Voting is underway to elect a new parliament (Haaretz) in Israel, with polls showing a close race between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and the Blue and White coalition, led by former defense official Benny Gantz.
 
Netanyahu campaigned with increasingly hard-line pledges, including a promise on Monday to annex all settlements (AP) in the West Bank if he remains prime minister. Netanyahu triggered the new vote when he was unable to form a governing coalition after an April election. The Yisrael Beitenu party, led by former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who refused to govern with Netanyahu in April, could again play a central role (FP) in the formation of a government if Likud or Blue and White fail to obtain a sixty-one-seat majority.

President Donald J. Trump scaled back remarks (NYT) about retaliation for drone strikes on Saudi oil facilities, saying that Iran appeared to be behind the attack but that he would like to avoid a military conflict. Trump said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other officials will soon travel (National) to Riyadh. 
 
CFR’s Ray Takeyh writes that the attack on Saudi oil marks a dangerous new phase in Gulf tensions.

Taiwan said the Solomon Islands had decided to end diplomatic relations (SCMP) with the island in favor of Beijing. Taiwan’s foreign minister offered to resign over the development.
 
CFR’s Center for Preventive Action discusses how to avoid a cross-strait crisis between China and Taiwan.
 
South Korea: The country confirmed its first case of African swine fever (Yonhap), near the border with North Korea. The agriculture minister said some four thousand pigs would be culled as a precaution.

A suicide bombing at a campaign rally for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani today killed at least twenty-six people (TOLO) and wounded more than forty others. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
 
India: Police have arrested a senior lawmaker (AP) in India-administered Kashmir under a controversial law that allows imprisonment for up to two years without charge or trial.

The leaders of Iran, Russia, and Turkey, in a joint statement, said they will take “concrete steps” (Reuters) to respect previous de-escalation agreements in northern Syria to avoid a further deterioration of the humanitarian situation. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the three countries “need to take more responsibility” for Syrian peace.

Ethiopia rejected a proposal by Egypt to help manage a $4 billion dam Ethiopia is building on the Nile River, according to a new Reuters report. The two countries and Sudan held their first talks in more than a year about the dam, which is scheduled to start production by late 2020.
 
This CFR Backgrounder looks at the towering set of challenges facing Ethiopia.
 
South Africa: Federal troops deployed to Cape Town (Reuters) in July amid heightened gang violence will remain in the city until March 2020, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced.

More than a hundred political and military leaders from Europe and Russia issued a statement (VOA) ahead of the UN General Assembly’s annual debate that calls for making nuclear arms control a priority. The group warned that the risk of a nuclear accident or misjudgment is at its highest since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
 
Spain: The country’s top criminal court denied a U.S. request (Guardian) to extradite a former Venezuelan military intelligence chief on drug trafficking charges and ordered his release.

Several smaller opposition parties have agreed to direct negotiations (AP) with President Nicolas Maduro’s government after opposition leader Juan Guaido announced that a Norway-brokered peace process had been exhausted. Guaido called the decision a “maneuver” by Maduro’s regime to split the opposition.
 
In Foreign Affairs, Michael J. Camilleri lays out an achievable strategy for the United States in Venezuela.
 
Canada: A senior intelligence official arrested last week on charges he was planning to share safeguarded information with a foreign group had access to intelligence (CBC) from Canada as well as its allies, according to the federal police commissioner.