Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party gained forty-nine parliamentary seats (FT) in snap general elections, suggesting Johnson will succeed in his pledge to remove Britain from the European Union by the end of January on the terms of a deal struck in October.
 
The opposition Labour Party’s representation shrunk sixty seats after the vote, prompting Jeremy Corbyn to announce that he would not contest another election as party leader. In Scotland, the Scottish National Party won forty-eight of fifty-nine seats, and leader Nicola Sturgeon said she would seek to call a new referendum (Guardian) on Scottish independence. Northern Ireland elected more Irish nationalists (Reuters) than pro-British unionists to Parliament for the first time.

U.S. President Donald J. Trump approved a limited trade deal that would cancel new tariffs on Chinese goods scheduled to be imposed on Sunday and roll back existing tariffs in exchange for concessions that include a pledge to buy U.S. farm goods, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Beijing has yet to suggest that such a deal has been completed.
 
In Foreign Affairs, Ely Ratner, Elizabeth Rosenberg, and Paul Scharre outline a competitive approach to countering China beyond the trade war.
 
China: President Xi Jinping will announce initiatives next week to diversify business in Macau, according to a Reuters report. Some officials in Macau called the measures a reward for avoiding street protests like those shaking Hong Kong’s economy.

At least eighty lawyers have been arrested (NYT) after the hundreds-strong mob ransacked Lahore’s cardiology hospital to avenge a dispute with hospital doctors. Three patients died in the unrest.
 
Afghanistan: The United States has temporarily paused (Reuters) talks with the Taliban after the group backed a car bombing on a U.S. air base outside Kabul that left two dead on Wednesday, U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad said.

General Khalifa Haftar, the commander of forces at war with the Libyan government, announced (Al Jazeera) in a television address that he would immediately begin an offensive to capture the capital of Tripoli.
 
CFR’s Global Conflict Tracker traces the most recent developments in Libya’s civil war.
 
Saudi Arabia: State-backed oil company Saudi Aramco reached a $2 trillion valuation (CNN), the goal sought by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, two days after going public. It has become the most valuable company in the world, ahead of Apple, which is worth $1.2 trillion.

President Muhammadu Buhari announced that beginning in 2020, Nigeria will offer visas on arrival (Quartz) to all African nationals.
 
Sierra Leone: West Africa’s top regional court ordered Sierra Leone to revoke its 2015 ban (Reuters) on pregnant girls attending school. The continent has the world’s highest rate of adolescent pregnancies and eighteen of its countries enforce similar bans.

Turkey’s foreign ministry said the Senate’s passage of a resolution recognizing (Anadolu) the 1915 mass killings of Armenians as genocide was destructive and aimed to damage relations between Ankara and Washington. The resolution’s approval was unanimous (Axios), despite the president’s opposition to the decision.

Bolivia’s exiled former President Evo Morales left Mexico for Argentina, where he has been granted asylum (Guardian), Argentina’s foreign minister announced. Morales resigned after accusations of rigging Bolivia’s October presidential elections in his favor.
 
This CFR In Brief looks at looks at the aftermath of Morales’s resignation.
 
Chile: The country’s lower house voted down (Al Jazeera) a motion to impeach President Sebastian Pinera for allegedly failing to prevent human rights abuses during recent countrywide protests.

Law enforcement officials announced that a shooting this week at a New Jersey kosher supermarket that left six people dead, including the two gunmen, is being investigated (WaPo) as an act of domestic terrorism.