Many Americans who voted Republican in the 2024 presidential election switched to the Democrats in the midterms over the war on Iran and related grievances, US Vice President J.D. Vance has said.

Republicans lost control of both chambers of Congress on Tuesday, with Democrats winning House and Senate races even in traditional GOP strongholds such as Texas. In a post on X, Vance warned that some would attempt to “gaslight” the public about the outcome, even though “the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone.”

The vice president pointed to a survey of voters who had backed Donald Trump and himself in 2024 but supported Democrats in the midterms. Asked what Republicans could do to regain their support, respondents gave four main answers: end the war with Iran, address the cost of living, put America first and “change our relationship with Israel.”

The US and Israel jointly attacked Iran in late February, claiming Tehran was weeks away from acquiring nuclear weapons. The decision contradicted Trump’s campaign promise not to start new wars and was widely criticized as prioritizing Israeli interests over American ones. The unresolved conflict has cost Washington tens of billions of dollars in direct military spending and disrupted global energy markets, driving up prices in the US.

Vance also praised Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy, endorsing her advice to end the war with Iran and defending her against critics who had accused her of anti-Semitism.

@JDVance @ImdaVinman Thanks for acknowledging these things. Better late than never. I’ll send you the hat. https://t.co/BhTENTdK57

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) November 4, 2026

Pro-Israeli politicians and advocacy groups have wielded substantial influence over US politics for decades. American campaign finance rules allow virtually unlimited spending by certain political organizations, enabling groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to promote policies favorable to Israel while operating as domestic political organizations rather than registered foreign lobbying entities.

Neither Democratic nor Republican leaders have been willing to embrace the growing public opposition to Israel’s policies, particularly since West Jerusalem launched its devastating military campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led incursion in October 2023.

Kamala Harris’ defeat by Trump in 2024 was partly attributed to her unwillingness to distance herself from Biden’s support for Israel’s military campaign, which many Democratic voters regarded as an ongoing genocide. Trump, meanwhile, mobilized supporters with pledges to prioritize American interests.

Although Trump has acknowledged that the war with Iran was a major factor in the Republican electoral defeat, he has shown no intention of abandoning the conflict and remains open to escalating it.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s African National Congress (ANC) has taken a narrow lead in early municipal election results, with counting still underway in a test for the party that has dominated the country’s politics since the end of apartheid in 1994.

With around 12% of votes counted early Thursday, the ANC had about 32%, ahead of the Democratic Alliance (DA), which had 31%, according to preliminary results published by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC). Only a small proportion of voting districts in the populous provinces of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal have reported results so far.

The ANC took roughly 46% in the previous municipal elections in 2021. Pre-election research by Ipsos pointed to further losses while suggesting it would remain the largest party, amid anger over crime, corruption, and failing basic services.

Ramaphosa dismissed predictions of further ANC decline at the party’s closing campaign rally on Sunday. “What I am seeing here is that the ANC is going higher and higher,” he told supporters.

A projection released by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research early Thursday put the ANC’s final share of the proportional representation vote at 31.69% and the DA’s at 25.73%.

The ANC lost its parliamentary majority in 2024 for the first time in the three decades since the end of white minority rule. It now leads a ten-party Government of National Unity, including the DA, South Africa’s second-largest party, alongside the Inkatha Freedom Party, Patriotic Alliance, and six smaller groups.

Speaking on voting day, ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula said national officials would direct coalition talks. DA Johannesburg mayoral candidate Helen Zille said her party sought an outright majority but would assess coalition options if necessary.

The municipal vote comes ahead of the ANC’s 2027 leadership contest, when Ramaphosa’s term as party leader ends, and South Africa’s next national election in 2029.

Iran has exempted Indian ships from the restrictions it imposed on passage through the Strait of Hormuz, along with vessels from China, Iraq, and Qatar, a senior Iranian lawmaker says.

The exemptions are intended to serve Iran’s interests, and in India’s case, to facilitate imports of medicines, the deputy chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Amir Hayat-Moghaddam, told the Iranian Students’ News Agency on Tuesday. Chinese ships have been exempted to secure Beijing’s political support.

India has been supplying and facilitating the transport of medicines and medical aid to Iran, which is under sanctions from the US and Europe, as a humanitarian gesture.

Iran restricted maritime traffic through the strategic waterway following the US-Israeli attack on February 28, and Washington subsequently retaliated with a naval blockade of Iranian ports. The Strait of Hormuz, which connects the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman, handled around a fifth of global oil and gas before the conflict.

India imports nearly 90% of its crude oil requirements, with around 30% currently passing through the strait. The route also handles most of the country’s liquefied petroleum gas imports, making it crucial for India’s energy supplies.

Iran collects transit fees from Indian and Chinese vessels but allows Qatari ships to pass free, Hayat-Moghaddam said. However, the Indian government has not paid any fees for ships whose passage it negotiated through diplomatic channels, the Economic Times reported. India previously secured passage for several energy shipments.

A gunman has rammed his car through a security fence at a Citibank corporate campus in Florida and fatally shot a female employee before being gunned down by an armed security guard. The attack left four others injured and triggered a police response involving hundreds of officers.

