Australia’s past gun reform efforts have long been applauded as a gold standard, but after Sunday’s Bondi Beach attack, many are asking what went wrong and what more can be done. Al Jazeera’s Jillian Wolf explains.
Korea Zinc, the world’s largest zinc smelter, has announced a $7.4bn smelter project that will be funded largely by the United States government as Washington pushes to cut its reliance on China for a range of critical minerals.
Under the plan, which the company announced on Monday, Korea Zinc will sell new shares worth $1.9bn to a joint venture controlled by the US government and unnamed US-based strategic investors who would then control about 10 percent of the South Korean firm.
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The US Department of Defense will hold a 40 percent stake in the venture while Korea Zinc’s stake will be less than 10 percent, the company said.
Korea Zinc will secure the remaining $5.5bn for the plant through $4.7bn in loans from the US government and financial institutions as well as $210m in subsidies from the US Department of Commerce under the CHIPS and Science Act.
The news sent the company’s shares surging as much as 26 percent in Monday trading in South Korea although they later pared their gains to close 4.9 percent higher.
Korea Zinc will kick-start the project by acquiring two mining complexes and the only US zinc smelter, which has been operational since 1978 in Clarksville, Tennessee, from Trafigura’s Nyrstar before constructing an integrated facility in the state, it said.
Nyrstar said the sale of its US assets to Korea Zinc is expected to close in the first half of 2026.
Major Korea Zinc shareholders, who have been seeking to oust the refiner’s chairman, lambasted the planned US investment, saying it was aimed at cementing management’s hold on the company.
The deal to build the first US-based zinc smelter in decades comes as the administration of US President Donald Trump ramps up efforts to secure supply chains for critical minerals to reduce US reliance on China.
Korea Zinc also agreed this year to help deep-sea mining firm The Metals Company process polymetallic nodules from the seafloor. TMC has asked Trump to issue it an international seabed mining permit.
The administration has expanded its critical minerals list by adding copper, metallurgical coal, uranium, phosphate, potash, rhenium, silicon and silver.
The Reuters news agency reported earlier this month that the US military would develop a fleet of small-scale refineries to produce critical minerals used to make bullets, armour and other types of weaponry.
In October, South Korea and the US agreed to a trade deal, which included a cut in tariffs imposed by Trump this year and a pledge by South Korea to invest $350bn in strategic American sectors.
The new integrated smelter would produce 540,000 tonnes per year of major nonferrous metals, including 300,000 tonnes of zinc, 35,000 tonnes of copper, 200,000 tonnes of lead and 5,100 tonnes of rare earth minerals annually, it said in a filing.
The Tennessee site would start commercial operations in phases starting in 2029.
Korea Zinc said the plant will “respond to the expansion of global supply chain risks and the increasing demand for non-ferrous metals and strategic minerals in the United States”.
The White House, Commerce Department and Defense Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Separately, a senior White House official told a critical minerals conference on Monday that Trump plans more “historic deals” with the US mining sector.
The Young Poong conglomerate, which together with the private equity firm MBK Partners holds nearly 50 percent of Korea Zinc’s voting shares, said it will file a complaint with a court to block the new share issue plan.
It is rare for the US government to acquire a stake in a foreign company, and Korea Zinc’s management was simply trying to secure a “white knight” so Chairman Yun B Choi can retain control, Young Poong said in a statement.
China dominates the world’s supply of critical minerals, such as antimony and germanium, which are used in telecommunications equipment, semiconductors and military technology.
Beijing banned exports of these minerals to the US in December 2024 after Washington’s crackdown on China’s chip sector. The ban has been suspended since November.
Hollywood director and actor Rob Reiner, 78, and his wife Michele were found dead at their Los Angeles home. Investigators are probing their deaths as homicides. Both victims suffered stab wounds. Reiner’s son has been arrested and is being held on $4 million bail.
Ukraine has carried out a successful underwater drone strike on a Russian submarine in the port of Novorossiysk, causing critical damage to the vessel, its domestic security service says.
In a statement on Monday, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said the Kilo-class submarine was knocked out of operation in the first such attack by Sea Baby drones.
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“The Security Service of Ukraine carried out another unique special operation and launched a naval attack in the port of Novorossiysk,” the SBU said on Telegram.
The SBU said the submarine “carried four Kalibr cruise missile launchers” used to strike Ukrainian territory. It suffered “critical damage and was effectively put out of action”, the service said.
There was no immediate comment from Russia on the Ukrainian claim.
The SBU made its announcement amid a flurry of diplomatic activity as United States, European and Ukrainian officials held talks in Berlin on a US plan to end Russia’s war on its neighbour.
