europe. He has been pushing Europeans to do more for their own defense and interests, which are not perfectly aligned with Washington’s.So far he has largely failed in that ambition and, given the war in Ukraine, has instead embraced a stronger European pillar within NATO. But even Mr. Macron would not welcome an American withdrawal from the alliance.“It’s absolutely clear that Putin intends to continue the war, at least until the American elections, and hopes for Trump,” as does China’s leader, Xi Jinping, said Thomas Gomart, the director of the French Institute of International Relations. “It could be a big shock for Europeans.”A Trump victory, Mr. Gomart said, would most likely mean less American support for Ukraine, more pressure on Kyiv to settle, and more pressure on the Europeans to deal with Mr. Putin themselves, “which we are not ready to do militarily.”Ukrainian soldiers with an American tactical vehicle during training near Kyiv, Ukraine, in March. A Trump victory could mean less U.S. support for Ukraine.Mauricio Lima for The New York TimesThere is also concern that a Trump victory could breathe new life into anti-democratic forces in Europe.Mr. Trump’s victory in 2016 gave a major boost to European populist politics, and another victory would almost surely do the same, a major worry in France, where Marine Le Pen, a far-right leader, could succeed Mr. Macron.Even in Mr. Trump’s absence, the far-right Alternative for Germany, which Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has under surveillance as a threat to the Constitution, is for the moment the country’s second-most popular party.Dominique Moïsi, a French analyst with Institut Montaigne, a research organization, said a second Trump term would be “catastrophic” for Europe’s resistance to populism.Mr. Trump is a prince of chaos, Mr. Moïsi said, and with a war raging in Europe, and China open about its ambitions, “the prospect of an America yielding to its isolationist instinct” and embracing populism “is simply scary.”Not everyone in Europe would be unwelcoming, to be sure.Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary has long celebrated ties to Mr. Trump and his wing of the Republican Party. Mr. Orban and his self-styled “illiberal democracy” is considered a sort of model by the hard right, especially his defense of what he considers traditional gender roles and of religion and his antipathy toward uncontrolled migration.Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary speaking at a Conservative Political Action Conference gathering last year in Texas. He is revered by a wing of the American political right.Emil Lippe for The New York TimesIn Poland, too, the governing Law and Justice party shares many of the same views and criticisms of established elites. It had excellent relations with Mr. Trump and succeeded in getting American troops sent to Poland.“The view in the government and in a large part of the strategic community here was that the worst didn’t happen — he didn’t sell us out to the Russians,” said Michal Baranowski of the German Marshall Fund in Warsaw. “There was a feeling that the West Europeans were freaking out a bit too much,” he said.The big question for Poland, which has been fiercely pro-Ukrainian, is what Mr. Trump and the Republicans would do about Ukraine.Mr. Baranowski said that recent discussions in Washington with officials from the conservative Heritage Foundation had given him the impression that there would be significant continuity on Ukraine.“But Trump is unpredictable to an uncomfortable degree for everyone,” he said. More

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      U.S. Seals Security Pact With Japan and South Korea as Threats Loom

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      While the former president’s name appeared nowhere in the communique issued by three leaders, one of the subtexts was the possibility that he could return to power in next year’s election and disrupt ties with America’s two closest allies in the Indo-Pacific region.The new three-way security pact sealed by President Biden and the leaders of Japan and South Korea at Camp David on Friday was forged with threats by China and North Korea in mind. But there was one other possible factor driving the diplomatic breakthrough: Donald J. Trump.While the former president’s name appeared nowhere in the “Camp David Principles” that the leaders issued at the presidential retreat, one of the subtexts was the possibility that he could return to power in next year’s election and disrupt ties with America’s two closest allies in the Indo-Pacific region.Both Japan and South Korea struggled for four years as Mr. Trump threatened to scale back longstanding U.S. security and economic commitments while wooing China, North Korea and Russia. In formalizing a three-way alliance that had long eluded the United States, Mr. Biden and his counterparts hoped to lock in a strategic architecture that will endure regardless of who is in the White House next.“This is not about a day, a week or month,” Mr. Biden said at a joint news conference with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan and President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea. “This is about decades and decades of relationships that we’re building.” The goal, he added, was to “lay in place a long-term structure for a relationship that will last.”Asked by a reporter why Asia should be confident about American assurances given Mr. Trump’s campaign to recapture the presidency on a so-called America First platform, Mr. Biden offered a testimonial to the value of alliances in guaranteeing the nation’s security in dangerous times.“There’s not much, if anything, I agree on with my predecessor on foreign policy,” Mr. Biden said, adding that “walking away from the rest of the world leaves us weaker, not stronger. America is strong with our allies and our alliances and that’s why we will endure.”The meeting at the getaway in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland was a milestone in Mr. Biden’s efforts to stitch together a network of partnerships to counter Chinese aggression in the region. While the United States has long been close to Japan and South Korea individually, the two Asian powers have nursed generations of grievances that kept them at a distance from one another.The alignment at Camp David was made possible by Mr. Yoon’s decision to try to put the past behind the two countries. His rapprochement with Tokyo has not been universally popular at home with a public that harbors long memories of the Japanese occupation in the first half of the 20th century, but both sides made clear they are dedicated to a fresh start.