Russia Strikes Kyiv, BBC Apologizes To Trump, Indigenous COP30

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🗞️ FRONT PAGE​​

Germany’s coalition approved a new service plan requiring 18-year-old men to submit questionnaires and later undergo medical checks. As the Frankfurter Rundschau daily notes on its front page, service is “still voluntary for now” but could become compulsory if recruitment targets are not met. Aiming for up to 260,000 troops, the plan is facing strong youth opposition even while being framed as essential amid rising security concerns.

🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW

• Russian drone and missile attack kills four in Kyiv. Russia unleashed a major missile and drone attack on Kyiv early Friday, killing four people and wounding dozens in strikes on energy facilities, apartment buildings and infrastructure. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian forces used at least 430 drones and 18 missiles, making the attack one of the biggest on the capital in nearly four years of war. Meanwhile, Zelensky will meet French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Monday, marking the Ukrainian leader’s ninth trip to France since the start of Russia’s invasion.

• Israel returns bodies of 15 Palestinians. Officials at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis said Friday that Israel had returned the bodies of 15 Palestinians to Gaza, as part of the fragile U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement. This came after militants handed over the body of one of the last four remaining Israeli hostages taken during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack. Israel has since identified the body as Manny Godard, 73, an Israeli resident of a kibbutz near Gaza.

• Iran seizes tanker in Strait of Hormuz. A Marshall Islands-flagged crude oil tanker was apprehended by the Iranian military as it traveled through the narrow Strait of Hormuz on Friday, a U.S. official reported. Iran hasn’t acknowledged the seizure yet but this comes amid increasing warnings that the country can strike back after facing a 12-day war in June with Israel that saw the U.S. strike Iranian nuclear sites.

• BBC apologizes to Trump over speech edit, rejects defamation claim. The BBC has apologized to U.S. President Donald Trump for a misleading edit of a “Panorama” documentary that spliced together parts of his Jan. 6, 2021 speech. But the British public broadcaster denied there are grounds for a defamation lawsuit. In a statement on Thursday, the BBC said that the edit had given “the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action” and that the program would “not be broadcast again in this form on any BBC platforms.” Trump has threatened to sue the network for $1 billion.

• UN human rights body holds special session on Sudan. The United Nations’ Human Rights Council held a one-day special session Friday on the situation in al-Fashir, Sudan, after hundreds were killed and atrocities were committed in the Darfur region last month by paramilitary forces fighting the army. Read more in this France Inter piece by analyst Pierre Haski: El Fasher To Abu Dhabi, Tracing The Foreign Sponsors Fueling Sudan’s War.

• China uncovers largest gold deposit in nearly 80 years. China’s Ministry of Natural Resources confirmed on Friday the discovery of the largest gold deposit found in the country since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949, with an estimated 1,444 tons of reserves in Liaoning province. The discovery comes as gold prices have hit record highs this year, trading at more than $134,000 per kilogram. For more, check this Die Zeit piece translated from German by Worldcrunch: Betting On The Apocalypse: Why Investors Are Buying Gold.

• News Quiz! What did South Korea ban for 35 minutes on Thursday during its grueling annual university entrance exam known locally as the “Suneung”?

A. All flights
B. Public Wi-Fi
C. Instant noodles sales
D. Honking
[Answer below]

📰 IN OTHER NEWS

🇺🇸🇫🇷 They’re both named Juliette. One is American, the other French. Each lost her father to a terror attack — the first in 9/11 in New York, the other in Paris, ten years ago. Out of shared grief, a rare friendship was born between the two Juliettes across the Atlantic.
— LE FIGARO

💻 Hamburg’s Plancraft develops voice-driven tools for small craft businesses to log on-site measurements, prepare estimates, and triage customer calls, signaling a cautious entry of AI into conservative trades amid a skilled-labor squeeze.
— DIE ZEIT

🌿 Regulations make it hard to introduce organisms that quash invasive species. Some experts see missed opportunities.
— UNDARK

📣 VERBATIM

“It will only suffer a crushing defeat.”

— China’s defense ministry condemned Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s suggestion earlier this week that a move by Beijing against Taiwan could threaten Japan’s survival and justify military action. “Should the Japanese side […] use force to interfere in the Taiwan question, it will only suffer a crushing defeat against the steel-willed Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and pay a heavy price,” Chinese Defense Spokesperson Jiang Bin commented at a press briefing. Read more in French analyst Pierre Haski’s latest piece, Beijing’s “Evil Witch” Comment Is A New Low In China-Japan Relations.