The attack unfolded around noon on Wednesday at the Citibank Center in Brandon, near Tampa, where more than 3,200 people were working at the time, according to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office.

The suspect drove a sedan over several road medians and grassy areas before smashing through a secured fence and crashing into an outdoor dining area where employees were having lunch, according to videos from the scene.

He then emerged from the wrecked vehicle carrying an AR-15-style rifle, approached a woman sitting outside and shot her dead, the authorities said.

#BREAKING UPDATE - Suspect killed by armed security guard at CitiBank in Tampa, Florida. One female victim killed in the attack. Authorities believe this was targeted. https://t.co/lgKMNRTYuk

— Fast News Network (@fastnewsnet) November 4, 2026

The attacker subsequently entered the building’s cafeteria, where an armed Citibank security guard confronted him. The two exchanged gunfire and the guard shot the suspect, who was rushed to Tampa General Hospital and pronounced dead at 1:12 PM.

🚨Tampa, Florida active shooter at a citibank.🚨 The shooter apparently drove their car through an outdoor area, exited his car, and killed a woman. He then began approaching a cafeteria, where he was killed by an armed security guard. He also seems to have a prosthetic leg. ●ABC news article A woman was shot and killed at a business complex in Florida on Wednesday, authorities said. The suspect was fatally shot by a security guard during an exchange of gunfire inside a cafeteria in the Tampa-area Citibank office complex, according to authorities. The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office said it responded to an "active threat" at the Citibank complex. Authorities received multiple 911 calls reporting a shooting around 12:11 p.m., according to Hillsborough County Chief Deputy Frank Losat. The suspect initially drove his four-door sedan through a fenced area and crashed into an outdoor seating area where multiple people were having lunch, according to Losat. "Upon the car coming to rest, the suspect exits the vehicle with a rifle, approaches the female, and she is shot," Losat said during a press briefing on Wednesday. The victim's name is not being released at this time and is pending full identification and next-of-kin notification, he said. The Citibank security guard engaged the suspect in the building's cafeteria, where the two exchanged gunfire, according to Losat. The suspect was shot by the security guard and taken to an area hospital, where he was pronounced dead, he said. Authorities have a pending identification of the suspect and are not releasing it at this time, Losat said. Earlier Wednesday, Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said on social media that, based on preliminary information, "we believe this is a targeted incident." Though during Wednesday's presser, Losat said investigators have to "work through details" and that information is subject to change. Investigators are "still working" to determine if the suspect and shooting victim knew each other, and are also conducting interviews with Citibank employees, Losat said. There were some 3,200 Citibank employees on the property at the time, he said. "With that many witnesses, up to 3,200 witnesses, we will be doing interviews well into the night," Losat said. Four people sustained non-life-threatening injuries in the incident, Losat said. It is unclear at this time if they were struck by the vehicle, he said. Losat commended the security guard who "stopped the threat," saying there was "potential" for further violence. The incident prompted a massive law enforcement response, including heavily armed deputies and armored vehicles. A law enforcement source told ABC News that agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will be responding to the scene. Authorities have cleared all the buildings in the complex, according to Losat. The crime scene is "very large" and will be processed possibly into Thursday, he said. "We are very fluid at this stage of the investigation," Losat said. "This is a sad day for everybody involved, the Tampa Bay area and surrounding communities and the law enforcement partners."

— MarsWolf (@MarsWolf76) November 5, 2026

Four other people were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, although officials have not clarified whether they were struck by gunfire or injured when the vehicle crashed into the dining area.

A very rapid response by Your Sheriff’s Office, with more than 365 deputies responding to the Citibank Center. https://t.co/cS5G6HDURE

— Chad Chronister (@ChadChronister) November 4, 2026

The shooting triggered a massive law enforcement operation, with 367 sheriff’s deputies, SWAT teams, helicopters, drones, and K-9 units descending on the sprawling complex. Officers evacuated workers and searched the buildings room by room, finding some employees hiding in locked offices and closets.

Newly released bodycam video from the Tampa Citibank shooting.. 2 deceased, 4 injured. https://t.co/k4NYlsrrYM

— MarsWolf (@MarsWolf76) November 5, 2026

Dramatic bodycam footage released by the sheriff’s office shows deputies rushing into the building and moving through its corridors during the response. Separate footage circulating online captured the gunman emerging from his wrecked car moments before the shooting.

BREAKING UPDATE: 2 DEAD IN TAMPA CITIBANK SHOOTING Authorities say the incident at the Citibank office complex outside Tampa, Florida, was a targeted attack. 🔴 One victim and the suspected shooter are dead, according to the Hillsborough County Sheriff. #Florida #ActiveShooter #Tempa

— Indian Observer (@ag_Journalist) November 4, 2026

Sheriff Chad Chronister described the shooting as a “targeted incident” and said the attacker had apparently intended to inflict far greater casualties.

Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser confirmed that the woman killed was a colleague and credited the security guards with preventing an even greater tragedy.

“I am devastated to share that one of our colleagues has lost their life,” she wrote in a message to employees. “I am grateful to the brave actions of our security team who prevented this awful day from being even worse.”

