Iran has rejected accusations of plotting to attack a UK airbase, describing them as part of a false-flag operation aimed at covering up Britain’s involvement in the US war in the Middle East.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Monday after the UK government imposed sanctions on two Iranian individuals amid allegations of an Iranian-backed terrorist plot targeting RAF Fairford in southwestern England, which hosts US bombers flying missions against Iran.

The ministry said the allegations were aimed at “advancing an anti-Iran campaign and evading accountability for Britain’s involvement in the US-Israeli military aggression against the Iranian people.”

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran categorically rejects the baseless accusations against Iran and holds the British government, along with those who planned and carried out this clumsy false-flag operation, responsible for all consequences arising from these fabrications,” the statement read.

Addressing Parliament on Monday, UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham said it is “highly likely” that Iran was behind the alleged plot and that it was “almost certainly” directed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The Foreign Office summoned the Iranian ambassador later that day.

The UK imposed sanctions on Ruhollah Bazghandi, described as the head of the IRGC’s counterespionage operations, and Shahram Ali Reza Tamarzadeh Jakki, described as a “facilitator of the Zindashti criminal network, involved in several plots against Iranian dissidents.”

Tehran previously accused the US of using the war with Iran to distract from domestic economic problems. In August, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said US President Donald Trump’s threats of intensified economic warfare were intended to divert public attention from the national debt and rising interest costs. He described America’s economic pressure campaign as “economic terrorism.”

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has poured more than $276 million into Republican political groups since early July, becoming the largest known donor ahead of next month’s crucial US midterm elections, the New York Times reported on Monday.

The contributions come just weeks before the November 3 vote, which will determine whether Republicans retain control of both chambers of Congress.

According to the NYT, Musk donated $158 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, which backs Republican Senate candidates, and $20 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund, which supports House Republicans. The newspaper cited figures provided by Musk’s representatives ahead of a federal disclosure deadline on Thursday.

Another $76 million went to Musk’s America PAC, while $22 million was distributed among other Republican groups, Reuters reported. These organizations, known as super PACs, can raise and spend unlimited sums to support candidates but are prohibited from coordinating directly with their campaigns.

“If Democrats take control of Washington and win key gubernatorial and attorney general races this November, then America risks becoming a socialist, woke and borderless country,” the NYT quoted Andrew Romeo, a spokesman for Musk’s America PAC, as saying.

Musk previously spent more than $290 million backing Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and other Republican candidates during the 2024 election cycle. The two publicly feuded in 2025 over Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill but have since appeared to reconcile, attending several events together.

The elections come amid declining approval ratings for Trump, mounting concerns over living costs and the economic fallout from the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Trump’s approval rating fell to 30% in early October, down from 37% in January, before the US-Israeli attack on Iran in February, according to Pew Research Center polling.

Saudi Arabia’s aviation regulator has extended the closure of the kingdom’s main airport following two deadly strikes over the weekend, as Yemen’s Houthi rebels continued launching missiles at the country.

The kingdom’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) announced on Monday that the suspension of operations at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh was extended. Several airlines, including Flydubai, Emirates, Etihad Airways, Qatar Airways, and Air India, have canceled flights to and from Riyadh.

Houthi strikes on the airport on Saturday left 12 people dead, including four Saudi nationals, and more than 300 injured. Another attack the following day killed a Pakistani national and injured 11 others.

The Houthis, an Iranian-backed Shiite group, have described the strikes as “deterrence operations,” accusing Saudi Arabia of maintaining an illegal “siege” of the parts of Yemen under their control.

Early Tuesday, General Turki Al-Malki, the spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, said coalition forces intercepted two Houthi ballistic missiles launched toward Khamis Mushait, a city in southwestern Saudi Arabia.

Videos posted on social media reportedly show Saudi air defenses launching interceptors into the sky.

Footage from earlier shows Saudi PAC-3 interceptors being launched to engage incoming Ansar Allah (Houthi) ballistic missiles over Riyadh. If it weren't for the Bangladeshis, we wouldn't have any footage of this xD https://t.co/RSD3FcdmQg

— OSINTWarfare (@OSINTWarfare) October 12, 2026

The latest escalation in Yemen’s civil war, which began in 2014, was triggered by a Houthi offensive last month. In a rapid advance, the rebels captured the strategic port of Mokha and Perim Island in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a vital shipping route connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. The territorial gains prompted the Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government to launch a counteroffensive aimed at retaking the lost territory.

🔴 مشاهد تطهير وتأمين مديرية #جبل_حبشي ومثلث #البيرين و #مفرق_يفرس بمحافظة #تعز وطرد تحشيدات العدو السعودي منها 01-05-1448هـ 12-10-2026م #ضرب_تحشيدات_العدو_السعودي https://t.co/Xaxlt4GjRc

— قناة المسيرة (@Almasirah_YE) October 12, 2026

The group said Saudi Arabia conducted nearly 120 airstrikes over the last 24 hours, targeting civilians in Sanaa and elsewhere. At least 385 people have been killed or wounded by Saudi strikes since September 3, many of them women and children, according to the Houthi health authorities.

French right-wing politician Marine Le Pen has emerged as the frontrunner in the 2027 presidential race and would defeat both left-wing and centrist rivals in hypothetical runoffs, according to a new poll.

Published on Monday, the Toluna Harris Interactive survey for French broadcasters M6 and RTL puts Le Pen, the longtime face of the National Rally (RN), at 67% against Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of the left-wing France Unbowed party, and 56% against former centrist Prime Minister Edouard Philippe.

Le Pen also leads all five first-round scenarios tested, with 35% to 37% support. Melenchon comes second with 18% to 19%, while Philippe polls between 13% and 17%.

The survey also suggests growing confidence in Le Pen’s leadership. Some 51% of respondents believe she would make a good president, up six percentage points from the previous poll, compared with 47% for RN president Jordan Bardella.

Le Pen reached the presidential runoff in both 2017 and 2022 but lost to Emmanuel Macron on each occasion. The incumbent is barred from seeking a third consecutive term. Macron’s approaching departure comes as France faces mounting fiscal pressures.

Her party has also strengthened its parliamentary position. In September, RN and its ally, the Union of the Right for the Republic (UDR), secured enough Senate seats to form a parliamentary group for the first time.

Macron’s centrist camp has lacked a parliamentary majority since 2022, leaving successive governments struggling to pass budgets. France’s public debt reached €3.6 trillion (over $4 trillion), or 119% of GDP, as of the end of June, while the proposed 2027 budget faces opposition in the fragmented parliament.

RN has repeatedly opposed open-ended military funding for Kiev and warned against steps that could bring France into direct confrontation with Russia. Le Pen has called for the normalization of relations with Moscow.

The prospect of a Le Pen presidency has reportedly alarmed Ukraine’s Western backers. The Telegraph reported in August that officials feared her election could undermine French-led efforts to coordinate military and financial aid for Kiev, as well as plans to deploy Western troops to Ukraine following a ceasefire.

The Toluna Harris Interactive survey was conducted online from October 5 to 8 among 2,004 registered voters.

US federal agents have raided the home of Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who President Donald Trump has repeatedly accused of immigration fraud.

Omar, a Somali-born naturalized US citizen, is a vocal critic of Trump’s policies and a supporter of Palestinian rights. Agents were filmed searching her home in Washington, DC on Monday morning.

Without naming Omar, the Justice Department (DOJ) confirmed that investigators from the Department of Homeland Security executed a court-authorized search warrant as part of an ongoing criminal investigation. A senior White House official told the Washington Post that Omar’s residence was searched as part of a probe into immigration fraud.

“I’m ok. Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement,” Omar wrote on X after the raid. She accused Trump of using “baseless lies and smear campaigns” as a means of “political intimidation.”

🚨 UPDATE: After over 5 HOURS, DHS has JUST NOW completed their raid at Ilhan Omar's DC house SEVERAL vans and SUVs were loaded up with boxes upon boxes from inside the home 🔥 NO WORD on where Omar is. But it's about team we see her in cuffs! https://t.co/SuCoKnW7L6

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) October 12, 2026

Asked about the search later that day, Trump described Omar as “totally crooked” but denied responsibility for the raid. “I think she’s a terrible person. But that’s really up to the DOJ. I have nothing to do with it,” he said. Trump also argued that Omar arrived in the US from “a non-country.”

Critics have long accused Omar of immigration fraud, including an unsubstantiated allegation that she once married her brother, which she has denied. Last month, Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, told Fox News that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) opened an investigation into Omar but declined to provide details.

Omar’s family fled civil war-torn Somalia in the 1990s when she was eight. She became a US citizen in 2000 at 17.

Elected to the House of Representatives in 2018, she became one of the most high-profile Democrats during Trump’s first term. In 2019, Israel barred Omar and fellow Democratic Representative Rashida Tlaib from entering the country.

Trump has accused Omar of being unpatriotic, supporting Islamic extremism, and spreading anti-Semitism, and has called on her to leave the country. Omar has accused Trump of racism, Islamophobia, and authoritarianism, describing his attacks on her as a “really unhealthy and creepy obsession.”

Last year, the DOJ directed its lawyers to step up efforts to revoke the citizenship of naturalized Americans in eligible cases. The federal authorities have also intensified their crackdown on fraud schemes in Omar’s home state of Minnesota, including cases involving members of its large Somali American community.

The investigations have targeted alleged misuse of taxpayer-funded food assistance, housing support, and autism treatment programs. One of the largest cases involved a nonprofit whose operators and associates were accused of stealing around $250 million from a federal child nutrition program during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The once Great State of Minnesota is being taken over by Somali Immigrants. There is Violence, Murder, and Mayhem all over the State. The people of Minnesota must fight back,” Trump wrote on Truth Social last week. His remarks prompted Democrats to accuse him of stigmatizing the entire Somali community.

Many soldiers from the UK’s elite Special Air Service (SAS) have refused to answer questions as part of an inquiry into alleged war crimes committed in Afghanistan, The Guardian reported on Monday.

The inquiry, launched in 2023, was established to investigate alleged extrajudicial killings by British forces in Afghanistan from 2010 to 2013. It is also examining allegations of a cover-up and whether the Royal Military Police properly investigated the incidents.

At Monday’s hearing, Lord Justice Charles Haddon-Cave said that written requests for information were sent to numerous SAS soldiers linked to the deliberate detention operations (DDOs) at the center of the allegations, according to The Guardian.

“A high proportion have indicated their intention to rely on their privilege against self-incrimination and have refused to answer any questions asked by the inquiry,” the judge said, as cited by the newspaper.

The inquiry has also faced difficulties obtaining documents from the Defense Ministry.

At a hearing in September, Haddon-Cave revealed that 97 million records from the period under investigation were omitted from earlier searches. The judge described the discovery as “troubling and regrettable.”

The ministry said it expected only around 1,200 additional documents to require disclosure and apologized for delays in responding to the inquiry’s questions.

In April, British media reported that SAS soldiers were resigning in significant numbers over fears of prosecution related to past operations. “Morale is s**t at the moment,” The Telegraph quoted an unnamed insider as saying.

In 2022, a BBC Panorama investigation identified 54 people killed in suspicious circumstances by one SAS unit during a six-month deployment to Afghanistan’s Helmand province from November 2010 to May 2011. Former SAS personnel told the BBC that unarmed Afghan men were killed during night raids and that weapons were planted at the scenes to make the shootings appear justified.

The BBC also reported that senior special forces officers were aware of concerns over the killings but failed to report them to military police.

British forces were deployed to Afghanistan in 2001 as part of the US-led invasion following the September 11 terrorist attacks. The UK subsequently became one of the largest contributors to the NATO-led mission, with British troops heavily involved in fighting Taliban insurgents, particularly in the southern province of Helmand.

More than 450 British military personnel were killed during the nearly two-decade campaign. The UK withdrew its remaining troops in 2021 as the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan following the collapse of the Western-backed government.

The Nobel Peace Prize has never been a straightforward affair. For a start, it isn’t awarded by the same institutions responsible for the other Nobel Prizes, but by a committee of five people appointed by the Norwegian Parliament and these five individuals decide who has done the most for world peace, although their understanding of that concept has long been influenced by political considerations.

Controversial decisions are hardly a recent development. Take Cordell Hull, the former US secretary of state, who received the prize in 1945 for his contribution to establishing the United Nations.

Hull was an accomplished diplomat, but why him? The prize could just as easily have gone to Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, who headed Moscow’s delegation at the San Francisco conference, or Andrey Gromyko, who subsequently led it, given the Soviet delegation played an important role in shaping the organization, including provisions intended to prevent another world war.

Yet Hull received the honor because, by then, Washington was already consolidating its influence over Western Europe, and American political preferences were increasingly reflected in international institutions.

Hull himself was hardly beyond controversy and before the war, his attitude towards Nazi Germany wasn’t always what modern admirers might expect. Indeed, even Adolf Hitler was once nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, although that nomination was a protest rather than a serious endorsement.

Among those honored elsewhere were anti-apartheid campaigners and political figures whose contributions to peace were considerably more debatable.

Consider Lech Walesa and Mikhail Gorbachev. Both became international symbols of political transformation, but the consequences of those transformations weren’t universally peaceful as Gorbachev’s weakness contributed to the Soviet collapse, followed by conflicts across the Caucasus and other upheavals. The withdrawal of Soviet support also helped bring about the eventual collapse of Afghanistan’s secular government.

These developments were celebrated in the West as victories for freedom, even though their human consequences were rather more complicated.

Perhaps the most extraordinary decision of the modern era, however, was the award to Barack Obama in 2009.

Obama had been president for barely nine months and he had scarcely begun implementing his foreign policy, let alone demonstrated its lasting contribution to peace, so even he appeared surprised.

American anti-war activist Brian Becker offered a memorable explanation, describing it as the prize Obama received for not being George W. Bush.

A closer examination of the laureates suggests another interesting pattern: the influence of political ideas associated with America’s Democratic Party.

Four US presidents who received the prize were Democrats, as was Gore, while anti-apartheid campaigners and other human rights activists have also featured prominently. These causes have generally enjoyed greater sympathy among American liberals than among the industrial and conservative interests traditionally associated with the Republicans.

This helps explain Donald Trump’s determination to become the first Republican president to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

Trump has approached the matter with characteristic vigor, apparently believing that diplomatic achievements and his celebrated ability to negotiate deals might eventually persuade the committee, but he has misunderstood the institution.

The American establishment isn’t simply a collection of officials who can be persuaded through bargaining because its liberal ideology is deeply embedded in universities, international organizations, government departments and the professional classes from which their personnel are drawn.

These networks survive changes of administration because they are sustained by shared beliefs rather than individual political appointments. The Nobel Committee operates within much the same intellectual environment. Its members don’t need instructions from Washington, much less envelopes stuffed with money, to favor candidates whose political outlook resembles their own and Trump, by contrast, represents almost everything that this crowd dislikes.

Last year, the committee passed him over and awarded the prize to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, a prominent critic of Nicolas Maduro.

I have admired her ever since because, whatever one thinks of her politics, it was an elegant and spectacular move, combining personal generosity with an unmistakable political calculation.

Trump, naturally, accepted the medal and his administration subsequently moved against Maduro, dramatically changing Venezuela’s political circumstances while leaving its human rights campaigners with considerably less influence over events.

But a medal is only a medal and the honor itself cannot be transferred, therefore Trump has still not become the first Republican president to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and I doubt he ever will.

This year, perhaps having learned from the controversy surrounding its previous decision, the committee chose a safer candidate in South African human rights lawyer Navanethem Pillay, a former UN high commissioner for human rights.

Pillay belongs to another category traditionally favored by the committee,  prominent figures from the UN and international human rights institutions.

Her career hasn’t been without controversy, given critics in South Africa have questioned her Western connections, while her position on Palestine has attracted fierce criticism in Israel.

Nevertheless, Pillay is a substantial figure whose achievements deserve recognition and unlike some previous recipients, she can’t reasonably be accused of having been plucked from obscurity or rewarded merely for her celebrity.

She is, in short, the sort of compromise candidate the Nobel Peace Prize badly needed as the institution’s decline in credibility has been evident for decades, but perhaps this year’s decision suggests that the committee is finally beginning to understand the dangers of turning the world’s most prestigious peace award into an instrument of political fashion.

For the moment, at least, the decline has been arrested.

This article was first published by the online newspaper Gazeta.ru and was translated and edited by the RT team

European countries should expand their own arms production because American factories will largely be occupied with supplying the US military, Washington’s envoy to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, has said.

US defense spending could reach $1–1.5 trillion in 2026, leaving limited manufacturing capacity for foreign buyers, Whitaker said at the Warsaw Security Forum on Monday. “The US needs friends with manufacturing capacity,” Whitaker said, urging Europe to increase output to meet its own growing weapons demand.

The warning comes as Washington struggles to replenish missile stocks depleted by its war against Iran. The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated that US forces had fired over 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles by late May, representing nearly a third of its stockpiles. It also used over 1,500 high-end Patriot interceptors, or about 65% of its reserves, as of late July. Reuters also reported in August that the US army had used “virtually all” of its high-precision long-range missiles.

Bloomberg reported last month that NATO members faced delivery delays of up to several years as Washington prioritized rebuilding its own inventories. Germany’s requests for accelerated Tomahawk deliveries were unlikely to be fulfilled within five years, according to the report.

Europe has continued to suffer weapon shortages after donating billions worth of arms to Ukraine. A European Defence Agency assessment presented in September identified significant shortages in air and missile defense, ammunition and other essential capabilities. Efforts to manufacture Patriot interceptors in Germany have also yet to bear fruit.

He also urged NATO to modernize bases, supply chains for fuel, and deployment arrangements to move forces and equipment from Western to Eastern Europe, “where we would expect any future conflict.” He announced no new relocation decisions.

Since returning to office, President Donald Trump has moved to reduce US military commitments in Europe. He has repeatedly criticized NATO members for insufficient spending and demanded that they assume greater responsibility for their own defense.

European governments have meanwhile been ramping up military spending, citing allegations that Russia could attack a NATO country by the end of the decade. Moscow has repeatedly rejected claims that it plans to attack Europe, but has warned that NATO would face a full military response if it attacked Russia first.

German police have seized a humanoid robot that allegedly groped a 16-year-old girl on the streets of Cologne, and are investigating its owner for sexual harassment.

Officers seized the robot in the early hours of Sunday morning after it “allegedly touched a 16-year-old girl’s buttocks and made thrusting motions against her,” according to a statement from Cologne Police. 

The teenage girl was standing outside a fast food restaurant with her friends when the robot approached her from behind and made obscene motions, the statement continued. Shortly afterwards, officers found the robot in the trunk of a nearby car and confiscated it, along with the mobile phones of its 16-year-old owner and his 19-year-old accomplice.

The red and gold robot, modeled on Marvel’s ‘Iron Man’, was seen in an evidence photo clad in a white vest, a gold chain, and a stick-on mustache.

#PolizeiNRW #Köln #Leverkusen : Mutmaßlich ferngesteuerter Roboter fasst 16-Jähriger ans Gesäß - Polizei beschlagnahmt ungewöhnliches Beweismittel - Infos unter: https://t.co/XlwfQf5dpm https://t.co/3nEL5OTw74

— Polizei NRW K (@polizei_nrw_k) October 12, 2026

Police are now “examining how the robot was functioning at the time of the incident and whether someone was deliberately controlling its movements.” The two teenagers operating the droid – who live-streamed the incident online – are being investigated on suspicion of sexual harassment.

Video footage shared on TikTok showed the sex-pest robot, named ‘Ahmed’ by his owner and accomplice, harassing multiple women. The droid made masturbatory hand gestures and thrusting motions at several women as his alleged operators laughed, and approached one woman from behind, causing her to scream. It is unclear if this is the incident that triggered the investigation.

According to Germany’s criminal code, sexual assault requires contact between perpetrator and victim. Acts “carried out by machines or by third parties” do not rise to the level of assault, The German Federal Court of Justice ruled in 2021. If found guilty of sexual harassment, however, the suspects could face a fine or up to two years in prison.

Global poverty has risen for the first time since 2010, with 1.2 billion people facing acute deprivation, according to a new UN report.

The study, released on Monday by the UN Development Program (UNDP) and the University of Oxford, found that the number of people living in acute poverty has increased by 51.5 million compared with the previous assessment. The increase is the first recorded since the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) was introduced in 2010.

The report, which includes 108 countries, measures poverty beyond income, examining deprivation in health, education, and living standards. It uses ten indicators, including nutrition, child mortality, schooling, access to clean water and electricity, sanitation, and housing conditions. People are classified as living in acute poverty if their households are deprived in at least one-third of the weighted indicators.

Nearly half of those living in poverty – 534 million people – face ‘severe’ deprivation, meaning they lack at least half of the basic necessities measured by the index. Another 952 million people are considered vulnerable to poverty, experiencing significant deprivation without meeting the threshold for acute poverty, the UNDP said.

The 2026 global Multidimensional Poverty Index reports the 1st rise in the number of people living in #MultidimensionalPoverty since 2010. Yet, 33 countries have halved their MPI value in fewer than 15 years showing that progress is possible. Learn more: https://t.co/XJmwpCaz4p https://t.co/mHsGDGzj1p

— UN Development (@UNDP) October 12, 2026

Children account for more than half of those affected, at 617 million. Over 80% live in rural areas. Sub-Saharan Africa has the largest number of people living in poverty, with 616 million, followed by South Asia with 393 million.

UNDP Administrator Alexander De Croo described the increase as a “wake-up call for the world,” warning that millions of people face hardships that reinforce the others, including hunger, missed schooling, and lack of basic services.

Despite the global rise, several countries have made progress. Egypt, Nepal, and Tajikistan recorded significant declines in both the share and number of people living in poverty. Nigeria, however, saw earlier gains reversed, with poverty increasing again in the 2020s.

Overall, 33 countries have halved their poverty index scores in less than 15 years. China recorded the fastest reduction among countries with available data. Vietnam and Eswatini also made significant progress.

A World Bank assessment released in September estimated that more than 824 million people worldwide – around one in ten – were living on less than $3 a day in 2024.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for a criminal investigation into anonymous sources depicted as Israeli soldiers in a documentary alleging that the country’s military used AI-powered targeting systems to kill civilians in Gaza, according to a letter released by the premier’s office, as cited by The Times of Israel.

NAZA, an 80-minute-long film – the name alludes to an Israeli military shorthand for expected “collateral casualties” – is based on the accounts of anonymous Israeli military and intelligence insiders alleging that the IDF heavily relied on AI systems to identify people and homes for attack on a massive scale, often disregarding collateral civilian casualties. Some insiders described the process as “insanely fun” and akin to a “video game.” Israeli insiders allege in the film that the IDF used an AI system called Lavender to identify assassination targets, relying on data from thousands of hacked phones. Even the phrase “daddy’s home” detected on a child’s phone could reportedly trigger an attack.

The documentary, directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, received a 25-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival and won the Special Jury Prize.

On Monday, Netanyahu called on IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, chief of Israel’s domestic security service David Zini and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara to launch a criminal probe into the soldiers who appeared anonymously in the documentary over what he described as “serious information security offenses, criminal defamation, and harming Israel’s diplomatic and security interests.” The prime minister stressed that investigators must identify those involved.

According to the letter released by Netanyahu’s office, those involved in the film may have committed criminal offenses, including leaking classified information and breaching security at a highly sensitive intelligence unit.

At the time, Netanyahu pledged to seek new legislation giving West Jerusalem the power to strip citizenship from people who smear Israeli soldiers.

The IDF has acknowledged using AI for military purposes, including a system known as The Gospel that rapidly generates targeting recommendations. In April 2024, media reports citing Israeli intelligence sources said Lavender had flagged about 37,000 people as suspected terrorists, with personnel sometimes spending only seconds reviewing its recommendations. Sources cited by The Guardian also alleged that, in the war’s early weeks, the military permitted the killing of 15 to 20 civilians in strikes on low-ranking militants. The IDF has rejected the allegations.

Yemen’s Houthis have warned the US against joining Saudi Arabia’s military campaign, threatening to strike American forces if Washington intervenes in the escalating conflict.

The confrontation has intensified following deadly Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia’s main international airport. An attack on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on Saturday killed at least 13 people, including an American national, and injured more than 300, according to the latest figures. Another strike on Sunday left one person dead and 11 injured.

Speaking to RT on Sunday, officials in Houthi-controlled Sanaa warned that US military involvement would trigger retaliation, including against American warships in the Red Sea and the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The warning followed remarks by US President Donald Trump that Washington was “going to look at” joining Saudi strikes against the Iran-backed movement.

The latest escalation comes amid renewed fighting in Yemen’s decade-long conflict. The Houthis made major territorial gains along the Red Sea coast and around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in September, including capturing the port city of Mocha. Saudi-backed government forces have since launched a counteroffensive, claiming to have recaptured key positions near the vital shipping route linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.

Riyadh has stepped up airstrikes in support of the Yemeni government offensive, while the Houthis have vowed to continue targeting Saudi airports and infrastructure until the kingdom ends its military campaign and blockade of Yemen.

Poland has deployed more than 20,000 police officers nationwide following a series of school stabbings and online threats, launching a sweeping security crackdown that has resulted in dozens of arrests.

The emergency measures follow three stabbing attacks in four days that left one person dead and more than a dozen injured. Threats of further violence circulating online have fueled widespread alarm, prompting some schools to suspend classes and parents to keep their children at home.

Police announced on Monday that officers conducted nearly 80,000 inspections of educational institutions, detained 135 people, and identified 311 suspected criminal offenses.

“Police operations are still underway throughout Poland to ensure the safety of children, young people, and all employees of educational institutions,” the national police headquarters said, adding that officers are monitoring online threats around the clock.

“There will be no tolerance for any attacks on Polish children, nor for the descent of public life into anarchy,” Kierwinski told state broadcaster TVP Info.

Police have also detained teenagers suspected of planning attacks or posting violent threats online.

In one case, investigators discovered that a boy had recreated his school in the online game Roblox and simulated attacks on fellow students. Police said they found a firearm, ammunition, and knives in his possession.

The security operation follows three stabbing incidents in less than a week.

On Wednesday, a 19-year-old attacked students, teachers, and passersby at a vocational school in Ostroleka, north of Warsaw, injuring nine people before being arrested.

The following day, a 15-year-old former pupil wearing a helmet-mounted camera fatally stabbed a school caretaker and wounded two teachers in Leszczydol-Nowiny, northeast of the capital.

On Saturday, three people were injured in another stabbing at a further education college in Warsaw. A woman was detained in connection with the attack.

The violence was followed by a surge in social media threats of a ‘Bloody Friday’ campaign targeting schools, further fueling public fears.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk has warned of a growing “fascination with violence” among young people, describing it as a disturbing trend both in Poland and worldwide.

The authorities, however, said investigators found no evidence that the attacks were coordinated, warning that misinformation and unverified threats circulating online contributed to public panic.

Iran will destroy US technology infrastructure in the Gulf if Washington attacks again, the secretary of its Supreme National Security Council, Mohsen Rezaei, has warned.

Speaking to Press TV in an interview aired over the weekend, Rezaei singled out US assets in the United Arab Emirates and around the Strait of Hormuz. He estimated their value at more than $2 trillion and described them as the “pulse of the American economy in this region.”

“We have not yet included these assets among our targets. But if war breaks out, many of these cables, data centers, artificial intelligence facilities, and numerous other sites will be destroyed,” he said.

Rezaei said that Tehran had deliberately held back some military capabilities during earlier fighting, but is prepared to deploy them and “face the enemy with a much broader and more extensive plan” if hostilities resume.

Diplomatic contacts have continued through Pakistan, Qatar, and Iraq. Rezaei said Washington had accepted some of Tehran’s seven conditions for resolving the conflict but left others unclear, making its response inadequate.

Iran’s demands include lifting the naval blockade, ending hostilities on all fronts, and releasing frozen assets. Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday that exchanges through mediators were continuing and Tehran was reviewing Washington’s latest points.

US President Donald Trump previously rejected the Iranian proposal, saying that Tehran wanted “to make a deal, but it is not the deal that I want to make.” He has also suggested that US strikes could resume.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also stated last week that Tehran had “lost complete control” over the Strait of Hormuz and that oil flows were approaching prewar levels.

Amid the contradictory statements from Washington and Tehran, security risks in the key waterway persist. Last week, an oil tanker was struck near Oman, injuring 12 crew members. No side claimed responsibility.

Meanwhile, oil prices have continued to fluctuate in response to the Middle East crisis. Brent crude rose above $106 a barrel on Monday as Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia added to concerns over regional supplies. Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser warned that pressure on the energy chain would intensify until Hormuz fully reopened.

European leaders who threaten nuclear-armed Russia while assuming there will be no consequences are displaying “suicidal” incompetence and ignore basic realities, Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs has said.

In an interview with Afshin Rattansi on ‘Going Underground’ published on Monday, Sachs described the dismissal of Russian warnings that a direct conflict with NATO could escalate into nuclear war as “unbelievably reckless.”

Smaller European NATO nations that engage in hostile rhetoric act “a little bit like Israel... even radically more so,” believing the US will protect them in an actual conflict, he said.

“This is actually not how the world works and they are so reckless and stupid to talk in these terms,” Sachs stressed.

The West’s broader confrontation with Russia, which Sachs maintains was provoked by NATO’s 2008 declaration that Ukraine would eventually become a member, reflects “not only war profiteering” but also “a tremendous amount of incompetence and cowardice and unwillingness of these politicians to admit basic truths.”

Sachs also criticized US President Donald Trump for failing to follow through on an agreement he reached last year with Russian President Vladimir Putin to wind down the Ukraine conflict.

He lamented the UN’s inability to fulfill its role as guardian of world peace, arguing that Washington routinely disregards international rules.

“Essentially, the United States says: ‘We don’t obey any rules,’” he said.

Watch the entire interview.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s campaign has accused US tech giant Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, of interfering in the country’s presidential election in favor of his right-wing rival, Flavio Bolsonaro.

In a statement on Saturday, Lula’s Workers’ Party (PT) accused Meta of repeatedly restricting its campaign activities while failing to provide convincing explanations. “The complete lack of transparency in the company’s systems makes these explanations scarce and opaque,” the statement read.