“That’s a long, bitter colonial wound that President Yoon has to jump over, and Kishida as well,” said Orville Schell, director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society. “That I think is a consonant expression of the degree to which China’s rather belligerent, punitive behavior has driven together allies, partners and friends within Asia.”Mr. Biden hoped to capitalize on that by bringing the Japanese and South Korean leaders together for the first stand-alone meeting between the three nations that was not on the sidelines of a larger international summit. He repeatedly praised Mr. Yoon and Mr. Kishida for “the political courage” they were demonstrating.He chose the resonant setting of Camp David for the talks to emphasize the importance he attaches to the initiative, inviting the leaders to the storied retreat that has been the site of momentous events over the decades, including most memorably Jimmy Carter’s 13-day negotiation in 1978 brokering peace between Israel and Egypt.“This is a big deal,” Mr. Biden said, noting that it was the first time he had invited foreign leaders to the camp since taking office. “This is a historic meeting.”The others echoed the sentiments. “Today will be remembered as a historic day,” Mr. Yoon said. Mr. Kishida agreed, saying the fact that the three could get together “means that we are indeed making a new history as of today.”A stronger collaboration with Japan and South Korea could be a significant pillar in Mr. Biden’s strategy to counter China.Samuel Corum for The New York TimesThe leaders agreed to establish a three-way hotline for crisis communications, enhance ballistic missile cooperation and expand joint military exercises. They issued a written “commitment to consult” in which they resolved “to coordinate our responses to regional challenges, provocations, and threats affecting our collective interests and security.”The commitment is not as far-reaching as NATO’s mutual security pact, which deems an attack on one member to be an attack on all, nor does it go as far as the defense treaties that the United States has separately with Japan and South Korea. But it cements the idea that the three powers share a special bond and expect to coordinate strategies where possible.China has derided the idea of a “mini-NATO” in Asia, accusing Washington of being provocative, but aides to Mr. Biden stressed the difference from the Atlantic alliance. “It’s explicitly not a NATO for the Pacific,” said Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser.Mr. Biden and his aides maintained that the collaboration sealed at Camp David should not be seen as aimed at China or any other country. “This summit was not about China. This was not the purpose,” the president said. “But obviously China came up.” Instead, he said, “this summit was really about our relationship with each other and defining cooperation across an entire range of issues.”Still, no one had any doubt about the context against which the meeting was taking place. The Camp David Principles issued by the leaders did not directly mention China, but it did “reaffirm the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” a warning against aggressive military actions by Beijing.The documents released were more explicit about nuclear-armed North Korea and the joint efforts they will take to counter its military, cyber and cryptocurrency money laundering threats.Looming in the backdrop was Mr. Trump, whose mercurial actions and bursts of hostility while president flummoxed Japanese and South Korean leaders accustomed to more stable interactions with Washington.At various points, he threatened to withdraw from the U.S. defense treaty with Japan and to pull all American troops out of South Korea. He abruptly canceled joint military exercises with South Korea at the request of North Korea and told interviewers after leaving office that if he had a second term he would force Seoul to pay billions of dollars to maintain the United States military presence.The summit at Camp David was aimed at ending decades of friction between the two Asian countries.Samuel Corum for The New York TimesThe Asian leaders hope that the three-way accord fashioned by Mr. Biden will help avoid wild swings in the future. The president and his guests sought to institutionalize their new collaboration by committing to annual three-way meetings in the future by whoever holds their offices.“There’s definitely risk-hedging when it comes to political leadership,” said Shihoko Goto, acting director of the Asia program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.”By deepening the cooperation below the leader level through various new mechanisms, she said, the governments may be able to maintain functional ties even if a volatile president occupies the White House.“If a new U.S. president were to avoid going to international conferences or had no interest in engaging, the trilateral institutionalization of ties should be strong enough so that working relations between the three countries would continue,” she said. “So it won’t matter if a president didn’t show up since the working-level military or economic cooperation would be well-established.”It is not the first time allies have questioned the United States’ commitment to its partners. Despite Mr. Biden’s promise at the NATO summit last month that Washington would “not waver” in its support for Ukraine and western allies, some leaders openly asked whether the U.S. foreign policy agenda would be upended by the outcome of the next election.Ukraine needed to make military progress more or less “by the end of this year” because of the coming elections in the United States, President Petr Pavel of the Czech Republic warned on the first day of the summit.Mr. Biden in Finland was also asked about whether the U.S. support of NATO would endure. “No one can guarantee the future, but this is the best bet anyone could make,” Mr. Biden said then.At Camp David on Friday, neither Mr. Yoon nor Mr. Kishida mentioned Mr. Trump directly in their public comments, but they seemed intent on ensuring that their agreement persists beyond their tenures. Mr. Yoon said the nations were focused on building an alliance that could last for years to come. The three nations will hold a “global leadership youth summit to strengthen ties between our future generations,” he said.Endurance was a running theme throughout the day. “We’re opening a new era,” Mr. Sullivan told reporters shortly before the meetings opened, “and we’re making sure that era has staying power.”Ana Swanson More

