Latest news for 20 November 2025

TURKEY

Next COP host.

After a drawn-out stalemate, Turkey and Australia have agreed Turkey will host next year’s COP climate talks while Australia will chair — as a consolation prize, Australia’s would-be co-hosts (Pacific Island nations) will also host a pre-COP summit. (Climate Home News)

Comment: Everyone remembers a host, not a chair, so this is a win for Turkey over Australia. There’ll be a post-mortem, but Turkey might’ve benefited from developing the world’s third-largest diplomatic network (versus Australia’s ~2nd-smallest in the G20). That’s helped Turkey push its own credentials (and undermine Australia’s climate cred as an energy exporter). Australia’s government might’ve also been quietly relieved to step away from what’s still a wedge issue politically back home.

NIGERIA

School girls abducted.

President Tinubu has pledged every resource to find ~24 schoolgirls abducted from their school in north-western Nigeria. There’ve been ~1,500 kids abducted since Boko Haram’s infamous 2014 kidnapping, though no group has claimed responsibility this time. (AfricaNews)

NETHERLANDS

Here, have it back.

Dutch authorities have now halted their emergency takeover of local China-owned chipmaker Nexperia, after Beijing flexed its own leverage by halting Nexperia’s chip exports out of China (a key global automotive input). (Guardian)

Comment: This all gels with reports the two sides are de-escalating, though our sense is the de-escalation is mostly in China’s favour — it turns out Nexperia’s Dutch subsidiary now relies much more on China than vice versa.

SAMOA

Banned.

Samoan Prime Minister Laʻauli Leuatea Schmidt has suspended the country’s only daily newspaper from government press conferences, amid a feud over the Samoa Observer’s coverage of Laʻauli's New Zealand hospital stay. Critics argue the move is an attack on press freedoms. (Guardian)

ARMENIA

Building bridges highways.

Prime Minister Pashinyan has announced work to construct the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity linking rival Azerbaijan to Baku’s Nakhchivan exclave (a ~Long Island-sized area surrounded by Armenia, Iran, and Turkey) will kick off next year. It continues to anger some locals in the way it’ll cut across Armenian territory. (EurasiaNet)

Comment: We explored this one here.

PHILIPPINES

Flood scandal.

Two cabinet ministers have resigned amid allegations they might’ve been involved in a scandal involving billions of missing funds destined for flood relief. (Al Jazeera)

MEXICO

Warning signs.

US and Mexican diplomats are smoothing things over after Mexican marines removed a series of new signs purporting to designate a Rio Grande shoreline (near the SpaceX Starbase) restricted US turf. (France24)

Comment: These issues crop up periodically because a chunk of the US-Mexico border is demarcated by a river, which naturally changes course over the years. There’s a binational agency purpose-built to help, though these issues will always generate more headlines when US-Mexico tensions run high (like right now).