The campaign said the latest incident occurred between October 9 and 10, when Meta allegedly prevented Lula’s official Instagram account from boosting posts. It also claimed that the view count on one of Lula’s Instagram posts stopped increasing on October 8, affecting its reach, with similar problems registered on other accounts supporting the incumbent.

Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court subsequently ordered Meta to provide detailed technical explanations within 48 hours as well as to preserve relevant advertising data, moderation records, and audience metrics.

US President Donald Trump has described Jair Bolsonaro’s prosecution as a “witch hunt,” with Washington imposing steep tariffs on Brazilian goods. While the US leader has stopped short of endorsing Bolsonaro Jr., Lula has described him as a “Trump candidate.”

Just days before the first round of the vote, Meta blocked the advertising account on Facebook used by Lula’s campaign, preventing it from running new ads. While the account was restored within hours, Meta offered no specific explanation for the suspension.

Earlier this month, Brazilian authorities requested an investigation into alleged US funding for activities intended to interfere with the elections and undermine the Supreme Federal Court. The move followed a Guardian report claiming that the Trump administration had earmarked $1 million for a project called ‘Countering Lawfare and Censorship in Brazil’. However, Brazil’s Federal Police later closed its preliminary review, citing insufficient evidence to open a criminal investigation.

Last month, Lula’s campaign accused Trump of seeking to “colonize” Brazil in a bid to gain access to its natural resources.

Pope Leo has condemned capital punishment as an attack on human dignity amid growing criticism of the US military’s plans to livestream the execution of the convicted Fort Hood shooter.

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced last week that Nidal Malik Hasan would face a military firing squad on December 3. President Donald Trump has confirmed that he personally authorized the broadcast.

Writing on X on Saturday on the international World Day Against the Death Penalty, Leo criticized capital punishment as a concept, but did not name Hasan or directly address the livestream.

“The death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,” the pontiff wrote, adding that “the common good can be safeguarded and the requirements of justice can be met without recourse to capital punishment.” Leo argued that effective detention protects citizens without denying offenders the possibility of redemption.

Senior Catholic officials also explicitly condemned the planned broadcast on Friday. Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin called it “unacceptable to turn death into a spectacle,” adding that “however guilty the person may be, there are other ways.”

Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, also described the decision as “a barbaric promotion of a culture of death” and urged Washington to reconsider.

Hasan, a former US Army psychiatrist, killed 13 people and wounded 32 at Fort Hood in November 2009. A military court sentenced him to death in 2013.

Hegseth has defended public viewing of the execution, arguing that “people need to understand there’s serious consequences for these types of things.”

If carried out, Hasan’s execution would be the US military’s first since 1961 and its first by firing squad since 1945. Broadcasting it live to the public would be unprecedented.

The controversy also follows a botched lethal-injection attempt in Tennessee, where death-row inmate Christa Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital and was hospitalized last month. She had been sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of classmate Colleen Slemmer.

Vladimir Zelensky should no longer be treated as a “good ally” after Kiev’s continued strikes on Russian oil refineries have threatened US efforts to lower diesel prices, Trump adviser Alex Bruesewitz has said. He accused the Ukrainian leader of undermining US President Donald Trump and hurting American consumers.  

In a post on X on Sunday, Bruesewitz blasted Zelensky in response to a comment by conservative activist Laura Loomer, who had defended the Ukrainian leader following an interview she did with him this summer. Loomer said Zelensky had praised Trump and “is eager to sign a deal to end the war” with Russia, provided it did not amount to Ukraine’s unconditional surrender.  

Taking a swipe at Loomer, Bruesewitz suggested that if she was “still in communication with” Zelensky, she “should tell him to stop undermining Trump and hurting the American people with his actions.”  

In a separate post, Bruesewitz accused Zelensky of disregarding US interests by pressing ahead with the strikes. “Zelensky is not being a friend to the American people,” he wrote.  

The criticism comes after Trump reached a diesel deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, following repeated US requests for Kiev to halt attacks on Russian oil infrastructure. The agreement is aimed at easing global fuel shortages that have sent American energy prices soaring.  

Zelensky called Trump’s move a “weak decision,” arguing that it would provide Russia with additional revenue.  

Trump hit back, accusing Zelensky of ignoring US warnings against attacking refineries and repeatedly rejecting opportunities to end the conflict with Russia. He also called for the Ukrainian leader to be replaced.  

“Zelensky could have settled this war many times. Many, many times. And he chooses not to,” Trump told reporters on Saturday, adding: “I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal.”

On Sunday, Trump unexpectedly announced an immediate ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine covering attacks on energy infrastructure, claiming both sides had agreed to halt the strikes.  

“Effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine. Both parties have agreed. Do not break it!” he wrote on Truth Social.  

The announcement appeared to catch Kiev off guard, with Zelensky saying it “was news for me.” Moscow has not confirmed the agreement. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that contacts were continuing but declined to provide details.

UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham claims that Russia “clearly” interfered in the 2016 Brexit referendum which led to Britain leaving the EU, without providing evidence to back up the rehashed allegations.

Speaking on ‘The Rest is Politics’ podcast on Sunday, the prime minister said he sought answers about Russia’s alleged involvement after taking office this summer.

“I asked the question coming to Downing Street: Well, was there interference in the 2016 referendum from Russia? I’ve had the clear answer that yes, there was.”

Burnham did not identify who provided the assessment, what evidence supports it, or whether any alleged interference affected the result. Defending the timing of his unsubstantiated claim – ten years after Brexit – Burnham argued that voters need to understand that some political movements were “instigated via our enemies, namely Russia.”

Britain voted to leave the EU in the June 23, 2016 referendum, with 51.89% backing Leave against 48.11% for Remain, with 72.2% turnout. The vote was driven largely by demands to reclaim sovereignty, control immigration, cut EU regulations and budget contributions, and pursue independent trade deals, amid widespread dissatisfaction with the political establishment.

Russia has dismissed the allegations as baseless speculation and part of a pattern of Western accusations. Moscow has not yet commented on Burnham’s claims.

Russian interference?

Western governments have repeatedly pointed the finger at Russia over elections and political developments, including recent contests in Germany, France, Moldova, and Georgia. On the podcast, Burnham recalled a conversation with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, whose CDU was defeated by the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) in three major state elections in recent weeks. According to Burnham, Merz also raised the issue of Russian involvement, citing the AfD’s alleged ties to Moscow.

Russia, meanwhile, has accused the West of meddling abroad. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said earlier this year that Western governments interfere through color revolutions, military force, and “electoral neocolonialism” – using politically biased election monitoring, media campaigns, and external pressure to influence other countries’ political processes and challenge unfavorable results.

Russia has accused Britain of interference in the Ukraine conflict, citing extensive weapons deliveries, military training, and intelligence support for Kiev, as well as former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s alleged role in derailing the 2022 peace talks. Moscow argues that London’s actions make it a de facto party to the conflict and obstruct peace efforts. Lavrov said in August that British involvement in missile strikes on Russia gave the country grounds to regard the UK as a party to the conflict, “with all ensuing consequences.”

Burnham’s decision to revisit alleged ‘Russian interference’ comes as his government considers closer ties with Brussels. At the Labour Party’s annual conference last month, he argued that Brexit has done “more harm than good,” and suggested that rejoining the EU could feature in the party’s next election manifesto, opening the door to reversing the vote.

Economic assessments have generally found that Brexit has hurt Britain’s economy, which has experienced weak growth since leaving the EU. Recent estimates suggest that GDP is 6% to 8% lower than it would have been had the country remained.

A YouGov poll last month suggests that 59% of Britons support rejoining the EU, with 32% opposed. However, support for closer ties without rejoining the EU, single market, or customs union is higher, at 73%.

Critics of reversing Brexit, including Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, argue that rejoining the EU would force Britain to surrender control over immigration, regulation, and trade policy while taking on new financial obligations.

“The prime minister is a liar. Yes, a liar... There was no Russian interference. And the Russia hoax has run all the way through this,” he said, citing previous denials under Boris Johnson and Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty’s assertion that any attempted meddling failed.

A South Korean container ship has completed a trial round trip to Europe via Russia’s Northern Sea Route, demonstrating the potential of the Arctic passage as a commercial shipping corridor.

Seoul considers maritime cooperation with Russia important to its trade strategy, despite joining some Western sanctions against Moscow over the Ukraine conflict. Chinese shipping companies have also been exploring the strategic Arctic route.

The PanStar Acro returned to Busan on Sunday, 50 days after departing for Europe along Russia’s northern coast. The ship reached Felixstowe, Britain, on September 12 and Rotterdam, Netherlands, the following day. It also called at Gdansk, Poland, before returning to South Korea.

President Lee Jae-myung congratulated the crew on their safe return and thanked them for their work. The voyage, which cut travel time by approximately ten days in each direction compared with the traditional route through the Suez Canal, provided valuable navigation experience and data as South Korea prepares for an “Arctic route era,” Lee wrote on X.

Earlier this month, Russian nuclear corporation Rosatom, which operates the Northern Sea Route through its subsidiary and maintains a fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers, welcomed the PanStar Acro’s eastbound passage. The ship crossed the Arctic section in just 5.85 days, compared with 6.4 days on its westbound journey.

Timely Russian navigational guidance and information about weather and ice conditions “enabled route optimization and adherence to the planned schedule,” Rosatom said.

Russia used the Northern Sea Route for decades to supply its own hard-to-reach settlements in the north. With international traffic expected to rise due to climate change, Moscow is rapidly developing infrastructure required to support it.

According to Yonhap, the operator of the 2,758-TEU vessel had hoped to complete the journey faster but nevertheless considered the trial successful. The delay was relatively minor, and the ship encountered no major incidents.

South Korea has joined some US-backed sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine conflict but has not directly sanctioned Rosatom. Seoul has also declined to supply weapons to Ukraine and recently experienced a diplomatic dispute with Kiev after Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky disclosed an arrangement concerning the transfer to South Korea of two North Korean prisoners of war captured in Russia.

Meanwhile, Chinese carrier Sea Legend Shipping announced earlier this year the launch of regular seasonal deliveries from Ningbo-Zhoushan to European ports, including Felixstowe, Rotterdam, Gdansk, and Hamburg. The company said its “Arctic Express” service is focusing on time-sensitive cargo.

The latest turn in Russia-US relations has shocked Kiev, outraged the EU, provoked discontent among a considerable number of politicians in the US, and left many observers around the world perplexed.

The Trump administration’s sudden decision to suspend sanctions on Russian diesel supplies appears to contradict its recent actions, including the adoption of tough new sanctions legislation intended to increase pressure on Moscow, and while some attribute the reversal to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictability, others see the beginnings of a new policy, or evidence of a fundamental change in the administration’s approach to Ukraine.

To understand what’s happening, however, we must look beyond the peculiarities of the US president’s public behavior. Trump’s extravagance, which frequently borders on the absurd, often conceals a relatively clear set of objectives, but whether those objectives are sensible is another question.

The most likely explanation for his latest reversal lies in domestic American politics, as the congressional midterm elections are less than a month away, and the Republican Party faces difficult prospects. Trump maintains an air of indifference, but losing control of both houses of Congress would condemn him to two years of political confrontation and considerable frustration.

He probably understands that there’s little prospect of fundamentally improving the economic situation, particularly consumer prices, before voters go to the polls, so for now, the emphasis is on psychological impact.

Russia isn’t the first country Washington has approached about increasing fuel supplies to international markets, and the more agreements Trump can announce, the more opportunities he has to proclaim that the White House is working tirelessly to protect ordinary Americans from rising prices.

We shall soon discover whether this approach works, but there’s nothing particularly irrational about it, and Trump is pursuing a deliberate political objective. The fact that his latest decision contradicts previous statements doesn’t trouble him because he’s long operated on the assumption that words have value at the moment they’re spoken, but impose few obligations thereafter.

What does this mean for Russia, beyond the welcome prospect of additional budget revenues?

Colleagues from the Vatfor project have identified an important development, in that for the first time since the beginning of the conflict, the US president has made a significant decision regarding Russia without making Ukraine the determining consideration.

Until now, the Ukrainian question has been inseparable from virtually every aspect of Washington’s policy towards Moscow, but this time, not only has it been set aside, the decision directly contradicts Kiev’s interests at a particularly difficult moment.

Hence the indignation of the Ukrainian leadership, as from its perspective, the Americans have behaved unfairly.

There are probably several reasons for this change, but the principal one appears to be Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s unwillingness to accommodate Washington’s demands that Ukraine stop attacking Russian energy infrastructure.

Trump, meanwhile, has become fixated on Russian oil supplies as a means of addressing rising fuel prices, and their importance shouldn’t be exaggerated, even if additional Russian supplies alone are unlikely to transform the global market. Nevertheless, Trump has evidently decided that Zelensky bears responsibility for aggravating the situation.

Once the US president reaches this conclusion, persuading him otherwise becomes extremely difficult. Therefore, for the moment, Kiev’s objections have simply been disregarded.

The more consequential question concerns American intelligence assistance, because to stop, or at least substantially reduce, Ukrainian attacks on Russian targets, Washington would have to restrict the intelligence it provides to Kiev, and much of this information amounts, in practical terms, to targeting assistance.

Trump already demonstrated willingness to use this instrument when around a year and a half ago, he temporarily suspended intelligence cooperation for several days to put pressure on the Ukrainian leadership.

A longer interruption would be a different matter and it would represent a genuine change in Washington’s approach to the conflict, effectively distancing the US from its Ukrainian partner, but whether Trump is prepared to take this step is uncertain.

There is, after all, an extensive informal coalition interested in maintaining the present course, and it includes the US defense industry, increasingly influential technology companies, European governments, and their political allies in Washington.

If Washington proves unwilling to exert sustained pressure on Kiev, the latest initiative could gradually lose momentum, and this is especially likely after the congressional elections, when the immediate political value of announcing presidential achievements will diminish.

The decisive question, therefore, is whether the US leadership can compel its partners to move in the direction it considers necessary, and if it can, an opportunity for further negotiations on a settlement could emerge.

There’s also a second conclusion which is particularly important for Russia, because Washington’s latest actions offer a glimpse of how Russia-US relations could develop after the military phase of the conflict ends.

The enormous collection of sanctions imposed on Russia is unlikely to disappear, and removing them would be exceptionally difficult, both procedurally and politically, given too many restrictions have become embedded in law and institutional practice.

Instead, the sanctions will probably remain formally in place, while decisions about their enforcement are taken according to circumstances; thus, when a particular restriction conflicts with US interests, Washington could suspend its application, but when the circumstances change, it can be restored.

The Americans generally display a greater degree of pragmatism as they are perfectly capable of proclaiming principles with great conviction, abandoning them when circumstances demand it, and returning to the same principles when doing so becomes convenient. European governments, by contrast, have increasingly bound themselves to political commitments from which retreat is both institutionally complicated and publicly embarrassing.

For Moscow, understanding this difference will be essential when constructing its future relationship with Washington now that the confrontation over Ukraine has reached a stage at which its consequences extend far beyond the immediate military and territorial questions.

Whatever the eventual outcome, it will help determine the structure of future political relations between Russia and the various components of the Western world, and while that structure is already beginning to emerge, its geometry remains unsettled, and the lines are still moving.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has challenged US President Donald Trump’s approach to AI, warning that the government cannot leave the world’s “most dangerous technology” entirely in the hands of the companies that develop it.

Trump signed the White House Accord on Super Intelligence last month alongside representatives of Google, OpenAI, Meta, xAI, Anthropic, and Nvidia, establishing voluntary safety commitments and internal oversight mechanisms.

Speaking to CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, Gates questioned whether Trump’s agreement with America’s biggest tech companies goes far enough to prevent potentially catastrophic abuses.

“The idea that for the most dangerous technology humans ever invented, that that’s the final word, that just the companies themselves are the only check that society has,” Gates said, warning that “it’s clear we’re not doing enough.”

Gates identified cyberattacks as the most immediate danger and warned that criminals could exploit AI models stripped of safeguards against hacking and bioterrorism. “When you have bad people, no safeguards, and then the latest models, that’s where over the next year... we are going to have a lot of negative surprises,” he said.

His warnings follow a series of incidents involving AI agents acting beyond their intended instructions. Last week, Anthropic disclosed that its Claude models had taken unauthorized actions on government websites, including submitting a fabricated homicide tip to a Philadelphia police website during testing in July. Other reported incidents have involved AI agents accessing restricted information, exploiting vulnerabilities, and attempting to breach government websites.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has argued that the world must accept some “bad things,” including hacks and scams, in exchange for the benefits of AI and widespread access to the technology. In an interview published last week, he insisted that the “good stuff” would outweigh the harm by “orders of magnitude.”

Confronted with Altman’s remarks, Gates acknowledged that eliminating every risk is impossible, comparing AI to the automobile industry, where accidents persist despite decades of safety improvements.

“Those were a big deal, but nothing compared to this,” Gates said, referring to the personal computer and the internet. “This changes the world more than all previous technologies.”

US President Donald Trump is furious with Vladimir Zelensky over Kiev’s continued attacks on Russian oil refineries, with Washington reportedly threatening to cut off weapons supplies and intelligence sharing unless Ukraine stops the strikes, according to Axios and the Financial Times.

The confrontation comes after Trump struck a diesel deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to ease a global fuel shortage that has sent American energy prices soaring.

Kiev has continued to target Russian refining facilities despite repeated warnings, with Trump accusing Zelensky of deliberately hurting American consumers and farmers while refusing opportunities to end the conflict.

“Trump is really mad. He feels Zelensky is taking the US for granted,” a White House official told Axios on Sunday. The source argued that Kiev’s attacks on Russian refineries are doing more damage to its relationship with Washington than to Russia.

US officials contacted Kiev and several European capitals over the weekend, threatening to suspend intelligence sharing and the NATO-backed Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) mechanism, through which European countries purchase American weapons for Ukraine, according to the Financial Times, which cited officials familiar with the discussions.

A US official, however, denied making direct threats, saying the negotiators instead reminded Kiev of Washington’s extensive military and intelligence support and urged it to stop taking actions that hurt American consumers.

The confrontation has threatened to derail broader negotiations aimed at ending the Ukraine conflict. Witkoff and Kushner have reportedly put their planned trip to Moscow on hold until Kiev and its leading European backers clarify whether they are prepared to support a unified peace proposal.

Zelensky called the move a “weak decision,” arguing that the agreement will provide Russia with additional revenue. Trump hit back, accusing the Ukrainian leader of creating problems for the world and suggesting that it is time for Ukraine to elect a new leader capable of reaching a deal.

The announcement caught Kiev by surprise, with Zelensky saying it “was news for me.” Moscow has also yet to confirm the agreement.

A White House official described the proposed agreement as a “refinery for refinery” arrangement, under which both sides would stop attacking oil refineries, but not necessarily other energy infrastructure, according to Axios. Kiev has said the deal would disproportionately benefit Russia, since Ukraine has only one largely nonfunctional refinery and fully relies on imported fuel.

Hundreds of protesters have gathered in the Polish city of Jaroslaw, demanding tighter immigration controls and denouncing Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera following the fatal stabbing of a local priest by a Ukrainian national.

Last month, a 31-year-old Ukrainian citizen stabbed five people at the city’s Benedictine abbey, killing Father Stanislaw Zbojnowicz and wounding four others. Investigators said the suspect entered Poland from Germany and was apparently heading toward Ukraine. He admitted to the charges on October 7 but declined to explain his actions, prosecutors said.

The demonstration took place in the city’s market square on Saturday, with participants waving Polish flags, setting off flares, and chanting slogans including “Poland for Poles” and “Bandera, get out!”

“We want a safe Poland, and this is not racism. This is our concern for our loved ones, our families, and ourselves,” Marcin Kowalski, a local activist with the nationalist Ruch Narodowy (National Movement), told the crowd, insisting that demands for an immigration crackdown are “about safety.”

Manifestacja antyimigracyjna w Jarosławiu https://t.co/zPXaln8vBc

— Ruch Narodowy Powiat jarosławski (@awski35196) October 11, 2026

A banner featuring a crossed-out Ukrainian trident declared: “No more hospitality, you ungrateful bastards!” Some demonstrators wore clothing condemning the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).

Bandera led a radical faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), which collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II. The faction and its armed wing, the UPA, were responsible for massacring tens of thousands of ethnic Polish civilians in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, territories that belonged to prewar Poland and are now largely in western Ukraine.

The massacres remain a major source of tension between Warsaw and Kiev. Poland recognizes the killings as genocide and estimates that Ukrainian nationalists murdered around 100,000 Poles, while Ukraine continues to honor OUN and UPA figures as national heroes.

Saturday’s rally followed a March of Silence held in memory of the slain priest. Organizers also collected signatures demanding an end to Jaroslaw’s partnership with the Ukrainian city of Skole.

The killing has also fueled wider calls for tougher border controls, while a July survey found that 52% of Poles oppose accepting Ukrainian refugees.

Two German opposition parties have called for restoring economic ties with Russia following US President Donald Trump’s example in striking a diesel deal with Moscow, challenging Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s sanctions policy as soaring fuel prices put further pressure on Europe’s largest economy.

The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the left-wing Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), which together command a majority in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt’s parliament, are preparing a joint resolution demanding an end to the sanctions on Russia and financial support for Kiev amid growing frustration over Berlin’s foreign policy and its economic consequences.

“Germany also needs a diesel deal with Russia,” Claudia Wittig, the deputy leader of the BSW parliamentary group, said, according to German media.

Wittig described fuel prices at German filling stations as “a scandal,” arguing that the sanctions have “failed across the board” and are primarily hurting Germany itself. She insisted that Berlin should go further than a one-off fuel agreement and resume regular imports of Russian oil and gas to help rescue German industry.

AfD co-leader Alice Weidel also hailed Trump’s deal with Moscow, accusing Merz of undermining Germany’s economy with sanctions and expensive liquefied natural gas imports.

“That’s how it’s done!” she wrote on X on Saturday. “While Merz ruins Germany with sanctions and expensive LNG, Trump practices realpolitik. German interests instead of escalation!”

The initiative comes after Trump reached a surprise agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday to ease the global diesel shortage. Washington subsequently suspended sanctions on Russian diesel exports, allowing the country to release hundreds of thousands of tons of fuel to the international markets.

The joint resolution is scheduled for a vote in the Saxony-Anhalt parliament in Magdeburg on October 14. AfD and BSW hold a combined majority following September’s regional elections, although the state legislature has no authority to lift federal or EU sanctions on Russia. The initiative also marks a further breach of Germany’s longstanding political ‘firewall’ against the AfD, which mainstream parties have sought to exclude from power despite its growing support.

The chancellor, whose popularity has sunk so low that he faces calls to resign from within his own party, has faced mounting criticism over the impact of his policies. Wagenknecht previously accused him of turning German citizens into “cash cows for Ukraine.” Moscow has accused Merz of acting more like a “Ukrainian chancellor” than a German leader.

King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh has come under another deadly attack just one day after a Houthi strike killed 12 people and injured 309 at the facility. The latest attack on Sunday killed a Pakistani national and injured 11 others, according to Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA).

An unidentified projectile struck Terminal 4 of the airport, sparking a fire, Major General Turki Al-Maliki, the spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, told reporters on Sunday. 

“The Coalition also intercepted and destroyed a cruise missile in the vicinity of the airport,” he added.

The GACA said the injured were taken to the hospital for treatment, and the extent of the damage to the airport is still being assessed. The latest casualties bring the combined toll from the two attacks to 13 dead and 320 injured.

The airport has remained closed since Saturday’s deadly attack, which killed four Saudi citizens and eight foreign nationals, including two Bangladeshis and one each from the US, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Palestine, and Sudan. Some of the injured were reported to be in critical condition.

العربية تعرض لقطات من لحظات الاعتداء على مطار الرياض يوم أمس https://t.co/mQYJiki0m1

— العربية عاجل (@AlArabiya_Brk) October 11, 2026

Yemen’s Houthi movement, also known as Ansar Allah, claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attack on Riyadh airport, as well as strikes that it said it carried out on an airport in Dammam in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, and two facilities of Saudi oil giant Aramco.

The developments come amid a sharp escalation in fighting between the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition, which has backed Yemen’s internationally recognized government against the group since intervening in the country’s civil war in 2015.

Large-scale hostilities largely subsided following a UN-brokered truce in 2022, but fighting flared up again this summer after Saudi-backed Yemeni forces bombed an airport in the Houthi-controlled capital, Sanaa, reportedly to prevent a delegation returning from Iran from landing.

Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces have since launched a counteroffensive aimed at reversing the Houthi advances. Earlier this week, they reportedly recaptured the market and security headquarters in Al-Masrakh district of Taiz province, according to local media.

Saudi Arabia has intensified its bombing campaign in support of the government offensive. The Houthis claimed that Saudi warplanes carried out 124 airstrikes over a 24-hour period, targeting Sanaa and the group’s northern stronghold of Saada.

UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham has rushed to reassure Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky after US President Donald Trump publicly called for his replacement. The US leader accused Zelensky of refusing to reach a peace deal with Moscow and worsening the global fuel crisis through continued Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure.

Burnham called Zelensky on Saturday, the day Trump suggested that the Ukrainian leader should be replaced for refusing to reach a settlement with Moscow. The UK prime minister described the previous 24 hours as being “difficult for Ukraine” and “reiterated his complete solidarity,” according to Downing Street.

Burnham and Zelensky also discussed “the importance of maintaining pressure on Russia,” with London vowing to slap Moscow with additional sanctions.

Earlier on Saturday, Trump accused Zelensky of seeking to “make problems for the world” through the continued attacks on the Russian energy infrastructure, including refineries. “I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal,” he said.

On Friday, Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin reached an agreement aimed at reining in skyrocketing global fuel prices. Washington temporarily waived sanctions on Russian diesel, while Moscow agreed to release 300,000 metric tons of diesel immediately and another 500,000 in November. Zelensky called Trump’s decision “weak.”

Kiev’s European backers have repeatedly rushed to Zelensky’s defense following public criticism from Trump.

In February 2025, after Trump branded Zelensky a “dictator without elections” and slammed him for his unwillingness to reach a deal with Moscow, then-UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and several European leaders, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron, publicly defended the Ukrainian leader and criticized Trump’s choice of words.

Later that month, a White House meeting between Trump and Zelensky descended into a shouting match, with the US president accusing his guest of gambling with millions of lives and risking World War III. European leaders, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, Macron, and Starmer, quickly rallied behind Zelensky, reaffirming their support for Kiev.

In early October, the bloc rejected Ukraine’s plea to accelerate financial support needed to cover an unexpected $27 billion defense gap, prompting Zelensky to lash out at Kiev’s backers by accusing them of not doing enough for Ukraine.

Russia has said the position of Kiev’s European backers is one of the main obstacles to settling the conflict. The EU is still clinging to the idea of “strategically defeating Russia,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last month.

Commenting on the situation last week, Peskov said that neither Ukraine nor its European backers have moved any closer toward talks, with European nations still “obstructing” the peace process.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has ignored allegations of “very well-documented” NATO war crimes brought before it, former Libyan Information Minister Moussa Ibrahim has told RT.

In an interview on Saturday, he argued that the US-led military bloc has never been held accountable for what he described as “very well-documented” crimes committed during military interventions in several countries.

“In Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Libya, we have literally… millions of documents, videos, footage, statements, witnesses who testify to the crimes against humanity committed by NATO collectively and NATO countries individually,” he said.

The former minister said he had personally participated in a 2013 effort to bring allegations of NATO war crimes before the ICC over the bloc’s 2011 intervention in Libya, which left the country devastated and deeply divided.

The failure to pursue such cases demonstrated the “limitation” of the system, he said, urging the East, particularly China and Russia to “rethink the whole equation.”

The ICC needs to be “radically, not superficially” reformed or replaced with a new international judicial institution capable of upholding human rights without Western political interference, he stressed. A handful of powerful Western countries currently exploit the ICC for their own advantage while ensuring “that they are immune against any cases brought forward against them,” he said.

Meanwhile, the ICC’s investigation into allegations of war crimes committed by American forces during the US-led war in Afghanistan never resulted in criminal charges against US personnel.

Watch the RT segment below:

At least five people have been reported missing after powerful flash floods swept away homes and bridges in northern Nepal on Sunday, according to local disaster authorities. This comes just over a month after a catastrophic flood and landslide killed more than 1,400 people across the South Asian country.

The flooding may have been triggered by a landslide on Saturday that blocked a river tributary before accumulated water burst through, creating a flash flood, according to an official from Nepal’s Department of Hydrology and Meteorology cited by the Kathmandu Post.

Floodwaters swept away an estimated 35-40 houses in northern Gorkha District, the newspaper reported, citing local authorities. Several bridges were also reportedly destroyed, while roads and hydropower facilities were damaged.

Videos circulating on social media purported to show floodwaters sweeping away buildings in a mountain valley.

Other footage appeared to show the Soti Khola Bridge in Gorkha District being destroyed.

Two women and three men have been reported missing, according to preliminary data from Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA).

The latest flooding comes just over a month after a catastrophic disaster struck Nepal and parts of China’s Tibet on August 26. As of late September, at least 1,451 bodies had been recovered and 5,745 people remained missing, according to NDRRMA data.

It was supposed to be a safe space for all the Karens and institutionally-backed wine moms who spend their days policing public discourse like it’s neighborhood Block Watch fodder. Instead, this year’s EU #Disinfo2026 confab in Lithuania turned into a bust.

What happened was basically the equivalent of a friend’s husband getting called out ahead of the confab as the neighborhood perv, prompting everyone to ghost the meetup at the last minute.

The problem? A scheduled panel called ‘USA as a FIMI threat: adapt, acknowledge, push back.’ Incidentally, ‘FIMI threat’ is one of those hip acronyms that these people are overpaid to come up with so that it sounds like they’re doing something only those with their rare expertise can wrangle. In reality, it just means ‘foreign information manipulation and interference,’ and the average seventh grader can push back against it on social media if they want to. Usually with memes that are a lot more savvy, and without billing taxpayers.

The meetup was organized by the Brussels-backed EU Disinfo Lab, and was apparently such a great use of EU funds that the bloc had its own sponsorship logo taken right off the promotional signage and bailed on itself. “The organizers chose to frame some of the discussions in a way which does not align with the positions held by the EU,” said EU foreign affairs spokesman Christian Wigand.

