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SKorea leader faces impeachment

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol faces impeachment after declaring, and rapidly rescinding, martial law. Yoon’s late-night announcement said the decision targeted “anti-state forces” linked to North Korea, but was really spurred “by his own desperate political troubles,” the BBC reported. Lawmakers rushed to Parliament to vote against the measure and Yoon lifted the order. The chaos saw markets fall, although there was some recovery after Yoon’s volte-face. The president is deeply unpopular, facing corruption scandals and inquiries: His move suggests “either desperate overreach or grievous undemocratic impulses,” a scholar wrote for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. MPs will soon vote on whether to impeach Yoon, and perhaps his defense minister alongside him.

France faces no-confidence vote

France’s government faces a vote of no confidence today after Prime Minister Michel Barnier forced his budget through, sidestepping Parliament. Barnier’s controversial social security reforms have enraged both the far-left and far-right opposition parties, which together control a majority of seats. He said it is “possible” his government will survive tonight’s vote, but a defeat would leave France requiring a third government in less than six months: The turmoil has pushed French bond yields above those of Greece, showcasing unease over the fate of Europe’s second-biggest economy. Alongside a political crisis in the region’s biggest, Germany, it leaves the European Union weakened in the face of threats from Russia and uncertainty in the US, The Daily Telegraph reported.

DeSantis in line for defense job

US President-elect Donald Trump may nominate Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, his former rival for the Republican nomination, as defense secretary, The Wall Street Journal reported. Trump had originally picked Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News presenter and Army officer, but Republican senators are concerned about allegations around Hegseth’s personal life, including accusations of sexual assault and chanting “kill all Muslims” while drunk. Hegseth denies the claims. Appointing DeSantis would be “a stunning turn” for Trump, The Journal said, after the two clashed during the Republican primaries, and one of several early pivots: His nominee for attorney general was withdrawn, and his choice to head the Drug Enforcement Administration stepped aside.

Latam hit by anti-incumbency

Latin American politics have been swept by a wave of anti-incumbency, with ruling parties expected to struggle in upcoming elections. Since 2018, just four governments in the region have held on to power. Although anti-incumbency is a global phenomenon, Latin America’s case is unique in that many of the new ruling parties didn’t exist a couple of decades ago, with Argentina’s and Mexico’s benefiting from an erosion of trust in older alliances, Latin America Risk Report said. “When a country’s parties are very strong or very weak, presidencies often survive,” an expert wrote for Americas Quarterly. “It’s when they’re in the middle that… the fate of a president can hang by a thread.”

Nigeria cracks down on corruption

Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency made its biggest-ever seizure of assets after taking possession of 750-plus properties in the capital Abuja, saying they belonged to a former high-ranking government member. Although several African nations have cracked down on graft recently, it remains a blight on the continent’s economy: According to an African Union estimate, the region loses as much as $140 billion — roughly 5% of its GDP — to corruption every year. The toll on the economy has pushed millions to migrate, with a recent poll showing nearly 60% of young Africans say they want to leave because of their country’s inability to deal with corruption.

Palestinian statehood push

France and Saudi Arabia said they would co-host a conference on establishing a Palestinian state. The proposed talks are the latest diplomatic effort to reach a long-term end to the conflict in the region: Though Israel has agreed a truce with Hezbollah, quietening much of the fighting in Lebanon, it has kept up its offensive in Gaza, mounting attacks and building bases. In May, three European nations said they would formally recognize a Palestinian state, and regional powers such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE have stepped up demands that such a state be established, with Riyadh in particular making it a condition of any broader deal for the kingdom to recognize Israel.

Nepal-China deals signal shift

Nepal’s prime minister agreed a series of deals with China — a sign of Beijing’s continued focus on its Belt and Road Initiative as well as its effort to win over rival India’s historic friends. China had been seen to be scaling back the BRI, but “rumors of [its] demise… remain incorrect,” Bill Bishop wrote in Sinocism: Chinese leader Xi Jinping this week said its “appeal, influence, and cohesion have steadily strengthened.” Nepal’s leader broke with tradition by making his first international trip to China rather than India. Tensions have remained high between Beijing and Delhi, and though India’s top diplomat said relations were calming, “he does not say that this implies a return to normalcy in ties,” one expert noted.

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EU readies for China rivalry

Europe is girding itself for clean-energy competition with China even as it negotiates with Beijing over electric-vehicle tariffs. Brussels invited bids for €1 billion in grants for EV battery manufacturers, but said it would prioritize firms that were less dependent on Chinese supply chains, and tightened rules on a green hydrogen subsidy program to shut out businesses that were too reliant on Chinese goods. European officials are grappling with the fallout from the bankruptcy of battery maker Northvolt, which had been held up as a leading light for climate tech on the continent, and increasingly prioritizing building up domestic clean-tech capacity: The bloc this year slapped tariffs on China-made EVs, though it is negotiating with Beijing over reducing them.

UK nuclear plant gets its reactor

A reactor was installed in what will be Britain’s first new nuclear power station for 30 years. Hinkley Point C is five years behind schedule and $35 billion over budget, but the arrival of the 500-ton, 42-foot-tall reactor, one of two that will eventually generate power for six million homes, is “a major step forward,” the UK’s energy minister said. The plant should open in 2030. Britain, like many other countries, is increasingly betting on nuclear as a reliable source of green energy to reduce reliance on unstable petrostates: Four of its existing plants will now stay open for longer than planned.

First African woman atop Venice Biennale

The Venice Biennale for the first time named an African-born woman as its curator. Koyo Kouoh is executive director of a prominent Cape Town contemporary art museum, and “has played a pivotal role in championing contemporary African art on the global stage,” Artnet noted. Her appointment to head the 2026 edition of the exhibition was something of a surprise: Analysts had expected officials behind the Biennale to take a more conservative route after Italy’s nationalist prime minister appointed a right-wing journalist as the cultural event’s leader. He instead appears to be living up “to his reputation as a more idiosyncratic and free-thinking conservative,” The Guardian wrote.

• Sweden’s prime minister meets his Japanese counterpart in Tokyo.
• Leaders of the Western Balkans meet European Commission officials in Brussels.
• US rapper Jay-Z turns 55 and releases a new coffee table book, The Book of HOV: A Tribute To JAY-Z.

The share of global stock markets accounted for by US stocks. That’s up from 30% in the 1980s, and far higher than the 27% of global GDP that the US economy makes up. It’s not just mania for artificial intelligence and tech stocks, the investment-fund manager Ruchir Sharma wrote in the Financial Times, and not just a sign of the strength of the US economy: It is “the mother of all bubbles… America is over-owned, overvalued and overhyped to a degree never seen before.” But as with all bubbles, he argued, it is hard to know when and how it will pop.

You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue. The historical novel takes readers to 16th century Tenochtitlan, where Enrigue recounts the tense meeting between Aztec emperor Moctezuma and Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés. “The carnage here is devilishly brazen, the humor ample and bone-dry,” The New York Times, which selected it as one of its books of the year, wrote. Buy it from your local bookshop.

Riyadh, a city known for its worsening gridlock, has finally launched its 85-station metro system, Semafor’s Sarah Dadouch reported. A construction boom over the last six years has transformed traffic jams into “endless nightmares,” she wrote, but Riyadh’s drivers are less than hopeful that the opening of the metro will solve the problem in the long term.