Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s trip to China, the uncertain whereabouts of the Wagner Group’s leader, and the resignation of a top Israeli police commander.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Thursday kicked off a four-day diplomatic trip to China, where she is expected to meet with top Chinese economic officials, including Premier Li Qiang, former Vice Premier Liu He, and former People’s Bank of China Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan. This is Yellen’s first visit to Beijing as Washington’s chief financial officer, yet many economists worry the United States’ and China’s competing interests may make the trip fruitless at best—and downright hostile at worst.

Both nations hope to avoid miscommunication when discussing international economic crises, such as supply chain issues, developing technology, and spyware. However, Washington and Beijing have both reiterated that national security remains their top priority, making good-faith collaboration challenging.

Just this week, China announced new restrictions on the export of gallium and germanium, two key metals necessary to produce some semiconductor chips. And last week, the Biden administration considered placing additional limits on the sale of high-end chips used to develop artificial intelligence—an emerging industry the two powerhouses have raced to control.

Still, Yellen hopes to strengthen key Biden administration policies while also reassuring Beijing that the United States’ actions aren’t meant to harm the state. That means emphasizing cooperation and supply chain diversification instead of economic decoupling, demanding greater transparency from China’s new espionage law, addressing unfair market barriers against U.S. firms, and discouraging Beijing from supplying Russia with lethal aid in its war against Ukraine—something China continues to deny doing.

China’s concerns, however, center more on past U.S. actions. Specifically, top Chinese officials want to counter tough trade tariffs imposed during the Trump administration as well as sanctions against Chinese companies.

Yellen’s visit is just the latest in a slew of U.S. diplomatic engagements with Washington’s biggest rival. Last November, U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in Bali, Indonesia, on the sidelines of the G-20 summit, where they discussed international debt relief and economic priorities. In June, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken flew to China for bilateral talks—months after his February trip was canceled due to evidence of a Chinese spy balloon over U.S. territory.

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Where is Prigozhin? Locating Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russia’s paramilitary Wagner Group, is becoming more and more like a Where’s Waldo? hunt. On Thursday, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said the coup leader was still in Russia with thousands of Wagner fighters despite previous assertions that Prigozhin had fled to Belarus in late June after abandoning his mutinous march toward Moscow. Lukashenko brokered a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin last month that granted Prigozhin amnesty in exchange for exile in the neighboring country.

It is not clear where Prigozhin is as of now—Lukashenko suggested that he could be in St. Petersburg or Moscow. Yet the Belarusian leader maintained that the mercenary remains safe. “If you think Putin is so malicious and vindictive that he will ‘wipe him out’ tomorrow, to say it in Russian, no, this will not happen,” he said. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov remained vague on Lukashenko’s claims, saying Moscow is not following Prigozhin’s movements nor does it have the desire to do so.

Israel’s police upheaval. Internal dissension continues to plague Israeli politics after Tel Aviv’s police commander quit the force on Wednesday. According to now former police chief Ami Eshed, members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right cabinet demanded that Eshed use excessive force against anti-government protesters. “I could have easily met these expectations by using unreasonable force that would have filled up the emergency room of Ichilov [Tel Aviv’s main hospital] at the end of every protest,” Eshed said. “For the first time in three decades of service, I encountered an absurd reality in which ensuring calm and order was not what was required of me but precisely the opposite.”

Although Eshed did not explicitly name which cabinet members had pressured him, the former police chief implied that blame fell on National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. Ben-Gvir, who has repeatedly denounced those protesting Netanyahu’s proposed judicial overhaul plan, currently oversees the nation’s police force.

Explosion in South Africa. A nitrate gas leak in Boksburg, South Africa, killed at least 16 people living in closely packed metal shacks on Wednesday. Three children were among those killed. According to local investigators, the toxic gas was used by illegal miners in the area to process gold, and a faulty gas cylinder caused the leak.

This is not Boksburg’s first tragic mass accident. Last December, 34 people died from a truck explosion in the town. The tanker was carrying liquefied petroleum gas, which is used throughout Africa for heating and cooking.

It’s time to welcome some world leaders to the Swiftie fanbase. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took to Twitter on Wednesday to ask American singer Taylor Swift to add a few Canada stops to her sold-out Eras Tour. And on Thursday, Pita Limjaroenrat, who came out on top in Thailand’s recent elections, took a page out of Ottawa’s book to request an Eras performance. “Thailand is back on track to be fully democratic after you had to cancel last time due to the coup,” Pita wrote on Twitter. “The Thai people have spoken via the election and we all look forward to welcoming you to this beautiful nation of ours!”