German Chancellor Olaf Scholz met with Chinese leaders in Beijing on Friday, and raised the war in Ukraine, increasing tensions between Beijing and Taiwan, and human rights abuses in Xinjiang, but focused largely on business with China.
The big picture: Scholz's trip to China, the first among EU leaders since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, has raised concerns among his coalition partners and other EU members that it couldsend a confusing signal about how Europe's largest economy plans to deal with Beijing, as the bloc increasingly toughens its stance on China.
The Biden administration announced a new $400 million military assistance package for Ukraine on Friday.
The big picture: The U.S. has now committed more than $18.2 billion in security aid to Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion earlier this year, per the U.S. Department of Defense.
The new round of efforts to slow China's access to semiconductor technology the U.S. announced last month went further than many people expected. And the Biden Administration isn't slowing down, with more restrictions seen as likely.
Why it matters: The tech industry once drove a wider movement to tie the world's economies together. Now it's becoming a victim of larger forces that are tearing them apart.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said about 4.5 million residents were temporarily without power on Thursday night due to Russian military attacks.
Of note: That number equates to over 10% of Ukraine's pre-war population.
The question of what the rich countries that contributed most to climate change might owe poorer ones now suffering the consequences — not just as a philosophical exercise, but in dollars and cents — looms over the upcoming COP27 climate summit.
Why it matters: With world leaders and climate negotiators preparing to travel to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, from Nov. 6-18, UN Secretary-General António Guterres today said "getting concrete results on 'loss and damage'" will be the summit's key "litmus test."
The United Nations General Assembly on Thursday voted 185-2 to condemn the U.S. embargo of Cuba for the 30th year in a row.
Why it matters: Although UN resolutions are non-binding and aren't legally enforceable, they carry political weight by illustrating the isolation of the U.S. position and the heft of global opinion against it.
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid called Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday to congratulate him on his bloc's election win, paving the way for the opposition leader to return to the prime minister's office less than 18 months after being ousted.
Driving the news: Netanyahu's right-wing bloc won a 64-seat majority in Tuesday's elections, with 100% of the votes counted, according to the Israeli election committee.
Quinceañeras are not just for dancing — they're also for registering to vote.
Details: Projects like Poder Quince, organized by a progressive Texas organization, are seeking to engage adult Latinos and Latinas — and soon-to-be adults —in the political process at major events like quinceañeras, Noticias Telemundo reports.
With more leftists coming to power across Latin America, the idea of a single shared currency is a hot topic again.
It has been leftist politicians in particular, Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva among them, who have championed a single currency as necessary to reduce dependency on the dollar, but the idea is likely to face many challenges, analysts say.
North Korea launched an intercontinental ballistic missile above its eastern waters on Thursday, drawing condemnation from the U.S. and its allies.
Driving the news: The launch of the ICBM, which was accompanied by the firing of two short-range ballistic missiles, triggered alarms in Japan after setting off the country's emergency alert system, AP reported.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors did not find any indications of undeclared nuclear activities and materials at three nuclear facilities locations in Ukraine, the United Nations agency said Thursday.
Why it matters: The inspections, which were initiated at the request of the Ukrainian government, appeared to refute recent unsubstantiated Russian claims that Ukraine intends to produce and detonate a "dirty bomb" on its own soil.
The Bank of England raised interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point on Thursday — the largest increase in 33 years, as the central bank battles double-digit inflation.
Why it matters: It's the latest central bank — following the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank — to deliver a jumbo-sized rate increase as officials take aggressive steps to tame soaring costs.
Glaciers at some of the most famous World Heritage sites are set to vanish within 30 years due to climate change — including those at Yosemite National Park, a new UN report warns.
Threat level: "Glaciers in a third of the 50 World Heritage sites are condemned to disappear by 2050, regardless of efforts to limit temperature increases," according to the UNESCO report, published Thursday.
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