The identities of the suspect and victim have not been released. Investigators have yet to establish a motive or determine whether the two knew each other.

Hackers targeted refrigeration systems at three French blood banks, attempting to raise storage temperatures to extreme levels and destroy vital blood products, the country’s national blood service said on Wednesday. The attack follows a wave of similar incidents at supermarkets across Europe that caused millions of euros in damage.

The French Blood Establishment (EFS) said the cyberattack compromised monitoring and control systems operated by an external refrigeration supplier, allowing attackers to remotely manipulate temperature and defrosting settings at three plasma storage facilities.

The hackers reportedly attempted to raise the temperature from the normal -30C (-22F) to as high as 110C (230F), well above the boiling point, according to French investigative weekly Le Canard Enchaine, which first reported the incident.

“No health consequences have been identified and no blood products were lost,” the EFS said, adding that blood collection and distribution services continued uninterrupted.

The affected equipment contained bags of plasma intended for transfusions and pharmaceutical production. Some units were shut down as a precaution, and their contents were transferred to other facilities.

Refrigeration equipment supplier Coolworld confirmed that the attack affected its systems, blaming a vulnerability in a component supplied by another company. Only a limited number of its units were compromised, the company said.

The French Health Ministry and national cybersecurity agency, ANSSI, are investigating the incident. The EFS has also strengthened temperature monitoring across its refrigeration facilities.

A new wave of suspected cyberattacks on Monday affected dozens of supermarkets in Belgium, Sweden, Luxembourg, Ireland, and Estonia. Hackers reportedly activated defrosting mechanisms remotely, with temperature settings at some Swedish stores raised to 50C.

Dutch retailer Ahold Delhaize said on Wednesday that the earlier disruptions could reduce its fourth-quarter sales by as much as €250 million ($281 million) and operating income by up to €100 million.

The authorities have not established whether the incidents are linked, and no group has publicly claimed responsibility.

The pre-trial investigation into a major embezzlement scheme in Ukraine’s energy sector has been completed, the nation’s Western-backed anti-corruption agencies announced. Known as ‘Operation Midas’, the probe lasted for two years. It triggered one of the biggest corruption scandals involving Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s inner circle and cost several top officials their positions.

In a statement published on Wednesday, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) said a “high-level criminal organization” managed to build a “large-scale corruption scheme” and embezzle $111 million and €12 million from 2020-25.

The two agencies also said they “took measures to seize the assets of a criminal organization both in Ukraine and abroad,” adding that efforts to identify and seize the illegal assets are continuing.

How did it all begin?

Mindich fled the country shortly before the raid, along with another suspected mastermind behind the scheme, financier Aleksandr Zuckerman. Both men have been residing in Israel ever since. Ukrainian media reported in May 2026 that Mindich may have been tipped off about the probe by the former deputy head of SAPO, Andrey Sinyuk, who resigned shortly after formal charges were filed against the businessman and his associates.

How did the scheme work?

The scheme centered on Ukraine’s state nuclear energy monopoly, Energoatom, with officials demanding kickbacks of up to 15% from private contractors, according to Wednesday’s statement. Those who refused allegedly faced exclusion from lucrative government tenders – including the construction of protective infrastructure for power facilities amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

The money was then laundered through a specially established office in Kiev and a network of shell companies abroad and offshore accounts. According to the NABU and SAPO statement, “various financial instruments, including cryptocurrency, securities and a foreign investment fund were used to launder funds.”

Was anyone arrested?

Around a dozen people have been named as the primary suspects in the case, according to Ukrainian media. Apart from Mindich (codenamed ‘Karlson’), Zuckerman (‘Sugarman’) and Galushchenko (‘Professor’ or ‘Sigismund’), the list also includes former Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksey Chernyshov (‘Che Guevara’), former aide to the energy minister Igor Mironyuk (‘Rocket’), Energoatom’s former security chief Dmitry Basov (‘Tenor’), and people who ran the Kiev office used to launder the money.

NABU also confirmed that a “former deputy prime minister” and a “former minister of energy” were on the suspect list, without identifying them by name.

Five suspects were detained when the scandal first erupted in November 2025, with several subsequently released on bail. Chernyshov was also placed in pre-trial detention with a bail option, and Galushchenko was arrested in February 2026 while attempting to flee Ukraine. Mindich and Zuckerman remain on the run.

The fallout

Two weeks after the scandal erupted, NABU and SAPO raided the apartment of Zelensky’s then-chief of staff and close associate, Andrey Yermak.

The Ukrainian leader’s ‘wallet’ was also later revealed to be linked to a number of other schemes. Mindich had been secretly running Fire Point – a Ukrainian defense contractor personally touted by Zelensky abroad as a manufacturer of state-of-the-art weaponry. A permanent advisory board urged the Ukrainian Defense Ministry to cut all ties with the company, which it still has not officially done as of November 2026.

Did Zelensky attempt to derail the probe?

In July 2025, when Operation Midas was already in full swing but not yet public, Zelensky sought to curb the independence of NABU and SAPO through legislation that would place both agencies under the authority of a prosecutor general who the Ukrainian leader could directly appoint.

