Italy has announced it is tightening coronavirus restrictions for five regions experiencing a wave of cases, the New York Times reports.
Driving the news: Like much of Europe, Italy is seeing a surge in coronavirus cases nationwide, straining the country's hospitals and health care system.
The Trump administration has formally notified Congress of a $23 billion arms deal with the United Arab Emirates, which will make the UAE the first Arab country to possess America's most advanced fighter aircraft, the F-35.
Why it matters: This deal has been in the works for some time, but became a sticking point in Israel's normalization process with the UAE after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied reports that he had given a green light to the deal.
The U.S. war on terror and its vague, overexpansive definition of terrorism have allowed authoritarian leaders around the world, and especially in China, to attack domestic groups under the guise of fighting terrorism, argues a George Washington University scholar in a new book.
Why it matters: Beijing has claimed its campaign of cultural genocide against China's Muslim minorities is a form of counterterrorism.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan congratulated President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday for his projected victory in the 2020 election.
Why it matters: Erdoğan was one of the major leaders who had yet to congratulate Biden, in addition to Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
EU regulators have filed antitrust charges against Amazon, claiming the company is acting anti-competitively when it uses data from sellers on its marketplace to develop its own products.
Why it matters: Europe could seek billions of dollars in fines from Amazon, and regulators' findings could inform the work of U.S. antitrust enforcers. The Federal Trade Commission reportedly started looking into Amazon's treatment of third-party sellers last year.
Bahaa Hariri, the billionaire son of the late Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, told Axios he thinks Lebanon and Israel should resolve their border disputes and move toward a peace deal.
Why it matters: Israel is an enemy country under Lebanese law, making this a very unusual statement from a member of one of Lebanon’s most prominent political dynasties. Bahaa’s brother Saad is currently trying to form a new government in Lebanon and is known for holding hardline positions on Israel.
Saed Erekat, the longtime Palestinian negotiator, has died at 65 after complications from the coronavirus. Erekat was previously the recipient of a lung transplant and was admitted to the hospital in October, according to the New York Times.
Background: Ereket was a top official in Palestine for over 30 years and a vocal advocate for Palestinian statehood. He played a major role in writing the Oslo peace accords in the 1990s.
President-elect Joe Biden isn't likely topursue a full reset with China, but he quickly must decide which of the Trump administration's many policies to keep and which to scrap.
Why it matters: In a world struggling against the common threats of climate change, nuclear proliferation and an ongoing pandemic, the U.S. must find a way to both challenge and cooperate with a rising authoritarian superpower.
Portugal and Hungary have become the latest European countries to impose partial lockdowns, with curfews going into effect overnight. Governments across the continent are imposing more restrictions in attempts to curb COVID-19 spikes.
The big picture: Over 9.2 million cases have been reported to the European Centre for Disease Control. Per the ECDC, France has the most (almost 1.8 million) followed by Spain (over 1.3 million) and the United Kingdom (nearly 1.2 million). The COVID death rate per 100,000 of the population is highest in the Czech Republic (25), followed by Belgium (19) and Hungary (10.4).
Peru's congressional legislators voted 105-19 Monday to impeach President Martín Vizcarra and remove him from office following corruption allegations and criticism of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, per Bloomberg.
Thebig picture: The country's economy contracted 30.2% in the second quarter. Peru's health care system has also been chronically underfunded and it has one of the highest COVID-19 death rates in the world. Manuel Merino, Peru's head of Congress, will take over the role until the 2021 presidential election is held.
Governments around the world are preparing to work with President-elect Biden — but they still have to navigate what could be a bumpy final 10 weeks of President Trump.
Split screen: Around the time Biden was holding his first call as president-elect with a foreign leader, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Trump was firing his secretary of defense, Mark Esper.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan surprised his country and the world tonight by announcing that he had agreed to end the war in Nagorno-Karabakh on terms that were “unbelievably painful for me personally and for our people.”
Why it matters: The announcement followed confirmation that Azerbaijan had taken a critical town in the breakaway region, which is majority ethnic Armenian but lies within neighboring Azerbaijan.