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      Imran Khan Sentenced to Prison in Pakistan

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      The former prime minister of Pakistan was taken into custody, sentenced to three years after a court found him guilty of illegally selling state gifts and concealing the assets.Former Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan was arrested on Saturday after a trial court sentenced him to three years in prison, a verdict likely to end his chances of running in upcoming general elections.The police took Mr. Khan into custody from his home in the eastern city of Lahore soon after the court’s decision was announced in Islamabad.The verdict is a climactic turn in a political showdown between Mr. Khan and Pakistan’s powerful military that has embroiled the country for over a year.It comes on the heels of a monthslong intimidation campaign by the military aimed at hollowing out Mr. Khan’s political party and stifling the remarkable political comeback he has made since being ousted from office last year in a vote of no confidence.Now, the prospect that Mr. Khan, a cricket star turned populist politician, will be disqualified from running in the country’s general elections — the next ones are expected this fall — has offered a major victory to a military establishment that appears intent on sidelining him from politics.It has also sent a powerful message to Mr. Khan and his supporters, who have directly confronted and defied the military like few else in Pakistan’s 75-year history: The military is the ultimate hand wielding political power behind the government, and no amount of public backlash will change that.“Imran Khan’s arrest marks a significant turning point in the state’s actions against P.T.I.,” said Zaigham Khan, a political analyst and columnist based in Islamabad, using the initials of Mr. Khan’s political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. That effort seems “designed to hinder the P.T.I.’s chances in the upcoming elections,” he added.Supporters of Mr. Khan clashed with the police in Peshawar in May.Arshad Arbab/EPA, via ShutterstockIn its ruling on Saturday, the trial court found the former prime minister guilty of hiding assets after illegally selling state gifts.“The allegations against Mr. Khan are proven,” said Judge Humayun Dilawar, who announced the verdict in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital. The court also imposed a fine of around $355.The case is related to an inquiry by the country’s election commission, which found last October that Mr. Khan had illegally sold gifts given to him by other countries when he was prime minister and concealed the profits from the authorities.Mr. Khan has denied any wrongdoing. He and his lawyers had accused Judge Dilawar of bias and sought to have the case transferred to another judge. They are likely to appeal this ruling.In a statement, Mr. Khan’s party rejected the verdict, calling it “the worst example of political revenge.”Members of the country’s governing coalition, led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, welcomed the outcome. In a statement, the country’s information minister, Marriyum Aurangzeb, hailed Mr. Khan’s arrest and denied that it was linked to “political persecution” or that it was part of a plot to prevent the former prime minister from running in the country’s next elections.“My message to Imran Khan is straightforward: Your time is up,” she said.The verdict is the culmination of a nationwide political saga that has escalated since Mr. Khan was ousted in April 2022. In the months that followed, he drew thousands out to protests where he railed against the country’s powerful military establishment and accused Pakistan’s generals of orchestrating his fall from power — an accusation they deny.Mr. Khan, who is facing an array of court cases, was briefly arrested earlier this year in a different one. That arrest, on May 9, set off violent protests across the country, as well as attacks on military installations. Days afterward, the country’s top court declared that the authorities had unlawfully detained Mr. Khan and ordered his release.The protests channeling anger toward the military were widely considered to have crossed an unspoken red line of defiance — a rare rebuke in a country where few defy military leaders. Since then, Pakistan’s military establishment has staged an extensive crackdown.Security forces near an office of Mr. Khan’s party in Karachi on Saturday.Rehan Khan/EPA, via ShutterstockThrongs of supporters of Mr. Khan were arrested in connection with the protests in May. Media personalities considered sympathetic to him said they were intimidated. And many prominent leaders of his party resigned — after they were arrested or said they had been threatened with criminal charges and arrests.After Mr. Khan was arrested on Saturday in Lahore, the police in several cities were put on alert in case his supporters again took to the streets.In a prerecorded message before his arrest in Lahore on Saturday, Mr. Khan urged his supporters to stage peaceful protests and not remain silent at home. In the port city of Karachi and in Peshawar, a few dozen supporters staged small protests.But unlike when Mr. Khan was arrested in May, by Saturday evening there were no mass protests in support of Mr. Khan — a sign of the effectiveness of the military’s efforts to intimidate his supporters in recent months, analysts say.In recent weeks, Pakistan’s governing coalition had signaled that it was considering postponing the fall elections so that the military’s crackdown on Mr. Khan’s party could continue and so that the coalition’s political leaders could be sure that he would not pose a major political threat in the race. But now, his arrest and likely disqualification may make that unnecessary, observers say.“Khan’s removal from the scene may actually expedite the election process, potentially allowing them to be held within 90 days, if not sooner,” said Zaigham Khan, the political analyst. “What remains to be seen is whether he can obtain any immediate relief from the superior courts, where his sentence could be suspended.” More