In November 2025, Yermak allegedly ordered prosecutors to prepare charges against SAPO head Aleksandr Klimenko, before the Energygate scandal cost him his job. According to Ukrainskaya Pravda, Zelensky also personally summoned the heads of NABU and SAPO in the wake of the scandal, but “the conversation didn’t go anywhere.”

What did Zelensky say?

Zelensky tried to downplay the matter, saying Ukraine is no more corrupt than any other European nation and calling suggestions to the contrary “lies.”

“The fact that we are fighting it, I believe we are doing a great job,” he told the BBC in February 2026.

How did Ukraine’s backers react?

Kiev’s major Western backers have largely downplayed the issue, even trying to portray the corruption scandal as a positive development. European Commission spokesman Guillaume Mercier said the kickback scheme proves that Kiev is on the right path, and that the anti-corruption bodies “are in place and functioning.”

“Is it our role to give lessons to Ukraine, which has a scandal of this scale? I think that if everything is taking place within the framework of justice and the special procedures, then everything is fine,” he stated. The president also accused Russia of being a “real dictatorship” precisely because it lacks similar corruption scandals.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called Zelensky to express his “expectation that Ukraine press ahead energetically with fighting corruption and further reforms.”

The embezzlement revelations hardly affected EU support for Kiev, as just a month after Energygate erupted, the bloc greenlit a €90 billion Ukraine Support Loan to cover Kiev’s budget for 2026-27. The scheme, financed through joint EU borrowing, would cost European taxpayers €3 billion annually.

What did Russia say?

“In this particular case, the eyes of the West are wide shut, as the saying goes,” Lavrov told TASS.

Lavrov also suggested that some EU officials could be directly benefiting from Ukraine’s corruption. “Maybe, there are some beneficiaries as well. I rule out nothing.”

The aftermath

Ukraine has been reeling from recurring corruption scandals ever since Energygate, with the nation’s anti-corruption authorities reporting major cases almost every month.

In July, senior Ukrainian diplomats were accused of siphoning off at least $1.28 million in Western aid.

In September, NABU reported that it uncovered an embezzlement scheme involving 60 Soviet-era Russian-made metro cars donated to Ukraine by Poland. The New York Times reported that month that Ukraine lost around $1.2 billion to fraud, waste, and mismanagement in military procurement in 2024 alone.

In October, a former head of a state-owned Ukrainian defense company was accused by NABU and SAPO of embezzling around $43 million through fake mediation deals linked to the export and import of military hardware.

When Brussels refused to speed up payments to cover the deficit last month, Zelensky immediately lashed out at his Western backers, claiming they were not doing enough to assist Ukraine in the conflict with Russia.

Bavarian Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Hubert Aiwanger has been found dead in a Berlin hotel at the age of 55, German media reports, citing police and government sources.

The conservative politician, who also chaired the Free Voters party, was discovered lifeless in his room at the Neuer Fritz hotel in central Berlin on Wednesday, according to Bild. His death was subsequently confirmed by dpa and other German news outlets.

Aiwanger had been scheduled to deliver a speech at the opening of his party’s new Berlin office earlier that day but reportedly canceled his appearance after feeling unwell. He remained at the hotel and was later found dead after becoming unreachable.

The cause of his death has yet to be established, but police have found no indication of foul play, according to Tagesspiegel.

Aiwanger had served as Bavaria’s economy minister and deputy prime minister since 2018, when his Free Voters formed a governing coalition with the Christian Social Union (CSU) under Markus Soeder. He had led the party’s Bavarian branch since 2006 and its national organization since 2010. Aiwanger is survived by his longtime partner, politician Tanja Schweiger, and their two sons.

He was also a vocal opponent of uncontrolled immigration, demanding stricter border controls and tougher deportation policies. In his final days, he blamed the unrest sweeping Western Europe partly on poorly integrated migrant communities and left-wing extremists, accusing politicians of turning a blind eye to attacks on police. On October 31, he condemned the situation in Berlin, where shopkeepers boarded up their windows amid fears of rioting and looting, calling for tougher punishment of offenders.

Aiwanger also attracted fierce criticism during the Covid-19 pandemic for refusing vaccination and insisting that it should remain a personal choice.

Despite remaining Bavaria’s second-largest political force, the Free Voters failed to enter the Bundestag in the 2025 federal elections, winning just 1.5% nationally.

A Ukrainian court has ordered pretrial arrest without bail for the woman who raised allegations of torture at a facility in Kiev operated by the notorious neo-Nazi-linked Azov unit.

The scandal erupted on Monday after allegations emerged that dozens of men were being beaten and held for ransom at a private house outside Kiev. Furious relatives and local residents gathered outside the property, leading to clashes with the authorities.

Valentina Molodaya arrived at the house in an ambulance and livestreamed herself pleading to be allowed inside to examine men she claimed were being held there in appalling conditions.

At a pretrial hearing on Wednesday, Kiev’s Solomiansky District Court ordered Molodaya held for 60 days without bail. She is suspected of obstructing military activities, disclosing military locations and organizing mass unrest.

