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Mentioned in this edition: Donald Trump, Claudia Sheinbaum, Keir Starmer, Giorgia Meloni, Calin Georgescu, Emmanuel Macron, possible Chinese sabotage, a rare prisoner swap, a shock military advance, and more.
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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING
🇲🇽 Trump and Mexico’s president came to an agreement — sort of. After President-Elect Donald Trump threatened Mexico with a 25 percent tariff if they did not get migration and drug sales under control, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum spoke with him over the phone. Trump came away saying she had agreed to effectively “stop migration.” Sheinbaum strenuously denied having said so, but backed off from a retaliatory tariff war.
🇬🇧 Britain’s leader seemed to confirm the “Great Replacement” theory. At a Thursday event, left-wing Prime Minister Keir Starmer blasted his Conservative predecessors for turning “Britain into a one-nation experiment in open borders.” In a statement reminiscent of conservative American rhetoric, Starmer asserted that mass migration into Britain, allegedly spurred on by Brexit, “happened by design, not by accident.”
🇮🇱 The Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire is already on rocky ground. Just days after a pause in the fighting between the IDF and Lebanese Hezbollah forces, both sides claimed the other had violated the truce. Israel fired warning shots and confirmed it struck two Hezbollah targets that it claimed were violating the ceasefire.
🇦🇺 Australia became the first country to ban children from social media. The new law will keep individuals under 16 from being able to access social media sites like TikTok and Instagram, with fines for violations reaching $32 million. The bill, proposed by Australia’s left-leaning government, received overwhelming bipartisan support. Other countries, such as France, are considering following suit.
🇪🇺 EUROPE
Italy’s unions held a one-day general strike over opposition to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s budget.
Georgia’s government formally paused its bid to join the EU, saying Union officials were “devoid of European values.”
Austria’s populist-right Freedom Party won control of a major region for the first time ever.
Calin Georgescu, a populist-right NATO skeptic, won the first round of Romania’s presidential election, with the final round set for December 8.
British lawmakers approved an assisted dying bill.
🌏 ASIA-PACIFIC
China and America completed a prisoner swap; the US also lowered its travel advisory for China.
Sweden is seeking China’s cooperation in an investigation into why a Chinese ship was located near severed Baltic Sea cables.
An American deputy secretary of state claimed that China is concerned over Russia’s closeness to North Korea.
💸 MIDDLE EAST
Israel eliminated a Hezbollah official who had overseen a deadly 2007 attack on American troops in Iraq.
Syrian opposition forces blitzed through dictator Bashar al-Assad’s army, taking 40 towns and entering Aleppo, a major city.
Hamas is considering allowing Israel to keep troops on the border between Gaza and Egypt.
