U.S. President Donald J. Trump has named Robert C. O’Brien (WaPo), the State Department’s top hostage negotiator, his fourth national security advisor following the departure of John Bolton earlier this month.
 
O’Brien is seen as a lower-profile and less combative figure than his predecessor, as well as more politically aligned (FP) with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. He has emphasized the importance of U.S. global leadership and U.S. alliances. O’Brien joins the administration amid heightened tensions with Iran. The Trump administration is reportedly weighing responses (NYT), including retaliatory strikes and new sanctions, following attacks on Saudi oil facilities it says Iran may have helped to carry out.

A court found that three former executives of the Tokyo Electric Power Company were not guilty of professional negligence (Kyodo) in a case over the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. The men had been charged with failing to implement measures that would have mitigated the crisis, triggered by an earthquake and tsunami.
 
Indonesia: Annual forest fires in the country are their worst since 2015, with smog from the fires forcing thousands of schools to close (Al Jazeera) in Indonesia and neighboring Malaysia. More than six thousand federal troops have been deployed to help with firefighting.

Air strikes by Afghan forces that were meant to target militants from the self-proclaimed Islamic State instead hit farmland (Al Jazeera) in the country’s east, killing an estimated thirty civilians and wounding forty others. A car bombing in the south that was claimed by the Taliban killed at least twenty people, local officials said.
 
India: The country has banned the production, import, and sale of e-cigarettes (BBC), the finance minister announced. Offenders can face up to three years in prison.

The council is set to vote today on rival resolutions (Reuters) that both call for a truce in northwest Syria. A proposal from China and Russia differs from one put forth by Belgium, Germany, and Kuwait in that it would exempt operations against Security Council–designated terrorist groups.
 
Israel: Former defense official Benny Gantz rejected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s offer to form a unity government (DW) after Gantz’s Blue and White coalition won slightly more seats than Netanyahu’s Likud party in parliamentary elections. Gantz said he supports a coalition government, but not one led by Netanyahu.
 
CFR’s Steven A. Cook discusses what changes the new parliament could bring to Israeli politics.

The $4.5 billion pipeline (VOA), projected to take three and a half years to build, will transport crude oil from southeast Niger to a port in Benin, Nigerien President Mahamadou Issoufou’s office announced. China National Petroleum Corporation will help build the pipeline.
 
DRC: The Congolese army said its forces killed a Rwandan militia leader (AP) who had been wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes since 2012.
 
This CFR Backgrounder looks at the role of the International Criminal Court.

French President Emmanuel Macron, with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte in Rome, said EU ministers will soon meet to discuss creating a European mechanism (Reuters) to distribute migrants arriving from the Mediterranean across the bloc.
 
Germany: The government will extend by six months (DW) its freeze on arms exports to Saudi Arabia, implemented nearly a year ago following the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Fifty-five independent journalists and activists launched a petition (Reuters) calling for press freedom guarantees and warning of a possible crackdown on their work. The group noted an increase in detentions, raids, and interrogations against reporters.
 
This CFR Backgrounder looks at how U.S.-Cuba relations have changed under Trump.
 
Ecuador: A bill to decriminalize abortion for survivors of rape failed to pass (Guardian) the country’s legislature by five votes.