Hezbollah leader killed. Israel killed a top Hezbollah military leader in a Beirut strike, both Israel and Hezbollah said yesterday. Israel has been escalating its strikes on Hezbollah in recent weeks, accusing the group of failing to comply with a year-old ceasefire and the Lebanese government of failing to address truce violations. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun had on Friday called for the truce monitors to help with its enforcement, and after Israel’s strike asked the international community to help stop Israel’s attacks. A Hezbollah official said the strike—which injured at least twenty-eight people—crossed a “new red line.”
The results are in from COP30…At this year’s UN climate talks, countries decided to triple global funding for climate adaptation by 2035, but stopped short of committing to a roadmap for phasing out fossil fuels that had been extensively debated during the conference. The UN climate chief said the world is “still in” the climate fight, but that he was “not saying we’re winning.”
…and from the G20 summit. Group of Twenty (G20) leaders gathered in South Africa over the weekend jointly reaffirmed their support for multilateral cooperation and called for more attention to challenges facing developing countries, such as climate-driven disasters. Pretoria rejected a U.S. proposal to send an embassy official to the summit’s closing ceremony for the official handover of the G20 presidency. The White House accused South African President Cyril Ramaphosa of inhibiting a smooth transition ahead of the 2026 summit in Florida.
Trade talks in Pretoria. On the sidelines of the G20, Canada and India officially launched trade negotiations, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced on social media. An agreement could more than double bilateral trade to more than $49 billion, Carney said. Canada also held talks with Vietnam, and the European Union (EU) on boosting trade and investment between the EU and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership trading bloc.
Warning on Venezuelan airspace. Six airlines indefinitely suspended flights to Venezuela after the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a warning Friday regarding potential military activity, the president of the Airlines Association in Venezuela said. The FAA warned pilots of “heightened military activity in or around Venezuela” that could pose risks to aircraft “at all altitudes.” Washington has been moving military assets to the region for months.
Southeast Asia floods. Severe flooding has killed at least ninety people in Vietnam over the past week, authorities said yesterday. The heavy rain has also extended across Thailand, killing at least eight people there and displacing hundreds of thousands of people across both countries. This year the Pacific Ocean is experiencing the climate pattern known as La Niña, which can intensify storms along with ongoing warming.
Tight Serb Republic vote. Preliminary results from yesterday’s snap presidential election in Bosnia’s Serb Republic show a narrow victory for separatist candidate Siniša Karan. The vote was triggered after a court banned former president Milorad Dodik from politics earlier this year for ignoring rulings by Bosnia’s international peace overseer. Karan, a Dodik ally, is due to serve less than a year in office before the next regularly scheduled presidential election.
UK critical minerals plan. The United Kingdom (UK) government on Saturday announced a target of domestically producing 10 percent of the critical minerals it needs by 2035, as well as a new $65 million fund to support domestic critical minerals projects. As part of the new strategy, it will back lithium and tungsten mining in the southwestern region of Cornwall.