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      ISIS Affiliate Claims Deadly Attack at Political Rally in Pakistan

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      The death toll from Sunday’s suicide bombing, which targeted a political rally near the border with Afghanistan, rose to at least 54 people, an official said.The Islamic State affiliate in South Asia claimed responsibility on Monday for a suicide bombing in northwest Pakistan that killed dozens of people and injured about 200 more, in the latest bloody sign of the deteriorating security situation in the country.The death toll from the explosion on Sunday, which targeted a political rally in the Bajaur district near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, rose to at least 54 people, Shaukat Abbas, a senior officer at the provincial police’s counterterrorism department, said on Monday.The Islamic State affiliate, known as the Islamic State Khorasan, or ISIS-K, claimed on Monday that a suicide bomber had carried out the attack, characterizing it as part of the group’s war against democracy as a system of government, according to the SITE Intelligence Group.The blast was among the deadliest terrorist attacks in months in Pakistan, where some militant groups operating along the border with Afghanistan have become more active over the past year. The rise in violence represents a grim shift: Since 2014, when security forces carried out a major military operation to flush militants out of Pakistan, the country has experienced relative calm.But several high-profile attacks this year — including a bombing in Peshawar that killed more than 100 people and an hourslong assault on the police headquarters in the port city of Karachi — have sent shock waves across the country, with scenes of bloodshed that seemed to announce militancy’s return to Pakistan.The attacks have raised questions about whether Pakistan’s security establishment can stamp out militancy without the American air and other military support it relied on during the 2014 security operation. The violence has also stoked tensions between Pakistani officials and the Taliban administration in Afghanistan, which the Pakistani authorities have accused of providing haven to some militant groups. Taliban officials have denied that claim.“The attack in Bajaur unquestionably presents a significant escalation of ISK’s growing capacity and aggressive stance in northwest Pakistan — a region which is already home to many other militant factions,” said Amira Jadoon, the co-author of “The Islamic State in Afghanistan and Pakistan: Strategic Alliances and Rivalries,” using another abbreviation for the Islamic State affiliate.“It also shows ISK’s continued ability to access and operate on both sides of the border, as it has done so in the past.”On Monday, funeral processions took place in several villages in the Bajaur district to bury victims of the attack.Khuram Parvez/ReutersAt least three people suspected of being involved in the attack have been arrested so far, the local police chief, Nazir Khan, told news outlets. They were being interrogated by intelligence and law enforcement agencies, he added.On Monday, funeral processions took place in most villages in the Bajaur district as dozens of families gathered to bury victims of the attack. Even those not mourning loved ones were shaken by the attack and its aftermath, residents said.Shakir Ali, a shopkeeper who volunteered to take the injured to the hospital, said the screams and cries echoing across the area after the explosion were still ringing in his head on Monday. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, almost everyone who passed him was covered in blood, he recalled.“It was difficult for us to determine who was injured and who was not,” he said.The attack — among the first by a militant group on a political rally in the country this year — stirred concerns about whether the country’s deteriorating security situation will affect the next general election, expected in the fall.The election is seen as critical to restoring political stability to a country that has been rocked by mass protests and unrest since Imran Khan was forced out as prime minister in a vote of no-confidence in April last year.Security personnel guarding the site of a bomb blast on Monday.Abdul Majeed/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesPaving the way for the election this fall, the current government is expected to dissolve Parliament in August and hand over power to a caretaker government that will oversee the election process. The establishment of a caretaker government is constitutionally required to carry out a general election.While it is unlikely that ISIS-K has the capacity to significantly disrupt the elections, many security experts are concerned that the Pakistani Taliban — a militant group also known as Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or the T.T.P. — may try to target campaign rallies or voting sites, analysts say.The T.T.P. — which is an ideological twin and ally of the Taliban in Afghanistan — frequently attacked political rallies during Pakistan’s 2008 and 2013 election seasons and the group has seen a resurgence since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021.“The question is how is the T.T.P. planning to sabotage the coming election season,” said Asfandyar Mir, a senior expert at the United States Institute of Peace. “So far, indicators are that it won’t — but that can change.”Salman Masood More