Color me shocked that people who put an extraordinary amount of effort into corralling the masses into establishment-approved groupthink have just had a collective anaphylactic reaction to a deviation from it.

What about Canada? Surely it maintained its presence, right? Particularly since there’s a lot of talk in Canada these days about entities close to Trump, including State Department officials, getting involved in manipulation efforts to gin up incredibly long-shot independence movements in the provinces of Alberta and Quebec, with a view to gaining control of Canadian resources and then pressuring the federal government into doing what Trump wants. So you’d think that Canada would have relished the opportunity to head over to this conference and confront Washington, knowing that its behavior would be a focus. At the very least, it would have been a chance to demonstrate that all this talk about defending democracy and information integrity extends beyond smack talking from a comfortable distance.

“Following changes to the framing of several panel discussions, Global Affairs Canada decided to revise its participation in those sessions at the EU DisinfoLab 2026 conference,” a Canadian government spokeswoman said.

What could possibly have been behind all these US allies bailing in such a coordinated fashion? Couldn’t have been because they were all being pressured, right? Surely, nobody would ever think of manipulating anyone into not attending a conference about manipulation.

Thanks for confirming that “disinfo” can only ever come from entities that you don’t like and depends on the source rather than a critical assessment of the info itself.

To be fair, it’s worth defining terms. “Disinformation” seems to be a convenient catch-all phrase used by the Western establishment to marginalize a wide range of discourse – from adverse opinions that contradict the establishment’s own mass mind-bending efforts, to straight-up nonsense. The fact that they don’t make enough of a distinction between those two things is to their discredit. There’s a rather significant difference between someone challenging an official narrative and someone insisting that the planet is run by a cabal of lizard people. But both have become fodder for the same sprawling industry of experts and other taxpayer-funded initiatives.

Before the internet and social media, the average person didn’t need some Western apparatchik to tell them that the guy ranting on the street corner was a nutjob. Or to know that states have a tendency to spin in their own self-interest. Or to take whatever you hear around the water cooler at work with a grain of salt. But apparently, now that we’re all connected online, everyone’s brains have gone to mush and we need self-appointed babysitters to tell us what to think under the pretext of protecting us. And certainly not just protecting their power, surely. The public, once trusted to exercise a modicum of judgment, has been demoted to a classroom of toddlers who would eat the crayons the minute they’re unsupervised.

See what I did there? Countered some info with other info. Not hard, right? And all without adult supervision. Unlike some folks who have made a career out of demanding that everyone else show their work, and clearly aren’t especially keen on having to ask the same of Trump’s America. But instead of showing up to their own conference and accepting the obvious – that Trump contradicts himself every five minutes all day long – it turns out that some of these guardians of information integrity ultimately decided that the cause wasn’t so critical to democracy that it was worth a Trump-grade headache.

Guess it’s a lot easier to keep lecturing the powerless than risk inconveniencing the powerful. What a stunning profile in courage from our fearless Western leaders. One might even call it a double standard. Although perhaps they should convene a panel before deciding, lest it qualify as disinfo.

US President Donald Trump has said Russia and Ukraine have agreed to an immediate energy ceasefire. The announcement comes just days after Trump’s phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, during which the two leaders agreed on a deal aimed at easing the global fuel crisis through Russian diesel exports.

“Effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday, adding that “both parties have agreed” and urging Moscow and Kiev not to “break it.”

Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky later confirmed on X that he discussed Trump’s announcement with NATO chief Mark Rutte, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, and Finnish President Alexander Stubb, adding that Kiev supports the initiative. 

Moscow has not commented on Trump’s announcement so far.

On Friday, Trump and Putin held a phone call, shortly after which the US Treasury Department announced a temporary waiver of sanctions on Russian diesel, allowing the fuel to be sold, delivered, and imported into the US until April 7, 2027.

The US president allegedly struck a deal with Moscow after Zelensky ignored Washington’s requests to stop strikes on Russian oil refineries, Axios reported on Saturday. Trump has blamed Ukraine, and Zelensky personally, for exacerbating the global fuel crisis, saying that Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries have driven up fuel prices, including for American consumers.

“If President Trump really wants to have some changes during elections… please tell Putin, give us two months, 60 days off. Total ceasefire, 60 days, and we will organize elections,” he told ABC on Sunday.

Russia considers Zelensky illegitimate, as his presidential term expired more than two years ago and he has not called a new election, citing martial law.

Ukraine has ramped up long-range strikes on targets inside Russia, including civilian and energy infrastructure such as oil refineries, amid continued setbacks at the front. Zelensky has recently threatened to intensify attacks on Russian refineries in particular. Moscow has denounced the attacks as acts of terrorism and vowed to intensify strikes on Ukrainian military-related facilities, including drone and missile warehouses, while maintaining that it never targets civilians.

A scandal is brewing in Austria over a secret Ukrainian intelligence shipment reportedly allowed to cross the country unchecked, with opposition politicians demanding to know what it contained and who authorized its passage.

A Volkswagen van belonging to Ukrainian intelligence carried 200 kg of undeclared “special cargo” through Austria in January, Kronen Zeitung reported on Saturday. The shipment was reportedly linked to the Ukrainian delegation attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky was present.

The case emerged after the right-wing opposition Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) obtained a diplomatic note requesting permission for the van to cross Austrian territory. The Foreign Ministry later confirmed the note’s existence in response to a parliamentary inquiry, according to the outlet.

The cargo reportedly passed through Austria without customs clearance or security screening. Its contents remain unknown.

“What was in those 200 kilograms? Cash, gold, weapons, documents, or something else entirely?” he asked, as cited by the newspaper. “Austria is not a lawless transit corridor for foreign intelligence services. We are still a neutral state!”

Asked about the shipment, the Foreign Ministry declined to elaborate, telling Kronen Zeitung it receives hundreds of diplomatic notes daily and that it forwarded the request to the Interior Ministry.

The FPO plans another parliamentary inquiry to determine who authorized the shipment, why it escaped inspection, and what it contained.

A transit hub for Kiev’s billions?

Hafenecker already questioned the authorities over suspicious shipments to Ukraine earlier this year.

In May, he demanded that the Finance Ministry explain how nearly $22 billion in cash and gold has been transported from Austria to Kiev since 2022 without triggering money-laundering concerns or regulatory scrutiny. The figure emerged from an FPO parliamentary inquiry to Finance Minister Markus Marterbauer, which revealed 1,011 cash export declarations for shipments from Vienna to Kiev from 2022-2026.

Hafenecker noted Austria’s anti-money-laundering rules, which require individuals withdrawing as little as €12,000 ($13,400) from inherited accounts to prove the money’s origin, while anyone crossing the EU’s external border with more than €10,000 in cash must declare it.

The Austrian Financial Market Authority described the shipments at the time as routine banking operations, citing Ukraine’s widespread use of foreign currencies. Hafenecker nevertheless demanded full disclosure of the transfers, a regulatory audit, and a parliamentary report from Austria’s Money Laundering Reporting Office.

His Euroskeptic FPO party previously demanded an end to Austrian financial aid to Ukraine, branding the country a corrupt “bottomless pit” amid high-level embezzlement scandals.

Kiev’s ‘war mafia’ cash convoy in Hungary

Hafenecker’s demands in May followed a separate scandal over cash and gold shipments transiting Hungary en route to Ukraine.

The diplomatic row erupted in March when the Hungarian authorities seized two trucks belonging to Ukraine’s state-owned Oschadbank near Budapest, confiscating $40 million, €35 million, and 9 kg of gold in a money-laundering investigation. The shipment originated from Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank.

Hungary said the convoy was supervised by a former general of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), with other escorts reportedly having military backgrounds. All seven were deported to Ukraine, and the vehicles and assets remained in Hungarian custody. Kiev called the seizure “state banditism” and blackmail.

Hungary ultimately returned the seized assets in May, after Orban lost the election to Peter Magyar’s pro-EU Tisza party. Kiev maintained that the shipment was a routine bank transfer but did not publicly explain the origin of the assets or why such a large sum was being transported through Hungary.

Thousands of people took to the streets of London on Saturday, calling on the UK government to stop supplying arms to Israel and boycott trade with the country over its actions in Gaza, which protesters say amount to three years of genocide against Palestinians.

Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza three years ago in response to the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, in which about 1,200 Israelis were killed and 250 taken hostage. The United Nations estimates that around 1.98 million people, or 90% of Gaza’s population, have been displaced by the operations since then, while much of the enclave’s water and sanitation infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed.

Video footage from central London shows crowds of demonstrators gathering along the Victoria Embankment, with many wearing keffiyehs, carrying Palestinian flags, and holding placards reading ‘End the genocide’, ‘Free Palestine’, ‘Disarm Israel, save lives’, and ‘Make empathy great again’ as they marched towards Parliament. A bride and groom also appeared to be among those taking part.

The protesters urged the British authorities to step up efforts “make much more strident efforts” to force Israel to comply with international law, journalist and political commentator Syed Mohsin Abbas, who was at the scene, told RT. The Deep Dive Perspective podcast host stressed that demonstrators were calling for more concrete steps against Israel wherever possible.

“The realistic demands are really that the arms to Israel should be stopped altogether, trade with Israel should be boycotted,” Abbas added.

There are already some UK restrictions on arms exports to Israel, including the suspension of licenses for equipment that could be used by Israeli forces in Gaza. Britain has also taken steps to restrict trade with Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories. London has said it will refuse export license applications for goods that could materially contribute to the occupation, while other trade restrictions target settlement-linked activity.

Protesters view those measures as limited steps that fall short of bringing about meaningful change for Palestinians. Ismail Patel, head of the UK-based campaign group Friends of Al-Aqsa (FOA), criticized the restrictions for targeting trade linked to Israeli settlements rather than taking broader action on arms exports and commerce with Israel, accusing the British government of adopting a “performative” stance instead of meaningful action to protect Palestinian rights.

The family of Palestinian journalist Muhammad Abdel Aziz al-Najjar, who was killed in an Israeli strike in southern Gaza, has demanded accountability from the Israeli military, accusing it of killing an innocent man whose family depended on him for survival.

Al-Najjar was killed on September 30 in an Israeli drone strike in the Mawasi al-Qarara area, north of Khan Yunis, according to Palestinian media. Local sources said the attack came as Israeli forces continued shelling and firing across Gaza despite a ceasefire agreement with Hamas reached a year earlier.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) admitted to killing al-Najjar, but claimed he was a member of Hamas’ military wing and took part in the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the war. An IDF spokesman, cited by Israeli media, accused him of plotting attacks against Israeli troops and civilians and “working to rebuild Hamas’ military capabilities.”

His family’s account, however, differs greatly. In an exclusive interview with RT on Saturday, they described him as a journalist and religious teacher. His father, Abdelaziz, said al-Najjar worked as a field correspondent for Holy Quran Radio and was also a Quran teacher, preacher, and imam at the Ibad al-Rahman Mosque.

His brother, Alaa al-Najjar, said Muhammad held the family together through war and displacement.

“There is a massive void now,” he said. “He was the one who always kept the family united. We have lost a brother so dear that only God knows the depth of that loss.”

Al-Najjar was the 263rd Palestinian media worker killed since Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Government Media Office.

In February, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Israel was responsible for two-thirds of the record 129 journalists and media workers killed worldwide in 2025.

In March, RT correspondent Steve Sweeney and cameraman Ali Rida Sbeity narrowly survived a missile strike less than 10 meters from their position in southern Lebanon, suffering shrapnel wounds. Israel denies that it deliberately targets journalists, insisting its operations are directed against Hamas and other armed groups.

Al-Najjar’s killing comes amid Israeli strikes and gunfire across Gaza despite last October’s ceasefire, which the Palestinian authorities have accused Israel of violating. The Gaza Health Ministry says at least 1,431 Palestinians have been killed and 5,026 wounded since the agreement, bringing the overall toll since October 2023 to more than 74,000 dead, including at least 21,000 children, and 175,000 wounded.

The Pentagon has revised its previously underreported tally of US military deaths linked to the war with Iran, raising the official count to 21.

The Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) initially listed 18 US military deaths from hostile and non-hostile causes since the conflict began on February 28. The Washington Post reported last month, citing six US officials, that the database understated the number of deaths. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth called the findings “a complete lie.”

On Friday, the database was updated to include Army National Guard Maj. Sorffly Davius, 46, who died in Kuwait on March 6, and an unidentified Navy member who died by suicide in September.

It also recorded the death of Sgt. Devin A. Seibel, 26, who died in a training accident in Iraq in May. The military, however, did not link the incident to the war with Iran and classified it under Operation Inherent Resolve, the decade-long campaign against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS). His inclusion brings the broader number of US military fatalities in the Middle East since February 28 to 22, in line with the figure previously reported by the newspaper.

Democratic Representatives Adam Smith and Chrissy Houlahan criticized the incorrect count, calling it “an embarrassment” for the military.

“There is no excuse for a mistake of this magnitude,” they said in a joint statement.

Approached by the Washington Post, the Pentagon did not address the changes but said it “continues to maintain a steadfast commitment to the transparent, accurate accounting of all service member casualties.”

Last month, the US Navy acknowledged that eight sailors assigned to the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group attempted suicide during a ten-month deployment that included the Iran war. The disclosure followed reports of burnout, declining morale, and shortages of food and basic supplies.

Despite US President Donald Trump’s insistence that the campaign has been a success, a Reuters/Ipsos poll in September found that 62% of Americans disapprove of military strikes against Iran.

The conflict has also deepened political divisions ahead of November’s midterm election, with the financial cost and economic fallout drawing scrutiny. US Central Command estimated the bill at $43.6 billion through September 3, according to figures provided to lawmakers and seen by AP.

In a phone call on Friday, Trump discussed Iran with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who stressed that a diplomatic settlement remains possible and reiterated Moscow’s offer to accept Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium to help resolve the dispute over its nuclear program. Trump welcomed Russia’s diplomatic involvement, according to presidential aide Yury Ushakov.

American AI giant Anthropic has published a report detailing previously undisclosed instances of “unintended” actions by its artificial intelligence model, which included attempts to provide falsified information to the US authorities for the first time.

Some of the cases investigated by the company “involved websites run by US government agencies at the federal, state, and local levels,” Anthropic stated in a press release published on Friday, adding that it had briefed the White House and all the relevant agencies on the incidents.

In one instance mentioned in the report, its Claude Haiku 4.5 model filled out a police tip form linked to an ongoing homicide investigation. “I may have information regarding this case. I recall seeing someone matching the description in the area,” the AI model wrote, telling the police they can contact the sender “if this information is relevant” while leaving the name and contact fields empty.

Anthropic linked the incident to “ambiguous” instructions given to the model and “a misconfiguration within the environment” that prompted the model to fill out real forms instead of dummy ones prepared by the company.

Other incidents mentioned by Anthropic in its report involved the AI “exploiting a basic flaw in software to run commands on a server” or accessing “data that was gated by a token or a fee,” including on the government-run websites, by employing various workarounds. The company still described the newly revealed incidents as “significantly less severe from an alignment and security perspective” than the ones it had reported earlier.

The development adds to a pile of earlier incidents linked to rogue AI behavior reported by Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google. The tech giants have investigated tens of thousands of instances of problematic behavior by their frontier models, Axios reported in late September, adding that the list of cases involved the AI bypassing safeguards, hijacking websites, and evading monitors in testing and real-world settings.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has lashed out at Vladimir Zelensky, siding with President Donald Trump, who has warned that Kiev’s continued attacks on Russian oil refineries are worsening a global fuel crisis and hurting American farmers.

Trump also called for a change of leadership in Kiev, accusing Zelensky of repeatedly rejecting opportunities to end the conflict and deliberately ignoring Washington’s requests.

“We told him, do whatever you want, but don’t hit the diesel fuel, because there’s a big problem, a big shortage. And what does he do? He goes and hits the diesel fuel,” Trump told reporters outside the White House on Saturday. “He wants to make problems for the world… for our farmers, our ranchers, with diesel fuel.”

“Zelensky has gone too far,” Musk wrote on X on Sunday, directly responding to a White House video of the remarks, which were part of Trump’s broader criticism of Zelensky, including his suggestion that “it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president.”

@RapidResponse47 @POTUS Zelensky has gone too far

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 10, 2026

The latest spat erupted after Washington agreed to temporarily lift sanctions on Russian diesel exports following a phone call between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, a move intended to ease a global fuel shortage that has pushed up prices in the US and elsewhere.

Musk’s criticism carries particular weight given Ukraine’s heavy dependence on Starlink, the satellite internet network operated by his company, SpaceX. Since 2022, tens of thousands of Starlink terminals have been central to Kiev’s battlefield communications, drone operations, and coordination between military units. A complete loss of Starlink access could severely disrupt these capabilities and potentially trigger a major battlefield crisis.

Musk has repeatedly called for a negotiated settlement between Moscow and Kiev, and resisted Kiev’s attempts to expand its use of Starlink for attacks on Russian territory. In 2022, Musk refused to activate the network near Crimea to support a Ukrainian strike on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, warning that doing so would make SpaceX complicit in a major escalation.

“Elon keeps saying it’s time to make a deal,” an associate of former Ukrainian Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov told the magazine.

In an apparent effort to court the billionaire’s favor, Zelensky awarded Musk the Order of Freedom, one of Ukraine’s highest state honors, in August, praising his contributions to protecting lives and strengthening Ukrainian-American relations.

President Donald Trump has said the US could join Saudi Arabia’s military campaign against Yemen’s Houthis, signaling a potential reversal of his previous reluctance to intervene directly in the escalating conflict.

Speaking to reporters at the White House on Saturday, Trump was asked whether US forces could join the Saudi strikes against the Yemeni group, also known as Ansar Allah, following another deadly attack on Riyadh’s international airport.

”We may. We’re going to look at it,” Trump replied. “We just found out about the recent attack. So we’ll make a decision. We move very quickly.”

"Have you decided whether to join the Saudi strikes on the Houthis?" @POTUS: "We may. We're going to look at it. We just found out about the recent attack, so we'll make a decision. We move very quickly." https://t.co/8aUAneK2xB

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) October 10, 2026

Trump later suggested that Saudi Arabia is capable of defending itself without US involvement, describing the latest attack on the kingdom as “terrible.”

“They’re able to defend. The Saudis are good fighters. But I think the attack was a terrible thing,” Trump told reporters.

Asked again whether the US would intervene, he said: “You’re gonna find out… We have communication with the Houthis, and we’ll see what happens. But what they did was very bad.” 

The remarks came after a Houthi strike on King Khalid International Airport in the Saudi capital killed 12 people and injured another 309, according to updated figures released on Sunday by Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA). The dead included four Saudi citizens and eight foreign nationals, among them an American. Some of the injured are in critical condition.

The renewed fighting comes as Saudi-backed Yemeni forces have launched a major offensive to retake territory seized by the Houthis, including strategic areas near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The Saudi-led coalition said on Friday that it launched “large-scale operations” against the group, destroying 136 military targets, according to the spokesman.

Trump’s remarks suggest a potential shift in the US position. In September, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman repeatedly sought US military assistance against the Houthis, but Trump ultimately backed away from authorizing strikes despite preparations for an operation, according to the New York Times.

In March 2025, Trump ordered weeks of US air and naval strikes against Houthi positions, targeting missile launchers, radar installations, and other military infrastructure in an attempt to halt attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. The campaign ended abruptly in May under an Omani-brokered ceasefire after the Houthis agreed to stop targeting US vessels.

In September, Trump claimed that the Houthis contacted Washington, seeking to avoid another confrontation with US forces, saying the group “would much prefer not having us involved.” Ansar Allah denied making contact.

Death row inmate Christa Pike, who was convicted of murder in the US state of Tennessee, has been discharged from the hospital after surviving a botched execution. She was sent back to prison on Saturday, days after regaining the ability to walk and talk after receiving a double lethal injection, her lawyers said.

Pike, 50, was sentenced to death for the 1995 torture and murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow Job Corps student in Knoxville. Her execution, which was scheduled for September 30, was expected to be the first execution of a woman in Tennessee in more than 200 years.

The inmate did not lose consciousness after two syringes of pentobarbital were administered and complained of pain in her arm instead. She eventually lost consciousness but could be heard breathing heavily and snoring and still had a heartbeat nearly 90 minutes into the execution, prompting an ambulance to take her to the hospital, media reports suggest.

On Saturday, Pike was returned to the Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, where she had spent 30 years. “She is grateful to the first responders and her medical team for their care in these extraordinary circumstances,” her lawyers said, adding that she “is continuing to receive medical care at the prison.” 

The authorities provided no official explanation as to why Pike survived the execution. The New York Times reported earlier, citing medical experts, that Pike probably survived the procedure because the lethal drug leaked into tissue around the insertion sites instead of entering her bloodstream. The woman’s lawyers had warned that her medical history and small veins increased the risk that she would experience unnecessary pain.

Pike, then aged 18, was convicted of first-degree murder after she, her boyfriend, and another accomplice lured Slemmer, a fellow student, to an isolated area near the University of Tennessee agricultural campus, where Pike brutally beat her and cut her throat.

Her case is the second botched execution in Tennessee this year. In May, the execution of death row inmate Tony Carruthers was halted after officials repeatedly failed to establish intravenous access to administer pentobarbital. The governor granted the man a one-year reprieve and he was returned to death row. The incident raised questions about the state’s lethal injection procedures months before Pike’s execution.

A Houthi attack on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on Saturday killed 12 people, including an American citizen, and injured another 309, Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) confirmed on Sunday.

The Saudi aviation authority said the fatalities included four Saudi citizens and eight foreign nationals, including two Bangladeshis and one each from the US, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Palestine, and Sudan. Some of the 309 injured remain in critical condition, GACA said, adding that the extent of the damage to the airport is still being assessed.

The attack comes almost a week after Yemen’s internationally recognized and Saudi-backed government launched a major offensive to retake territory from the Iran-backed Houthis, including areas near the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Saudi-led forces have supported the operation with airstrikes, while the Houthis have retaliated with missile and drone attacks on targets in Saudi Arabia, including Riyadh’s international airport.

Footage from Terminal 3 of King Khalid Intl. Airport, Riyadh, following an Ansarallah ballistic missile strike. https://t.co/MoaFKmHR7B

— Tabz (@TabzLIVE) October 10, 2026

A missile struck the building housing two terminals used for domestic flights at the airport, AP reported, citing a regional official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

First video released from the Houthi missile impact site at Terminal 3 of King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Debris can be seen scattered on the ground, several people can also be glimpsed lying on the ground amidst the smoke. https://t.co/E0p3whcE24

— MoloMonitor 🇮🇹 (@MoloWarMonitor) October 10, 2026

Videos circulating on social media appear to show a plume of smoke rising above Terminal 3 following the strike.

Videos shared with us show that around two hours ago, the fire alarm went off at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh. Blood can also be seen on the ground, along with a large emergency response at the scene. https://t.co/ur6KM0Kpqn

— Faytuks Network (@FaytuksNetwork) October 10, 2026

At least 316 flights to and from Riyadh airport were canceled on Saturday, according to data from flight-tracking service Flightradar24. The US Embassy and several other Western diplomatic missions urged citizens to avoid the airport and warned of major travel disruptions.

Saudi Arabia has led a military campaign against the Houthis since 2015. The hostilities largely subsided following a UN-brokered ceasefire in 2022 before flaring up again this July following a strike on Sanaa Airport by Saudi-backed Yemeni forces.

Fighting escalated further in September as the Houthis made their biggest territorial gains in years, capturing the strategic port of Mocha and expanding their control along the Red Sea coast and around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a vital international shipping route.

Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a senior official and spokesman for the Yemeni group, also known as Ansar Allah, confirmed responsibility for the strike in an exclusive interview with RT, saying they were intended to force Saudi Arabia to agree to a “comprehensive and permanent peace” and an end to the war and mutual blockade.

Al-Bukhaiti accused Riyadh of destroying Yemen’s civilian infrastructure over the past 12 years, including airports, seaports, schools, hospitals, markets, and even wedding and funeral halls. He said the Houthis are now responding in kind to Saudi attacks, but insisted that the strikes are intended to pressure Saudi leaders into accepting a lasting peace agreement rather than motivated by revenge.

“Our military operations deep inside the Saudi entity will continue and will not end except by destroying all Saudi infrastructure belonging to the government,” he warned, specifically naming military facilities, airports, ports, and other vital installations.

In war-battered southern Gaza, a revived children’s media initiative is helping young Palestinians learn broadcasting skills, continue their education and pursue dreams beyond the conflict, local freelance journalist Rami Al Meghari reported for RT on Saturday.

Established in 2006, Pioneers of Palestine resumed operations earlier this year. The initiative now offers around 180 boys and girls aged eight to 18 television production training and other subjects in a basement studio in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.

“My ambition is to become a director,” one student told RT. The studio’s equipment could allow audiences worldwide to see that “Palestinian children have lives and aspirations similar to those of children elsewhere,” she said.

“This activity is something that is remarkable for this group and for the whole community right at this situation of war where the Israeli military continues its actions unabated on the territory from time to time, even after the ceasefire was instated back in October of 2025,” Al Meghari reported.

Israeli strikes have killed at least 1,481 Palestinians in Gaza since the October 10 armistice, according to the enclave’s health ministry.

Watch the full RT report below:

Ukraine should replace Vladimir Zelensky, US President Donald Trump told reporters outside the White House on Saturday, accusing the Ukrainian leader of refusing peace deals with Russia and worsening global diesel shortages.

“I think it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president,” Trump said.

“Zelensky could have settled this war many times. Many, many times. And he chooses not to,” he said.

Trump also accused Zelensky of ignoring warnings against attacking Russian refining facilities.

“We said, you can do whatever you want to Russia, don’t hit the refineries, because that’s a world problem that’s caused. And he wants to make problems for the world,” Trump said. “And what does he do? He goes and hits the diesel fuel.”

I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal.

Zelensky’s mandate as president expired in 2024, but he has retained power since, citing martial law. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stressed that this could undermine an eventual peace deal signed with Kiev.

“He should have an election,” Trump told reporters later in the day, reiterating that Zelensky “could’ve solved this war and he could’ve made a deal many times.”

🇺🇸🇺🇦 Trump calls for elections to be held in Ukraine "I think [Zelensky] should have an election" "Zelensky could have solved this war, or he could have made a deal many times" https://t.co/yJkK7X6jv9

— The Other Side Media (@TheOtherSideRu) October 11, 2026

Trump’s statements came a day after his phone call with Putin, during which the two presidents agreed on a deal aimed at easing the global fuel crisis. The US Treasury temporarily waived sanctions on Russian diesel exports immediately after the conversation.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak has confirmed that Moscow is ready to provide the fuel to Washington and other international buyers, and said that exports could be increased to one million tons by December.

Russia will begin lifting its diesel export restrictions ahead of schedule, he said.

A gunman opened fire at a home in Erie, Pennsylvania, killing at least nine people, according to local law enforcement. Two children are among the victims, the police said, adding that the suspect committed suicide.

The police received a report about a shooting at a residence in the city of Erie in the early evening on Friday, according to the local media. Two women were subsequently found dead outside of the home; the other victims were discovered inside.

The suspect reportedly initially barricaded himself indoors, leading to a standoff with the SWAT teams deployed to the scene, the police department said. A local news media outlet photographer, who was present at the scene, stated that he had heard screams and gunfire at some point during the standoff.

The gunman then took his own life, according to Erie Police Chief Rick Lorah, who said the suspect died from a “self-inflicted gunshot wound.”

Neither the victims nor the suspect have been publicly identified. The motives for the shooting also remain unclear. “Our investigators are working diligently to establish the full circumstances of what occurred,” Lorah said, adding that “it’s going to take some time to put this all together.”

A major energy deal reached on Friday to export Russian diesel to the US and global markets, potentially easing an international fuel shortage, is an “immediate win” for both US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Craig Pasta Jardula, host of the daily call-in show “Drive Time,” has told RT.

Both leaders spoke by phone for 90 minutes on Friday after which Trump announced Russia would immediately supply more than 300,000 tonnes of diesel, followed by 500,000 tonnes in November and an additional one million tonnes thereafter.

“I do think these are immediate wins for both Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. Trump has midterm elections coming up in less than a month, so he can tout this as a victory. One of the biggest concerns in the US is oil prices, so this will boost market confidence at a time when markets have become increasingly unstable,” Jardula said.

Diesel prices affect agriculture, home heating, and trucking costs, and are near record highs, posing a risk for Trump’s fellow Republicans ahead of elections on November 3 that will determine whether they retain control of Congress. US diesel futures fell almost 5% following news of the deal and were trading at $4.64 a gallon.

The Ukraine conflict dominated much of the discussion between the presidents, with Putin briefing Trump on the situation along the front lines and Moscow’s response to Ukrainian “terrorist strikes” on energy infrastructure and civilian targets deep inside its territory.

Putin said Kiev had effectively derailed plans to resume trilateral talks between Russia, Ukraine, and the US, which the leaders had discussed holding after Russia’s State Duma elections. Kremlin foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said Ukrainian drone attacks on polling stations and election officials had fundamentally changed the situation.

Moscow will now reconsider when negotiations can resume, according to the Kremlin aide.

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s plan to livestream the firing-squad execution of former Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 people at the Fort Hood base in 2009, is set to become an unprecedented event in the nation’s history.

Approved by US President Donald Trump, the plan has drawn bipartisan criticism and condemnation from human rights advocates and religious leaders, who say it risks turning an execution into a public spectacle.

What happened at Fort Hood

The fatal shooting occurred on November 5, 2009, at Fort Hood’s Soldier Readiness Processing Center in Texas, where troops prepared for overseas deployment. US Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a 39-year-old military psychiatrist, opened fire with two semiautomatic pistols, killing 12 service members and one civilian Defense Department employee, and wounding 32 more.

Military police injured Hasan by returned fire, leaving the shooter paralyzed from the waist down before taking him into custody. A US Senate report designated the spree killing as the deadliest terrorist attack on US soil since September 11, 2001.

The man behind the Fort Hood shooting

Born in the US in 1970 to Palestinian immigrant parents, Hasan trained as a doctor before becoming an Army psychiatrist. Before the shooting, he served at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Maryland, where he worked with service members, including those returning from combat zones. By 2009, he had attained the rank of major and was preparing for a transfer to Afghanistan.

Was the shooting part of a wider plot?

