Bloomberg / Georgian Protesters Clash With Police After EU Talks Were Frozen

• Protesters clashed with police in the capital of Georgia after the ruling party announced it was delaying talks with the European Union on the country’s potential membership in the bloc.  

• On Thursday, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced the government wouldn’t pursue EU membership talks until the end of 2028, a move that drew condemnation from the president. The announcement came hours after parliament confirmed the new cabinet. 

• EU leaders in June said that Georgia’s refusal to reverse a crackdown on civil society had prompted a “de facto” halt to its efforts to join the bloc. They cited the adoption of a “foreign agents” law, which the US and the EU said was similar to one President Vladimir Putin introduced to crush pro-democracy groups in Russia. The controversial legislation forces non-governmental organizations to disclose their sources of funding from abroad. 

• The ruling Georgian Dream party, which was founded by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, won October parliamentary elections to extend its 12-year rule by four more years, according to the Central Election Commission. Opposition lawmakers that back a pro-European charter are boycotting the parliament, alleging fraud in the vote.  
   

Reuters - Maya Gebeily / Israel and Hezbollah trade accusations of ceasefire violations

• The Israeli military said its air force struck a facility used by Hezbollah to store mid-range rockets in southern Lebanon on Thursday, after both sides accused each other of breaching a ceasefire that aims to halt over a year of fighting.

• The Lebanese army later accused Israel of violating the ceasefire several times on Wednesday and Thursday. 

• The exchange of accusations highlighted the fragility of the ceasefire, which was brokered by the United States and France to end the conflict, fought in parallel with the Gaza war. The truce lasts for 60 days in the hope of reaching a permanent cessation of hostilities. 

• Lebanese families displaced from their homes near the southern border have tried to return to check on their properties. But Israeli troops remain stationed within Lebanese territory in towns along the border and Reuters reporters heard surveillance drones flying over parts of southern Lebanon.

   

The Guardian - Shaun Walker and Pjotr Sauer / Putin threatens to hit Kyiv with Oreshnik missiles and praises Trump

• Vladimir Putin has threatened to strike Kyiv with Oreshnik missiles, an intermediate-range weapon that Moscow used against the city of Dnipro last week and that Putin has claimed cannot be shot down by any air defence system. 

• Moscow has said the new threats are a response to a decision earlier this month by the US, Britain and France to allow Ukraine to fire long-range missiles provided by them against military targets inside Russia, something Kyiv had long requested. 

• Kyiv is better protected than most other Ukrainian cities by air defence batteries, and there have been few successful strikes on the centre of the capital during almost three years of war. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the Ukrainian president described Putin’s claim that air defence systems could not take out Oreshnik missiles as “fiction, of course”. 

• Although the new threats will cause concern, many analysts believe that after using the weapon once as a demonstration, Putin is unlikely to escalate further before Donald Trump takes office in the US, instead hoping to use a window of opportunity to win Trump’s favour.
                 

Al Jazeera / Chad ends military cooperation with France

• Chad has said it is ending its defence cooperation agreement with former colonial power France, a move that will require French soldiers to leave the Central African country. 

• Chad has cooperated closely with Western nations’ military forces in the past, but has moved closer to Russia in recent years. 

• France currently has about 1,000 soldiers as well as warplanes stationed in Chad, which is the last Sahel country to host French troops. 

• The Foreign Ministry statement on Thursday said that Chad, a key Western ally in the fight against armed groups in the region, wanted to fully assert its sovereignty after 66 years of independence.

   

Our opinion reads for today:

• Foreign Affairs - Rush Doshi / The Trump Administration’s China Challenge 
• Foreign Policy - Fredrik Wesslau / The Pitfalls for Europe of a Trump-Putin Deal on Ukraine 
• Project Syndicate - Kenneth Rogoff / Europe’s Economy Is Stalling Out 
• Financial Times - John Burn-Murdoch / Fentanyl deaths are falling. What’s behind the decline?