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      Cambodian Election 2023: What to Know

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      Hun Sen, the prime minister for nearly four decades, applied familiar tactics ahead of Sunday’s vote to guarantee he would run virtually unopposed, and set the stage for his son to rule the country.Cambodian voters went to the polls Sunday in a Parliamentary election that could set the stage for the first change in leadership since Hun Sen became prime minister nearly four decades ago.Mr. Hun Sen, 70, has announced that at some point after the election he will hand over the position to his oldest son, General Hun Manet, 45. But he has made it clear that he will stay on as a power behind the throne.“Even if I am no longer a prime minister, I will still control politics as the head of the ruling party,” he said in June.Mr. Hun Sen underscored the dynastic nature of this transition, saying at a party meeting last year, “I will become father of the prime minister after 2023 and grandfather of the prime minister in the 2030s.”This dynastic succession within a Parliamentary system, at the sole discretion of Mr. Hun Sen, demonstrates the grip he has on power after eliminating virtually all opposition — through violence, coup, imprisonment, forced exile and manipulation of the courts. Hun Sen’s continuing grip on his country comes as the region is tilting increasingly toward authoritarianism.General Manet, the son of Mr. Hun Sen, at a campaign rally in Phnom Penh on Friday.Cindy Liu/ReutersThe authoritarianism in Cambodia is the end result, three decades later, of a two-billion-dollar intervention by the United Nations intended to foster democracy and the rule of law in a nation still torn by mass killings and civil war.“The history of the international community’s ill-fated attempt to implant democracy in Cambodia should be required reading for anyone planning future United Nations peacekeeping operations,” Craig Etcheson, a former visiting scientist at Harvard University’s School of Public Health, said in an email.The sole credible opposition party, the Candlelight party, was disqualified in May by the National Election Commission, which answers to Mr. Hun Sen, making the victory of his party all but inevitable.This was a replay of Mr. Hun Sen’s tactic in advance of the last election five years ago, when the main opposition party, the Cambodian National Rescue Party, was forced by the politicized courts to disband. As a result, Mr. Hun Sen’s party, the Cambodian People’s party, now holds all 125 seats in the National Assembly, making Cambodia in effect a one-party state.“This repeat of the 2018 election, which had no opposition, should make it clear to the world that Hun Sen has definitively turned his back on democracy,” Mu Sochua, an opposition leader who fled Cambodia to avoid arrest, said in an email.Supporters of Cambodia’s Candlelight Party during a campaign rally in Phnom Penh in 2022. The party was disqualified from running in this year’s election in May.Heng Sinith/Associated PressTo ensure that the election, and the potential succession, went according to plan, Mr. Hun Sen has attempted to stamp out all potential opposition.In February he forced the closure the Voice of Democracy, one of the country’s last independent news outlets. Scores of opposition politicians have been jailed in the last few years or have fled into exile. The most prominent opposition figure remaining in Cambodia, Kem Sokha, was sentenced to 17 years of house arrest in March.Sophal Ear, a political scientist at the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University, compared Mr. Hun Sen’s electoral manipulations with Cambodia’s record in hosting the Southeast Asian Games earlier this year.By changing rules and adding obscure Cambodian sports like ouk chaktrang, or Cambodian chess, and bokator, a Cambodian martial art, the country was able to raise its medal total to 282, an increase of 219 medals from its total of 63 medals in the previous games.A former middle-ranking Khmer Rouge cadre, Mr. Hun Sen has practiced hardball politics since being installed as prime minister in 1985 during a Vietnamese-backed government.A line at a polling station in Phnom Penh on Sunday.Tang Chhin Sothy/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSix years earlier, a Vietnamese invasion had ended the murderous four-year rule of the Khmer Rouge, during which 1.7 million people died from execution, starvation and overwork.The Khmer Rouge fled into the jungles, touching off a long-running civil war.The United Nations intervened in 1992 after a peace agreement and conducted an election in which Mr. Hun continued to hold power as co-premier with his rival, Prince Norodom Ranariddh. A tough infighter, he soon became the dominant partner in that position and then the sole prime minister after ousting Prince Ranarridh in a coup in 1997.In campaign speeches he and his surrogates emphasize his successes, including dramatic economic growth, many years of stability and the final demise of the Khmer Rouge.“Hun Sen develops the country well, the country has peace and no war,” said Mai Kompheak, 25, who drives a three-wheel taxi in Phnom Penh. “I don’t want to see Cambodia like Ukraine.”Among his various predictions of the length of his tenure, Mr. Hun Sen said in March 2021 that he would continue in the post “until I want to stop.” He has been laying the ground for a dynastic transition for at least a decade, sidelining potential challengers and publicly promoting his son, General Manet, for the job.Prince Norodom Ranariddh, center left, and Mr. Hun Sen, center right, in 1993. Mr. Hun Sen held power as co-premier before ousting Prince Ranariddh in a coup in 1997.David Portnoy/Associated Press“For all his political successes over the past four decades, Hun Sen now faces a curious challenge: how to step back from a system in which he has made himself indispensable,” Sebastian Strangio, author of “Hun Sen’s Cambodia,” wrote in an email.It will be a risky time as he loosens his grip on power, opening the way for possible infighting and internal upheavals.Beyond the office of prime minister, the election will mark a generational transition in the coming years from the old guard of top officials, many of whom will be succeeded by their sons.