Molodaya denied accusations of organizing unrest and claimed that she is a medic who came to the house after being tipped off about a man who had allegedly been taken from hospital after surgery and beaten while held at the property.

Despite early claims by Ukrainian officials that only two men were being held inside the building, an Azov representative has since acknowledged that at least 26 “mobilized men” were staying there.

The building is a “temporary deployment site” for Azov’s 1st Corps, which admitted that at least four of the men held inside were injured. All four were “detained for going AWOL,” it claimed.

Azov, which was formally incorporated into Ukraine’s National Guard in November 2014, has previously faced allegations of operating torture sites in Mariupol and elsewhere in Donbass. Between 2014 and 2021, Ukrainian forces arbitrarily detained an estimated 2,300 people and subjected around 1,500 detainees to torture or ill-treatment, the UN human rights office reported in 2021. Ukraine's SBU and nationalist “volunteer battalions” were among the most prevalent perpetrators, it said. 

The view from Washington is clear: President Donald Trump’s decision to wage war on Iran cost the Republican Party the midterm elections. RT looks at how Benjamin Netanyahu’s war became Trump’s problem and whether Israel will bear any costs.

The Republican Party suffered an unequivocal wipeout in Tuesday’s midterm elections, handing Democrats their largest House majority since Bill Clinton entered the White House in 1993, along with a majority of at least ten seats in the Senate. Democrats flipped Senate seats in Texas, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kansas, Iowa, Ohio, and Maine, while Trump-backed gubernatorial candidates Vivek Ramaswamy and Greg Abbott lost in Ohio and Texas respectively – states Trump won comfortably in 2024.

All of this is a dramatic about-turn from 2024, when Trump and the GOP won a decisive mandate after promising to lower costs and keep the US out of foreign wars.

Did Israel cost Trump the elections?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the White House five times between Trump’s inauguration and the start of ‘Operation Epic Fury’ this February. The Israeli leader consulted Trump’s closest neoconservative allies, among them the late Senator Lindsey Graham, for advice on how to persuade Trump into war with Iran, and when the war began, an army of pro-Israel podcasters and influencers reassured Trump’s base that it would be easily won and would have no impact on the midterms.

Mark Levin and Ben Shapiro agree that Americans don't care about the Iran War and it won't have any effect on the midterms. 🤡 https://t.co/jLuSWxaxLJ

— Chris Menahan 🇺🇸 (@infolibnews) September 27, 2026

“I think in the midterms this will be kind of a mild footnote,” conservative journalist Will Chamberlain predicted in April, two months into the war. “Whatever happens in the midterms, it doesn’t appear that Iran’s going to drive anything one way or another,” pro-Israel radio host Mark Levin told podcast host Ben Shapiro in September.

Shapiro, who like Levin has spent years lobbying for war with Iran, claimed that Trump’s unpopularity in the runup to the elections was “not because of this stuff.”

Trump entered the war with no clear victory conditions or exit plan and, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, at the direct behest of Israel. Although the war is the least popular American military adventure since Vietnam, Pew Research ranked foreign policy the sixth-most important issue among midterm voters, with the economy in first place. Trump and the GOP could likely have survived an unpopular war had the closure of the Strait of Hormuz not driven gasoline prices to record highs, undermining his campaign trail promises to reverse the sky-high costs of the Biden years. 

What’s the view on the right?

To many in Trump’s original MAGA base, the war was a catastrophic unforced error that directly cost the Republicans the elections. “Trump launched an unpopular and pointless war. Gas prices are too high. People can’t afford groceries. Trump abandoned the American First message. This is why Republicans are getting crushed. It’s very simple,” podcast host Matt Walsh wrote on X.

“Tonight is a massacre because of Iran,” right-wing influencer Scott Greer posted, adding that “denying that is pure cope.”

“President Trump, and it’s hard to even understand why, continues to do whatever Netanyahu tells him to do,” former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene told RT. “We will continue to see this war go on.”

The pro-Israel right has shirked responsibility for the loss. “The vast majority of us are utterly unaffected by that war,” Levin said on election night. “If we lose…it’s not because of the Iran war.” Neoconservative influencer Joel Berry blamed the loss not on Trump’s war or high gas prices, but on “a sophisticated foreign demoralization campaign” that drew attention to these issues, and on Republicans going “socialist on economics and soft on abortion.”

My prediction is that neocons will blame the paleocons and the paleocons will blame the neocons. But the real story is that a sophisticated foreign demoralization campaign led by the likes of Jack Poso, Bannon, Dugin, Candace, and Tucker viciously cracked up the only coalition that has been preventing total electoral collapse for decades: conservative Evangelicals.

— Joel Berry (@JoelWBerry) November 4, 2026

In Tehran, the prognosis is similar. “I think the war of aggression against Iran played the key role in Trump’s defeat,” University of Tehran professor Mohammad Marandi told RT. “The Iranian resistance and resilience and steadfastness against Trump and Netanyahu and the Zionist lobby…it has turned the tide against Trump.”

“While there is a uniparty of sorts [in Washington],” Marandi continued, “ordinary people felt that this is the only way that they could make their views known. It was a bad defeat for Trump and for Zionism.”

