👋 Alò!*
Welcome to Monday, where Israel hits a Hezbollah-linked bank in Lebanon, Moldova narrowly says “yes” to joining Europe while Georgia sees major pro-EU marches, and New Zealand tells airport huggers to cut it short. We also feature an analysis by Ivan Filippov for Holod on the recent blocking of the Discord platform in Russia and the Kremlin’s reliance on Western tech.
[*Haitian Creole]
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🗞️ FRONT PAGE
Bogotá-based daily El Espectador dedicates its front page to the kick off of the UN COP16 biodiversity summit, the world's biggest nature protection conference, in Cali, Colombia, on Monday. About 200 nations will meet for two weeks to discuss “present and future” plans and funding for conservation. As most countries are lagging behind the 2030 goals laid out in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework agreement signed in 2022, UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged countries to increase commitments and mobilize public and private finance to address biodiversity loss.
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Israel deepens northern Gaza raid, strikes Hezbollah-linked bank in Lebanon. Israeli armed forces deepened their operations in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, storming a school and blowing up shelters for displaced people, residents and medics reported on Monday. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to depart for the Middle East on Monday, his 11th trip since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, to kickstart ceasefire negotiations to end the Gaza war. Meanwhile U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein is expected to hold talks with Lebanese officials in Beirut on conditions for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. Israeli strikes hit nearly a dozen branches of a Hezbollah-run financial institution overnight across Lebanon.
• Pentagon chief in Ukraine for talks, Russia pounds Kyiv with drones. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin arrived in Kyiv on an unannounced visit on Monday. The show of solidarity with Ukraine, comes as the future of U.S. aid to the country hangs in the balance of the imminent presidential election and as Russia is making steady gains on the battlefield. Austin will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Defense Minister Rustem Umero to discuss the country’s weapon needs. The visit comes hours after Russia attacked Kyiv with several waves of drones for the second night in a row, injuring at least one civilian. For more on the Russia-Ukraine war, check this Die Zeit OpEd translated from German by Worldcrunch.
• Moldova narrowly approves referendum to join EU. Moldovan voters cast ballots on Sunday in a presidential election and a referendum on joining the European Union, with a knife-edge majority of 50.39% voting “yes” with 99.5% of the 1.4 million votes counted, electoral authorities said on Monday. Pro-EU President Maia Sandu, who came up short of the majority needed to avoid a tough second round of voting, said the vote was marred by “unprecedented” outside interference. Sandu will face Alexandr Stoianoglo, a former prosecutor backed by the pro-Russian Socialists, in a second round on Nov. 3. Read more in this analysis translated from French by Worldcrunch: Georgia, Moldova, North Macedonia: How Russia Tries To Seep Into Europe At The Edges.
• Turkish cleric accused of planning failed 2016 coup dies. Fethullah Gülen, a scholar, preacher and former ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was accused of masterminding a bloody attempted coup in 2016, has died in the U.S. at 83. The cleric, sometimes described as Turkey’s second most powerful man, was the spiritual leader of the Gülen movement, a powerful Islamic community and became known for promoting a tolerant Islam. Gülen had been living in self-imposed exile in the U.S. since 1999.
• Seoul summons Russian envoy over North Korean troop deployment. South Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Kim Hong-kyun called for the “immediate withdrawal” of North Korean troops allegedly deployed in Russia when he summoned the Russian ambassador to South Korea, Georgiy Zinoviev, on Monday. South Korea’s national intelligence service said last week it had confirmed that Pyongyang sent 1,500 special operation forces to Russia this month to support Moscow’s war against Ukraine. For more, we offer this recent analysis by France Inter’s Pierre Haski.
• Egypt declared malaria free by WHO after 100-year effort. The World Health Organization called the achievement “truly historic,” as Egypt joins the 43 countries and one territory that have been certified as malaria free. “Malaria is as old as Egyptian civilization itself, but the disease that plagued pharaohs now belongs to its history and not its future,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Sunday. The mosquito-borne infectious disease kills at least 600,000 people every year, nearly all of them in Africa. Read more about zoonotic diseases here.
• New Zealand airport’s time limit on hugs causes stir. The international airport in Dunedin, a city in the South Island, has sparked a debate after it introduced a three-minute cap on cuddles, adding “for fonder farewells please use the car park.” Some are calling the measure “inhumane.” The airport chief executive said the rule was about improving safety and keeping traffic flowing at its drop-off zone.
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
$2,733.82
Gold rallied for a fifth straight day, hitting a record high of $2,733.82 per ounce on Monday. Considered a hedge against political and geopolitical uncertainty, gold has risen 32% since the beginning of the year. Experts attribute the upward trend to uncertainties around the U.S. election and ongoing Middle East tensions, with some suggesting the price could reach $3,000 per ounce by the end of the year.
📰 IN OTHER NEWS
✍️ “I am now facing a fate that is not in my hands.” Lebanese writer Tarek Ismail, who fled his village in southern Lebanon in September, reflects on his new life as a displaced person.
— DARAJ
📵 The decision taken by Russia’s communication oversight authority to block Discord, thus disrupting one of Russian military’s well-established communication systems, is a reminder of the Kremlin’s need for Western technology to wage its war against Ukraine.
— HOLOD
👪 How can parents find balance in the face of societal pressure and expectations? This is the kind of question both parents ought to ask themselves, not only women.
— RECALCULATING
📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO
➡️ Watch the video: THIS HAPPENED
📣 VERBATIM
“This is not your land, you are not my King.”
— Aboriginal Australian independent Senator Lidia Thorpe interrupted King Charles III's address at Parliament House in Canberra, shouting at the monarch for about a minute. As a Commonwealth member, Australia is a country where the king serves as the head of state, but recently there has been debate about putting an end to this role. Escorted out by security, Thorpe told the BBC that she had wanted to send a “clear message” to Charles. “To be sovereign you have to be of the land,” she said. “He is not of this land.”
✍️ Newsletter by Anne-Sophie Goninet & Laure Gautherin
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