“There is every indication that Manet, even more than Hun Sen, will be imprisoned by the system that his father created, and hostage to its dynamics of loyalty and obligation,” Mr. Strangio added. “It is unlikely that Manet possesses the ruthless instinct that has helped his father to remain at the pinnacle of Cambodian politics for so long.”Mr. Hun Sen publicly announced his endorsement of his son in December 2021. He later added a few words of faint praise, saying, “Even if he cannot be like his father, at least his capacity should match that of his father by 80 or 90 percent.”Officials preparing a list of voters at a polling station in Phnom Penh on Saturday as they got ready for Sunday’s election.Tang Chhin Sothy/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHe had been grooming his son for many years, giving him a Western education that includes a bachelor’s degree from West Point, a master’s from New York University and a doctorate in economics from the University of Bristol in Britain.He has risen quickly through the ranks of Cambodia’s military and is now a four-star general, chief of the army and deputy commander in chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces.At the same time, he is in the inner circle of his father’s political party and the head of the party’s youth wing, giving him a platform to connect with young voters, an increasingly influential portion of the electorate.At a village gathering in May, Mr. Hun Sen also gave his son divine credentials, saying his birth was blessed by a powerful local spirit that revealed itself as a bright light that flew over Mr. Hun Sen’s house at the moment he was born.“Manet may be the child of Nhek Ta Anchanh Koh Thmar,” he said, naming the powerful spirit.Sun Narin More

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      Your Thursday Briefing: Biden Vows Not to ‘Waver’ After NATO Summit

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      Also, Chinese hackers hit the State Department, ocean temperatures rise and Milan Kundera dies.President Volodymyr Zelensky and President Biden met yesterday.Doug Mills/The New York Times‘We will not waver,’ Biden says after the NATO summitPresident Biden concluded the meeting of NATO allies by comparing the battle to expel Russia from Ukraine with the Cold War struggle for freedom in Europe. “We will not waver,” he promised in a speech.Biden seemed to be preparing Americans and the allies for a confrontation that could go on for years. He cast the war, which has been going on for almost a year and a half, as a test of wills with President Vladimir Putin of Russia, who is intent on fighting. Biden insisted that NATO’s unity would hold.“Putin still wrongly believes he can outlast Ukraine,” Biden said, describing the Russian leader as a man who made a huge strategic mistake in invading a neighboring country. “After all this time, Putin still doubts our staying power. He is making a bad bet.”Ukraine: The alliance has formed a new council intended to give Ukraine an equal voice on issues related to its security alongside member states. China: Beijing criticized a NATO statement that accused it of a military expansion that threatens the West, saying that the alliance was still stuck in a Cold War mentality.Uncertainty in Russia’s top ranks: Gen. Sergei Surovikin, once a Wagner ally, hasn’t been seen publicly since the mutiny last month. A top lawmaker said he was “taking a rest.”Another top commander was killed in an airstrike in Ukraine. And a third former commander was gunned down while out on a jog.Microsoft said the hack was discovered last month.Gonzalo Fuentes/ReutersChinese hackers targeted the U.S. State DepartmentChinese hackers targeted specific State Department email accounts in the weeks before Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to China last month, U.S. officials said.The hack, which went undetected for a month, comes at a time of heightened diplomatic tensions between the countries. “The Biden administration is trying to reset relations with Beijing,” Julian Barnes, who covers national security for The Times, told me. “The U.S. does not want that dialogue to end. So there is an interest in downplaying this.”No classified email or cloud systems were said to have been breached, and the hack did not initially appear to be directly related to Blinken’s trip. Still, the attack was sophisticated.The hackers targeted specific accounts, instead of carrying out a broad-brush intrusion, which Chinese hackers are suspected of having done before. U.S. officials did not identify which accounts were targeted. The breach revealed a significant security gap in Microsoft’s cloud, where the U.S. government has been transferring data from internal servers.“We’ve had all these promises that the cloud is not only going to be just as secure, but that it will be more secure,” Julian said. “But here’s an example where basic security was breached and the information was stolen. That has opened us up to a new avenue of attack: Here is the first big cloud attack on the U.S. government email.”Tech: The Biden administration thinks it can slow China’s economic growth and its A.I. industry by cutting it off from semiconductor chips. The plan could handicap China for a generation, but if it backfires it could hasten the very future the U.S. wants to avoid.Elena ShaoAn ocean heat wave threatens marine lifeThe water surrounding Florida is much hotter than most swimming pools in the U.S. are right now. This could pose a severe risk to coral and marine life in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic. But the real worry is that it’s only July: Corals usually experience the most heat stress in August and September.The maritime heat wave has pushed water temperatures into the 90s Fahrenheit, or above 32 Celsius. Surface temperatures in these waters are the hottest on record; some beachgoers in Florida even compared the ocean to bath water.The science: When the sea gets too hot, corals bleach, expelling the algae they eat. If waters don’t cool quickly enough, or if bleaching events happen in close succession, the corals die. That can lead to ripple effects across the ecosystem.THE LATEST NEWSAround the WorldPresident Mahmoud Abbas’s visit was widely reported as his first to Jenin in more than a decade.Nasser Nasser/Associated PressPresident Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority visited Jenin, the West Bank city targeted by Israeli raids last week, in a show of authority.U.S. inflation cooled in June, offering good news for consumers and the Federal Reserve.Black women in Latin America are more likely to die during pregnancy or childbirth because of systemic medical racism and sexism, a U.N. report said.