Energy Minister Joe Saddi has stopped attending Cabinet sessions until ministers settle what the state owes Électricité du Liban, the national power utility. It's a sharp escalation from the tariff fight we covered earlier this⁠ month, and he says it's accountability, not a resignation.

• State arrears to EDL now stand at about $300 million, down from the roughly $350 million we reported on Oct⁠ 3. Only one month of payments, about $50 million, was ever settled.
• Saddi wants the state to reimburse EDL for fee exemptions granted in war-hit south Lebanon, and to fund war repairs from the budget rather than from utility capital.
• Fuel EDL imports has doubled in price over six months. Daily supply fell from 7 to 9 hours in Feb⁠ruary to just 2 to 4.
• A flexible tariff tied to fuel prices could save consumers about $240 million a year, he argued. Non-technical losses, which he calls "theft," run near 30%.

Why it matters: Saddi says he returns once the state pays up, which ties your generator bill to a fight over who settles $300 million.

The seventh round of direct Lebanon-Israel talks, held in Rome, ended without a deal on who will verify the army's work in southern "pilot areas." Israel and the US rejected France, while Italy got a preliminary nod. All of it is happening as UNIFIL's mandate runs out at year's end.

• Lebanon proposed France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria and Jordan. Neither Israel nor Washington fully backed the list, and Azerbaijan was floated instead.
• Israel and the US also refuse any new pilot area until the first one is verified, even though Lebanese troops are already deployed in places like Froun and Srifa.
• The delegation's fear: the mechanism could become a stand-in for UNIFIL, leaving a vacuum in the south.
• Sources blame the French veto on cold US-France ties over south Lebanon. No date is set for an eighth round.

What to watch: A trilateral military meeting in Florida may or may not take up the verification question, or it could slide to the undated eighth round.

Lebanon's two main ports just joined a club that links ports along a planned trade route between India and Europe, announced in 2023. It's a seat at the table, not a spot on the main route, and what it's worth depends on what follows.

• Beirut's Marwan Naffi and Tripoli's Iskandar Bandali signed the declaration in New Delhi on Tues⁠day.
• The club is an open platform for sharing expertise and piloting projects, with no new institution attached.
• Cooperation covers supply chains, trade facilitation, energy and decarbonization, and digitalization.
• President Joseph Aoun called it "an important institutional achievement." LBCI's report noted the real test is turning presence into investment and trade.

The bigger picture: Lebanon is seeking a role in reshaped trade routes, though agreements or memoranda coming out of the talks are the real marker.

Australia's highest court has ruled that a planned expansion of the Mount Pleasant coal mine in New South Wales was approved unlawfully, because regulators ignored how to limit emissions released when the coal is burned abroad. It's the first time the court has heard a climate case.

• The vote was 3-2. The majority found the state planning commission failed to consider conditions to minimise these "scope 3" emissions.
• The expansion would double output to 21 million tonnes a year until 2048. About 98% of its projected emissions are scope 3.
• A community group pursued the case for more than four years, and its lawyer noted Australia is the world's second-largest coal exporter.
• MACH Energy said it accepts the decision and will review options. The Minerals Council called it a blow to Australia's prospects of meeting global coal demand.
• A Greens MP said the ruling could create legal trouble for the Hunter Valley Operations extension, approved a week ago.

What to watch: Whether challengers use this ruling against other coal approvals, starting with the Hunter Valley Operations extension.

Paramount Skydance has finished its roughly $110 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, uniting HBO Max, Paramount+, CBS and CNN under one roof. A settlement with US states sets rules on film output and news independence.

• The new Skydance group is $80 billion in debt and targets $6 billion in annual cost savings, which analysts expect to push streaming prices up.
• Under the settlement, it must release 30 films a year for two years, then 32, for five years in total.
• An LA County report estimated the deal could eliminate about 4,500 direct film and TV jobs.
• George Cheeks, the new Skydance TV co-chair, told staff "CBS remains a cornerstone" and promised more detail on structure "in the weeks ahead."

Zooming out: The film quota expires after five years, and the settlement doesn't limit layoffs, so the biggest changes may arrive after the rules lapse.

Three years into the war, more than 11,000 people in Gaza remain unaccounted for, according to the Independent Commission for Human Rights. Families live in limbo, unsure whether to wait or to mourn.

• That total includes people believed buried under rubble and those suspected of enforced disappearance.
• The Palestinian Centre for Missing and Forcibly Disappeared puts suspected enforced disappearances at 2,500 to 3,000, according to Middle East Eye.
• Israeli authorities still withhold the names of those detained from Gaza, and about 620 returned bodies remain unidentified.
• One family turned down a university scholarship rather than submit a death certificate for a missing father and brother.

Why it matters: Without names from detaining authorities or identification of the returned bodies, families can't resolve the status of their relatives.