World Briefing: January 3, 2025

The Army veteran who drove a pickup truck into a crowd of New Year’s revelers in New Orleans acted alone, the FBI said Thursday, reversing its position from a day earlier that he likely worked with others in the deadly attack that officials said was inspired by the Islamic State group. The FBI also revealed that the driver, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, an American citizen from Texas, posted five videos on his Facebook account in the hours before the attack in which he proclaimed his support for the militant group and previewed the violence that he would soon unleash in the famed French Quarter district. “This was an act of terrorism. It was premeditated and an evil act,” said Christopher Raia, the deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division, calling Jabbar “100% inspired” by the Islamic State. The attack along Bourbon Street killed 14 revelers, along with Jabbar, 42, who was fatally shot in a firefight with police after steering his speeding truck around a barricade and plowing into the crowd. About 30 people were injured. - AP

The cut-off of Russian gas supplies to Moldova’s breakaway Transdniestria region has forced the closure of all industrial companies except food producers, an official said on Thursday. The mainly Russian-speaking territory of about 450,000 people, which split from Moldova in the 1990s as the Soviet Union collapsed, has suffered a painful and immediate hit from Wednesday’s cut-off of Russian gas supplies to central and eastern Europe via Ukraine. “All industrial enterprises are idle, with the exception of those engaged in food production - that is, directly ensuring food security for Transdniestria,” Sergei Obolonik, first deputy prime minister of the region, told a local news channel. “It is too early to judge how the situation will develop. ... The problem is so extensive that if it is not resolved for a long time, we will already have irreversible changes - that is, enterprises will lose their ability to start up.” Ukraine had allowed Russia to keep pumping gas across its territory despite nearly three years of war, and was earning up to $1 billion a year in transit fees. But Kyiv refused to renew a five-year deal that expired on Wednesday. European gas buyers such as Slovakia and Austria had prepared for the cut-off by securing alternative supplies. But Transdniestria - despite its ties to Moscow and the presence of 1,500 Russian troops there - has been crippled - Reuters

South Korean investigators sought to arrest impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol at his residence Friday over a failed martial bid, but local media reported security forces were blocking their attempts. Yoon, who has already been suspended from duty by lawmakers, would become the first sitting president in South Korean history to be arrested if the warrant is carried out. The president, who issued a bungled declaration on Dec. 3 that shook the vibrant East Asian democracy and briefly lurched it back to the dark days of military rule, faces imprisonment or, at worst, the death penalty. “The execution of the arrest warrant for President Yoon Suk Yeol has begun,” said the Corruption Investigation Office (CIO), which is probing Yoon’s short-lived declaration of martial law, with its officials and police seen entering the president’s residence. - Japan Times

Israeli air strikes on Thursday killed at least 43 people across the Gaza Strip including Mahmoud Salah, the director general of Gaza’s police department, Gaza’s interior ministry said. Salah was in the Al-Mawasi district, a humanitarian zone for civilians, when he was killed. Other Israeli airstrikes killed at least 26 Palestinians, including six in the interior ministry headquarters in Khan Younis and others in north Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp, the Shati (Beach) camp and central Gaza’s Maghazi camp.

Vietnam’s conspicuous absence from the updated Brics partner list signals a cautious balancing act, analysts say, as Hanoi weighs its growing economic ties with Washington against the benefits of joining a bloc often seen as counter to US-led global influence. Russia’s foreign ministry said in a written statement released on Friday that nine countries would officially join Brics as partner states on January 1, in accordance with an agreement reached during the Brics Summit held in Kazan, Russia in October. Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand were among the confirmed partner states announced in the statement. At the summit in Kazan, 13 countries were invited to become bloc partners, meaning they are on the path to full membership. Nine accepted the invitation, while Algeria, Nigeria, Turkey and Vietnam did not formally respond by the end of 2024. The Russian government said “we expect that in the near future responses will come from” the other four. Alexander Vuving, a professor at the Asia-Pacific Centre for Security Studies in Hawaii, said Vietnam’s hesitation stemmed from Hanoi’s “delicate ties” with the United States. “In [Hanoi’s] strategic calculation, its status as a Brics partner country must be weighed against its partnership with the US,” Vuving said, adding that the grouping might be seen not only as an alternative but also as a challenge to Washington. Vuving added that Washington’s friendshoring policy presented Vietnam with the chance to emerge as a hub for hi-tech and semiconductor industries within global supply chains – an opportunity the Southeast Asian country was eager to seize. “Friendshoring” refers to the growing trade practice of focusing supply chain networks on countries regarded as political and economic allies. “Vietnam is careful not to shut this opportunity down by joining a grouping that the US deems unfriendly,” Vuving said, adding that whether Vietnam would confirm its status as a Brics partner would largely depend on Washington’s stance towards the group.

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