“Succession” got the most nominations for the Emmy Awards.Other Big StoriesA former Mozambican official accused in the $2 billion “tuna” scandal, a scheme that defrauded U.S. investors, was extradited to New York.The BBC staff member suspended on allegations of sexual misconduct was identified by his wife as Huw Edwards, an anchor on the network’s flagship nightly news program.International demand for drugs has unleashed a wave of violence in Ecuador that is unlike anything in the country’s recent history.Snow fell in Johannesburg for the first time in more than a decade.A Morning ReadBhuchung Sonam’s publishing ventures have printed dozens of books.Poras Chaudhary for The New York TimesBuchung Sonam fled Tibet in the 1980s. Later, he co-founded a publishing house for Tibetan writing, hoping literature could be a salve for other exiles.As Beijing tightens its crackdown on Tibet, detaining writers and intellectuals, many say Sonam’s press is helping Tibet’s literature become a proxy for the nation-state.“It’s not like I can live my life on Tibetan land,” said Tenzin Dickie, a writer and editor, “but I can live it in Tibetan literature.”ARTS AND IDEASMilan Kundera in 1984.Francois Lochon/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty ImagesMilan Kundera dies at 94“It’s hard to overstate how central Milan Kundera was, in the mid-1980s, to literary culture in America and elsewhere,” my colleague Dwight Garner writes in an appraisal of Kundera’s life.Kundera, who died in Paris this week at 94, wrote mordant, sexually charged novels that captured the suffocating absurdity of life. “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” which was adapted into a film, is his most famous book.“He was the best-known Czech writer since Kafka,” Dwight continued, “and his fiction brought news of sophisticated Eastern European societies trembling under the threat of Soviet repression.”PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookDavid Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.Mix this Thai-style vegetable salad.What to WatchIn “Amanda,” a dark Italian comedy, a delusional graduate befriends an agoraphobic misanthrope.FashionMore men are baring their midriffs in crop tops.Tech TipHow does Meta’s Threads stack up against Twitter? Read our review.Now Time to PlayFill in the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Broke ground in a garden (four letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you tomorrow! — AmeliaP.S. Alice Callahan will be our new nutrition reporter.“The Daily” is on the U.S. labor market.We’d love to hear from you. Write: briefing@nytimes.com. More

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      Future of Prigozhin’s Vast Empire Is Clouded After Rebellion

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      Over decades, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin amassed considerable clout in Russia and built businesses in at least 15 countries. His whereabouts and the future of his extensive portfolio are now uncertain.A chocolate museum in St. Petersburg. A gold mine in the Central African Republic. Oil and gas ventures off the Syrian coast.The economic ventures of Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, a former hot dog seller turned Wagner group warlord who staged a brief mutiny against Russia’s military last month, stretch far beyond the thousands of mercenaries he deployed in Ukraine, Africa and the Middle East.Through a vast network of shell companies and intermediaries, Mr. Prigozhin’s activities have included catering, producing action movies, making beer and vodka, cutting timber, mining diamonds and hiring people to sow disinformation in elections abroad, including the 2016 U.S. election.The exact size of his business is a mystery.A worker removes the logo of the Wagner Group from a building in St. Petersburg, Russia, after Mr. Prigozhin’s rebellion.Anatoly Maltsev/EPA, via ShutterstockWith Mr. Prigozhin’s whereabouts unknown, the fate of his sprawling empire is uncertain. President Vladimir V. Putin has said Russia financed Mr. Prigozhin’s enterprises, but it’s unclear how much control the Kremlin has over the business network, which reaches thousands of miles away from Moscow, experts say.“It will certainly not look exactly as it has, in terms of who is leading it, how much oversight the Kremlin will have, and how long the leash it will allow Wagner to operate with,” said Catrina Doxsee, an expert on irregular warfare at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based research organization.Here is a look at Mr. Prigozhin’s business interests.Russia and UkraineCatering, real estate and mercenaries.From his humble beginnings as an amateur cross-country skier and former convict, Mr. Prigozhin carved a path through the tumult of post-Soviet Russia, laying the foundations for his empire by opening hot dog kiosks in 1990 and later providing catering for the Kremlin — earning him the nickname “Putin’s chef.”Over the decades, he secured billions in state contracts and controlled an extensive portfolio of businesses, mostly in St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city and his birthplace.Mr. Prigozhin’s ventures have included construction, catering and entertainment. He ran a media company, which has begun being dismantled since his mutiny, and pioneered troll farms that sought to shape the 2016 American presidential election. His companies run hotels, restaurants, business centers and a gourmet grocery store on St. Petersburg’s main thoroughfare.Vladimir V. Putin of Russia with Mr. Prigozhin, right, in a photograph released by Russian state media, during a 2010 tour of Mr. Prigozhin’s catering business in St. Petersburg.Alexei Druzhinin/Sputnik, via Associated PressWhether his businesses made consistent profits is not clear: Some have gone under, others have stayed afloat. Over the years, Mr. Prigozhin used money from state contracts paid to some of his companies to finance his other projects, including shadowy tasks apparently ordered by the Kremlin.