North Korea and South Korea reopened cross-border military hotlines (Yonhap) that had been severed last year. The move came after the countries’ leaders exchanged a series of letters. North Korean state media said the countries aim (Bloomberg) “to make a big stride in recovering the mutual trust.”
 
Pyongyang cut off communications (NYT) with Seoul last June following a breakdown in nuclear talks with U.S. President Donald Trump. It also blamed Seoul for failing to prevent activists from sending anti–North Korea leaflets into its territory. Shortly after, North Korea bombed an inter-Korean office near the border in what many observers considered to be the lowest point in years for peninsular relations. Since then, an economic crisis in North Korea has deepened and a new U.S. administration has affirmed its willingness to engage in fresh diplomacy.

Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, Samoa’s first female prime minister, took office (AP) more than three months after winning an election that her opponent refused to concede. The incumbent, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, conceded last week after Samoa’s top court ruled in Fiame’s favor.

An election commission appointed by Myanmar’s ruling military junta officially nullified the results (Kyodo) of November general elections won by deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party. After the February coup, the military said the elections would be redone.
 
India: At least five police officers and one civilian were killed and more than fifty people were wounded (Al Jazeera) in clashes near the border between Assam and Mizoram States, which have been in a long-standing territorial dispute (Mint). 

The United States will end its combat mission in Iraq (AP) by the end of the year, President Joe Biden said while Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi visited the White House yesterday. Biden did not say whether the U.S. troop presence of 2,500 will be reduced, but said that the United States remains committed to aiding Iraq in its fight against the self-proclaimed Islamic State.
 
For Foreign Affairs, CFR’s Max Boot writes that the United States still needs counterinsurgency.
 
Lebanon: The country’s legislature approved the appointment (FT) of billionaire and former Prime Minister Najib Mikati as prime minister–designate. Mikati will be the third person in a year to try to form a government amid a deep economic crisis. 

Officials from Kenya and the United Kingdom are set to sign a cooperation agreement (FT) today that aims to increase investment in Nairobi. The deal will link the London and Nairobi stock exchanges and ease the incorporation of companies in Kenya.
 
Mozambique: Botswana sent soldiers to Mozambique (ANA) to help fight an Islamist extremist insurgency in the northern Cabo Delgado Province. It is the first deployment (AP) to the province by a country in the Southern African Development Community.
 
CFR’s Michelle Gavin looks at the crisis in Mozambique for the Africa in Transition blog.

Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu goes on trial (BBC) in the Vatican today on charges of inappropriately spending more than $400 million in Church money. He is the most senior cleric ever to be tried for financial crimes by the Vatican, a move that comes amid Pope Francis’s drive to reform the Holy See’s finances (FT).
 
Russia: Russian authorities restricted access (AP) to the websites of opposition leader Alexey Navalny and several of his allies, Navalny’s team said. 

Maria del Carmen Alva Prieto, a politician from an alliance opposed to Peruvian President-Elect Pedro Castillo, has been elected (UTI) to head Congress. Castillo takes office tomorrow.
 
Haiti: Police said they arrested the chief (Al Jazeera) of former President Jovenel Moise’s security team as part of investigations into the president’s assassination, which occured earlier this month.
 
This In Brief explains what to know about Moise’s assassination.

The White House said the United States will maintain bans on visits (FT) by foreign citizens from a range of countries, including China, the United Kingdom, and members of the European Union, due to a rise in COVID-19 cases.