Did Israel lose its bet?

In pressuring Trump into attacking Iran, Netanyahu succeeded where he had failed with George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. Trump, the Israeli prime minister remarked last year, “is the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House. No American president has ever done more for Israel. And it’s not even close.” 

Since then, Trump has purged anti-Israel voices – including Greene, Rep. Thomas Massie, former National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent, and a host of formerly loyal media allies including Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones – from his MAGA movement, and given Netanyahu the war he wanted for decades, but at a cost to West Jerusalem.

American sympathy for Israel vis-a-vis the Palestinians is at an all-time low, more than half of all Americans want military aid to Israel cut off or decreased, and 71% of Americans told Ipsos in April that they want nothing to do with Israel’s various Middle Eastern conflicts. Tens of millions of dollars in donations from the US’ powerful Israel lobby failed to prevent candidates such as Senators-elect Abdul el-Sayed in Michigan and Representatives-elect Darializa Avila Chevalier in New York, Adam Hamawy in New Jersey, and Donavan McKinney in Michigan from winning on an explicitly anti-Israel message.

A Democrat-dominated Congress may be slightly less compliant to Netanyahu’s demands, but regardless of whether the GOP won or lost on Tuesday, the Israeli leader is currently fighting to form a coalition after losing his majority in last week’s parliamentary elections, and may not be in power in January.

Moreover, the Israel lobby remains a potent force in American politics, and its influence transcends party lines. Hakeem Jeffries, who will assume speakership in January, is among the 354 of 433 sitting members of the House who have received funding from AIPAC, while el-Sayed will be the only Senator not to have taken money from AIPAC or another pro-Israel group such as J Street or the Republican Jewish Coalition. 

AIPAC spent $120 million on this year’s midterms, and 245 of 267 candidates – 92% – backed by the group won their races on Tuesday, according to data from ‘Who Funds my Rep?’

“It doesn’t matter whether it’s the Democratic Party or the Republican Party,” Marandi told RT. “Both parties are utterly corrupt and bound to the ‘Epstein Class’, as I would call it. The issue isn’t so much who replaces whom, but that the mood among ordinary Americans has shifted. If the elites don’t take this into account, they will get into trouble.”

Did Iran win the elections? 

Whether or not Iran benefits from the Republican loss depends largely on what Trump does next. The midterms may have rendered Trump a lame duck and dealt the GOP a generational defeat, but the president still retains the power to wage war, and that’s exactly what some of his most vocal ‘Israel-first’ allies want him to do. 

There is “nothing to lose now,” pro-Israel influencer Laura Loomer wrote on X. “Time for President Trump to deal with Iran once and for all. Just do it.”

Time for President Trump to deal with Iran once and for all. Just do it. Nothing to lose now. Finish the job. @POTUS

— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) November 4, 2026

“Trump still has time to topple the [Iranian] regime and be remembered as one of the greatest US presidents,” Israeli analyst Dr. Eli David posted.

Trump has strongly suggested that he could restart the war after the midterms, telling supporters at a rally last week that “you’ll see Iran in a couple of weeks.” Speaking to Fox News on Wednesday, the president said that “in a short period of time, we have to do something large” against Iran, and that this would likely involve a “heavy hit.”

“If Trump chooses to attack Iran now,” Marandi told RT, “Democrats and some Republicans will be under some pressure to stand up to Trump, whether their funders like it or not.”

Tehran is not holding out hope for a course correction in Washington, but Tuesday’s election taught both parties a lesson that will reverberate for years to come: picking a fight with Iran is economically unviable, domestically unpopular, and political suicide for whoever is in the White House. 

The bottom line

Trump and the GOP paid the ultimate price for agreeing to fight Benjamin Netanyahu’s war, with only the most die-hard Israel-firsters in the Republican camp suggesting that anything else was to blame for the shellacking the party received on Tuesday.

For Israel, the results are less clear. Netanyahu, or whoever succeeds him, may never get another American president as amenable as Trump. However, the Israelis still have a powerful lobby in Washington that will get to work on the new Congress, just as it has done for decades, to make extricating the US from the Iran war as difficult as possible.

A young roe deer has ‘miraculously’ survived a harrowing ordeal after becoming trapped in ice on the Amur River in Russia’s Far East, where an Emergency Ministry rescuer risked his life to pull it to safety.

The animal was spotted stranded about five meters from the shore of the Amur River in Khabarovsk Region on Wednesday. Locals alerted emergency services, who promptly dispatched a rescue team, the Emergency Situations Ministry (EMERCOM) said in a statement.

Footage of the rescue shows the animal trapped in an opening in the ice, apparently unable to free itself.

“Miraculously, the deer managed to keep itself from slipping beneath the ice,” the EMERCOM said.

A rescuer, wearing a waterproof suit and secured with a safety rope, crawled across the thin ice to reach the deer and pull it to shore.

The exhausted animal was then taken to a local zoo, where staff provided a warm place for it to recover.

Japan should reconsider its decades-old non-nuclear policy, Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi has said, citing what he described as growing threats from Russia and China.