“They were all interconnected, these vessels, in the sense of general management and in the sense of possible flow of funds,” said Marat Gabidullin, a former assistant of Mr. Prigozhin’s who fought for the Wagner group before seeking asylum in France.The Wagner group was paid almost $10 billion by the Russian government, according to Russian state media. Mr. Prigozhin secured contracts worth another $10 billion from the Kremlin for his catering company.On Thursday, the autocratic leader of Belarus, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, who intervened in the mutiny, signaled that at least some of Wagner’s fighting force could stay intact.“Wagner” carved into the wall of a classroom in a school in Velyka Oleksandrivka, Ukraine, which Russian soldiers occupied until the town was liberated by Ukrainian troops in October.David Guttenfelder for The New York TimesIn June, Mr. Prigozhin admitted that he used profits from lucrative state contracts to finance Wagner in Africa, Syria and elsewhere — but always “to pursue the interests of the Russian state.”“It all functions as a business model — he uses state resources to pursue various projects,” Mr. Gabidullin said. “And within this, he gets his own bonus.”AfricaSoldiers for hire, and interests in gold and timber.Wagner’s primary business in Africa is mercenaries: From Libya in the north to Mozambique in the south, the group has deployed troops in five African countries, providing security to presidents, propping up authoritarian leaders and fighting armed groups, often at a high cost for civilian populations.In the Central African Republic, Wagner provides security to the president, Faustin-Archange Touadéra, and trains the army. Observers have called the group’s actions in the nation “state capture” because of how Wagner has influenced political decisions to further its interests at the expense of the public.According to the United States, a military-led government in the West African nation of Mali has paid Wagner around $200 million since late 2021, essentially for mercenaries to fight against groups affiliated with Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.Wagner operatives also helped boot out a decade-long United Nations peacekeeping operation, according to White House officials, forcing Mali to rely almost exclusively on Russia.Commandos trained by the Wagner group standing guard during Labor Day celebrations in Bangui, Central African Republic, in 2019.Ashley Gilbertson for The New York TimesBeyond mercenary work, businesses affiliated with Mr. Prigozhin have been present in more than a dozen countries. They mine gold in Sudan and the Central African Republic, where they also export timber, make beer and vodka, run a radio station, and have produced action movies and organized a beauty pageant.A firm affiliated with Mr. Prigozhin also controls the Central African Republic’s largest gold mine, and recently signed new mining permits there for the next 25 years. The mine could bring $100 million in revenues to the group each year, according to Hans Merket, a researcher on minerals for the Brussels-based IPIS organization.Fidèle Gouandjika, a top adviser to the country’s president, said Wagner had protected against rebels; made quality wood available to Central Africans through their timber business; and was selling cheap beer.“So we’re telling them, ‘Take some diamonds, take some gold,’” Mr. Gouandjika said about what Central African officials were offering Wagner for its services. “The West is jealous.”SyriaBashar al-Assad’s protectors and oil and gas explorers.As Mr. Prigozhin staged his mutiny last month, Russian troops in Syria surrounded several bases where Wagner mercenaries were stationed, including around the capital, Damascus. Fearing movement from Wagner fighters, Syrian forces set up checkpoints around the bases; the country’s intelligence services were put on alert; and telecommunications were jammed. The response was another sign of Mr. Prigozhin’s long reach.Officially, Russia intervened in Syria in late 2015 to help the authoritarian regime of President Bashar al-Assad turn the tide against rebels trying to oust him.But Russian paramilitary fighters with a group known as the Slavonic Corps were detected in Syria as early as 2013, experts say. Although detailed connections between the Slavonic Corps and Wagner remain unclear, many Wagner commanders were originally part of the corps, according to Gregory Waters, a scholar at the Middle East Institute.Wagner asserted its presence in Syria in 2017. While the Russian military brought in its air force and commanders, the bulk of its frontline personnel came from Wagner, Mr. Waters said.Wagner fighters both captured territory from rebels and the Islamic State and guarded oil and gas fields and Palmyra, an important tourist site.Wagner fighters now guard Palmyra, an important tourist site in Syria.Omar Sanadiki/Associated PressU.S. intelligence officials have described Wagner’s goal in Syria as seizing oil and gas fields and protecting them for Mr. al-Assad.At least four companies linked to Wagner and registered in Russia have exploration permits for sites in Syria, according to Lou Osborn, an analyst at All Eyes on Wagner, an open-source research group. All have been placed under sanctions by the U.S. Treasury Department.These activities have been central to Russia’s quest to become an energy superpower, said Candace Rondeaux, an expert on Wagner who is a senior director at New America, a Washington research group.“With Russia there’s no deconflicting or disentangling military interests from energy interest,” Ms. Rondeaux said.Mr. Gabidullin, the former Wagner fighter, said that Mr. Prigozhin’s far-reaching network abroad had grown too much for the Kremlin to fully control it.“He has so many specialists there,” he said. “It is the Ministry of Defense’s specialists who need to learn from his staff.” More