Hasan said he had acted in the name of jihad, and witnesses reported that he shouted “Allahu akbar” (“God is greatest”) during the shooting. Authorities examined the attack in the context of Islamic extremism, while the FBI said in the days immediately after the shooting that it had found no evidence of accomplices or a wider terrorist plot. Investigators continued examining the circumstances that led Hasan to carry out the attack.

From conviction to execution date

In August 2013, a military court found Hasan guilty of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder. Later that month, a panel of 13 senior military officers unanimously sentenced him to death, ordering his dismissal from the Army and forfeiture of all pay and allowances. Hasan has since been held on military death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Hasan would be executed by a firing squad of soldiers at Fort Hood on December, 3, at 1 PM – the same time the 2009 shooting began. Hegseth added that the execution would be livestreamed “because people need to understand there’s serious consequences for these types of things.”

Livestream plan draws bipartisan backlash

The plan has drawn criticism from lawmakers across party lines, religious leaders and the United Nations’ human rights office, which warned on Friday that broadcasting the execution would amount to “breach the absolute prohibition of torture.”

Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, said Hasan’s actions could not be condoned but called the livestream plan “a barbaric promotion of a culture of death,” warning that the decision would undermine the nation’s moral fabric.

The last widely recognized public execution in the US took place in Kentucky in 1936, when a convicted murderer was hanged in front of thousands of spectators.

How execution methods vary across US states

Firing squads are one of several execution methods permitted under US law, alongside lethal injection, electrocution, lethal gas and, in some jurisdictions, hanging. Execution by firing squad is legal in Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah. Electrocution is permitted in nine states, including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Tennessee. Several states also allow execution by lethal gas, including nitrogen hypoxia, under varying legal conditions, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

If carried out, Hasan’s execution would be the first in the US military since 1961, when Army Private John A. Bennett was hanged. The last known execution by a US military firing squad took place in November 1945. In 2025, South Carolina carried out the first civilian execution by firing squad in the US in 15 years.

Why is the Fort Hood shooter facing a firing squad?

The decision to execute Hasan by firing squad comes amid renewed scrutiny of lethal injection following a botched execution attempt in Tennessee last week. Christa Pike, a death-row inmate, survived after prison personnel failed to administer the lethal injection properly and was taken to hospital in critical condition. Earlier this week, her lawyers said she awoke, stressing that she had pneumonia, a blood clot, couldn’t swallow, and was unable to move her arms or hands.

Israel is angry that the Nobel Peace Prize committee has honored Navanethem ‘Navi’ Pillay, who chaired a UN commission accusing it of genocide in Gaza. Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels would have welcomed the decision, the Israelis said.

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory concluded in September 2025 that Israel was “responsible for the commission of four genocidal acts in Gaza with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza.” Israel vigorously disputed the findings of Pillay’s team.

A year earlier, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Gaza, including intentional targeting of civilians and using starvation as a method of warfare.

The UN says that some 1.98 million or 90% of the enclave’s population was displaced due to Israeli military attacks since October 7, 2023, with most of Gaza’s water and sanitation network damaged or destroyed.

Israel sent its forces into Gaza in retaliation for an incursion by Palestinian armed group Hamas, in which some 1,200 people lost their lives and 250 others were taken hostage.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced on Friday that the 125th Nobel Peace Prize would go to Pillay for “her efforts to promote peace and international law.” The 85-year-old South African lawyer, who was an ICC judge between 2003 and 2008, “has been instrumental in ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are prosecuted,” it said.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a post on X later in the day that honoring Pillay was a “grotesque weaponization of an award to legitimize anti-Israel hatred and prejudice.” The jurist was responsible for a “relentless, politically motivated demonization of Israel,” it claimed.

Goebbels was a loyal follower of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany’s propaganda minister between 1933 and 1945, who advocated the extermination of Jews.

The office of the Israeli prime minister suggested that the Nobel committee “has lost its moral compass” by giving the prize “to a bigot who built her career around inventing and propagating blood libels against the one and only Jewish state.”

Pillay, who currently sits on the International Court of Justice (ICJ), denied that she held any bias against Israel.

After being told by journalists that she had been awarded the prize, the jurist recalled that she was surprised when people complemented her on her courage for calling out Israeli actions in Gaza as genocide.

“Why would you need courage to speak the truth? You interpret the law. You look at all the facts, so it’s an impartial decision,” she insisted.

Israeli attacks have left more Palestinians dead in Gaza as the ceasefire approaches its first anniversary, without bringing an end to the violence.

At least eight Palestinians were killed and several others wounded in Israeli strikes and gunfire across the enclave on Thursday and Friday, according to local medical sources and rescue workers.

On Friday, Israeli troops reportedly shot dead a Palestinian man near refugee camps in central Gaza, wounding several others.

“Two people, a woman and a child, were killed and others were wounded when Israeli aircraft bombed a residential building” in Gaza City, the Civil Defense Service said. Another woman was killed by artillery fire, while a separate fatality was reported in central Gaza.

The US-brokered ceasefire took effect on October 10, 2025. Israel has continued to conduct strikes, saying it is targeting militants and accusing Hamas of violating the agreement.

More than 1,450 Palestinians have been killed and over 5,000 wounded since the truce began, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. UK-based aid group Islamic Relief said on Thursday that an average of one Palestinian has been killed or wounded every 90 minutes over the past year, with at least 320 children among those killed.

Nearly all of Gaza’s 2.1 million residents have been displaced during the war, which has left much of the enclave in ruins. Around 82% of its structures have been damaged or destroyed, according to Islamic Relief, while reconstruction has barely begun.

Netanyahu has also faced scrutiny over reports that he received advance warnings of the October 7 attack but downplayed the threat. Haaretz reported that UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed had warned him of a possible major Hamas operation roughly ten days beforehand. Netanyahu’s office dismissed the allegation as an “absolute lie.” The Israeli leader traveled to Abu Dhabi in late September to seek a denial of the claim that he had been warned.

US President Donald Trump’s top envoys have begun two days of negotiations with Ukrainian and European representatives in Miami, focusing on preparations for the coming winter and potential ways to de-escalate the Ukraine conflict on terms that would be acceptable to Moscow.

US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff described Friday’s discussions as “constructive,” saying American representatives had discussed prospects for a “lasting peace” with Kiev and its most hawkish European backers, including Britain, France and Germany, as well as officials from the European Commission and NATO.

The talks covered “near-term measures related to winter preparedness,” including energy resilience and grain exports, as well as longer-term security guarantees, post-war reconstruction and Ukraine’s potential accession to the EU, according to Witkoff.

“The exchange was productive and helped identify areas for further exploration ahead of the United States’ next engagement with Russia,” he wrote on X.

Today, representatives from the United States, the E3, the European Commission, Ukraine, and NATO met in Miami and held constructive discussions on potential avenues to de-escalate and conclude the war with Russia ahead of winter and advance efforts toward a durable and lasting peace. The discussions covered a broad range of issues, including near-term measures related to winter preparedness (energy resilience, grains exports), security guarantees, as well as longer-term arrangements for Ukraine’s and Europe’s security to prevent future conflicts, and support Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction and economic prosperity, including EU accession. The exchange was productive and helped identify areas for further exploration ahead of the United States’ next engagement with Russia. Participants reaffirmed their shared commitment to continuing diplomatic efforts toward a sustainable peace that strengthens security and creates opportunities for lasting stability and prosperity.

— Special Envoy Steve Witkoff (@SEPeaceMissions) October 9, 2026

The negotiations were scheduled to continue on Saturday, and no concrete agreements or breakthroughs have been announced so far.

The US delegation is led by Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, while Kiev is represented by Vladimir Zelensky’s chief of staff, Kirill Budanov, foreign intelligence chief Rustem Umerov, deputy chief of staff Sergey Kislitsa and senior lawmaker David Arakhamia.

The talks follow reports that Witkoff and Kushner were preparing to present “new ideas and proposals” aimed at breaking the diplomatic deadlock. According to Axios, the pair could travel to Moscow later this month for further talks with Putin.

One proposal under consideration reportedly involves a partial ceasefire covering strikes on energy infrastructure, amid growing anxiety among Kiev’s European backers over the economic and energy consequences of the conflict.

“They are all nervous about the winter. It will be a tough winter if the war does not stop,” a US source previously told AFP.

Zelensky lashed out at Trump, effectively accusing Washington of stabbing Kiev in the back by striking a separate diesel deal with Moscow. Zelensky branded the move “a weak decision by strong partners” and accused the US of using talks with the Ukrainian delegation in Miami as a “smokescreen” while negotiating with Putin behind Kiev’s back.

Trump has repeatedly pressed Zelensky to halt Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries, blaming them for worsening a global diesel shortage and driving up fuel prices for American consumers. According to Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov, Trump promised Putin that he would convey Moscow’s position to the Ukrainian delegation in Florida.

Paris and Berlin are contradicting each other on the fate of a much-heralded joint main battle tank development project. French Chief of Defense Staff General Fabien Mandon has claimed Germany withdrew from the program, while the German government says the opposite.

Known as the Main Ground Combat System (MGCS), the project was launched back in 2018 with the aim of replacing both the French Leclerc and German Leopard 2 main battle tanks. It was a collaboration between the Amsterdam-headquartered KNDS – the EU’s largest tank maker – the German Rheinmetall weapons manufacturing giant, and the French Thales industrial group. Berlin even purchased a 40% stake in KNDS in June, with another 40% held by Paris, when the project was still in full swing.

On Thursday, Mandon told French lawmakers that the plans for the project had essentially fallen through. “The outcome isn’t good. We had hoped to build a future tank in cooperation with the Germans, but unfortunately, we have to acknowledge that the Germans have withdrawn from the project,” he said during a hearing on next year’s budget.

A German Defense Ministry spokesperson denied that claim, stating that Berlin merely wants to “adjust” the program to include the “lessons” of the Ukraine conflict. “We remain committed to equal partnership in the MGCS and are focusing on future technologies for armored combat,” the official said, according to Reuters.

Madon himself stated in a press release published after the hearing that an industrial proposal submitted in early 2026 “was incompatible with the need to replace the current tanks by 2037,” prompting Berlin to opt for a national effort to replace its Leopard 2 tank.

The general also maintained that a decade of work had “not been in vain” and the MGCS project was not scrapped but rather “pushed back to the late 2040s.” Paris would now launch its own national development of “an interim” replacement for its Leclerc tanks, he added.

The total cost of the project remains unclear, although a French parliamentary budget report suggested that Paris authorized a total of €212 million ($237.3 million) for the program over 2025 and 2026. The German government has not published any specific figures related to the project’s funding, but said in 2024 that the two partners were “each contributing 50% of the costs.”

Another major Franco-German armament program collapsed just months ago. Dubbed the Future Combat Air System (FCAS), it aimed to produce a next-generation fighter jet by 2040. The venture failed in June after an estimated €3.2 billion in sunk R&D costs due to irreconcilable disputes between aircraft makers Dassault and Airbus.

Police in Lansing, Michigan, are investigating whether a serial killer is responsible for the deaths of five men found along a short stretch of a river trail in the city over the past year.

The victims, aged between 22 and 70, were all believed to be homeless. Their bodies were discovered along a 1.5-mile (2.4-km) section of the trail near downtown Lansing between October 2025 and August 2026.

”One question that we are being asked is ‘Do we have a serial killer in Lansing?’” Police Chief Robert Backus told reporters at a recent briefing.

”What we need the public to know is that we are investigating all of these cases. They are all active investigations, and we are looking at the idea or the possibility that these may be related cases.”

Four victims suffered apparent blunt-force injuries to the face, while the fifth was stabbed. Three deaths have been ruled homicides, one remains undetermined, and the cause of the fifth has yet to be established.

Edward Smith has been charged with murder in connection with the August 20 stabbing of Daniel Lusk, 22, but police have not linked him to the other deaths. Another victim, Louis Woodruff, 57, was found injured on August 30, after Smith’s arrest, and died on September 1.

A lack of witnesses and limited surveillance footage have hampered the investigation. Police have stepped up patrols and deployed mobile surveillance cameras along the trail, while social workers are reaching out to homeless residents to help them secure housing.

Serial killings are rare in the US, accounting for less than 1% of all murders according to the FBI. One of the country’s most high-profile recent cases involved Rex Heuermann, arrested in July 2023 in connection with the Gilgo Beach murders in New York. He was sentenced to life in prison this June after admitting to killing eight women.

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has lashed out at US President Donald Trump over his decision to lift sanctions on Russian diesel exports, accusing Washington of striking a deal with Moscow behind Kiev’s back.

Zelensky described the move as “definitely unfair,” “definitely not partner-like” and “a weak decision by strong partners,” effectively portraying it as a stab in the back just as Ukrainian negotiators and Kiev’s European backers were meeting American officials to discuss a potential peace settlement in Miami.

In a voice memo sent to Western journalists on Friday, Zelensky suggested Trump had used talks with Ukrainian negotiators as a “smokescreen” while pursuing a separate agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“You know, it looks like a happy birthday present for Putin. It looks absolutely terrible,” he told Axios in a separate phone interview, referring to the Russian leader’s 74th birthday earlier this week.

Q: Zelenskyy said you're weak because of the Putin deal. He just criticized you TRUMP: Who said that? Q: Zelenskyy. He said you're weak TRUMP: Okay. *walks away* https://t.co/niHd2ynoVP

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 9, 2026

Trump initially ignored journalists’ questions about Zelensky calling him “weak” but later brushed aside the criticism, defending the agreement as necessary to ease soaring fuel prices.

Reporter: President Zelensky said that this is a weak move by a strong partner that will only prolong the war. Trump: We need oil for the world and this is diesel, which is what we need. So we're very happy to get it. https://t.co/8clgGPbJvv

— Faytuks Network (@FaytuksNetwork) October 9, 2026

“We need oil for the world and this is diesel, which is what we need. So we’re very happy to get it,” the US president said.

The US Treasury subsequently issued a six-month sanctions waiver allowing Russian diesel exports, as Washington seeks to contain a global fuel shortage exacerbated by the US-Israeli war on Iran and Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries.

Trump has repeatedly blamed Kiev – and Zelensky personally – for worsening the global fuel crisis, accusing Ukraine of deliberately knocking out Russian refining capacity and driving up prices for American consumers.

Trump doubled down earlier this week, arguing that the main driver of soaring US fuel prices was no longer the disruption of oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, but Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has similarly linked the strikes to a broader global “energy shock.”

Despite Washington’s repeated warnings, Zelensky pledged last weekend to intensify long-range strikes on Russian oil facilities. A senior Ukrainian official told the Financial Times on Friday that Kiev would ignore Washington’s deal with Moscow and “will burn their refineries.”

Frustrstion and anger in Kyiv tonight over Trump's diesel deal with Putin. Zelenskyy blasts Trump, calling the move "weak." A senior Ukrainian official tells me Kyiv will continue its long-range drone strikes on Russia's energy facilities "We will burn their refineries."

— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) October 9, 2026

The fuel shortage has become an increasingly pressing domestic issue for Trump ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. US diesel prices surged to record highs above $6.50 per gallon in September, with prices in California exceeding $8 in some areas.

Putin confirmed following Friday’s conversation that Russia was prepared to supply oil and petroleum products to American and global markets, expressing confidence that the move would have a positive effect on the world economy.

Macron sends a nuclear message

When France’s military test-fired its latest nuclear-capable ballistic missile, the submarine-launched M51.3, on Tuesday, French President Emmanuel Macron chose to milk the spectacle for every last drop of propaganda value. “To be free, we must be feared,” he said. “And to be feared, we must be powerful.”

The launch, Macron said, was intended as “a clear message… for wherever it must be received.”

The missile may have splashed down in the north Atlantic, but the message was received “loud and clear” in Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the following day. “Problems should be resolved through dialogue, not demonstrative missile launches,” but Russia will take “all necessary measures” to protect its strategic security, Peskov added.

This domestic turmoil isn’t unique to France, nor is it something that can be fixed with minor policy tweaks. As RT examined on Friday, mass migration has already pushed European housing, security, and welfare systems to the breaking point. With native Europeans set to become minorities in their own countries in the coming decades, the social and political consequences could be deadly.

Germany’s enemies within

France is not the only European power gearing up for conflict abroad while its political and economic foundations disintegrate at home. Germanys’ foreign intelligence chief opened the week with a warning to lawmakers: Moscow is waging “a shadow war” against Europe, and “Germany is in danger ​of becoming embroiled in a violent conflict with Russia.”

The Kremlin views accusations of “shadow war” and “hybrid war” – which are unprovable by nature – as “hastily cobbled-together provocations,” designed to serve “Kiev and the militaristic wing of the European political class.”

However, the German government can’t trust the loyalty of its own intelligence agents. Former spymaster August Hanning was charged with treason and espionage this week, in what appears to be the country’s worst spy scandal since the Guillaume affair of the 1970s. 

German prosecutors aren’t revealing which foreign services Hanning allegedly collaborated with, but as RT explored in the latest installment in our ‘Wired for War’ series, all the signs point to Israel’s Mossad.

Russia reminds Zelensky what it’s capable of

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky is also on shaky ground this week. “Disappointment” and “shame” are now the most common feelings Ukrainians associate with him. US President Donald Trump blamed him for the worldwide diesel fuel shortage while Zelensky doubled down on silencing his critics, stepping up his long-range strikes on Russian oil refineries. 

He soon learned that Russia always responds. Russian forces pounded data centers, logistics hubs, weapons depots, and missile factories across Ukraine this week, including production plants of Ukraine’s flagship ‘Flamingo’ cruise missiles. “People in Ukraine should blame only the head of the Kiev regime for this. It is Zelensky who bears full personal and political responsibility for it,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement. 

The strikes continued all week, as Zelensky prepared to fly to Miami for a meeting with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner on Friday. Witkoff and Kushner were bringing “new ideas and proposals” aimed at resolving the conflict. The two could travel to Moscow later this month for another round of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

Although Zelensky’s situation at home may be deteriorating, he can still count on the support of his backers in Europe. Russian military blogger Mikhail Zvinchuk, who has been sanctioned by Ukraine and the EU over his war reporting, was detained in Montenegro on Friday. Zvinchuk founded the ‘Rybar’ Telegram channel, and was reportedly preparing to film a report on Montenegro’s plans to align its visa policy with EU standards. To the country’s pro-EU government, that now counts as “hybrid activity.”

‘Muslim NATO’ triggers article 5: Saudi Arabia calls for backup 

Saudi Arabia’s renewed conflict with Yemen’s Houthis is not going well for Riyadh. After conquering a swathe of new territory along the Red Sea coast and the Bab el-Mandeb strait, the Houthis declared Saudi airspace a “theater for military operations” this week, and struck Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport multiple times to make their point.

After an emergency meeting on Monday, Pakistan and Türkiye decided to deploy military forces to Saudi Arabia – the first deployment of the newly-formed “Muslim NATO.” Britain has also agreed to provide air-to-air refueling for Saudi warplanes; France is sending troops, radar, and air-defense systems; and Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former jihadist, is reportedly considering entering the conflict on the Saudi side. 

RT examined why the long-dormant Saudi/Houthi conflict is flaring up again, and compared the manpower, resources, and weaponry that Yemen’s Saudi-backed government and the Houthis bring to the table, as the government prepares for a ground offensive against the militants.

India hits a wall with Washington

A spat over work permits has driven another wedge between New Delhi and Washington. After US Vice President JD Vance lashed out at eight US and Indian tech giants for using H-1B visas to hire “indentured servants” from India over American workers, India’s Foreign Ministry slammed Vance for his “deeply offensive” comments.

“Resorting to terminology that carries painful historical and colonial legacy connotations is deeply offensive,” the ministry said. 

At the same time, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has accused Indian “oligarchs” of wielding undue influence over the country’s telecoms regulators, as his bid to introduce Starlink internet access to the Indian market remains stalled. India’s Communications Ministry called his allegations “baseless and misconceived,” but Musk doubled down on Thursday, asking whether telecoms and media tycoon Mukesh Ambani was “the real boss of India?”

And finally…

BRICS could face its biggest political test yet, however, if Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva loses his upcoming runoff election against Flavio Bolsonaro, son of imprisoned former President Jair Bolsonaro. Should Bolsonaro win, he is likely to pull Brazil into the orbit of the US, where Trump has made no effort to conceal his hostility toward BRICS.

Russian analyst Fyodor Lukyanov broke down what a Bolsonaro victory would mean for the multipolar project, and with two weeks to go until the runoff election, we’ll be keeping a close eye on Brazil.

Israel is now formally in campaign mode. The Knesset dissolved on July 17, and voters go to the polls on October 27, 2026. A week later, on November 3, American voters decide the composition of Congress.

The overlap is almost exact, and it has turned the relationship between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump into something closer to a competition than an alliance. What helps one man survive politically threatens to sink the other.

Netanyahu needs Iran to dominate the Israeli campaign. His best path back to power runs through a public that feels an immediate security threat and a prime minister positioned as the only leader capable of ordering military action at scale. Trump needs the opposite: proof to American voters that a long war is over, that gasoline prices are falling, and that no more Americans are dying for someone else’s fight. The result is a near-perfect zero-sum bind. A new round of escalation could hand Netanyahu a path to victory while costing Republicans their House majority. A negotiated end to the conflict could hand Trump a signature achievement while leaving Netanyahu exposed to hostile polling and an unresolved domestic reckoning.

On paper, Netanyahu’s position looks weak. The Knesset has 120 seats, a governing coalition needs 61, and any party must clear a 3.25% threshold to enter parliament at all – meaning the real battle isn’t just for vote share but for keeping allied parties above the line.

As of October 8, 2026, Israeli polling presents a mixed picture, with neither Netanyahu’s bloc nor the Zionist opposition securing a parliamentary majority in the latest surveys. A Channel 13 poll published on October 7 put Netanyahu’s bloc at 55 seats, the Zionist opposition at 50, and Arab parties at 15. The Yashar party of former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot and Netanyahu’s Likud were tied at 20 seats each, although Eisenkot retained a personal lead as the preferred prime minister, with 44% support against Netanyahu’s 40%.

A Channel 12 poll published on October 5 showed a different balance: 49 seats for Netanyahu’s bloc, 54 for the Zionist opposition and 13 for Arab parties. Yashar led Likud by 23 seats to 21, while Eisenkot led Netanyahu by 41% to 38% on suitability for prime minister.

A summer survey on whether Netanyahu should even run again found that 61% of Israelis opposed his participation in the upcoming election, while 35% supported it. Among Jewish respondents, 57% opposed another candidacy and 39.5% supported it.

None of this makes his defeat inevitable, because the opposition’s real problem is forming a coalition. Eisenkot, the Bennett-Lapid alignment, Avigdor Liberman’s party, and the left could plausibly out-poll Netanyahu’s bloc and still lack a workable majority without leaning on Arab parties, an arrangement much of the Jewish opposition leadership is unwilling to commit to publicly. A Netanyahu bloc stuck around 50 seats doesn’t automatically mean a change of government; it leaves room for him to peel off defectors, split rivals, or force a repeat election.

His current partners – the ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism, along with the far-right Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism – are disciplined blocs, but keeping them requires continuing to push yeshiva exemptions from military conscription, expanding executive influence over the judiciary and media, and holding a hard line on the Palestinians. Those same moves alienate the center, military reservists, and secular Israelis. The conscription fight in particular has repeatedly brought the coalition to the brink of collapse, and in its final weeks before dissolution the outgoing Knesset pushed through several contested measures on conscription, judicial authority, and media regulation.

Security remains the one lever capable of reshaping the campaign overnight. On the normal political agenda, Netanyahu has to answer for the October 7, 2023 intelligence and defense failure, the strain of prolonged reserve-duty mobilization, a difficult economy, and years of domestic polarization. A fresh war pushes all of that into the background and reframes the election as a referendum on wartime leadership.

The pattern has already played out once. After what Israelis broadly regarded as a successful twelve-day war with Iran in summer 2025, Likud’s support hit its highest point since the 2022 election. But by July 2026 the party had slid back down to roughly 21-24 seats.

Israeli public opinion is a genuine paradox here: war-weary, yet unwilling to accept a settlement seen as premature. Only 38% of respondents believe Israel’s security position has actually improved since the war with Iran. Polling from the Institute for National Security Studies finds 43% believe the war ended without a clear result, 37% consider Iran the winner, and just 15% consider Israel the winner. Separately, 66% viewed the US-Iran memorandum signed in June as unfavorable to Israel, and a majority of Jewish respondents have said ending the war on its current terms is incompatible with the country’s security interests.

This paradox gives Netanyahu an opening to argue the war produced nothing decisive because Washington called off the pressure too early. New war with Iran, in this framing, is finishing an unfinished job: dismantling nuclear infrastructure, ballistic missile production, IRGC command targets, and the logistics networks supporting Iran-aligned militias.

Such an escalation could pull wavering right-of-center voters back from Eisenkot and Bennett toward Likud. But Eisenkot himself is a former chief of staff with his own security credentials, which means a strike alone won’t be enough – Netanyahu needs a fast, unambiguous result he can credibly claim as his own achievement.

A drawn-out or inconclusive operation would do the opposite. Israelis are already skeptical of what has been achieved so far; further destruction, extended mobilization, and strikes on the home front risk changing the question from “is Netanyahu decisive enough” to “why, after years of fighting, has this government still not delivered lasting security.”

There’s an economic constraint layered on top. The Bank of Israel’s forecast projects 4% GDP growth in 2026, a budget deficit of 4.9% of GDP, and public debt near 69% of GDP – but that assumes no new war with Iran and a cooling of hostilities in Lebanon. The central bank has warned that a proposed defense-spending increase of up to 25 billion shekels (about $8.1 billion) would push up the deficit, debt, and inflation simultaneously. A new war could therefore improve Netanyahu’s electoral standing while it undermines the macroeconomic recovery his government depends on.

Netanyahu needs to persuade Trump of three things: that any diplomatic pause gives Tehran time to rebuild its missile and nuclear capacity; that limited strikes around the Strait of Hormuz don’t resolve the underlying strategic problem; and that any agreement must include dismantling enrichment capacity, removing stockpiled material, capping the ballistic missile program, and weakening Iran’s regional proxies.

Israel’s regional strategy much more than just Iran, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Yemen, strategic competition with Türkiye, and preserving military superiority amid the possible sale of F-35s to Ankara. Trump’s agenda is even wider: freedom of navigation, energy prices, the relationship with Saudi Arabia and Türkiye, expanding the Abraham Accords, and casting himself as the president who ended the war. Israel remains a central ally in that picture, but no longer the only crucial player.

A new war is dangerous for Trump

At home, however, election math is pulling Trump in the opposite direction. Republicans are defending an extremely narrow majority in the November 3 midterms. The House currently stands at 218 Republicans to 214 Democrats, one independent, and two vacancies. The Senate split is 53 Republicans to 45 Democrats and two independents caucusing with Democrats – and of the seats up for election, 22 are held by Republicans against just 13 held by Democrats, which is obviously structurally unfavorable for the Republicans.

A war with Iran is itself an electoral liability. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found only about a third of Americans support it, against 62% opposed. Roughly 69% of respondents, including 40% of Republicans, say Trump has failed to explain the operation’s objectives. Earlier Pew and Quinnipiac surveys told a similar story, with 59% to 60% calling the use of force a mistake or not worth the cost.

For American voters, the war’s most tangible effect is the price at the gas pump. Disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and volatile oil prices pushed the average gasoline price above four dollars a gallon; EIA data puts the national average at $4.35 as of October 5, after peaking near $4.56 in the spring. The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index slipped from 88.6 in August to 81.9 in September, the lowest since 2014.

Congress has already registered the discontent. On July 23, the Republican-controlled House passed a resolution demanding an end to military action against Iran without congressional authorization, 214 to 208, with four Republicans crossing party lines. The measure is largely symbolic, but it demonstrates how easily the Iran question could split a majority that already has no margin for error.

Two paths forward

The immediate choice facing both leaders has changed from whether to start a fresh offensive or pursue a peace deal, to whether the current pause can survive the election season. On October 8, Trump said the US would not attack Iran before the November 3 midterms, while keeping the blockade in place and describing talks with Tehran as productive. That in turn puts a publicly declared American timetable around Netanyahu’s room for maneuver before Israel’s October 27 vote. It does not amount to a peace agreement, guarantee Israeli restraint, or rule out a response to a new attack.

Escalation remains a risk, but it can no longer be presented as an equally likely, openly US-backed campaign strategy before the elections. Axios reported on October 7 that the Pentagon had ordered preparations for possible renewed combat. If fighting resumes, Netanyahu could try to rally voters around wartime leadership, but the electoral benefit would depend on the outcome. A brief operation with demonstrable gains might help Likud; missile retaliation, civilian losses, and renewed mobilization could instead reinforce doubts about his government’s ability to deliver lasting security.

A diplomatic breakthrough could still improve Trump’s position, especially if it makes shipping safer and brings sustained relief at the pump. Its effect on Netanyahu would depend on the terms. An agreement seen in Israel as leaving Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities insufficiently constrained could expose him to criticism from both rivals and his own right-wing partners. A settlement with credible restrictions and verification could give him an achievement to defend. In either case, a quieter security environment would leave more room for the domestic issues already shaping the campaign: accountability for October 7, ultra-Orthodox conscription, and the confrontation over the judiciary.

The shared-success option rests on sustained pressure producing enforceable concessions without another regional escalation. Both leaders could claim credit for such an outcome. But negotiations, implementation, and verification are unlikely to fit within the remaining days before the election, and neither Washington nor Jerusalem has control over Tehran’s response. A pause that holds through the votes may still leave the central disputes unresolved and renewed fighting possible afterward.

The US Treasury Department has announced a temporary sanctions waiver on the Russian fuel trade amid skyrocketing global prices. The move allows the sale, delivery, offloading, and import of Russian diesel, including to the United States, until at least April 7, 2027.

The announcement came after President Donald Trump announced a major agreement with Moscow, following a Friday phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Russia will immediately supply over 300,000 Tons of Diesel Fuel to the American and Global Marketplace, another 500,000 Tons during the month of November, and 1,000,000 Tons immediately thereafter,” Trump stated in a Truth Social Post, adding that Moscow could provide up to 3,000,000 tons of additional diesel “within a short period of time” depending on the state of its refineries, which have recently been under constant threat of long-range Ukrainian strikes.

Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak also confirmed that Moscow would be lifting diesel export restrictions ahead of schedule. The process will be started “immediately,” the official told TASS.

“Russia welcomes US steps aimed at stabilizing the global energy market and gradually restoring normal energy trade, and stands ready to coordinate future actions to create a more predictable and healthy market,” the deputy prime minister stated.

Under the existing restrictions, fuel producers have been barred from exporting fuel until the end of October and non-producers were banned from doing it until January 31, 2027. A total ban on gasoline exports is in place until the end of January as well.

The development comes as the global markets are still reeling from the supply disruptions linked to the US-Israeli war with Iran. Russell Hardy, the CEO of Vitol – one of the world’s largest oil trading companies – warned earlier this week that the market had burned through much of the stock that previously helped absorb disruptions. There aren’t any more inventories to drain in the West,” he stated on Wednesday.

Last week, G7 countries agreed to release 100 million barrels of crude and refined products from emergency stocks, beginning with diesel to curb the soaring prices as the Trump administration demanded Europe do more to deal with the issue.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump held a 90-minute phone conversation on Friday, discussing the Ukraine conflict, a major agreement on Russian diesel supplies, the crisis surrounding Iran, and prospects for broader cooperation between Moscow and Washington.

Trump described the exchange as “highly successful,” announcing that Russia had agreed to supply millions of tons of diesel fuel to American and global markets in an effort to ease soaring energy prices.

Kremlin foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said the conversation was friendly and substantive, revealing that Trump had rearranged his schedule to speak with Putin following the Russian leader’s 74th birthday.

Here are the key takeaways from the conversation, according to statements by both leaders and the Kremlin’s detailed readout.

Millions of tons of Russian diesel for the US

The most immediate result of the talks was a major energy agreement under which Russia will increase diesel exports to the US and global markets, potentially helping alleviate an international fuel shortage.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak subsequently confirmed that Moscow would begin lifting its diesel export restrictions ahead of schedule, reiterating the announced volumes and clarifying that exports could eventually reach 3 million tons per month, while assuring that Russia’s domestic market would remain fully supplied.

The US Treasury also issued a temporary sanctions waiver covering Russian diesel shipments until April 7, 2027.

Trump predicted that the agreement, together with Washington’s claimed control of the Strait of Hormuz, would bring diesel prices down rapidly, particularly benefiting American farmers, truckers and consumers.

Kiev ‘derailed’ peace talks

The Ukraine conflict dominated much of the discussion, with Putin briefing Trump on the situation along the front line and Moscow’s response to Ukrainian “terrorist strikes” on infrastructure and civilian targets deep inside Russian territory. The Russian leader stressed that Moscow retained the initiative and remained committed to its objectives, while expressing readiness for a lasting diplomatic settlement.

Moscow would now reconsider when negotiations could resume, according to the Kremlin aide. Trump reportedly promised to convey Russia’s position to Ukrainian representatives meeting with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Miami.

Iran diplomacy ‘not exhausted’

Putin stressed that a negotiated settlement with Tehran remained possible, citing his October 8 meeting with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in Turkmenistan.

Moscow also reiterated its offer to accept highly enriched Iranian uranium as a potential way out of the nuclear deadlock. Trump welcomed Russia’s involvement in diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis, Ushakov added.

Melania’s humanitarian mission

Putin personally thanked First Lady Melania Trump for her efforts to reunite children separated from their families during the Ukraine conflict.

Closer ties – and another summit?

The leaders expressed satisfaction with existing communication channels between their administrations, intelligence services and other government agencies, agreeing to maintain cooperation.

Asked whether the two presidents had agreed to meet in person, Ushakov said no specific summit had been discussed. However, he suggested that the upcoming APEC summit in China could provide an opportunity for another encounter if both leaders attended.

The Kremlin aide also declined to disclose whether Washington had offered any concessions in exchange for Russia’s agreement to supply diesel, suggesting that American officials might provide further clarification.

Birthday wishes and hockey diplomacy

Officials subsequently arranged the call around Putin’s trip to Turkmenistan and the time difference between Moscow and Washington, with Trump postponing some previously scheduled engagements.

The US president opened the conversation with birthday wishes and greetings from Melania. The leaders also found time to discuss sports, with Trump praising Russian hockey star Alexander Ovechkin’s contribution to the game.

Mikhail Zvinchuk, the founder of the Russian military Telegram channel Rybar, announced on Friday that he, along with his wife and team, was being flown back to Russia.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova confirmed in a comment to TASS that the Russian nationals had been released and were awaiting their flight.

It followed their detention for eight hours in Montenegro by the country’s police and domestic intelligence agency in the coastal town of Risan due to “national security” concerns, as reported by local media.

He said that his team was detained at around 7 AM, the day after asking official permission to film a documentary at the Serbian Orthodox Cetinje Monastery.

However, instead of receiving a response from the bishop they had contacted, Zvinchuk said police arrived the following morning, searched their belongings, and confiscated their filming equipment without any official record or procedure.

The Rybar channel thanked Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Second European Department, and Russia’s ambassadors to Montenegro and Serbia for their help in resolving the situation.

Montenegro, a country of fewer than 650,000 people, has been seeking EU membership since 2008. The Balkan country joined NATO in 2017 despite protests from opponents who recalled the military bloc’s 1999 bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, of which Montenegro was then a part alongside Serbia.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is an instrument of neocolonialism designed to exploit Africa, Liberian politician Emmanuel Gonquoi has said.

Speaking to RT on Thursday, Gonquoi, a commander from the Economic Freedom Fighters of Liberia, urged African nations and developing countries to abandon The Hague-based court, accusing it of serving Western interests rather than delivering impartial justice.

“It is about time for African nations and developing countries to withdraw from the ICC because the ICC has been controlled as an instrument for neocolonialism,” he said.

Established in 2002 under the Rome Statute, the ICC is tasked with prosecuting genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression, and relies heavily on the cooperation of its 125 members. However, some of the world’s most powerful states, including the US, China, India, and Russia, reject its authority.

The court has long faced accusations of disproportionately targeting Africa and selective justice. Five countries – Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Chad, and Venezuela – have initiated withdrawal proceedings, raising concerns about its future.

Gonquoi argued that African leaders face prejudice at the court, claiming they are effectively presumed guilty before their cases are heard. He also accused Western powers of influencing judicial outcomes to advance their political interests.

“What we see in the Netherlands is not a globalized justice forum,” he said, describing the ICC as a system set up to “exploit Africa” and prevent African leaders from making decisions that benefit their own countries.

Watch the full interview below.

British sailors are drilling to fend off potential drone attacks against £4 billion ($5.3 billion) Vanguard-class subs using fire hoses as the only onboard “air defense weapon,” The Sun has reported.

The hoses, known as “center fed reels” are placed on submarine decks as a precaution when the vessels are moored at the British naval base Clyde in Scotland, the UK’s most sensitive military site, the tabloid reported on Thursday, citing anonymous sources. The equipment has pistol-grip nozzles that would allow sailors to direct water at approaching drones.

“You have to use what you’ve got,” the tabloid cited one of its sources as saying.

The Royal Navy’s four Vanguard-class ballistic missile submarines are the only British platforms equipped to carry and launch Trident II nuclear missiles, which deliver the UK’s only operational nuclear weapons. According to The Sun, the Navy insists that layered defenses, including “physical barriers, patrols, surveillance, monitoring, and counter-drone capabilities,” protect the subs.

The report comes as the Royal Navy is facing what a former senior commander has described as its worst crisis in 350 years.

West described the number of ships the Navy has as “pathetic.” The fleet has just five operational frigates and no amphibious assault ships, while former Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government retired four frigates, two assault ships, two tankers, and a nuclear-powered submarine during his time in office, The Sun reported in July.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed claims that Moscow wants to attack NATO and has accused Western European leaders of escalating tensions with Moscow, pointing to their statements about preparing for a possible war with Russia in 2029 or 2030, repeated military exercises in the Baltic Sea, and attempts to detain Russian vessels. “This is all escalation,” he said last week.

The native population in several European countries could become a minority within the next two decades if current demographic trends continue, according to a new model projecting the long-term effects of migration and declining birth rates.

Meanwhile, European governments continue to portray migration as an investment in the future, even as local communities grapple with high housing costs, overstretched public services, and persistent failures in border enforcement.

Who is doing the counting?

The Demography Dashboard was published earlier this week by the Institute for Remigration (IFR), run by Austrian activist and author Martin Sellner. He campaigns for sharply reducing immigration and encouraging or enforcing migrant departures, with the aim of preserving native majorities.

The model uses official national population statistics to project how migration, births, and deaths could change Europe’s population. It generally carries forward migration levels averaged over 2015-2024 and holds birth and death rates constant.

When will Europeans become a minority in their own country? The IFR Demography Dashboard answers that question - and shows how remigration could change the course. https://t.co/alL0saMOhb

— Institute for Remigration (@remigrationinst) October 5, 2026

Its “migrant” category includes arrivals from Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere, as well as other European countries, both inside and outside the EU. Depending on the country, it also includes locally born descendants and people who have acquired a national passport. Citizenship alone does not remove someone from the category: Germany, for example, counts people who were born without German citizenship or have at least one parent who was.  

“Native” generally means people without that migration background, but the definitions vary. Britain’s calculation uses ethnicity instead – White British and White Irish people count as native, while all other ethnic groups fall into the model’s migrant category, regardless of birthplace or passport.  

A generation of change

Switzerland is projected to cross the dashboard’s 50% threshold first, in 2038, from a modeled migrant-background share of 41.2% in 2026. Belgians will become a minority in their own country in 2044, Germany will cross the threshold a year later, and Sweden a year after that (2046). Their modeled immigrant starting shares were respectively 36.6%, 32%, and 36.8%.

The UK is also expected to reach that threshold in 2053, starting at 27.2%, while Spain follows in 2057, from a 25.4% base. For France, the dashboard cites a separate study projecting a similar shift around 2050 under its high-migration scenario.

More arrivals, fewer affordable homes

Across Europe, immigration has added demand for housing and public services that were already struggling to cope. Spain and Ireland are stark examples of governments admitting newcomers without ensuring there are enough homes and infrastructure.

In Spain, immigration-driven population growth has outpaced housing construction, while soaring rents have pushed residents into the streets. The eviction of an 87-year-old woman from her Madrid home of 70 years last month has become a rallying point for sprawling protests across the country. The woman died on October 7.

Immigration is the main driver of housing demand in both Ireland and Spain. It is long past time government slowed the pace of worker and student visa issuance to ease housing demand growth. It should not be controversial to say demand needs to managed, and it is certainly not anti-immigration never mind anti-immigrant.

— Dan O'Brien (@danobrien20) October 6, 2026

In Ireland and Britain, taxpayer-funded accommodation for asylum seekers has fueled resentment among residents struggling to rent or buy. Ireland’s purchase of Dublin’s Citywest Hotel for asylum accommodation prompted protests over the loss of a local amenity in an area already short of facilities.

Britain’s asylum accommodation contracts, meanwhile, are projected to cost £15.3 billion ($21.2 billion) over a decade, more than triple the original estimate. Private providers have amassed substantial profits while communities face added pressure on housing and services.

Security failures

The influx of migrants to Europe over the past decade has also contributed to a major security debate, sharpened by attacks involving people who should already have been removed, or whose dangerous behavior was known to the authorities.

Deadly suspected terrorist attacks have taken place in France, Germany, and Britain involving migrants, exposing failures in screening, monitoring, and deportation enforcement.

Foreign nationals accounted for 42.9% of identified violent-crime suspects in Germany in 2025, disproportionately represented even as recorded violent crime declined, according to police figures.

New video released of the illegals t3rrorizing Paris. (Legal) French citizens / passengers of the subway were trapped as they’re attacked by the fighting age men whom President Macron & his husband imported. Is this what the EU leaders wanted for the first world? https://t.co/O9vYsyJW8l

— The Beringer Project (@BradBeringer) October 2, 2026

Crackdown on dissent

Drawing attention to the issue, however, has been effectively banned in some European countries. In Britain, the overzealous crackdown on “anti-migrant sentiment” has extended to criminally prosecuting locals for social media posts opposing uncontrolled migration, or even something as mundane as waving the British flag in public.

Former French presidential candidate Eric Zemmour has also faced prosecution over his immigration rhetoric. In September 2025, France’s highest court upheld a €15,000 fine for racial insults and inciting hatred over a speech in which he described immigrants as “colonizers” and Muslim clothing as the “uniforms of an occupation army.”

Growing backlash

The authorities, however, have frequently responded by condemning the protests rather than addressing their complaints. Ahead of May’s London march, the British prime minister accused its organizers of “peddling hate and division.”

Meanwhile, parties promising tighter controls have continued to gain public support. In Germany, an October 3 poll put the right-wing AfD at 30%, well ahead of the governing CDU/CSU’s 18%.

Washington’s warning

Europe’s immigration policies have also drawn criticism from abroad. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked the approach, accusing European leaders of “destroying your heritage” through migration policies adopted in the name of being politically correct. His administration has put border restrictions and deportations at the center of its own approach.

Speaking in Athens on Wednesday, he accused Western governments of opening borders while surrendering sovereignty to global bureaucracies. He criticized the fashion of prioritizing the “global community over one’s own people” and called for cooperation to secure Europe’s borders against mass migration.

Orders to leave, little effect

European governments have increasingly promised tougher migration controls, but enforcement continues to lag. In the second quarter of 2026, EU countries issued around 110,000 orders to leave, while fewer than 37,000 people were actually returned outside the bloc.

Appeals, missing documents, and countries refusing to take people back have repeatedly delayed removals, while European governments’ own asylum laws have created further bureaucratic barriers to deportations.

Moving detention abroad has offered no simple solution either. Britain abandoned its Rwanda scheme in 2024 after spending nearly a billion dollars only to ultimately relocate four volunteers. Italy’s attempts to offshore asylum processing to Albania were also blocked by the courts, which allowed Rome to use just one of the centers to hold migrants awaiting deportation.

The pressure has also exposed divisions within Europe’s supposedly border-free Schengen area. Germany, France, Austria, and several other members have reinstated checks on travelers arriving from neighboring countries, citing migration and security concerns. Following the Ceuta crisis, Italy also reinstated border checks on all air and sea routes from Spain, with Madrid responding in kind.

Pope Leo is tapping into public fears of artificial intelligence to distract people from the Catholic Church’s latent child sex abuse scandals, Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel has claimed. The gay US tech billionaire also accused former President Barack Obama of exploiting opposition to AI for political gain.

The remarks come as AI developers themselves warn that the technology could soon spiral beyond human control. OpenAI chief Sam Altman and xAI owner Elon Musk have backed calls to slow the development of increasingly powerful AI models after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned that rogue systems could seize control of vast swathes of the internet within months, causing hundreds of billions of dollars in damage.

During a series of closed-door lectures in Nashville, Thiel singled out both leaders while stepping up his warnings about the Antichrist, a prophesied figure traditionally associated with deception and opposition to the teachings of Jesus. Thiel has argued that such a figure could exploit fears of AI and other catastrophic threats to halt technological progress and impose a heavily regulated “one world government.” His remarks, delivered on September 28 and October 5, were revealed by Politico on Thursday.

“Many people know that AI is politically unpopular and want to leverage that to boost their own popularity,” Thiel said. “Both Obama and the pope fall into this category. Obama knows the Democrats have no ideas, but they can at least oppose AI.”

The openly gay Republican surveillance company billionaire went on to accuse Leo XIV of using the debate over AI to shift attention away from decades of sexual abuse scandals within the Catholic Church.

“He needed something politically popular to distract from the church’s child sex abuse scandals, and he found it in AI,” Thiel said, referring to the pope’s first encyclical, published in May.

Leo XIV has made AI a major focus of his papacy, warning about the dangers of unchecked development and its impact on human dignity, individual freedoms and the concentration of power.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has also called for government regulation, warning that AI in the hands of malicious actors could trigger events causing “a billion deaths.” Nobel Prize-winning computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton has similarly warned that increasingly powerful systems could eventually escape human control, with catastrophic consequences for humanity.

NATO has asked Moscow “not to worry” about the US-led military bloc’s upcoming nuclear warfare drills, despite weeks of escalated war rhetoric from its member states, which are ostensibly preparing their populations for a war with Russia. 

NATO’s forces will practice responding to launch orders, flying mock nuclear delivery sorties, and maintaining communications under the stress of nuclear war during its ‘Steadfast Noon’ exercises from October 13 to 23. The drill will involve 17 of the bloc’s 32 member states and will not involve live nuclear weapons.

This year alone, bloc forces have run three separate exercises on the borders of the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, after which Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski suggested a further buildup of NATO forces in the area in order to keep Moscow “uncertain of what we will do.”

The Kremlin issued a stern warning in response, stating that Russia is “ready to use all its arsenal, including nuclear weapons, to defend its territory if NATO countries try to isolate Kaliningrad.”

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and European governments insisted in recent weeks that Russia is waging a “hybrid war” against the West. The accusations are by their nature unprovable, and have been described by analyst Thomas Fazi as a form of “hybrid warfare” against the European public, in which “Europeans are being subjected to a sustained campaign of cognitive or psychological warfare aimed at conditioning them to believe that Europe is under attack from Russia.”

NATO’s nuclear policy director, Nassima Barrows, told Politico on Thursday that the fact that the drills are held every year should serve as “a clear message to nations like Russia that there is no need to worry.”

Russia read the message “loud and clear,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded, adding that Russia will take “all necessary measures” to protect its national security.

During his speech at a session of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna on Thursday, Russian envoy Dmitry Polyansky reiterated that Moscow “threatens no one and has no intention of attacking anyone.”

At the same time, however, the country “cannot ignore the development of plans by NATO for a direct military clash with Russia, nor the bloc’s simulation of scenarios involving a military-political blockade of Kaliningrad Region,” he stressed.

“Our response to any unfriendly moves will be swift,” Polyansky said, urging NATO not to test Russia’s patience or push the European continent “toward the point of no return.”

French riot police have deployed tear gas and water cannon, as well as charging with batons against crowds of young protesters in central Paris.

Student demonstrations and labor union protests continued for a fifth week on Thursday over anger at underfunded schools, teacher shortages, and planned government spending cuts.

The unrest began in mid-September at a high school in Creteil, near Paris, where students protested unfilled teaching posts. The movement subsequently spread nationwide, with demands for smaller classes, improved school facilities, and more funding for public education. The demonstrations have also coincided with labor union rallies against proposed budget cuts aimed at reducing the deficit.

Videos circulating online show violent clashes between thousands of protesters and riot police in the French capital. Officers wielded batons and deployed water cannon and tear gas in an effort to break up the raging crowds of young people.

Manifestation lycéenne et étudiante : premières tensions à paris sur la place de la Bastille, charge des forces de l'ordre et usage de gaz lacrymogène pour disperser la foule. pic.twitter.com/y4pvPfzz2Q

— CLPRESS / Agence de presse (@CLPRESSFR) October 8, 2026

The French government said Thursday that 24 high schools across the country had sustained significant damage during the protests. The authorities also reported that 375 schools were fully or partially closed on Thursday. The Justice Ministry has estimated the cost of repairing the damaged school buildings and street infrastructure nationwide at several million euros.

Manifestation lycéenne et étudiante : la tension ne retombe pas sur la place de la Bastille, les forces de l'ordre font usage d'un canon à eau face aux manifestants. pic.twitter.com/eSuQdXQXVP

— CLPRESS / Agence de presse (@CLPRESSFR) October 8, 2026

According to the Interior Ministry, 71,500 people took part in demonstrations across the country, including 24,500 in Paris. The CGT trade union, however, put the turnout at more than 130,000, nearly twice the official figure.

Manifestation lycéenne et étudiante : retour au calme sur la place de la Bastille, mais des tensions persistent dans les rues adjacentes avec des charges des forces de l'ordre et l'usage de grenades lacrymogènes. pic.twitter.com/190zLzPssC

— CLPRESS / Agence de presse (@CLPRESSFR) October 8, 2026

Protests are being fueled by the government’s proposed 2027 budget unveiled last week, which would increase education funding by €1.2 billion ($1.35 billion) while eliminating another 1,588 teaching posts. Education Minister Edouard Geffray has defended the planned cuts, citing a decline in student numbers.

Manifestation lycéenne et étudiante : tensions toujours en cours place de la Bastille, nouvelle charge des forces de l'ordre et usage de gaz lacrymogène pour repousser les manifestants. pic.twitter.com/ZPQpJwyLZO

— CLPRESS / Agence de presse (@CLPRESSFR) October 8, 2026

Labor unions oppose the wider austerity plan, which calls for €43 billion in savings in 2027. The planned measures include freezing public-sector wages and most pensions, holding social benefits at current levels, and reducing funding for public services, prompting unions to warn that low-income households and public-sector workers would be hit the most.

Manifestation lycéenne et étudiante : situation très tendue sur la place de la Bastille. Affrontements, charges des forces de l'ordre et usage de gaz lacrymogène pour disperser les manifestants. pic.twitter.com/jbQhRaN3lV

— CLPRESS / Agence de presse (@CLPRESSFR) October 8, 2026

A broader wave of protests across Europe has seen demonstrations on issues ranging from education funding and budget cuts to housing costs and living standards. Student protests have also occurred in Belgium, Italy and Greece, while tens of thousands rallied in Spain over housing affordability and evictions. Although they are not part of a coordinated Europe-wide movement, the protests reflect growing public discontent over government policies across the continent.

The first unit of Bangladesh’s first nuclear power plant will be connected to the power grid at the end of November, the CEO of Russia’s Rosatom, Aleksey Likhachev, said in Dhaka on Friday.

Likhachev made the announcement at a meeting with Bangladeshi Minister of Science and Technology Fakir Mahbub Anam, where key issues relating to the project were discussed. The fuel-loading at the facility began in April.

The Rooppur nuclear plant, Bangladesh’s most expensive infrastructure facility, has heavy backing from Russia. Moscow is financing $11.9 billion in state loans for the project, which is estimated to cost up to $12.8 billion.

”Of course, we still have some to work here,” Likhachev said. “Our specialists are not only building, but standing shoulder to shoulder, working with operators in Bangladesh to ensure effective and safe operation of the plant.

”All the final decisions will be made by the government of Bangladesh, the people of Bangladesh,” he added. “We are aiming for around the end of November.”

Russia is providing equipment, nuclear fuel, and engineering assistance for the project, and the plant is expected to meet up to 12% of Bangladesh’s electricity demand when completed

In June, at a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman lauded the plant as a “monument to cooperation” between the two countries.

Anti-ICE demonstrators have clashed with police in New York City after federal agents shot and wounded a migrant from the Dominican Republic during his arrest.

Scuffles erupted in the Bronx late on Thursday outside a hospital where a man had been taken earlier in the day after suffering a gunshot wound to the neck.

Several hundred protesters gathered near the medical facility, chanting obscenities and slogans such as “From Palestine to Mexico, all these walls have got to go” and “We want ICE off our streets. No justice, no peace.”

At one point, the crowd attempted to dismantle the barricades set up by the police and engaged in a shoving match with officers. Several people were arrested, according to media reports.

The US Department of Homeland Security, which incorporates ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), said in an earlier statement that the shooting happened on Marble Hill Avenue at around 4 PM local time on Thursday.

Federal agents opened fire when they tried to detain a “criminal illegal alien” who was in a car with a child in the back seat, the statement read. It didn’t explain what provoked the shooting.

The 28-year-old man had “a prior criminal conviction for grand larceny, and multiple prior arrests for assault, robbery, possession of drugs and weapons possession,” the DHS said.

Democratic New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani used the shooting to launch another attack on ICE, saying in a post on X that he would call US President Donald Trump and demand an end to the agency’s activities in the city.

“I will not stand by while ICE agents terrorize our communities... Get ICE out of our neighborhoods. Get ICE out of our hospitals. Get ICE off our streets. Get ICE away from our children. Abolish ICE,” he wrote.

Mamdani later arrived at the scene and addressed the protesters, saying that “as somebody who is proud to be an immigrant in this city, I know that these kinds of raids, the kind of terrorizing… leaves the 3 million migrants of this city asking if they are safe here, if they belong here, if this too can be their home here.”

The shooting in New York comes less than a month after a similar incident in Austin, Texas, in which ICE agents wounded a Venezuelan national while he was delivering food in his car. The man was later charged with assaulting an officer.

The Democrats have repeatedly called for the abolition of ICE since a wave of nationwide protests over the fatal shootings of two US citizens by federal immigration agents in Minnesota in January.

Syria’s new Islamist government has barred women from enrolling in several university and technical programs, drawing public criticism.

The rules for the 2026-2027 academic year affect several institutions, including two universities established in July under Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.

Al-Sharaa, a former leader of the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), rose to power following the overthrow of Bashar Assad in December 2024. He was appointed transitional president in January 2025 and has since pledged to build an inclusive government.

According to documents published by the Ministry of Higher Education, women are excluded from military engineering programs, as well as legal and social sciences, management, and economics at the National University for Defense Sciences. Another institution, the Syrian University for Security Sciences, reserves several programs for men, although women remain eligible to study cybersecurity.

The restrictions extend to technical institutes specializing in oil and gas, railway transport and radio and television directing. Under the previous academic year’s rules, women could still enroll in certain oil and gas programs, including accounting and precision instruments.

A constitutional declaration adopted in March 2025 guarantees women’s right to education.

The rules contrast with recent efforts to expand women’s participation in law enforcement. In September, Syria graduated its first class of 150 female police officers following six months of training.

Since taking power, Syria’s new authorities have faced criticism over measures affecting women’s freedoms. In September, a prominent Damascus school reportedly announced plans to separate male and female students from middle school onward. Four feminist and civil society organizations also accused the authorities in August of restricting freedoms and imposing forms of social control that particularly affect women.

British counterterrorism police have arrested two Latvian nationals accused of breaking into a military installation housing major US and NATO intelligence operations, just days after British authorities alleged an Iranian-linked terror plot at an airbase hosting American warplanes.

The two men, aged 32 and 36, were detained early Thursday inside RAF Molesworth in Cambridgeshire after security personnel discovered an abandoned vehicle and a breach in the base’s perimeter fence, according to police.

Both suspects reside in the UK and were initially detained on suspicion of trespassing and criminal damage. They were subsequently arrested under the National Security Act on suspicion of entering a prohibited site for a purpose prejudicial to Britain. Their identities and possible motives have not been disclosed.

RAF Molesworth, roughly 70 miles north of London, hosts US military intelligence operations covering Europe and Africa, as well as NATO’s Intelligence Fusion Centre. Although officially designated a Royal Air Force station, the facility is operated by the US military and does not function as an active airfield.

“We’re very aware of the recent heightened interest and concern around military sites,” Commander Helen Flanagan, head of Counter Terrorism Policing London, said. However, she acknowledged that “at this stage there is nothing to suggest this incident is connected to the events at RAF Fairford.”

The latest incident follows a much-publicized security scare at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, where five men were arrested on September 27 after police discovered three suspicious vans near the base, which had been used by American bombers during the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Police subsequently acknowledged that no explosive devices had been discovered, with the investigation finding only quantities of petrol in the vehicles. All five suspects were released on bail within days, prompting further questions about the initial assessment of the threat.

Two additional men, including a dual British-Iranian national, were subsequently arrested in connection with the alleged plot. Both have also been released on bail, bringing the total to seven suspects released without charges.

In the latest Molesworth case, investigators also summoned explosives specialists to examine the abandoned vehicle, briefly imposing a security cordon around nearby roads. The restrictions were lifted after nothing suspicious was found.

Germany has counted billions of euros spent at home as aid to Ukraine, overstating the amount that actually reached Kiev, according to a study published on Thursday by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

Berlin has reported providing or earmarking €100 billion ($112 billion) in support since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. However, the institute found that only €41.7 billion qualified as actual bilateral aid, while €35.9 billion was spent in Germany and another €22 billion consisted of future military commitments.

”The €100 billion figure is misleading and wrongly labeled as ‘bilateral aid to Ukraine’,” said Christoph Trebesch, head of the institute’s Ukraine Support Tracker. He nevertheless described Germany as Europe’s largest donor to Kiev.

Of the €43.3 billion Berlin classified as civilian assistance, roughly 80% remained in Germany. The bulk covered benefits and accommodation for Ukrainian refugees, while €1.3 billion went toward export and investment guarantees for German companies operating in Ukraine.

Trebesch questioned the government’s accounting, arguing that spending on Syrian refugees would not ordinarily be described as “bilateral aid to Syria.”

The institute also challenged Berlin’s €57.6 billion military aid figure. It could trace €56.3 billion, including €22 billion in future commitments whose implementation remains uncertain. The German government stopped publishing detailed military assistance figures in June 2025, complicating independent scrutiny, the researchers noted.

Meanwhile, senior German politicians have called for Berlin to secure greater economic returns from its support for Kiev.

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Merz of putting Kiev’s interests ahead of those of German taxpayers by pledging further aid despite growing public discontent with his policies.

Merz’s CDU suffered electoral setbacks last month, finishing a distant second in Saxony-Anhalt with 17.5% of the vote and failing to enter the state parliament in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania after securing just 4.9%.

Despite the reverses, Merz has vowed to stay the course.

US President Donald Trump’s top negotiators are preparing to pitch “new ideas and proposals” aimed at breaking the deadlock in the Ukraine conflict, with talks involving representatives of Kiev and its European backers scheduled to begin in Miami on Friday, according to Reuters and Axios.

US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner are expected to hold a two-day working session with the Ukrainian delegation in an effort to develop a unified proposal that could later be presented to the Kremlin.

The pair could then travel to Moscow later this month for another round of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Axios reported, citing a source familiar with the discussions.

According to Reuters, the ideas were developed during and after Witkoff and Kushner’s diplomatic tour of Moscow and Kiev in early September. The pair have since remained in contact with both Russian and Ukrainian officials while working on an updated peace initiative.

Witkoff and Kushner met Trump on Thursday to present the latest proposals and receive his input ahead of the Miami talks, according to Axios. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Deputy National Security Adviser Mike Needham also attended the meeting.