Ukraine has been trying to show it can inflict significant damage on Russia, especially after US President Donald Trump said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not “have the cards” in the negotiations.
Kyiv has stepped up naval attacks in on what it said were Russia-linked vessels, and continued to carry out attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure as well as military targets.
Russia has escalated attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure in recent weeks and continues to claim advances on the front lines in eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian navy spokesperson Dmytro Pletenchuk said the operation to hit a submarine, a most difficult target to hit, marked “another turning point” in the naval battle between Ukraine and Russia.
“This day once again upends the perception of the possibilities of naval combat in this war,” he told the news agency Reuters.
It will be hard for Russia to repair the submarine because that would have to be done above water, which would mean the vessel would again be exposed to attack, he added.
The head of Honduras’s National Electoral Council (CNE) has decried acts preventing the ongoing recount of the Central American country’s presidential election, as a regional body said there was no reason to suspect fraud in the November 30 vote.
Ana Paola Hall’s statement on Monday came amid ongoing protests and unrest over the unresolved election. Nasry Asfura, a right-wing businessman publicly supported by US President Donald Trump, has held a razor-thin lead over his top opponent, Salvador Nasralla.
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At least 99 percent of votes have already been counted, but CNE has said that nearly 2,800 ballots will need to be re-examined through a special recount.
In a post on X, Hall said disturbances seen in the country’s capital, Tegucigalpa, have “prevented the necessary conditions for the special recount to begin”.
Observers have said infighting at the CNE, which is run by three officials each representing one of the major political parties, has delayed reaching the final results.
Both Nasralla, a conservative, and outgoing left-wing President Xiomara Castro have alleged vote tampering, although several international missions have dismissed the claims.
On Monday, the Organization of American States (OAS), a regional body, said that despite a lack of expertise in overseeing the election, there was not “any evidence that would cast doubt on the results”.
The OAS mission “urgently calls on the electoral authorities to immediately begin the special recount and to explore all possible ways to obtain the official results as quickly as possible,” OAS official Eladio Loizaga said in a report he read to the group’s members.
“The current delay in processing and publishing the results is not justifiable,” he said in the report.
The OAS statement added that its mission of 101 observers from 19 countries “did not observe any malice or obvious manipulation of the electoral materials or computer systems”. The finding was in line with that of a parallel European Union mission.
The election in Honduras had been in turmoil even before polls opened, with several major parties, political figures, and foreign interference for months casting doubt on the election’s integrity.
The most prominent scandal involved an investigation by the attorney general into a member of Asfura’s National Party for allegedly discussing plans with a military officer to influence the vote.
The candidate for outgoing President Castro’s LIBRE party, Rixi Moncada, later told Reuters news agency that the alleged conspiracy proved the election was “the most rigged in history”.
Several candidates have also criticised the influence of Trump, who endorsed Asfura in the final stretch of the race and vowed to withhold US funding if his candidate did not win.
The US president also pardoned former Honduran President and National Party member Juan Orlando Hernandez, who had been convicted in the US of drug trafficking, two days before the vote.
The appeals chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has rejected one of Israel’s legal challenges seeking to block an investigation into its actions in the genocidal war against the Palestinian people in Gaza, dealing a blow to Israel’s efforts to derail the case.
In their decision issued on Monday, judges refused to overturn a lower court decision allowing the ICC prosecutor to investigate alleged crimes in Israel’s war on Gaza following the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
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The decision clears the way for the continuation of the court’s Palestine investigation, which led to the issuance of arrest warrants in November last year for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Israel does not recognise the jurisdiction of the Hague-based court and has repeatedly denied committing war crimes in Gaza.
The ICC had also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas leader Ibrahim al-Masri, but later withdrew it after credible reports of his death.
The appeal focused on whether the ICC prosecutor was required to issue a fresh notification to Israel before investigating events that took place after October 7, 2023. Israel argued that the post-October 7 assault on Gaza constituted a new situation, triggered by additional referrals submitted to the court by seven other countries since November 2023, including South Africa, Chile and Mexico.
Judges rejected that argument, ruling that the original notification issued in 2021 – when the ICC formally opened its investigation into alleged crimes in occupied Palestine – already covered later events.
They said no new notification was required, meaning the arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant remain valid.
The ruling comes as Israel’s assault on Gaza continues to exact a devastating toll. Since a ceasefire took effect on October 11, 2025, at least 391 Palestinians have been killed and 1,063 wounded, and 632 bodies recovered, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.