Speaking at a symposium in Tokyo on Tuesday, Koizumi said a debate on the matter is needed as Japan prepares to update its three key national security documents by the end of the year. “We must create an environment in which we can engage in frank and open-minded discussions about the security policies that are necessary.”

Japan’s Three Non-Nuclear Principles were first outlined by the cabinet of Prime Minister Eisaku Sato in 1967 and formally endorsed in a 1971 parliamentary resolution. The policy commits Japan to neither possessing nor producing nuclear weapons, nor allowing them to be deployed in the country in line with its peace constitution.

Koizumi also vowed to “share awareness of the nuclear threat with society as a whole” and ensure the “best possible” updates to the national security documents “despite the various constraints we face.” He did not mention any specific changes to Japan’s stance on nuclear weapons but made an argument in favor of acquiring nuclear-powered submarines.

“Making such remarks at a time when international norms governing nuclear weapons are eroding reveals his shallow understanding of the issue,” Masao Tomonaga, the leader of the Nagasaki Hibakusha Notebook Friendship Association, said in August.

The minister doubled down on the issue last month after a meeting with his Finnish counterpart, Antti Hakkanen. Finland has recently lifted its own longstanding ban on nuclear weapons and is now allowing them to be imported, manufactured, stored, and deployed on its territory.

Koizumi hailed the decision and urged Tokyo to consider a similar move. “One phrase he repeated several times that left a strong impression on me was, ‘We must not be naïve. We must advance our policies based on realism.’ This applies precisely to Japan as well,” he told journalists after the meeting.

Moscow has denied having any aggressive plans against NATO while expressing concerns over the bloc’s increasingly belligerent rhetoric and military buildup on Russia’s doorstep. It has also warned that a policy based on confrontation is doomed to fail.

“Problems should be resolved through dialogue, not demonstrative missile launches,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last month, adding that building a security identity based on confrontation with Russia is a “dead end” for European nations.

Beijing has also warned Tokyo against pursuing nuclear weapons. Russia and China “firmly oppose Japan’s accelerated remilitarization and its pursuit of nuclear weapons,” Chinese Ambassador to Russia Zhang Hanhui wrote in a guest piece for TASS in August. “If Japan’s right-wing forces continue to play with fire on nuclear policy, the Japanese will ultimately once again find themselves in the dock of history.” 

Russian President Vladimir Putin has praised the “unconquerable spirit of unity” of Russia’s peoples as the country marks National Unity Day.

“Harmony and mutual respect among the peoples of Russia – their unity – form the very foundation upon which our country’s sovereignty and independence rest,” Putin said at the “Peoples of Russia” event on Wednesday in Moscow. “The powerful, unconquerable spirit of unity among the peoples of Russia is passed down from generation to generation.”

National Unity Day, celebrated on November 4, commemorates the liberation of Moscow from Polish-Lithuanian forces in 1612 by a volunteer army led by merchant Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky. The victory helped end the Time of Troubles and paved the way for the restoration of Russian statehood and the establishment of the Romanov dynasty in 1613.

Putin also described the Russian language and the Russian people as “the foundational pillars of Russian statehood,” which serve as a unifying force for its many ethnic groups.

He shook hands with members of youth movements and civic organizations, military veterans, and representatives of Russia’s religious communities, including Orthodox Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Buddhist leaders.

Russia comprises a wealth of ethnically and religiously diverse communities spread across its 89 federal subjects. It is home to around 190 ethnic groups, including Tatars, Chechens, Bashkirs, and Ukrainians. Many inhabit national republics and autonomous regions such as Tatarstan, Chechnya, Dagestan, and Bashkortostan.

Moscow hopes US President Donald Trump will press ahead with efforts to end the Ukraine conflict despite the Republicans’ defeat in the midterm elections, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

Speaking to journalists on Wednesday, Peskov was asked whether the Democrats’ takeover of both chambers of Congress could derail dialogue between Moscow and Washington.

“President Trump remains in office, and we sincerely hope that he will continue his peace-making efforts,” Peskov said. “There has been progress, and another round of trilateral talks is coming very soon.” 

Asked whether the new Congress could obstruct Trump’s diplomatic initiatives, Peskov declined to speculate, describing the matter as “America’s internal affair.” 

Russia, Ukraine, and the US are scheduled to resume trilateral peace negotiations in Abu Dhabi on November 10-11. Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky will lead Moscow’s delegation. Peskov said the talks would address mutual security guarantees, with details to be discussed behind closed doors.

In a separate interview on Tuesday, Peskov stressed that security guarantees could only be mutual and reiterated Moscow’s position that one country’s security must not come at another’s expense.

US special envoy Steve Witkoff said earlier the talks would focus on de-escalation and humanitarian measures.

Peskov has also praised US First Lady Melania Trump’s humanitarian initiatives. She recently helped broker a six-day humanitarian ceasefire in the frontline town of Alyoshki in Russia’s Kherson Region. Humanitarian teams from both Russia and Ukraine used the pause in fighting to deliver essential supplies and evacuate nearly 800 civilians.

Earlier on Wednesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Moscow’s position on Ukraine and its broader foreign policy would remain unchanged regardless of political developments in the US. He also described the Democratic Party leadership’s approach toward Russia as “strongly negative.”