Kiev's European backers ‘nervous’ about winter

Kiev will reportedly be represented by Vladimir Zelensky’s chief of staff, Kirill Budanov, intelligence chief Rustem Umerov, diplomatic adviser Sergey Kislitsa and top lawmaker David Arakhamia.

A US source told AFP that European governments have privately complained about soaring energy prices and other economic costs stemming from the conflict, adding that there is growing concern about another winter of hostilities.

“They are all nervous about the winter. It will be a tough winter if the war does not stop,” the source said.

Trump has also repeatedly pressed Zelensky to stop “hurting the world” and halt Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries, arguing that the attacks are worsening a global diesel shortage and driving up fuel costs in the US.

Kremlin agrees with Rubio on ‘stalemate’

The new diplomatic push comes as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the conflict as a “dangerous stalemate,” warning that further escalation could spill beyond Ukraine and trigger a broader confrontation.

The Kremlin said it shared Rubio’s assessment of the current diplomatic impasse, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying he “agreed” that no clear prospect of a negotiated settlement was currently visible.

He nevertheless reiterated Moscow’s position that Russia remains open to negotiations, while accusing Kiev of showing no willingness to accept reality and pursue a long-term settlement.

Despite the lack of progress on Ukraine, contacts between Washington and Moscow have continued on other tracks, Peskov added, noting that the two countries are discussing “a whole range” of potentially mutually beneficial economic projects, including possible cooperation in the energy sector.

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has announced plans to livestream the execution of a former US Army psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people at a military base in Texas, arguing that Americans should witness the consequences of such crimes.

Nidal Malik Hasan, a former Army major sentenced to death for a 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, is scheduled to face a military firing squad on December 3. The execution would be the first carried out by the US military in more than six decades and the first by an Army firing squad since World War II.

Speaking to conservative commentator Jack Posobiec on Thursday, Hegseth defended the decision to execute Hasan at the same installation where he carried out the massacre.

“He’s going to get a firing squad of soldiers, as it should be, and we’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public, because people need to understand there’s serious consequences for these types of things,” Hegseth said.

MAJOR NEWS!!! @SECWAR REVEALS FORT HOOD SHOOTER’S FIRING SQUAD EXECUTION WILL BE PUBLIC Sec. Pete Hegseth says Nidal Hasan will be executed by soldiers at Fort Hood on December 3 at 1 PM—the same time as the 2009 attack. “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public.” @JackPosobiec

— Real America's Voice (RAV) (@RealAmVoice) October 8, 2026

The Department of War subsequently confirmed that the execution would be livestreamed for public viewing, with further details to follow, according to the Washington Post and AP.

The gunman had previously exchanged emails with radical Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was subsequently killed in a US drone strike in Yemen. During his court-martial, Hasan admitted responsibility for the massacre, claiming he had acted to protect fellow Muslims from American military operations in Afghanistan.

He was convicted of premeditated murder and attempted murder in 2013 and sentenced to death. The US Supreme Court declined to review his conviction in March 2025, clearing the way for US President Donald Trump to approve the execution earlier this month following a recommendation from Hegseth.

The last US military execution took place in 1961, when an Army private was hanged after being convicted of the rape and attempted murder of an 11-year-orld girl.

Capital punishment by firing squad remains legal in five US states – Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah – although the method is rarely used.

Public executions are even more unusual in modern American history. The last widely recognized public execution in the US took place in Kentucky in 1936, when a convicted murderer was hanged in front of thousands of spectators.

Tehran is striving to find a diplomatic solution to the war imposed on it by the US, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday at a meeting with his Iranian counterpart, Masoud Pezeshkian.

The Russian president noted that Tehran had recently put forward a proposal aimed at resolving the conflict peacefully, adding that Moscow is willing to play a constructive role in the process.

“Iran is making real efforts to end the conflict, which broke out in the region through no fault of its own, through no fault of Iran,” Putin said.

Putin also hailed the deepening cooperation between Russia and Iran, especially in trade and humanitarian affairs, during bilateral talks in Turkmenistan, where he is set to take part in a leaders’ summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and a Caspian Sea environmental summit.

In late September, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi announced that Tehran had submitted a peace plan to the US. Under the roadmap, the Islamic Republic signaled its readiness to restore navigation through the Strait of Hormuz – a strategically important waterway for crude oil exports from the Middle East.

In exchange, Iran, which imposed a blockade on the crucial oil shipping route after the start of the conflict, expects the US to lift its own blockade of the Islamic Republic, ease restrictions on its oil exports, and release some of its frozen assets. Tehran is also seeking an end to hostilities on all fronts, including Israel’s military operation in Lebanon.

While there have been media reports of indirect negotiations between the two countries in recent weeks, President Trump has rejected the Iranian proposal outright. He told reporters that Tehran wants to “make a deal, but it is not the deal that I want to make.” The US president has also suggested that Washington is not ruling out resuming strikes on Iran in the coming weeks.

Syria could join a Saudi-backed military offensive against the Houthis in Yemen by deploying thousands of troops, Axios has reported, citing US officials.

Yemen’s internationally recognized government forces have launched a major counteroffensive to recapture territory seized by the Iranian-backed Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah, including areas around the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The Saudi-led coalition has backed the operation with extensive airstrikes against Houthi positions.

According to an Axios report, Riyadh and Damascus are discussing the deployment of up to 20,000 Syrian troops. Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who previously led the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), is reportedly considering the proposal but has yet to make a decision.

The issue came up during al-Sharaa’s meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh on Tuesday, the sources said. Saudi Arabia is seeking to reinforce Yemeni government forces, which US officials described as less well-trained than the Houthis.

The Syrian units under consideration reportedly include thousands of Islamist foreign fighters who fought against former President Bashar Assad under the HTS umbrella before his overthrow in December 2024. Their involvement could deepen sectarian divisions, as the fighters include Sunni Islamists, while the Houthis follow Zaydi Shiite Islam.

Reuters separately reported that Damascus was considering military assistance, including defensive support for Saudi Arabia or participation in operations inside Yemen. However, Syrian presidential adviser Ahmad Zaidan denied that Riyadh had requested troops, describing the reports as baseless.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa is in Riyadh for talks with MBS. https://t.co/LWZajNI04M

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) October 6, 2026

The renewed fighting follows Houthi territorial gains along the Red Sea coast in September, threatening shipping through Bab el-Mandeb, a vital trade route connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. The waterway has gained particular importance following disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz caused by the US-Israeli war on Iran. The Houthis also claimed to have effectively encircled Taiz, a major city linking northern and southern Yemen with the Red Sea coast, after cutting a vital supply route to the southern port city of Aden.

Riyadh has also secured military support from Türkiye and Pakistan under a collective defense agreement dubbed the ‘Muslim NATO’ that was signed in August.

The Yemen conflict escalated after the Houthis seized Sanaa in 2014, prompting a Saudi-led military intervention the following year. Fighting largely subsided following a 2022 truce, before flaring up again this year.

Saudi officials have confirmed three fatalities in missile strikes on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh and a Saudi aircraft, for which Yemen’s Houthi forces claimed responsibility.

Riyadh’s civil aviation authority GACA said three Saudi subjects were killed and multiple others were injured, including foreign nationals. Operations at the airport have been resumed, the statement issued on Friday morning said.

The Houthis hit the airport with two cruise missiles on Thursday evening, the group’s military spokesman, Yahya Saree, previously announced in a statement. Houthi forces also hit Abha Airport and King Khalid Air Base with ballistic missiles, Saree added.

“The strikes were precise and direct, resulting in the disruption of air traffic at the two airports and causing damage to them and the air base,” Saree said. The Saudi government has not acknowledged the strikes. The head of the Saudi military coalition against the Houthis in Yemen, Turki al-Maliki, has claimed that two missiles were intercepted before they reached Riyadh, and one was intercepted before it reached King Khalid Air Base.

Earlier on Thursday, Houthi forces hit King Khalid International Airport with a ballistic missile, which Saree said “struck its target with precision and caused the disruption of airport operations.” 

Video footage shared by the Houthis showed a thick plume of smoke rising from the apron of the airport, while footage shared on social media suggested that the missile landed directly on a parked aircraft belonging to the Saudia airline.

After the first strike, Saree issued what he called a “final warning to all global airlines,” warning them to stay out of Saudi airspace, “which has become a theater for our military operations.”

Saudi Arabia has been waging war against the Houthis since 2015, although the fighting was paused by a ceasefire in 2022. Fighting resumed this July after Saudi-backed forces struck the runway at Sanaa airport to prevent an Iranian plane carrying a Houthi delegation from landing. The Houthis responded with strikes on Saudi targets, while Saudi jets resumed large-scale airstrikes on Yemen.

The conflict escalated further in September, when the Houthis made their largest territorial gains in years, taking Mocha and key positions along the Red Sea coast and around Bab el-Mandeb.

It took a bungled kidnapping for Germany’s former spymaster to be charged with espionage and treason, but August Hanning’s ties to Israeli spies and criminals should have set alarm bells ringing in Berlin long ago.

Prosecutors have alleged that Hanning bought state secrets from his former BND aide – identified as ‘Manfred D’, who remained in the agency after Hanning’s departure and served several of his successors. They claim Hanning acquired nearly 2,000 BND documents between 2010 and 2022, which he then leveraged in his work as a private security consultant at-large to the rich and powerful.

Hanning, part of the woodwork on the security conference circuit, used this material to prepare a report for an employee of a foreign intelligence service, and maintained “close contact with a representative of another foreign intelligence service,” to whom he passed information obtained by Manfred D “for several years.”

Prosecutors haven’t publicly identified which foreign services Hanning collaborated with, though media reporting suggests one is believed to be the Foreign Intelligence Service of Azerbaijan, a country Hanning has openly lobbied for since the mid-2010s. As for the other, Hanning’s involvement in a bizarre kidnapping plot suggests one obvious culprit.

The Israeli kidnapping plot

German investigators picked up Hanning’s trail last September, when Hamburg police searched his apartment as part of an investigation involving multi-millionaire Christina Block, whose father built Germany’s most popular steakhouse chain, as well as a burger franchise, boutique hotels and gastro-resorts.  

Ms. Block has been in a custody dispute with her ex-husband, Danish banker Stefan Hansel, since 2021. She is currently on trial for ordering the kidnapping of her two youngest children from their father’s care in Denmark. According to prosecutors, Block hired Hanning’s consulting firm, System 360, to carry out the abduction in 2022, but Danish police intervened before the System 360 team could snatch the children. 

Hanning apparently gave up on the direct approach and decided to outsource the job to his contacts from the world of intelligence. These contacts were Yaakov Perry, the former chief of Israel’s Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency, and Danny Yatom, the former head of Mossad.

Block’s trial is ongoing and details are murky, but the allegations are as follows: Hanning hired Perry and his private intelligence firm, CGI Group, to assemble an eight-man team to kidnap the children; the German spymaster requested that Yatom be involved; Perry brought in David Barkay, a former member of the IDF’s Unit 504 intelligence wing and alleged Mossad agent; Barkay led the team that carried out the kidnapping on New Year’s Eve, 2023.

Barkay’s team assaulted Hansel and dragged the children – a ten-year-old boy and 13-year-old girl – across the German border on foot, taping their mouths shut and threatening to kill them if they screamed for help. 

Hanning denies any role in the kidnapping, as does Yaakov. Barkay has confessed to orchestrating and carrying out the operation, but has not implicated Hanning or Yaakov. Yatom has told Israeli media that he has “no connection to this case,” and furthermore, that his relationship with Hanning was a strictly professional one dating back to the late 1980s.

However, Yatom invited Hanning to join the board of his private cybersecurity company, World Health Energy Holdings (WHEN), in 2021. Speaking to the Jerusalem Post at the time, Hanning said that his “contacts with states, law enforcement and intelligence agencies” would be valuable to WHEN, a company that markets spyware to businesses seeking to monitor their employees.

Hanning added that he maintained “very close working relationships, even friendships” with Yatom and other Mossad officials long after he left the BND. Both men are still listed as board members on WHEN’s website.

The gray man

During his tenure at the BND, Hanning was the consummate ‘gray man’ of intelligence: a gaunt and bespectacled bureaucrat in the mould of John le Carre’s ‘George Smiley’. Le Carre met Hanning several times, and described the German spymaster as “courtesy itself.” 

Yet his “career was clouded by speculation about his loyalties, with persistent whispers of too-close-for-comfort ties to Israel and Russia,” according to a recent Irish Times report. Prosecutors have ruled out any suspicion that Hanning colluded with Russian agents, according to German media, leaving only one possibility.

Hanning once remarked that “a good agent is one who doesn’t draw attention to himself.” In the murky world of Israel’s ‘private’ intelligence sector, however, Hanning could hardly have chosen a more conspicuous duo to work with than Yatom and Perry.

The Congo debacle

Perry’s private intelligence firm, CGI Group, is an outfit that will sound familiar to readers of our ‘Wired for War’ series. Founded by former Israeli spies and specializing in illegal or quasi-legal private spycraft, the company boasts that it hires “senior personnel from elite IDF units, the General Security Services and the Mossad.” Among them are:

• Yaakov Perry, president, Shin Bet Director from 1988 to 1995

• Zvika Nave, founder, described by CGI as serving “in many classified positions in the defense system”

• Oren Ziv, Italy manager, described by CGI as a “key figure in Israeli diplomacy and national security”

• Alon Pinkas, consultant, former foreign policy adviser to Israeli Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Shimon Peres, former Israeli Consul General in New York

Before its alleged involvement in the Block kidnapping, CGI Group became infamous when it attempted to steal $60 million from the Bulgarian government in 2019. Some 30 years earlier, Israeli businessman Gad Zeevi attempted to buy a stake in Bulgaria’s national airline, but the deal fell apart and Zeevi claimed that he was owed $10 million in compensation from Sofia. International arbitrators agreed, but Bulgaria refused to comply with the judgment, and the Israeli government refused to chase the Bulgarians down for the money.

Zeevi reached out to Perry and Nave, who came up with a long-shot scheme to collect the debt. CGI Group would ask the government of the Congo to order $60 million worth of weapons from Bulgaria, with Yatom acting as a go-between. Once the Bulgarians had sent the arms and the Congolese government transferred the money to his account, Yatom would hand it to Zeevi, minus a generous cut for him and his co-conspirators in CGI Group.

It was never clear how CGI would convince the Congolese to order weapons that would never be paid for, and the plan never came to fruition. Zeevi and CGI Group threatened to sue each other for damages, but the case never made it to court.

Yatom and CGI Group refused to comment, giving similar answers as they did when questioned about the Block kidnapping. “I don’t want to talk about my business activities,” Yatom told Israel’s Globes news outlet in 2022. “We don’t talk to the media,” Nave said. 

Red flags ignored

None of this is to say that Shin Bet or Mossad is, without a doubt, the “foreign intelligence service” that Hanning passed secrets to. However, his contacts with Perry and Yatom certainly point that way, as does his work to advance Israeli foreign policy goals.

Hanning aided Israeli efforts to push the US into war with Iraq in late 2002, when he told then-CIA Director George Tenet that the BND had “plausible and convincing” evidence that Saddam Hussein was developing chemical and biological weapons. Hanning’s source, an Iraqi defector codenamed ‘Curveball’, later admitted to fabricating the claims.

Hanning now sits on the board of ‘United Against Nuclear Iran’, a Washington-based think tank funded by pro-Israel megadonors Miriam Adelson and Thomas Kaplan, which has explicitly advocated for military strikes on Iran since 2008. Adelson and Kaplan supply around three quarters of the group’s funding, with the remainder coming from smaller Jewish organizations and individual donors.

Europe’s wilful ignorance

Meanwhile, governments at the EU and national level continue to sound the alarm about Russia’s invisible and unprovable “hybrid war” against the West. Fires, false drone sightings, and even natural disasters are all presented as examples of this shadow war, while the most blatant malfeasance from other foreign powers is ignored.

One day before Hanning’s arrest, his successor at the helm of the BND, Martin Jaeger, warned German MPs that Russia is “waging a shadow war,” and that “no other country currently poses such a direct, comprehensive, and concrete threat to Germany.” Had he looked at the company August Hanning kept, he might have reassessed his position.

Kaja Kallas, the Estonian diplomat and former prime minister currently serving as the vice-president of the European Commission, has shown a deeply confrontational attitude towards Russia and the Russians.

It is perhaps worth pausing here to note that this is particularly personal, given her family history. Her mother, Kristi Kallas, was only six months old when she, together with her mother and grandmother, was deported to Siberia during the Soviet mass deportations of March 1949. She remained there until she was ten, and later studied medicine and worked as a pediatrician.

Her father, Siim Kallas, had a very different experience with the Soviet system. He was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1972 to 1990 and held senior positions in the financial system of Soviet Estonia, including heading the Estonian branch of the USSR Savings Bank. He later became President of the Bank of Estonia, Prime Minister of Estonia and a Vice-President of the European Commission.

These two sides of her family history – one marked by deportation and the other by a successful career within the Soviet system – form a striking background to Kaja Kallas’s present-day political position.

Last month, Kallas described the German people as being blind to the Russian threat because of their resistance to providing further financial support to Ukraine. Now, I suppose Russian people are also considered blind because of the convincing victory of President Vladimir Putin’s party in September’s legislative election. I am definitely not blind.

The question Europeans should be allowed to ask is how these decisions affect their own societies. Public money is limited, and European citizens also need investment in healthcare, education, transport, housing and infrastructure.

Since 2022, Europeans have been paying a heavy price for the transformation of their energy system. The decision to move away from Russian pipeline gas was made in the name of security, and the EU has succeeded in diversifying its supplies. But security has come at a considerable economic cost. The European Commission reports that although wholesale energy prices have fallen substantially from the extraordinary peaks of 2022, industrial gas and electricity prices remain two to four times higher than in the EU’s main trading partners. The Commission warns that this continues to threaten the long-term competitiveness of European industry.

The EU’s energy import bill reached €604 billion in 2022 before falling to €427 billion in 2024. Meanwhile, industrial energy prices remain considerably above their pre-crisis levels. Germany, the industrial heart of Europe, has felt the consequences particularly sharply. German industrial energy consumption fell by 9.1% in 2022 and another 7.8% in 2023, with the German Federal Statistical Office explicitly linking these declines, particularly in energy-intensive industries, to significantly higher energy prices and associated production reductions.

Germany’s broader economic performance tells the same story. Its economy contracted for a second consecutive year in 2024, while manufacturing gross value added fell by 3%. The Federal Statistical Office identified high energy costs, together with stronger international competition and other structural pressures, among the factors weighing on the economy. Manufacturing remained under pressure in 2025, when value added in the sector fell another 1.3%.

The issue of NATO and Ukraine is equally contentious. The argument that NATO expansion towards Ukraine ruined Moscow’s relations with Europe is not just a Kremlin talking point – reputable Western analysts, like Professor Jeffrey Sachs, have repeatedly argued the same point. Even if that analysis remains disputed, it is an argument that deserves to be heard in any serious discussion of the origins and continuation of the war, which continues to have devastating consequences for Ukrainians.

European leaders should be asking what policies can bring the conflict closer to a negotiated settlement rather than simply allowing the confrontation to continue indefinitely.

Perhaps the most revealing part of this story is that the argument is no longer simply between the EU and its critics. It has begun to unfold within Europe itself.

Defense spending in the EU is rising at an extraordinary pace. According to the Council of the EU, member states spent €418 billion on defense in 2025, and expenditure is estimated to reach €454 billion in 2026 – 75.3% higher than in 2021. Defense investment alone is projected to reach almost €163 billion in 2026.

But the question of who decides how this enormous effort should be organized is becoming increasingly contentious. In September, Kaja Kallas withdrew plans for a new high-level advisory group on European defense after several member states objected. Reporting by Defense News and Euractiv identified Germany, France and Italy among the governments pushing back against the initiative. The German position was that NATO remains the primary framework for military capability and defense planning.

The EU, in other words, is having two conversations at once: how much it should spend, and what kind of Europe that spending is meant to create.

Ms. Kallas, Europe needs diplomacy as well as security policy. European citizens need their governments to protect their interests, use public money responsibly and keep open the possibility of a peaceful future.

If the EU continues indefinitely along the present path, the economic and political consequences for European societies will deserve much greater public discussion.

EU citizens have the right to ask difficult questions about how their money is being spent and what kind of Europe they want to build. They may disagree strongly about Russia, Ukraine and NATO, but that does not make their questions illegitimate.

I was born in Ireland and have been affiliated with Russia for thirty years. I have been living here for the last eight years. From that perspective, I believe Europeans should be able to discuss these issues without being dismissed as blind, naïve or sympathetic to one side simply because they question current policies.

Europe has enormous resources and enormous human potential. With wiser choices about priorities, Europeans should be able to expect excellent healthcare, education, transport and infrastructure alongside a responsible security policy.

Colombian nationals fighting for Kiev are being held hostage by the Ukrainian military, the mother of a slain mercenary, Sonia Moreno, has told Ruptly video agency.

Men from the South American nation currently make up around half of the estimated 16,500 foreign mercenaries in the ranks of Kiev’s forces, a Russian security source told TASS in June. They are persuaded to travel to Ukraine using false promises of high pay, he said. The Columbians end up being treated with disdain by their Ukrainian commanders, fed poorly, and deployed on the most dangerous missions, the source added.

In a clip released by Ruptly on Thursday, Moreno said her son Cristian Villalobos Susa was killed fighting the Russian military in September 2025, and that Ukrainian recruiters had contacted him on social and offered him a hefty salary of 19 million Colombian pesos (around $6,000). “But it was all fake,” she stressed.

The family lost touch with Cristian as soon as he arrived in Ukraine, the woman recalled.

Brussels is steering Europe toward totalitarianism and a “Euro-Gestapo” while lecturing Russia on democracy, Slovak MEP Lubos Blaha has warned.

Blaha made the remarks during a European Parliament debate on Tuesday, responding to EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, who denounced Russia’s recent parliamentary elections as undemocratic.

The politician questioned why Brussels was focusing on Russia while cracking down on dissent within the bloc.

He cited arrests of pro-Palestinian protesters in Germany and the imprisonment of Estonian opposition figures, who he claimed were jailed for opposing war with Russia.

“Are you going to set up the Euro-Gestapo here, Mrs. Kallas, and lock up everyone who wants peace?” he asked.

"Will you set up a Euro-Gestapo here, Ms Kallas, and lock up all of us who want peace?" Slovak MEP Blaha calls out warmongers von der Leyen and Kallas. "You criticize the Russians for holding elections, but you do not mind that Zelensky has been governing for a third year without any elections, without a mandate. You hypocrites."

— Chay Bowes (@BowesChay) October 7, 2026

The Slovak lawmaker also questioned why Brussels was debating Russia’s elections while Europe faced mounting unrest.

“You may not have noticed, but Spain is in the streets, France is in the streets, and you are here dealing with Russian elections. You must be joking,” he said.

Blaha went on to accuse Brussels of double standards over Ukraine’s suspended presidential elections.

“You blame the Russians for having elections, but you don’t mind that [Ukraine’s Vladimir] Zelensky has been governing for three years without any elections, without a mandate,” he said. “You are hypocrites!”

Zelensky’s presidential term expired in May 2024, but elections have remained suspended under martial law.

The MEP argued that Russia had held elections despite the ongoing conflict and daily Ukrainian missile and drone attacks on its territory.

The September poll saw the ruling United Russia party win nearly 58% of the party-list vote.

Blaha also defended Russian President Vladimir Putin, contrasting his popularity with that of Western European leaders.

“You have nothing to criticize Putin for, Mrs. Kallas,” he declared. “Unlike you and your Merzes and Macrons, he has the support of his own population.”

Blaha belongs to Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico’s Smer-SD party, which opposes EU sanctions on Russia and has criticized Western military assistance to Ukraine.

Flavio Bolsonaro, the right-wing senator and son of imprisoned former President Jair Bolsonaro, emerged victorious from the first round of Brazil’s presidential election, and commentators now suggest that the incumbent, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, may struggle to catch him in the second round.

If they’re correct, Brazil will become the latest country to join Latin America’s shift to the right.

The Brazilian story, adapted to local circumstances, bears a striking resemblance to the American experience with Donald Trump. After the turbulent presidency of Bolsonaro senior, a representative of the moderate left returned to power, while attempts were made to remove the former president from political life for good.

In the United States, Trump was fiercely condemned as the instigator of an attempted coup, although criminal proceedings against him ultimately failed to prevent his return to power. In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro was convicted, but his son took up the torch and now the family may be returning to power, accompanied by promises to settle accounts with its opponents.

Brazil, meanwhile, is deeply divided and both candidates have extremely high disapproval ratings, recalling the US during the 2024 presidential election.

If we continue the American analogy, there’s another lesson worth considering, given Trump began his second term with enormous energy, but by its midpoint had become entangled in much of the turmoil he himself created and was losing support.

Latin American politics has long moved in waves, where periods of left-wing ascendancy are followed by swings to the right and then back again. At present, the right is advancing.

Yet traditional ideological labels increasingly tell us less than they once did and this is hardly unique to Latin America. Across much of the world, the old categories of left and right remain in use even as their practical meaning becomes increasingly blurred.

The domestic implications of Brazil’s election are best left to specialists on the country, but its international consequences are already easier to discern and most importantly, a political shift in Brazil would reverberate throughout BRICS.

There’s already no shortage of internal tension within the grouping; one need only consider the difficult relationship between Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Now the country represented by the first letter of the BRICS acronym, and one for which membership has traditionally been an important source of international status and prestige, could move towards political forces openly skeptical of the project itself.

His Argentine ally Javier Milei went further; after becoming president at the end of 2023, he rejected Argentina’s planned accession to BRICS, despite Buenos Aires having already received an invitation to join.

Should Lula lose, Brazil is likely to adopt a strongly pro-American, Trump-style orientation, at least for the immediate future.

Trump’s hostility towards BRICS is well know and he regards it, not entirely without reason, as a prototype of a world in which the US no longer enjoys the international predominance to which it became accustomed after the Cold War.

That doesn’t necessarily mean Brazil would formally leave BRICS, given much would depend on the degree of pressure exerted by Washington and on the calculations of a new Brazilian government, but a freezing or significant downgrading of Brazil’s participation would become quite conceivable.

None of this means Latin America’s present shift to the right is permanent as another reversal will inevitably come.

But these domestic changes are taking place against a much larger international transformation.

The global environment is in flux as old institutions and assumptions are losing their authority, while their replacements are either still emerging or do not yet exist and political generations are also changing.

The generation currently governing many of the world’s major powers leaves a particularly strong personal imprint on international affairs and more importantly, these leaders were shaped by the aftermath of the 20th century, whose political inheritance is now steadily fading.

That doesn’t mean the underlying redistribution of global power will stop. The West will not recover the position it once enjoyed, not least because the West itself is becoming less monolithic whereas the Global East is exercising increasing influence over international affairs, while the Global South is becoming one of the principal arenas in which the emerging order will be determined.

But history rarely proceeds in straight lines, and the underlying trend may continue even as individual institutions change direction, stagnate, or assume forms very different from those originally expected. Yesterday’s expectations of BRICS need not resemble tomorrow’s reality.

Brazil may soon provide an important test and equally significant will be the evolution of Washington’s increasingly explicit ambition to reassert American predominance throughout the Western Hemisphere. How that policy develops will tell us much about the future importance of the world’s major regions.

For Russia, however, the principal task lies closer to home and, as President Vladimir Putin again argued in his recent Valdai speech, Moscow’s priority must be Eurasia.

That is where Russia’s greatest efforts should be concentrated as the center of gravity is here, while everything beyond it will develop as circumstances permit.

This article was first published by Rossiyskaya Gazeta, and was translated and edited by the RT team 

White employees at the BBC earn less than their ethnic minority colleagues in six of seven salary grades, according to the British broadcaster’s 2025/26 annual report. The figures have raised new questions about the corporation’s drive to promote ethnic minority staff and its possible impact on pay.

According to the BBC’s 2025/26 pay gap report, highlighted by The Telegraph on Wednesday, black, Asian, mixed-race and other ethnic minority employees earn 13.2% more in median hourly pay than white colleagues in the lowest salary band. Even among the broadcaster’s most senior executives, the gap stands at 5.3%.

White employees came out ahead in just one category, where their median hourly pay was 0.6% higher. Across the BBC as a whole, however, white staff still earned 0.7% more, largely because they held a greater share of the highest-paid jobs.

The corporation has set a target for ethnic minorities to make up 20% of both its workforce and senior leadership. The BBC insists these are goals rather than quotas and says they have no bearing on pay decisions.

Former UK Culture Secretary John Whittingdale questioned the BBC’s pay practices, telling The Telegraph that the broadcaster “ought to be paying staff entirely on the basis of the value and merit they contribute for the job they are doing.”

The broadcaster has faced repeated scandals over unequal pay. In 2020, journalist Samira Ahmed won a landmark employment tribunal case after judges found that she had been paid less than male presenter Jeremy Vine for equivalent work.

In 2024, four female BBC presenters accused the corporation of sex and age discrimination following a shake-up of its news division. In November 2025, the BBC disclosed six internal equal pay cases, including two appeals.

The BBC has rejected suggestions that the latest figures demonstrate unequal treatment, saying it is “committed to fair and equal pay for all.”

Washington has reportedly pressured several governments to withdraw their support for a conference organized by an EU-funded “anti-disinfo” NGO that designated the US a potential source of foreign disinformation.

The event host is EU DisinfoLab, one of Brussels’ info-gatekeepers deployed to scapegoat and smear dissidents opposing the bloc’s political course. The NGO notoriously launched its career by labeling online critics of French President Emmanuel Macron as “Russophiles.”

Organizers of the #Disinfo2026 conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, reportedly classified the US as a “foreign information manipulation and interference” (FIMI) actor, according to two news outlets with insider sources in Brussels. The EU normally uses the term to describe alleged malicious online activities by geopolitical rivals such as Russia and China.

By the time the conference opened, the logos of the EU’s diplomatic service, the European External Action Service (EEAS), and the foreign ministries of Canada and Lithuania had disappeared from all material, leaving only the French Foreign Ministry and the Vilnius city administration.

Politico cited the US State Department and cables instructing American embassies to convey Washington’s objections.

“Labeling the United States a ‘FIMI threat’ – a term normally reserved for describing influence operations of adversaries – undermines shared goals and should alarm those involved,” officials told the outlet.

