Introduction

On today's podcast:

1) Israel widened its ground offensive on the second day of expanded Israeli ground fighting in Gaza.

2) Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu comes under criticism over his unwillingness to accept responsibility for apparently failing to anticipate the deadly Oct. 7 attack by Hamas.

3) HSBC has announced a 3 billion-dollar share buyback in its latest results. The bank reported pretax profits of 7.71 billion dollars for the the third quarter - that's less than the estimated 8.1 billion.

4) Australia has walked away for the second time in three months from talks with the European Union toward a free trade deal, almost certainly pushing any agreement into next year or beyond.

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