Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will meet with U.S. President Joe Biden (AFP) today at the White House, where Zelensky is expected to seek assurances on U.S. security support for his country. Washington’s weakening opposition to Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and its withdrawal from Afghanistan have raised doubts in Kyiv about U.S. dependability, an advisor to Zelensky told the Financial Times.
 
Zelensky said he plans to bring up Ukraine’s need for a modern military fleet in the Black Sea, where it is waging a seven-year war with Russia-backed separatists. U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told Zelensky yesterday that the United States, which has committed $2.5 billion for Ukraine’s defense since 2014, “will continue to stand with [Ukraine]” in the face of Russian aggression. A July deal between the United States and Germany effectively ended U.S. opposition to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which Ukraine regards as a security threat. In the agreement, Germany pledged increased support (Politico) for Ukraine’s energy security.

In a speech about the end to the U.S. war in Afghanistan, Biden called the evacuation of Kabul an “extraordinary success” and said it marked the end of an era (NYT) in which the United States used military force “to remake other countries.” He portrayed the United States’ options in Afghanistan as either escalation or withdrawal.
 
CFR’s Charles A. Kupchan writes that exiting Afghanistan will improve the United States’ global standing in the long run.

Chinese ride-hailing company DiDi Global Inc. is helping its workers unionize (Bloomberg), a move that other tech firms could follow as Beijing pushes for more of companies’ profits to reach workers. Most DiDi employees work part-time.
 
Thailand: A leaked video that apparently shows police officers suffocating a detainee to death on August 5 has sparked outrage (Al Jazeera) over police brutality.

The United Nations announced that its humanitarian operations in Afghanistan will continue (UN News). Some eighteen million people, almost half of the country’s population, need humanitarian assistance, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. He called on UN member states to support ongoing humanitarian work in the country. 
 
India: The government announced that it met with a Taliban leader (Hindu) in Qatar to discuss travel between Afghanistan and India and concerns that Afghanistan could become a launchpad for terrorist attacks against India. It was New Delhi’s first public acknowledgement of a meeting with the Taliban.

The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen’s civil war said that a drone attack from Yemen wounded eight people (Al Jazeera) at Saudi Arabia’s Abha International Airport. A second drone was shot down, the coalition said. The attacks came days after missiles and drones killed at least thirty coalition troops in southern Yemen.
 
Israel/Palestinian territories: Israel announced that it will boost water supplies (Haaretz) to the Gaza Strip and increase the territory’s fishing permissions. Israel tightened restrictions on Gaza after the country’s conflict with Hamas in May.
 
This Backgrounder discusses Hamas, the Palestinian armed group that rules Gaza.

New laboratory testing found no evidence (Reuters) of Ebola in an eighteen-year-old woman in the Ivory Coast who was thought to be the first person to test positive for the virus in the country in twenty-five years.
 
Ethiopia: Rebels in the Tigray region have looted aid warehouses (AFP) and wrought destruction in villages they visited, causing “a great concern for humanitarians,” said an official from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
 
On The President’s Inbox podcast, CFR’s Michelle Gavin discusses Ethiopia’s civil war.

Google said it will guarantee (AP) that 80 percent of the electricity used by its new cloud-computing centers in Germany comes from carbon-free sources. The move is part of the company’s $1.2 billion effort to expand cloud-computing infrastructure in Germany.

Venezuelan opposition parties announced that they will participate (AP) in November’s regional and municipal elections, ending a boycott on recent votes. The opposition and President Nicolas Maduro’s government are laying the ground for negotiations in Mexico City that are expected to include a discussion on election conditions.
 
Argentina: The government extended restrictions (Buenos Aires Times) on beef exports that were first introduced in May until the end of October. The government said the move aimed at moderating domestic beef prices is working, but it received pushback from producers.