Ogero, the state telecom operator, is on an open-ended strike. Its employees say the plan to fold them into a new company, Liban Telecom, would shrink their end-of-service payouts to almost nothing, and talks with the Telecommunications Ministry have hit a dead end. Only emergencies, judged by a union "Crisis Cell," are being handled.

• The strike began Tues⁠day and is now in its second day. Staff are not showing up at work centers, except for emergency cases.
• The 2002 telecom law (Law 431) created Liban Telecom to inherit Ogero. It caps indemnities in Lebanese pounds, so the maximum is 200 million LBP (about $2,200).
• Employees want a new law, not a decree, to protect their pay. A decree can be challenged because it cannot override a law, they argue.
• Ministry sources say the minister guarantees all rights, but the state lacks the money to pay indemnities at to⁠day's exchange rate.

Why it matters: The same Liban Telecom transition both sides say they want is stuck on one question, law or decree, and the sector's push toward private competition now hangs on it.

Officials now describe child begging in Beirut as human trafficking run by organized gangs, not just poverty. A crackdown is planned, but the country has almost nowhere to put the children it removes, and even the agencies involved disagree about what shelter should look like.

• Beirut municipal council member Mohammad Balouza says security forces and the Information Branch will target gang leaders, not just detain minors. He adds that the Social Affairs Ministry is ready to receive the children at a qualified center.
• Amira Sukkar, head of the Union for the Protection of Juveniles, says the juvenile protection law (Law 422) already classifies such children as "minors at risk." The missing piece is places to shelter them, plus sustainable funding.
• Sukkar says UNICEF opposes closed protection institutions and favors day centers, where children study and then return home at night.
• Nadia Badran, head of the social workers' syndicate, says prevention starts in schools and with support for whole families, since a security approach alone is not enough.

What to watch: Whether the removals start before any shelter exists, and whether ministries can agree on a single plan.

Lebanon's banking system has quietly split in two. Money deposited fresh since the crisis circulates freely, while pre-crisis deposits remain largely frozen, and a new set of check figures shows which half is doing the work.

• Through Aug⁠ust, new accounts issued over 88,000 dollar checks worth $1.12 billion, according to figures reviewed by Lebanon24.
• The old clearing system handled only 1,859 foreign-currency checks, worth $295 million.
• The average fresh check is about $12,600, against roughly $158,700 for an old-deposit check, which is about 12 times larger.
• Across all checks, new accounts total 121,431 against 46,210 for the old system.

The bigger picture: Everyday payments for trade, salaries and invoices are running through new money, while old deposits are used for rare, large operations like loan repayment or buying property.

Russia and Ukraine paused fighting at 3 a.m. Tues⁠day around Oleshky, a Russian-occupied town in the south that has shrunk from about 24,000 residents to roughly 2,000, so aid can get in. Hours later, the leaders of Norway and Finland spoke with Vladimir Putin, the first such call from Ukraine's European backers in more than a year.

• US First Lady Melania Trump helped broker the Oleshky truce. The UN says residents face severe shortages of food and medicine, and mines and drones make leaving hard.
• Ukrainian negotiator Davyd Arakhamia said the ceasefire runs until 10:⁠59 p.m. on Nov⁠ember 1. Russia reported no violations, and AFP could not verify whether the fighting eased.
• Norway's Jonas Gahr Støre and Finland's Alexander Stubb called Putin, the first such contact since Emmanuel Macron's in Jul⁠y 2025. They said ending the war "requires direct discussions."
• Elsewhere, strikes hit a Kyiv campus and the Southern Bridge. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said traffic on the bridge was suspended.

What to watch: US-mediated talks between Washington, Moscow and Kyiv are expected in Nov⁠ember, after months frozen, and Oleshky is the first test of whether any truce can hold.

China's technology stocks have lost heavily since the summer, a sign that government money alone isn't enough to sustain an AI boom. The weak spot, analysts say, is simple: Chinese consumers aren't buying enough, so many tech companies struggle to turn a profit.

• The STAR 50 Index, which tracks tech and innovation firms on the Shanghai exchange, has fallen 40% since Jun⁠e.
• Bloomberg puts the loss at $2.4 trillion since May⁠. Goldman Sachs says AI stocks make up over 40% of China and Hong Kong's market value.
• Beijing's 60 billion yuan state-backed AI fund began investing this⁠ month. Shares in robot-maker Unitree have halved since its Aug⁠ust debut.
• The US has banned Chinese humanoid robots and may target Chinese components in data centers.

The bigger picture: With the Communist Party's fifth plenum this⁠ week, Eurasia Group's Dan Wang expects no stimulus, since any such measure would be "high risk" before next⁠ year's Party Congress.

King Charles has begun a nine-day Caribbean tour in the Bahamas, arriving as regional governments press Britain to apologize for transatlantic slavery and open reparations talks. The tour ends with a Commonwealth leaders' summit in Antigua and Barbuda, where he has said slavery's legacy will be on the agenda.

• In Nassau, the king said some of Bahamian culture's brightest elements were "born out of darkness" and that past suffering must be acknowledged.
• The Bahamas National Reparations Committee said his words "fall short of what justice requires," calling for a full and formal apology.
• He travels to Guyana Thurs⁠day, where President Mohamed Irfaan Ali has urged him to take the next step toward an apology.
• The king follows ministers' advice, and the government has reportedly not advised an apology or reparations.

Zooming out: Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband join the king in Antigua, so the apology question now sits with elected officials as much as with the monarch.