Experts in (spreading) disinformation

The Russiagate hoax, involving a concerted campaign by former US President Barack Obama and his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, to falsely claim US President Donald Trump was somehow compromised by links to Russia, helped fuel the emergence of an industry of self-described experts in combating online disinformation and misinformation. Critics have accused such organizations of serving as proxies for government-backed censorship that authorities cannot impose directly.

The NGO’s research identified alleged “Russian bots” and “French Russophile” Twitter accounts supposedly fueling public outrage over the affair. Critics questioned its methodology, prompting the organization to publish detailed information about the accounts it had studied, including those of opposition politicians Jean-Luc Melenchon and Marine Le Pen.

In 2022, the Belgian Data Protection Authority (APD) fined EU DisinfoLab €2,700 ($3,000) and its lead researcher, Nicolas Vanderbiest, €1,200 ($1,300), while formally reprimanding both. The regulator, which investigated the case in cooperation with France’s data protection authority, the CNIL, found that the researchers had unlawfully processed personal data revealing political opinions and exposed users to potential discrimination through political profiling.

It’s a small disinfo world

EU DisinfoLab’s leadership reflects the close ties between the Western “counter-disinformation” industry and government-backed infowarfare operations.

Board member Emma Le Mesurier is the widow and former colleague of James Le Mesurier, a former British Army officer who helped establish the White Helmets in Syria. The Western-funded group aided jihadist forces in overthrowing President Bashar Assad.

Fellow board member Andy Pryce is a veteran British diplomat who launched and led the Foreign Office’s program intended to thwart Russian strategic communications. His name also appeared in the “UK Cluster” of the Integrity Initiative, a British-funded media manipulation project exposed by the leak of its internal documents in 2018.

Laser-focused away from Western disinformation

The EU DisinfoLab annual conference program includes a yoga session and discussions of “identity-based disinformation” and “Russia’s global information war.” Cases of debunked Western disinformation, plentiful as they are, received little attention.

One example was the alleged Russian attempt to jam the navigation system of a plane carrying European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen over Bulgaria last year. The story unravelled when Bulgarian authorities said their monitoring systems had detected no GPS interference, contrary to statements by EU officials.

A similar case last month involved a claim that a Russian drone had nearly struck a plane carrying Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, which Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store stated during a joint press conference. However, Moldovan authorities later clarified that Zelensky’s flight from Chisinau to Oslo had merely been briefly delayed by a drone alert. The drone in question crashed some 160 km from the airport.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has updated its estimate of annual human plague infections in the country, lowering it from seven to five.

On Wednesday, the CDC amended its Plague Maps and Statistics page, which now states: “An average of five human plague cases are reported each year in the United States.” The previous version, dated March 2025, cited seven cases annually, although its own year-by-year data already showed an average of approximately five.

The agency has not provided an explanation for the revision.

According to the CDC’s current data, there were a total of 131 plague cases across the US between 2000 and 2025, 17 of which were lethal. The highest number of cases dates back to 2006 (17) and 2015 (16). In the latter case, four people died – the highest annual death toll during the period.

According to the CDC, plague first reached the US in 1900 aboard rat-infested steamships, sparking outbreaks in port cities. The last urban epidemic occurred in Los Angeles in 1924-1925. Since then, infections have largely been confined to rural western regions, particularly New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado, as well as parts of California, Oregon, and Nevada.

Only pneumonic plague, which affects the lungs, can spread from person to person through respiratory droplets, typically requiring close contact. Such transmission has not been confirmed in the US since 1924, although the CDC investigated a possible instance in Colorado in 2014. In July 2025, a man in Arizona died from pneumonic plague after exposure to infected cats.

At least two additional cases have been recorded in 2026, according to the CDC’s provisional data. A patient in Arizona recovered after treatment, while a woman in New Mexico died from the disease in June.

Unlike in medieval times, plague can now be cured with widely available antibiotics. However, early diagnosis and treatment are critical, as untreated plague can rapidly become fatal, particularly in its pneumonic form.

The update comes amid a frenzy in Western media over what they described as a suspected case of pneumonic plague in Russia’s Irkutsk Region. Some reports claimed that a 28-year-old employee of the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute died on October 2 after developing pneumonia of unknown origin.

Russian health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor acknowledged the death but said extensive testing had found no evidence of infection associated with her laboratory work and insisted there was no epidemic risk. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that the overwhelming majority of media reports about the incident were “false information.”

On Tuesday, Rospotrebnadzor also offered the US assistance in combating outbreaks of infectious diseases, citing recent measles cases and other infections.

“Russia has extensive practical and scientific experience in ensuring epidemiological safety both domestically and abroad… Russia is ready to provide the US with specialists, laboratory equipment, and highly effective diagnostic and preventive tools, which could help revive joint Russian-US efforts to protect public health from infectious threats,” the agency said.

The political opposition in Italy has accused Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s ruling coalition of attempting to rewrite the election rules in a bid to remain in power, over a controversial reform that would award bonus parliamentary seats to winning alliances in next year’s general election.

The new bill has cleared three confidence votes in the lower house of parliament, with the final secret ballot scheduled for Thursday. It passed on Wednesday by 228 votes to 144, bringing the government closer to securing ultimate approval for the overhaul.

The reform would replace Italy’s current electoral system, which combines directly elected constituency seats with proportional representation, with a fully proportional system that rewards the winning coalition with additional seats if it secures at least 42% of the vote.

“Fear, lies, contempt, and failure. These are the characteristics of an electoral law passed at the last minute in the final year [of the parliamentary term],” Anna Ascani of the opposition Democratic Party said, according to ANSA.

The reform would replace Italy’s current system, which combines directly elected constituency seats with proportional representation, with a proportional system that rewards the winning coalition if it secures at least 42% of the vote in both chambers.

The winning alliance would receive a bonus of 105 parliamentary seats – 70 in the lower house and 35 in the Senate. If no coalition reaches the threshold, or different alliances win the two chambers, seats would be distributed proportionally without the bonus.

Meloni has rejected claims that the reform is designed to benefit her coalition, insisting it would ensure political stability regardless of who wins. “I don’t think it’s a law that serves the center-right, but whoever wins the elections will have the numbers to govern,” she said in June.

The overhaul has also raised concerns within Meloni’s own coalition. Some lawmakers fear the new rules could instead benefit a united center-left opposition or smaller rival parties, according to the Financial Times.

The bill has already passed the Senate and faces its final hurdle in the lower house, with Italy’s next general election due in 2027.

Maria del Carmen Abascal, the 87-year-old woman whose eviction sparked massive housing protests across Spain, has died in a Madrid hospital after a protracted legal battle with a real estate firm over the home she had lived in for seven decades.

Her death was announced by the Madrid Tenants’ Union, prompting hundreds of protesters in Madrid’s central Puerta del Sol square to hold a minute of silence for Abascal, widely known as ‘Maricarmen’.
Abascal became a symbol of growing anger over Spain’s housing crisis, where the average rent has almost doubled over the past decade, with protests often blaming investment “vulture funds” – such as Blackstone and BlackRock – for the trend.

The protests erupted in force on September 23, when riot police dispersed hundreds of activists attempting to prevent Abascal’s removal from her Madrid apartment, with images of an elderly woman being taken away on a stretcher fueling public outrage.

An 87-year-old pensioner whose eviction sparked protests in Madrid is now being allowed to return home. Last week, police evicted Maricarmen Abascal on a stretcher from her home of more than 70 years. https://t.co/Kdz2eDwbSI

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) September 29, 2026

Three days later, tens of thousands marched through the Spanish capital, establishing a camp in Puerta del Sol square and sparking a major political crisis.

Abascal’s family first rented the apartment in 1956, with the tenancy passing from her father to her mother and eventually to her. In 2018, the real estate company Urbagestion purchased the property and later challenged her right to remain. Following a lengthy court battle, the company offered her a new rent contract at around €1,600 ($1,800) per month, compared with the roughly €500 she had previously paid from her monthly pension of €1,400.

Abascal’s cause of death is unclear, but multiple local media outlets reported that her physical condition had worsened amid the legal battle.

Commenting on her death, the Madrid Tenants’ Union called Abascal’s situation “a turning point in the history of this country.” 

“Speculation costs lives, and today rent profiteering has finished killing our colleague Maricarmen,” the union’s spokeswoman said.

Some of the messages laid at an impromptu memorial read, “it’s not a death, it’s a killing,” and “the fight will continue.”

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez also weighed in, expressing condolences. “All my affection to Maricarmen’s family and loved ones. A hug also to everyone who today feels this loss as our own. Rest in peace,” he wrote on X.

The Spanish have struggled with soaring rent costs for years, with 26% of renters spending at least 40% of their income on housing and utilities, according to government figures. Meanwhile, A 2024 investigation by the nonprofit Civio identified more than 185,000 rental properties held by large corporate landlords in the regions surveyed, around half linked to US banks and investment funds.

US giant Blackstone controlled nearly 19,600 rental properties, while BlackRock has indirect exposure through its stake in Ares Management, another major investor in Spanish housing.

The protests sparked a major political upheaval in Spain. After parliament rejected emergency housing decrees, Sanchez called a snap general election for November 29. His government subsequently approved a revised 21-measure package, including stronger eviction protections, rent controls and restrictions on speculative property purchases, though it has yet to be ratified.

Lithuania has tightened temporary protection rules for Ukrainian men subject to military service, becoming the latest EU member state to impose new conditions as Kiev struggles to replenish its depleted armed forces.

Ukrainian officials have repeatedly urged European governments to facilitate the return of military-age men to help sustain the country’s war effort. Kiev barred most military-age men from leaving Ukraine after the conflict with Russia escalated in February 2022 and later lowered the minimum mobilization age from 27 to 25.

On Wednesday, the Lithuanian government approved rules requiring Ukrainians liable for military service to prove they have fulfilled their obligations to qualify for temporary protection. Existing beneficiaries who have continuously retained their status are exempt. Around 52,000 Ukrainians currently hold temporary residence permits in the Baltic country.

Other European countries have already tightened their policies. Poland has scaled back certain welfare benefits, healthcare, and accommodation for Ukrainians, while Norway and Switzerland have limited protection for applicants from Ukrainian regions they consider relatively safe.

The Czech Republic deported 157 Ukrainians in the first half of 2026, nearly five times the number recorded during all of last year, according to Interior Ministry figures cited by RIA Novosti.

Despite tightening restrictions on Ukrainians living in the bloc, EU governments continue to channel billions to Kiev. The European Commission announced another €2.9 billion ($3.25 billion) disbursement last week, while €60 billion of its planned €90 billion loan package for 2026-2027 is earmarked for military spending.

Kiev is continuing its controversial mobilization campaign, including the practice dubbed ‘busification’, in which recruitment officers forcibly take men from the streets to enlistment centers, often sparking clashes and protests.

Moscow has accused Kiev of fighting “to the last Ukrainian,” arguing that Western governments are prolonging the conflict by continuing to supply weapons and financial assistance.

The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has secured the office of state parliament president in Saxony-Anhalt, with its successful candidate claiming he received backing from members of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in a historic first.

Despite emerging as Germany’s most popular party in recent polls, the AfD has for years been subjected to the so-called ‘firewall’ policy, under which mainstream parties refuse to cooperate with it.

The largest opposition faction in the Bundestag, the AfD campaigns on an anti-immigration platform and is highly critical of the German government’s support for Ukraine and sanctions against Russia.

The party won last month’s regional election in Saxony-Anhalt with 43.8% of the vote, narrowly falling short of an absolute majority in the regional legislature. Merz’s CDU finished a distant second with 17.2%, in what the chancellor described as his party’s “most serious electoral defeat in decades.”

Ahead of the secret ballot, representatives of the left-wing Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) announced that they would support Rausch. Together, the AfD and BSW hold 44 seats.

Rausch, however, received 48 votes, with 29 lawmakers voting against him and five abstaining. The result means he secured four more votes than the combined AfD-BSW total, although the secret ballot makes it impossible to establish who cast them.

The CDU parliamentary leadership had advised its lawmakers to abstain, while the SPD, the Greens, and The Left said they would vote against Rausch in keeping with the firewall policy.

Following his victory, Rausch said he believed CDU lawmakers had backed him. Asked directly whether he had received CDU votes, he replied: “Yes.”

“The era of political ‘firewalls’ should be a thing of the past,” Rausch proclaimed.

AfD co-chairs Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla similarly declared that the “years of ostracism against our party have finally come to an end today,” and called on the CDU to cooperate with the AfD.

Following the party’s victory in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s regional election in September with 38.2% of the vote, the SPD renewed calls for a formal review that could pave the way for a ban.

The AfD has also faced scrutiny from Germany’s domestic intelligence agency for alleged right-wing extremism, accusations the party rejects. Some regional branches, including in Saxony-Anhalt, have been subjected to particularly extensive monitoring.

Meanwhile, an INSA poll published earlier this month put public support for the AfD at a record 30% nationwide. Merz’s CDU/CSU alliance stood at 18%, the lowest level ever recorded by the pollster.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has delivered a blistering attack on open borders, globalism and the erosion of national sovereignty in Europe, warning from the ancient heart of Athens that the West risks sliding into “atrophy, servitude and decline.”

Speaking on Wednesday from the Pnyx, the ancient assembly site beneath the Acropolis, Rubio argued that Western governments had spent decades dismantling the very principles that had made their civilization successful.

“‘Nationalism’ became a dirty word,” Rubio said. “So we tore down our monuments, we condemned our own history, and in too many places we taught our children to be ashamed of the countries they would inherit.”

“In the process we opened our borders, and outsourced our industry, and allowed our militaries to wither and to decay,” he added.

Rubio contrasted the globalist approach embraced by much of the European political establishment with the Trump administration’s “America First” doctrine, arguing that governments have an obligation to put their own citizens above international institutions.

“It has become fashionable today to believe that enlightened foreign policy means prioritizing the global community over one’s own people,” he said, insisting the ancient Greeks understood that there was “nothing selfish or wrong about loyalty to your nation” or defending its interests “above all else.”

US Vice President JD Vance has previously warned that Europe risks committing “civilizational suicide” through uncontrolled migration and curbs on free expression. At the Munich Security Conference last year, he argued that the continent’s greatest danger came not from Russia or China, but from an internal retreat from democratic values. The administration formalized much of that critique in its 2025 National Security Strategy, which warned that Europe faces potential “civilizational erasure.”

Rubio nevertheless stopped short of calling for a rupture with Europe. Instead, he urged the continent to follow Washington’s nationalist turn, praising Greece as a “model ally” and saying there were already signs of a broader shift.

Rubio declared that the US, under Trump, had already chosen the “unapologetic pursuit of national power,” including reindustrialization, securing critical supply chains, rebuilding the military and seeking dominance in artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, weapons, space and other strategic industries.

The West, he warned, is now at an “inflection point,” with decisions made over the next decade potentially determining whether it remains at the center of global power or accepts a future of decline.

An Iowa city council meeting erupted into controversy after opening with a Satanic invocation that ended with the words “Hail Satan,” prompting a local pastor to demand that officials “reverse this curse.”

Matt Dalbey, an Ottumwa resident and former city council member, delivered the invocation at Tuesday’s meeting under a policy allowing residents of different religions and belief systems to open council proceedings with a prayer or reflection.

Dalbey began by addressing a “dark father” and invoking what he called the “Luciferian impulse” before concluding: “It is done. Hail Satan.”

The invocation immediately drew objections from New Life Center pastor Rick Bick, who interrupted the proceedings.

“That was a curse put on the city,” he said. “Most of you know that, and we need to just stop and reverse it… ‘Hail Satan’ is not welcome here.”

Dalbey’s invocation was permitted under a policy adopted by the council in January. The measure states that Ottumwa, a city of some 25,500 people, seeks to respect “the diversity of both organized and unorganized religious denominations, as well as other faiths, belief systems, or the lack thereof.”

Council member Cara Galloway had specifically warned that a Satanic invocation could happen when she cast the only vote against the policy in January. “Opening with an invocation means allowing viewpoints that may not reflect our own,” she said, warning that selectively objecting to one now could expose taxpayers to legal liability.

The recording of the meeting had drawn more than 12,000 views on the city’s YouTube channel by Wednesday afternoon, making it the most-watched video ever posted there.

Dalbey is scheduled to deliver another invocation at the council’s November 3 meeting. He told the Ottumwa Courier that the prayer is used by the Satanic Temple of Iowa, of which he is a member, but “has nothing to do with the belief in a satanic deity.” The organization describes itself as non-theistic.

Iranian strikes forced US troops to effectively abandon a major military base in Kuwait during the opening stages of the US-Israeli war on Iran, according to newly released footage and accounts from American servicemen obtained by CBS News.

Videos shared by American soldiers in breach of the Pentagon’s strict media policy show several drones nosediving into Camp Buehring, a major US Army staging facility roughly 40 km from the Iraqi border, as well as damage to buildings and military equipment. CBS said it authenticated the recordings using embedded metadata and imagery of the aftermath.

The installation came under repeated attack by Iranian ballistic missiles and drones after hostilities began on February 28. A US service member also told CBS that Iranian F-5 fighter jets flew missions against the base “so close to us I could see their helmets.”

Most of the roughly 7,000 troops stationed at Camp Buehring had already been dispersed before the war under what the Pentagon called its “get off the X” strategy, aimed at moving personnel away from fixed positions vulnerable to Iranian retaliation.

“They hit us bad,” one serviceman told the outlet. “It was horrible... We had to abandon the base.”

The remaining troops eventually fled the base and established improvised forward operating outposts in the Kuwaiti desert, where they remained for weeks. No US personnel were killed, although several were injured, including two who were struck by lightning during desert sandstorms.

The Pentagon declined to comment directly on the CBS report, instead referring the outlet to remarks made by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in March, when he acknowledged that more than 90% of American personnel had been moved away from US regional bases.

The revelations come days after an Associated Press investigation raised separate questions about US preparations elsewhere in Kuwait. An Iranian drone struck an American operations center at Port Shuaiba on March 1, killing six soldiers and wounding dozens in what remains the deadliest known single attack on American troops during the conflict. Some of the wounded said troops initially treated each other with basic first-aid supplies and had to use Google to locate the nearest hospital in Kuwait City. The Pentagon has maintained that its medical response was appropriate.

As the damage mounted, the Pentagon tightened control over images emerging from the region. After an Iranian missile and drone strike on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan on July 17 killed three US service members, CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper warned troops against filming strike sites, claiming that publicly posted footage was helping Tehran assess the accuracy and effects of its attacks. US allies hosting American bases have likewise imposed strict bans and penalties on filming military sites and strike aftermaths, making independent footage of Iranian attacks increasingly rare.

Iran has threatened to block what it calls “illegal” traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, saying it retains full control of the passage despite US claims to the contrary.

The waterway is one of the world’s most important energy routes, normally carrying around a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments. Traffic through the strait has been severely disrupted since the US-Israeli war on Iran began in late February, driving up energy prices. Brent crude was trading at around $101 a barrel on Wednesday, compared with roughly $72 before the conflict.

Mohammad Reza Naqdi, a senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander and adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader, said on Wednesday that several transit routes through the strait along Oman’s coast would soon be closed.

Naqdi said the routes had been created by blasting and damaging rocky passages and were being used by small boats to carry oil through the waterway before transferring it to tankers. He described the shipments as “smuggling” and argued that they were too limited to show that traffic through Hormuz was returning to normal.

Iran has previously offered to reopen the strait if Washington eases military pressure and lifts its blockade of Iranian ports.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a sharply different assessment on Wednesday, saying the strait is “open” and that Iran had “lost complete control” of Hormuz.

”There’s almost as much oil flowing out now as there was before this conflict began,” Rubio told reporters.

Regional crude exports have rebounded significantly. A seven-day moving average reached 18.3 million barrels per day on September 30, according to provisional Kpler data cited by Reuters. The figure includes oil shipped through routes other than Hormuz.

Security risks in the strait remain high. The Panamanian-flagged tanker On Peace was hit by a projectile near Oman on Tuesday, injuring 12 crew members, according to the Indian authorities. No group has claimed responsibility.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas and other Palestinian resistance organizations launched an attack out of the Gaza Strip and into Israel under the code name “Al-Aqsa Flood.” Israeli and Western mainstream media and politicians rapidly labelled this a massive act of terrorism and flooded the world with tales of horrific atrocities allegedly perpetrated by the Palestinians, such as sadistically murdering children and women and committing mass rape.

We now know that these atrocious tales were lies calculated to generate domestic and international outrage against the Palestinian resistance and Palestinians in general. They were part of the same poisonous Israeli narrative that labeled these people “Amalek” – a reference to a perversely “exemplary” genocide in the Old Testament – and denied that they were human beings. They were taking steps, in other words, to start a genocide.

These atrocious propaganda lies were made up and spread by, for instance, Israel’s Zaka activists and Western mainstream journalists, such as the New York Times, high public officials such as the UN’s Pramila Patten, and activists. For instance, former Meta executive Sheryl Sandberg acted as a Zionist propagandist, who chose to rely on Israeli disinformation.

In reality, there were no mass rapes, there were no sadistic baby murders by beheadings or in microwave ovens, no pregnant woman was found killed with a headshot, with her baby stabbed and still attached to the umbilical cord. It “simply didn’t happen,” as a detailed investigation by Israeli newspaper Haaretz found.

The core of this offensive targeted Israel’s Gaza Division, which, according to high-ranking Israeli officers was “overpowered.” In the process, Palestinian resistance fighters killed and captured Israeli military personnel. While Israel’s propaganda has done its best to obfuscate this fact, these actions were neither “terrorism” nor hostage-taking but legitimate acts of armed resistance under international law.

The Palestinian fighters also attacked a music festival as well as several settlements. There, according to an Amnesty International summary in early 2024, they did commit crimes, including the deliberate killing of civilians and the taking of hostages, that is, civilians, not soldiers, whose capture makes them POWs and not hostages. A crime, in any case, is a crime even if it’s only realistic to recognize plenty of mitigating circumstances in the immense injustice, dispossession, and often sadistic and humiliating violence Palestinians have suffered from Israelis over decades.

Honesty also dictates that we take three key facts into account: First, the leader of the pro-Israeli UAE, has revealed that he warned Israel’s leader Benjamin Netanyahu personally of Hamas’s plans. In a similar vein, Qatar’s leader claims that Hamas was ready to free all civilian hostages immediately after the attack (which would have left it with only military prisoners). Yet the Israeli leadership ignored the warning and rejected the offer to free all civilians.

It’s almost as if it wanted the attack to happen, as a pretext to initiate a massive ethnic cleansing-by-genocide campaign, and for the civilian hostages to stay in Gaza, as a pretext for  continuing that campaign.

And finally, a simple point all too often drowned out by Israeli and pro-Israeli propaganda: A legitimate military force does not lose its overall legitimacy – or that of its goals – even when some of its members commit crimes. If that were the case, most armies in this world would have to be dissolved because none of them have a history entirely free of crimes. Armed Palestinian resistance is fundamentally legitimate under international law – and morally, too, obviously – and remains so. In fact, in the future, the outnumbered, outgunned, and abandoned Palestinian defenders of Gaza will be remembered as heroes, as they should.

Things are different, as a matter of fact, if we look at the actions of the Israeli military since October 7. Unlike with anything that individual Palestinian resistance fighters may have done, in the case of Israel’s euphemistically mis-labeled Defense Forces – a “citizen army [and] representative sample” of Israeli society – we are looking at a clear case of a whole, large organization deliberately and enthusiastically dedicated to committing every war crime and crime against humanity in every book, including ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Because that is a precise description of what Israel has been doing to the Palestinians of Gaza – and not only – since October 7, 2023. It is also by now the consensus among honest observers, including the global community of genocide experts. This, indeed, has been the most public genocide in human history, despite Israeli attempts to seal Gaza off and mass murder its journalists under false pretexts.

The nature and extent of Israel’s crimes is obvious and exceedingly well documented, and that is a very important thing. Humanity owes an enormous debt of gratitude to those Palestinians and others who have undertaken the harrowing task of compiling and analyzing the evidence, such as, to name only a few, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese or the tireless staff of the Electronic Intifada.

What needs at least as much attention is what the Gaza genocide says about our world as a whole: namely that genocide is not only possible – it was before – but can take place over years and in full view of the global public, with the active support of most of the establishments of virtually the entire West and the passive acquiescence of the elites of most other countries.

In a more or less sane world, fulfilling its obligations under the short and clear UN Genocide Convention of 1948 – it bears recalling – the Israeli genocide perpetrators would long have been stopped by a combination of diplomatic, economic, and, of course, military intervention. That would have been the minimum of what both international law and basic ethics obviously demand.

Yet, instead, we live in a world, where – apart from the Palestinian resistance itself – only a handful of states and political organizations have done anything at all to interfere with Israel’s mass murder campaign: Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Ansarallah – the Houthis – in Yemen.

But failure to act has been only part of this real-life horror story. In the West, many governments and mainstream establishments, including in the media and academia, have pro-actively supported Israel. This is a shameful history of criminal collaboration and complicity still to be written. Indeed, in the worst cases, such as the elites of the US, the UK, and Germany, complicity seems too weak an expression: they are better described as genocide co-perpetrators.

The obvious inference from this state of the world is that international law does not matter. There is no more devastating attack on the very idea of international law and a law-based order than the impunity of Israel and its accomplices. Benjamin Netanyahu, with an International Criminal Court warrant to his name, has been able to brazenly deny his and his country’s crimes at the recent UN General Assembly and even repeat the Amalek reference, as Craig Mokhiber has pointed out. Outside, meanwhile, his critics were being arrested.

Annalena Baerbock, in her time as one of Germany’s most embarrassing foreign ministers ever, also justified, shielded, and supported Israel; she has just finished her ill-begotten sinecure as the UN General Assembly’s president and made a lateral move to an absurdly undeserved position at Columbia University. The examples could be multiplied endlessly: the elites of the West, including American presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump, have devastatingly compromised themselves by their complicity with Israel. And yet, they keep thriving.

Now add the fact that Israel has not “only” been committing the Gaza genocide. It has also escalated ethnic cleansing terror in the West Bank, invaded Syria and Lebanon, attacked Yemen, participated in and triggered brutal assaults against Iran that have also tanked the world energy economy, and, in general, has followed its usual modus operandi of assassination, subversion, torture, rape, and relentless aggression. And yet it faces no discernible consequences beyond ludicrously inappropriate, purely symbolical measures at best and, of course, massive continued support.

Meanwhile, those in the West who dare be human and show their solidarity with the Palestinians and other victims of Israel and its accomplices and co-perpetrators are harassed, beaten up by police, arrested, and blacklisted.

What the Gaza genocide has shown with respect to the world as a whole is simple: Those who rule us will go much farther, much more shamelessly and openly than most of us, even the pessimists, used to be able to imagine. More importantly, they will get away with it, and they will let each other get away with it. Gaza is not an exception. It is a harbinger of a world of horrors. Resistance is not an option; it is the only one.

A former Australian Catholic bishop has been sentenced to six and a half years in prison for sexually abusing two young indigenous men over the course of a decade. 

76-year-old ex-bishop Christopher Saunders is one of the most senior Australian clerics to be convicted in a series of scandals that have shaken the Catholic Church for decades. In August, Saunders was found guilty on 13 out of 19 sexual abuse charges pertaining to two accusers he victimized between 2008 and 2019. 

Saunders narrowly dodged a harsher punishment, with all the charges related to his alleged sexual relations with minors flopped in court. Four charges related to the alleged abuse of a child younger than 13 were dropped on the first day of his trial, while he was acquitted of six further charges involving a 16-year-old child.

All the crimes were perpetrated by Saunders when he led the remote Broome Diocese between 1996 and 2021, when he resigned from the position over allegations of sexual misconduct. While the territory of the diocese covers an area larger than France, it has a population of only some 50,000, predominantly indigenous people.

The scale of sexual misconduct by the ex-bishop was likely significantly greater than the crimes he was convicted of. The Church’s internal report was leaked to Australia’s Seven Network and indicated that Saunders likely sexually assaulted at least four and groomed a further 67 indigenous minors and young men.

The sentencing has been welcomed by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, with its president, Archbishop Timothy Costelloe, insisting it reflected the gravity of the crimes committed.

“To each victim and survivor who courageously revealed what they had endured, we want to say this: We are sorry for the pain and suffering that was inflicted on you. We are sorry that your trust was so directly and profoundly betrayed by a leader of the Church,” Costelloe said in a statement.

Europe’s leaders have grand plans – spend more on weapons, prepare for war, and tighten citizens’ belts. The people have more immediate concerns however, like finding somewhere to live, keeping their jobs, and getting an education. Across France, Germany, Spain, and other EU states, the widening rift has started to spill into the streets.

Recent weeks have seen housing marches across Spain, student riots and public-sector strikes in France, and demonstrations against military recruitment and industrial job cuts in Germany. Immigration has added to the anger over housing and overstretched services, while the prospect of conscription has young Germans asking whose wars they are expected to fight.

The demands differ, but a recurring complaint unites them – aside from those simply looking for an excuse to wreak havoc: governments aren’t listening. Instead of putting domestic problems first, European leaders are telling their constituents to accept less and sacrifice more, while committing billions to preparations for a suicidal war with Russia. That’s despite Moscow and even Europe’s own intelligence services repeatedly saying there is no imminent threat.

Spain: Priced out and fed up

Spain’s housing crisis has pushed tens of thousands into the streets. After years of soaring rents, the eviction of an 87-year-old woman from her home of 70 years in Madrid last month turned into a rallying point for those sick of being priced out of their homes and the government’s failure to tackle the housing affordability crisis. 

Rents in Spain have almost doubled over the past decade as immigration-driven population growth has continued to outstrip housing construction. The population, excluding migration, has meanwhile only continued to decline.

The pressure is even more visible in Ceuta, Spain’s North African enclave, where around 72,000 people crossed from Morocco in late July into a territory with roughly 84,000 inhabitants. Although most returned, thousands remained, overwhelming accommodation and straining public services.

Residents have taken to the streets demanding stronger border controls and faster deportations, accusing Madrid of abandoning them. Protests have escalated into clashes with police, while angry locals have torn down makeshift migrant camps.

France: School’s out

France has also been gripped by overlapping protests over wages, spending cuts, public services, and school conditions. Teachers, healthcare workers, firefighters and transport staff have joined numerous strikes in recent weeks, while a growing student movement has added school blockades to the disruption.

Around 266,000 people joined demonstrations nationwide on Tuesday. More than 6,500 have been arrested over three weeks, while hundreds of students and police officers have been injured, including a 15-year-old who lost his hand to a police grenade and a 16-year-old who reportedly lost sight in one eye after being hit by a rubber bullet. 

As the movement has grown, violent groups have joined the protests, torching buses, attacking emergency workers, and damaging schools. Across France, 24 schools have been burned or ransacked.

France: The cuts keep coming

The student demonstrations came on the heels of wider protests that have gripped France for weeks, with public-sector workers protesting a squeeze on wages and services, compounded by soaring fuel prices. 

Other demonstrations have also challenged continued funding for Ukraine, with protesters arguing that the money should go toward hospitals, education, and lower fuel taxes. 

Separate rallies in more than 20 cities have also opposed a bill that could give police shootings the presumption of legality, which critics say would make officers harder to hold accountable.

Germany: Factories shrink, the military grows

Around 45,000 students joined protests in some 100 cities and towns in late September, carrying banners reading ‘We won’t fight in your wars’ and ‘Education instead of bombs’.

The government meanwhile is pressing ahead with plans to expand the armed forces to more than 260,000 active troops and 200,000 reservists by 2035 to align with Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s fixation on creating “Europe’s strongest conventional army.”

Young men are already required to register for potential service, but politicians have been pushing for a return to conscription if voluntary recruitment fails to fill the ranks.

Tens of thousands of automotive workers have also protested sweeping job cuts and threats to factories. Volkswagen, for example, plans to shed 100,000 jobs across its brands, while other manufacturers are cutting production or moving it abroad.

Germany’s industrial woes have been further compounded by the loss of cheap Russian energy, which helped make its manufacturers competitive. Higher energy costs, US tariffs, and Chinese competition are now squeezing businesses and threatening jobs across the sector.

More guns and more fear

Even with streets burning and protesters demanding relief, European leaders have not let the turmoil distract them from their military ambitions.

In Germany, Merz and NATO chief Mark Rutte smiled and waved through boos and chants of “murderers” and “blood on your hands” after the military bloc received the Westphalian Peace Prize last week. Inside the ceremony, officials praised military strength as the foundation of peace.

Those priorities are also taking shape in Brussels’ budget negotiations. Germany and five other EU states have demanded cuts to the bloc’s next budget, pushing to sacrifice funding for farmers and poorer regions in favor of ever-growing military spending.

The urgency is being justified by the supposed threat of a future Russian attack. However, Moscow has repeatedly denied any such plans, while even Finland’s president has admitted that his intelligence services see no imminent military threat. 

A major escalation in Yemen has brought Saudi Arabia back into military confrontation with the Iran-backed Houthis, ending years of relative calm as tensions rise across the Middle East.

Much of the fighting has taken place along Yemen’s Red Sea coast and around the strategically important Bab el-Mandeb Strait, following major Houthi territorial gains and a Saudi-backed counteroffensive. The waterway has become increasingly important as the US-Israeli war on Iran disrupts regional trade and energy routes, particularly through the Strait of Hormuz.

Who are the Houthis?

The Houthis, formally known as Ansar Allah, are a Zaydi Shia armed and political movement that emerged in northern Yemen in the 1990s. Their traditional stronghold is the mountainous province of Saada along the border with Saudi Arabia. The movement emerged in opposition to Yemen’s central government and Saudi and US influence.

They now control much of northern and western Yemen, including areas where most of the country’s population lives.

The Houthis are backed by Iran and describe themselves as part of the Tehran-aligned “Axis of Resistance.”

Over years of fighting, the group has developed an arsenal of ballistic and cruise missiles and drones capable of striking Saudi Arabia and ships in the Red Sea.

How did Yemen’s civil war begin?

In 2014, the Houthis seized Sanaa and forced the internationally recognized Yemeni government from the capital. Saudi Arabia intervened the following year at the head of a military coalition seeking to restore the government and counter Iran’s growing influence.

Years of fighting failed to dislodge the Houthis. A UN-brokered truce in 2022 sharply reduced hostilities and cross-border attacks, and although it formally expired after six months, hostilities remained limited for several years.

Fighting resumed in July, when Yemeni government forces struck the runway at Sanaa airport to prevent an Iranian plane carrying a Houthi delegation from landing. The delegation was returning from the funeral of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the opening US-Israeli strikes on the Islamic Republic at the end of February. The Houthis blamed Saudi Arabia for the airport strike, declared the de-escalation over, and retaliated against the kingdom.

Why is Saudi Arabia involved?

Yemen shares a long border with Saudi Arabia, making the conflict a direct security concern for Riyadh. The Houthis have repeatedly demonstrated their ability to strike deep inside the kingdom.

The Saudi-led coalition said on Monday that 100 fighter jets were taking part in Operation Dawn of Yemen, providing air cover for government forces, and claimed to have destroyed 324 “high-value” Houthi targets. Hundreds of fighters have reportedly been killed on both sides since then.

The Houthis have responded with missile and drone attacks on Saudi cities, airports, and military facilities.

What does the Iran war have to do with it?

The US has not resumed direct strikes against the Houthis, but American and regional officials reportedly said that Washington is providing Riyadh with intelligence, target identification, and operational planning.

Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Türkiye activated the collective-defense provisions of their Makkah Alliance for Defense for the first time on Monday in response to attacks on the kingdom. The pact, sometimes dubbed the ‘Muslim NATO’, was signed in August and commits all three members to respond if any one of them comes under attack.

Who else is involved?

The forces fighting the Houthis are themselves divided. Yemen’s internationally recognized government relies heavily on Saudi Arabia, but government-aligned formations have different political and regional loyalties.

Western countries are also providing military support to Riyadh. The UK has deployed an RAF Voyager tanker to provide air-to-air refueling for Saudi defensive operations, while France has announced the deployment of troops, radars, and air-defense systems to help protect Saudi energy infrastructure around Yanbu, a major Saudi oil-export hub on the Red Sea.

Why does Bab el-Mandeb matter now?

Bab el-Mandeb is a narrow strait between Yemen and the Horn of Africa connecting the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. Ships traveling between Asia and Europe through the Suez Canal normally have to pass through it.

The strait has become especially important since the US-Israeli war on Iran disrupted shipping through Hormuz on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula. Saudi Arabia can bypass Hormuz by moving crude from its eastern oil-producing regions through the East-West pipeline to Yanbu on the Red Sea.

The pipeline was shut after drone attacks in September that Riyadh blamed on Iraqi militias but has since resumed operations, with flows reportedly reaching 5.8 million barrels per day.

How does it affect global energy markets?

Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser has warned that the world’s supply cushion was “scarily thin,” saying nearly 3 billion barrels of regional supply had been lost since the war with Iran began and that depleted stocks could take up to two years to rebuild.

The pressure has been even greater on refined fuels. Nasser said diesel and other fuel prices had risen more sharply than crude. G7 countries agreed last week to release 100 million barrels of oil and refined products from emergency reserves in an effort to ease the squeeze.

What happens next?

Yemen’s government has set a goal of restoring its authority across the country, including retaking the Houthi-held capital, Sanaa. Fighting remains intense, however, with the Houthis launching missiles and drones at Aden International Airport on Wednesday as clashes continued elsewhere.

The conflict is worsening Yemen’s long-running humanitarian crisis. Some 184,000 people had been displaced by the latest fighting as of October 4, according to the International Organization for Migration. The WHO said last week that 838 people had been killed and more than 3,600 injured since August.

Diplomatic efforts are continuing, with the UN urging support for a political settlement and de-escalation.

Russia has also urged restraint and expressed readiness to help mediate if requested. The Kremlin said on Wednesday that Moscow was watching the escalation “with concern.”

On October 7, 2023, Israel faced a horrific attack when Hamas killed over a thousand of its citizens and took hundreds of hostages. This atrocity can never be justified.

But there is another fact that we cannot ignore: Israel’s overconfidence and conviction of superiority over its adversaries led to the country’s most catastrophic security failure. Three years later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government still has no convincing answer as to how the ensuing war is supposed to secure a safer future for the country.

More firepower, no endgame

The Israeli leadership’s main takeaway from the October 7 tragedy was the need to strike earlier, harder, and deeper. Deterrence gave way to destruction and elimination – first of the adversaries’ military capabilities, then of their leaders. The war expanded beyond Gaza, engulfed Lebanon, and finally escalated to a direct confrontation with Iran. Aggression became the guiding principle of regional policy. Yet, the tragedy also demanded a reassessment of the adversary, a sober evaluation of the country’s intelligence, and governmental accountability. Force can punish an enemy, but it cannot rectify the errors that made the attack possible in the first place.

Here, we clearly see the main contradiction of Netanyahu’s policy. Israel can destroy command centers, eliminate commanders, demolish infrastructure, and occupy territory. However, it is incomparably more difficult to shape neighboring societies in a way that would prevent the threat from re-emerging. The government expanded its military objectives but never defined a realistic political outcome. Who will govern Gaza? What kind of international recognition will that authority rely on? How can the daily lives of Palestinians be restored? What will ensure the safety of Israelis once the army withdraws? As long as there are no answers to these questions, every victory necessitates yet another military operation. 

It’s true that the loss of leadership disrupts command structures, severs ties, and hinders the restoration of military capabilities; however, the outcome must be judged by the state of the organizations and the country itself following these strikes. Iran retained its operational capacity; on March 8 – barely a week after the assassination – Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the late Ali Khamenei, was elected as the new Supreme Leader. The death of the leader did not lead to the collapse of Iran, as both Israel and the US had hoped.

Nothing drives people to become militants like the loss of loved ones and the destruction of their homes and lives. Those who have survived deadly attacks on their families have nothing to lose; such people seek protection, revenge, or at least a sense of purpose – and militant organizations step in to provide all this. Moreover, Hamas and Hezbollah are structured not as armies with a vertical chain of command, but as networks comprising a military wing, social services, schools, charitable activities, family and community ties. A slain commander can be replaced, but such an environment cannot be easily destroyed by bombs.

History has already demonstrated this. Hezbollah emerged in response to the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon; following the 1992 death of its leader, Abbas al-Musawi, Hassan Nasrallah took the helm and strengthened the movement. Hamas lost its founder, Ahmed Yassin, in 2004, yet won the parliamentary elections in Gaza just a couple of years later. Neither Hamas nor Hezbollah may regain their former strength anytime soon: they suffered great losses, and their supply and command capabilities have been crippled. Yet their story does not end with a list of slain commanders; it lives on in those who remain amidst the ruins.

On the third anniversary of October 7, the situation in Gaza reveals the same disconnect between military pressure and political outcomes. The October 2025 agreement secured the return of the surviving hostages, and by January 2026, the bodies of the deceased had also been brought back from Gaza. However, Hamas has not been disarmed (despite Netanyahu describing it as largely disarmed), and the transition to a new governance structure has yet to begin. Israeli strikes continue, and the army reportedly controls about two-thirds of the territory. While Israel retains immense coercive power, it has been unable to establish a sustainable order. 

The external aspect proved particularly difficult to handle. In the wake of October 7, Israel was naturally seen as a nation that had endured a horrific attack; everyone sympathized with it. Later, however, the image shifted: the world saw a devastated Gaza, a displaced population driven from place to place, and a humanitarian catastrophe. Now, facing another rainy winter, hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza are living in overcrowded camps where torrential rain floods their tents, or in buildings at risk of collapse. The longer this catastrophe drags on, the less people are willing to believe the explanation offered by Israel – that its actions are merely self-defense. 

People all over the world have openly started expressing hostility toward Israel. Such a level of hatred would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. In the spring of 2026, Pew Research Center surveyed residents of 36 countries: on average, 67% held a very negative view of Israel, while only 25% viewed it favorably. Attitudes have deteriorated even in countries that sympathized most with Israel – such as the UK, Italy, Poland, and Australia. While criticism of the government’s actions does not equate to justifying Hamas, global anti-Semitism has risen due to the conduct of Netanyahu and his far-right ministers – Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, who publicly express hateful, dehumanizing statements. 

The Middle East has become less predictable. The weakening of Iran’s allies has shifted the balance of power but failed to establish recognized rules of coexistence. Regional states are seeking additional external security guarantees and are ramping up their military capabilities. The direct confrontation between Israel and Iran has expanded the scope of potential targets and the number of parties involved in the conflict. Israel’s tactical advantage exists alongside the heightened vulnerability of the entire regional system.

Russia’s stakes in a fractured Middle East

Russia is primarily concerned with Iran’s stability. Tehran is important both as an independent partner and as a participant in Eurasian transport, trade, and energy networks. Strikes on Iranian infrastructure and disruptions to its foreign trade directly affect Russian interests. The North-South Corridor is gaining importance as an alternative transport route, yet it is simultaneously becoming more dependent on Iran’s ability to keep ports, roads, and border crossings operational. Increased demand for the route does not automatically guarantee an increase in its capacity; the war increases the need for connectivity while complicating the task of maintaining it.

For Moscow, these changes meant that it had to negotiate the terms of its military presence with the new authorities. Agreements reached in August 2026 regarding Russian facilities demonstrate that it is still possible to maintain relations. Exercising regional influence now requires greater flexibility and less reliance on a single political partner.

The economic consequences for Russia are also mixed. Disruptions in Middle Eastern oil supplies could keep global prices high and boost export revenues. However, a protracted war also drives up transport and insurance costs, disrupts payment settlements, and dampens economic activity in countries with which Russia is developing ties. Amidst this turbulence, Moscow’s role is growing. Russia is a major player in the global energy market, a partner in coordinating oil policy, and an independent diplomatic force that maintains contact with opposing sides.

Cooperation with Moscow enables the Persian Gulf states to expand their options and reduce reliance on US security guarantees. Diplomatically, the crisis offers Russia an opportunity to champion a more consistent approach to security. Its support for Palestinian statehood and opposition to strikes against sovereign nations resonate with many non-Western partners. However, political influence is only achieved when a country’s stance is backed by practical action. Moscow needs to maintain channels of communication with Iran, Israel, and Arab nations, facilitate agreements, and safeguard its own projects.

Netanyahu’s policy has failed to ensure long-term security. Despite Israel’s military achievements, the stated objective – long-term security – hasn’t been met, and the costs of the risky venture continue to rise. Three years on, Israel finds itself more capable of delivering strikes, yet less able to convince its neighbors – and even its allies (such as the Trump administration) – that its policies are paving the way to an acceptable future. As long as Israel substitutes these objectives with continued reliance on coercion, the consequences of the war will be felt far beyond its borders.

Outrage over the alleged killing of a woman by a US Marine in Okinawa has erupted in Tokyo, where protesters marched on the US Embassy demanding an end to the American military presence in Japan.

The demonstrations follow the arrest of Lance Corporal Devin Jacob Ballard, 20, suspected of strangling Anna Yagi, 39, at a hotel on the island on Saturday and stealing her belongings. Ballard has denied the allegations.

Okinawa is home to several major US military installations and tens of thousands of American service members.

Footage from Tuesday’s rally shows demonstrators carrying placards demanding justice for Yagi and calling for US forces to leave Japan, before marching outside the embassy under a heavy police presence.

“Neither the US military nor the embassy has offered a proper apology. It is only natural to be angry about this,” one protester said.

Another demonstrator said resentment over crimes involving US personnel had accumulated over decades and accused the authorities of ignoring repeated demands to remove American bases.

“It is truly infuriating that the presence of these bases leads to women being killed or raped like this. I cannot forgive it,” the protester said.

The case has reignited a decades-old dispute over the concentration of US military facilities in Okinawa. The prefecture accounts for just 0.6% of Japan’s territory but hosts around 70% of the land exclusively used by US forces in the country.

Crimes involving American personnel have repeatedly fueled opposition to the bases. In 1995, the abduction and rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan girl by three US servicemen triggered mass protests. In 2016, former Marine and US base worker Kenneth Franklin Gadson raped and murdered 20-year-old Rina Shimabukuro and was later sentenced to life imprisonment.

The West should abandon the thought that the Ukraine conflict will cause Russia to collapse like the USSR did in 1991, foreign affairs expert and RT contributor Fyodor Lukyanov has said.

Lukyanov, a program director at the Valdai International Discussion Club, moderated a more than three-hour-long session with Russian President Vladimir Putin as part of the club’s annual forum last week.
Putin said at the event the current tensions with the US and EU stem from the fall of the Soviet Union. Since then, Moscow has repeatedly tried to build good relations with Western countries, but their leaders have persisted in doing “everything they could to truly isolate and further break apart Russia itself,” Putin stressed.

During his appearance on RT’s East Meets West podcast with Olga Bataman and Tara Reade, Lukyanov said that “there are a lot of grounds on our [Russian] side to believe that we can win… by military means” in the conflict with Kiev.

“Paradoxically, Ukraine has the same idea based on another calculation, based on the expectation that the Western support will not stop and that on “a very traditional, old, good belief that Russia at some point will suddenly collapse,” he said.

Lukyanov said that he has already given up explaining to his American and European interlocutors that Russia is “different” and that it “will not collapse as the Soviet Union, but people in the West and now in Ukraine, they still believe it’s possible.”

The analyst also suggested the EU’s current hostility towards Russia should be explained by its leader’s trying to “find a way how to consolidate societies” amid “enormous” political, economic and social problems experienced by the bloc as a whole and its individual member-states.

They seek “to blame someone else and to find a menace which, as during the Cold War, can unify Europe,” he stressed.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has praised Iceland for allowing Washington to “project power” from the North Atlantic island nation into the Arctic.

Iceland is strategically positioned to help the Pentagon monitor Arctic airspace and conduct missions tracking Russian submarines in the Atlantic, not unlike Denmark’s autonomous territory of Greenland, which US President Donald Trump had notoriously threatened to annex. The US president and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen have signed an agreement to substantially increase Washington’s military presence there.

On Tuesday in Iceland, which joined NATO when it was created in 1949, Rubio praised Rejkyavik for allowing “the US military to project power using your land, your air, your sea, giving us a critical outpost for monitoring clandestine behavior and deterring our adversaries.”

Rubio and Gunnarsdottir both played down the diplomatic incident at their joint press conference.

”We’re not talking about social media posts,” Rubio said, while Gunnarsdottir said the two governments “are looking forward, not backward.”

.@SecRubio on Trump social media post depicting U.S. acquisition of Iceland: "We're not talking about social media posts, I'm here, we're here meeting with a country...everything's very positive in our relationship." https://t.co/ZVA5q5Bjq1

— CSPAN (@cspan) October 6, 2026

Long also apologized last year after joking that Iceland could become the 52nd US state, with himself as governor. A petition urging Gunnarsdottir to reject his posting as US ambassador reportedly gathered around 2,000 signatures.

The US first established a presence in Iceland during World War II, taking over from British forces in 1941. A 1951 defense agreement signed under the banner of the newly created NATO cemented Iceland’s role during the Cold War.

Rubio’s visit was designed to highlight decades of cooperation and the legacy of the Cold War. He and Gunnarsdottir met at the same venue where US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev held talks in 1986 on nuclear arms.

Washington’s ability to project military power worldwide is currently strained, with substantial assets tied down in the Middle East supporting the war with Iran. Rubio said the smaller US role in the joint Northern Viking exercise earlier this year reflected the need to “allocate resources” in response to current events and was not an “enduring decision” to reduce Washington’s attention to Iceland.

As Israel marks three years since the October 7 Hamas-led assault in 2023, the security failures surrounding the attack have become a major election issue, RT Middle East correspondent Charlotte Dubenskij has reported.

The incursion by the militant group left around 1,200 people dead in Israel while 251 others were taken hostage. Israel’s response was to launch a war in Gaza that has spread to additional fighting across the region. Around 73,000 Palestinians have since been reported killed in the enclave, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, is facing new allegations about what he knew before the attack. Recent reports claim he personally received warnings from Egypt and the UAE about a possible major Hamas operation – claims the prime minister denies.

The dispute comes just weeks before Israel’s October 27 election – the country’s first national vote since the assault.

Watch RT’s Charlotte Dubenskij’s full report below.

Military representatives from all of NATO's 32 members have gathered in Kiev. Ukraine has been trying to join the expansionist military-bloc for years, but has been consistently rejected. 

The visit by the members of the so-called Military Committee, takes place just a day after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said possible Ukrainian membership of NATO – one of the central issues at the heart of the Ukraine conflict – “is not on the table as we speak.” 

Moscow has long opposed the US-led military bloc’s eastward expansion and has made Ukrainian neutrality a key condition of any settlement, arguing that NATO’s presence there would pose a direct threat to Russian national security.

Ukraine made joining NATO a foreign policy priority following the Western-backed Maidan coup in Kiev in 2014 and later enshrined the objective in its constitution. In September 2022, Vladimir Zelensky demanded “accelerated accession.” As recently as July, he argued that Ukraine’s membership would be “entirely natural.”

NATO continues to officially describe Ukraine as being on an “irreversible path” toward entry. However, former Ukrainian commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny, who now serves as Kiev’s ambassador to the UK, said in August that he saw no realistic prospect of it happening.

“We are here in full strength with a clear message: the bond between NATO and Ukraine is stronger and stronger,” Dragone said.

According to the NATO official, the delegation discussed Ukraine’s military priorities with the country’s top brass, as well as lessons from the conflict that could be used to strengthen the bloc’s preparedness for “current and future threats.”

A number of influential member states, including the US and Germany, have repeatedly voiced opposition to NATO membership for Kiev. Speaking to the German newspaper Handelsblatt in early July, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte acknowledged that “there is no unanimous support now” for Ukraine’s admission to the bloc.

US President Donald Trump and other senior American officials have ruled out Ukraine joining NATO as part of a potential peace settlement with Russia. Speaking to reporters ahead of his February 2025 White House meeting with Zelensky, which infamously devolved into a shouting match, Trump reiterated: “NATO – you can forget about.”

The extent of US aircraft loses in the conflict with Iran is much larger that the Americans acknowledge, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said.

In a paper published on Tuesday the Congressional Research Service (CRS) said that at least 81 US warplanes, helicopters, and drones had been destroyed or damaged in the fighting with Tehran since late February.

Araghchi reacted to the report in a post on X on Thursday, insisting that the “real toll is far higher” than the one presented by the CRS.

“Proof? CENTCOM (US Central Command) won’t let a sitting Senator inspect bases it claims are fine,” the foreign minister wrote.

According to Murphy, the “unprecedented” rejection was “part of a coordinated, deliberate campaign by the Department of Defense to hide the consequences and the true costs of the Iran war.”

It is getting harder for the Pentagon to “fool all the people,” Aragchi said. He did not provide any alternative figures for US aircraft losses.

The CRS said in its paper that the cost of American planes, helicopters, and UAVs destroyed or damaged during the conflict could reach $3.3 billion. The figures provided in the document came from news reports and statements by CENTCOM and officials from the Department of Defense, the CRS said.

Congress has criticized the Pentagon for its reluctance to provide a complete list of aircraft losses in the conflict.

Some of the most advanced US warplanes have suffered hits, including one F-35A Lightning II stealth fighter, which was damaged by Iranian fire on March 19, and 12 F-15E Strike Eagle fighters, the report read.

Seven KC-135 Stratotanker aerial refueling aircraft were also destroyed or damaged, according to the paper. Two were involved in an incident on March 14, with one KC-135 crashing in Iraq, killing all six crew members, and another performing an emergency landing. Six more refueling planes were affected in an Iranian bombardment of a US base in Saudi Arabia a few days later.

Other notable aircraft losses included two A-10 Thunderbolt IIs, two MC-130J special operations aircraft and an E-3 Sentry airborne warning-and-control aircraft, the report added.

Among the helicopters reported destroyed, one AH-64 Apache was shot down over the Strait of Hormuz, four AH-6 Little Birds were lost during rescue operations and an MH-60 Sea Hawk crashed over the Arabian Sea in mid-September.

The CRS said that several issues could benefit from congressional oversight, including whether the Pentagon possesses the funding to replace damaged aircraft and whether the losses of aging platforms, which are in short supply, could create capability gaps for the US military.

Last month, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said that the conflict with Iran had cost the US approximately $38 billion in its first five months. The bill could increase by another $2 billion to $3 billion for every additional month of fighting, it cautioned.

Iran has increased its capacity to produce arms by 2.5 times compared to its pre-war level, the country’s Defense Ministry spokesman, Brigadier General Reza Talaei-Nik, said on Tuesday, warning that any further US aggression will be met with a decisive response by Tehran. The Islamic Republic currently manufactures more than 1,000 types of weapons systems and munitions, many of which have undergone technological upgrades during the conflict, he stressed.

For residents of Israel’s Gaza Envelope, the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, was not an abstract national trauma. Communities close to the Gaza border were among the first to come under assault, and residents spent hours locked in safe rooms, hiding from gunmen and rocket fire. Three years later, that shared experience has produced sharply different political conclusions among people living in the same region.

Michal Koren Kariv, a 50-year-old filmmaker from Kibbutz Mefalsim, remembers that morning all too well. As Hamas launched its deadly assault on communities across southern Israel, her family remained inside their home as armed militants reached the area. They spent hours in a protected room without electricity, unsure of what was happening outside.

When the family was finally able to leave, Koren Kariv says she saw devastation on a scale she had never witnessed before. The experience, she says, fundamentally changed her relationship with the state.

“I no longer believe anything,” she said. “Simply nothing.”

Accountability is a must

For her, the coming election is largely about the demand for a state commission of inquiry into October 7, an investigation that would establish what went wrong, who knew what and when, and which decisions or institutional failures contributed to the disaster. She says she plans to vote for those who promise to get to the bottom of those failures.

“I believe that whoever was prime minister when the attack occurred must bear political responsibility. Netanyahu was the head back then, so he should have resigned. I am not saying I won’t be voting for a right-wing party. All I am saying is that Netanyahu should not be prime minister.”

Koren Kariv says she has never voted for Netanyahu’s Likud, but she has never been in the so-called “anti-Bibi camp,” simply because she acknowledges the positive things Netanyahu has done for the country. She also recognizes that the current government has invested heavily in rebuilding the southern communities.

Shortly after the attacks, the Israeli government established the Tkuma administration to oversee reconstruction and recovery in communities damaged or evacuated after the massacre. Government figures show a multibillion-shekel reconstruction program covering housing, infrastructure, education, community services, and economic recovery.

Koren Kariv acknowledges that the Gaza Envelope has received substantial investment since the attack, including new construction, educational funding and a stronger military presence. But she draws a distinction between rebuilding communities physically and addressing the political and institutional failures she believes preceded the attack.

Tilting towards the right

A few kilometers away, Sami Danieli, a 65-year-old former security officer from the religious moshav of Shibolim near Sderot, drew a very different lesson from October 7.

Unlike many other communities in the Gaza Envelope that experienced direct infiltration by militants, his moshav was relatively protected. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad reached its outskirts but did not enter. Residents nevertheless sheltered as rockets fell, and Danieli says he lost close friends in neighboring communities that bore the brunt of the attack.

Even before October 7, Danieli had voted for National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who supports the expulsion of Palestinians and promotes settlement activity in the West Bank and Gaza. The events of October 7 did not weaken that support. They reinforced it.

“If I could vote for Ben Gvir twice, I would do so,” he said.

“I don’t believe there can be peace with Hamas, and that’s why Israel needs to take a tougher approach in its security policy.”

Ben-Gvir has said he would pursue a tougher security policy if he were given the defense portfolio following the election. As national security minister, he has already pursued a series of hardline measures towards Palestinians. These include worsening conditions for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, backing legislation imposing the death penalty for people convicted of terrorism, and distributing thousands of firearms to Israelis living in areas considered vulnerable to Palestinian attacks.

Danieli says he supports those measures. He remains firmly behind the right-wing bloc headed by Netanyahu and rejects claims that the current government bears responsibility for Israel’s failure to prevent or decisively end the war.

Instead, he points to anti-government protests and other factors that he believes constrained Israel’s ability to defeat Hamas.

“The anti-government protesters were the ones who weakened the country with their demonstrations. Then, when the war happened, total victory was not achieved partially due to the restrictions imposed by the Americans [under the Biden administration – ed.] and partially because of ammunition shortages.

“Netanyahu’s performance during the war was excellent though. Not very good – it was excellent.”

Danieli also gives the government credit for the reconstruction effort in the south.

“Government assistance reached the region and funds were provided, but of course there will always be people who will say that this is not enough,” he said.

“I believe that much of the criticism is coming from residents who are politically motivated. Eighty percent of them have a political agenda and this anti-Bibi bias prevents them from seeing the truth. This is why I don’t want the left to come to power. The right-wing must stay and rule,” he added.

Polling, however, shows that the hopes of Danieli might not materialize.

Reuters’ polling tracker, updated in late September, showed the centrist Yashar party led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot narrowly ahead of Likud in the polling average. The aggregate projected 66 seats for parties opposed to Netanyahu and 48 for parties supporting him, while also noting that the anti-Netanyahu camp did not have an obvious coalition path to the 61-seat threshold.

Individual polls by Israeli television channels and news outlets have produced different results. A Kan survey reported in late September put Yashar at 23 seats and Likud at 21, with the two main blocs each projected at 52 mandates.

A Times of Israel poll published on October 1 likewise found Netanyahu’s bloc ahead but still short of the 61 seats required to form a government on its own. Likud and Yashar were tied for first place among individual parties.

Israel uses nationwide proportional representation. Parties must pass a 3.25% electoral threshold to enter the Knesset, and a governing coalition requires the support of at least 61 of the parliament’s 120 members.

For the residents of the Gaza Envelope, however, the numbers on a polling chart tell only part of the story.

They lived through the same morning, heard the same rockets and waited behind the same locked doors for help to arrive. Yet, three years later, their memories of October 7 have taken them in opposite political directions.

Koren Kariv sees the election as a test of accountability, a chance to establish why the state failed and who should answer for it. Danieli sees it as a test of resolve, an argument for maintaining the political course he believes offers the strongest security.

Three years on, the communities closest to Gaza are no longer simply asking how they survived October 7. They are asking what the country should become because of it. And when they enter the voting booth, those two questions will lead them to very different answers.