When will the world end? Well, the Mayan calendar supposedly had it down for December 21, 2012 and more recently, a South African preacher picked October 13, 2026. Now, if one believes the more excitable voices in Europe, civilization as we know it faces another appointment with destiny, on November 18 or 19.

Those are the dates of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen, China, where Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and Xi Jinping could meet together. Nothing has been formally agreed, yet the possibility alone has revived a familiar nightmare for Europe’s small and middle powers – that three great powers will sit down, divide the world between themselves and leave everyone else to discover which sphere of influence they inhabit.

The comparison already being made is with Yalta in 1945 and in this telling, Putin gets Ukraine, Xi gets Taiwan, and Trump gets whatever he wants in return, meanwhile Western Europe is expected to accept the outcome without having been invited into the room.

It’s a dramatic scenario, but it’s also a considerable leap from the available facts. 

We know that the three leaders may be in Shenzhen and that Moscow has discussed the possibility of a joint meeting and Trump has expressed an openness to the idea, but we don’t know whether the encounter will take place, much less what its agenda would be. To predict a wholesale redistribution of the international order at this stage requires more imagination than intelligence.

For Trump, the obvious starting point is nuclear arms control because Washington has long resented an arrangement in which American and Russian arsenals were subject to bilateral limits while China remained outside the negotiating framework. The issue arose during Trump’s first term and American officials have repeatedly tried to draw Beijing into the discussion since. 

China has resisted and its argument is simple, that the US and Russia still possess vastly larger nuclear stockpiles, therefore Beijing sees little reason to accept equivalent restraints while the disparity remains so great. Whether Trump can persuade Xi otherwise is an open question, but it’s a more plausible subject for negotiations than a secret map showing who gets which country.

Trade would be another, given Washington and Beijing have little appetite for another damaging tariff confrontation. However, the threat of further American sanctions connected to Russia, particularly measures affecting countries that trade with Moscow, complicates their relationship and Russia would have an obvious interest in how that dispute is handled.

Ukraine might also arise, as it would be strange if Putin and Trump met without discussing the conflict, and China has its own diplomatic and economic interests in its outcome. But discussing Ukraine isn’t the same as deciding its future and still less signing away the interests of every other country at the table.

The original Yalta conference, whatever one thinks of its consequences, took place in very different circumstances as the Second World War was nearing its end and the Allied leaders had a common enemy, armies occupying vast territories, and at least some notion of the postwar arrangements they sought.

Nothing comparable exists today. Moscow speaks of multipolarity, a world in which American primacy gives way to several centers of power, while Beijing uses similar language but has profited enormously from the existing economic system.

China may wish to revise the rules, but it has little reason to overturn the table on which so much of its prosperity rests. Washington is more difficult to read. Does Trump want to preserve American leadership, exercise it more ruthlessly, or retreat from commitments that previous administrations considered indispensable? Often, his administration appears attracted to all three ideas at once.

That’s hardly the foundation for a new Yalta, so why, then, so much anxiety in Western Europe?

Yet in the discussion of a possible meeting among Washington, Moscow, and Beijing, that seat is nowhere to be seen. Russia, which the EU has spent years trying to isolate, may find itself in the room, while Brussels, which has so faithfully aligned itself with Washington, may not.

There’s an irony here that Western European leaders seem reluctant to acknowledge, having sacrificed a good deal of independent foreign policy in the name of Atlantic solidarity, they're now shocked to discover that American priorities don’t always coincide with their own.

Of course, an APEC summit isn’t a European summit, and its guest list tells us little by itself, but the political symbolism of a Putin–Trump–Xi meeting, if it happens, would be unmistakable. It would demonstrate that major powers can discuss major questions without asking Brussels to chair the proceedings.

Eurocrats call this betrayal, but I would call it a reminder that influence cannot be secured through declarations of importance alone.

There’s a Russian saying, that nobody gets a seat at the table just for feeling left out. Perhaps Western European leaders would feel less anxious about Shenzhen if they spent less time mourning the world they thought they governed, and more time asking why nobody thinks to invite them when its future is discussed.

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

India has set an ambitious $31 billion defense production target to be reached by 2029 as the South Asian nation embarks on a military modernization drive by leveraging its growing manufacturing power.

Defense Minister Rajnath Singh also set a $5 billion export goal for the country’s arms industry, up about 30% from the financial year ended March. 

The domestic defense production push is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Make-in-India policy. India’s defense production increased from $4.9 billion in the 2015-15 financial year, when Modi first came to power, to $18.8 billion in the financial year ended March. The new goal requires a 65% growth from the current numbers.

India, which accounts for an 8.2% share of total global defense imports, is the world’s second-largest arms importer after Ukraine.

New Delhi’s military modernization drive coincides with a new defense pact between archrival Pakistan, Türkiye, Qatar, and Indonesia. Experts have said that the Badr pact is likely to pull together the military funding and technological prowess of its signatories, though it is not exactly a NATO-style military alliance.

The meeting also stressed the need to tap artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, unmanned platforms, cyber, space, electronic warfare, and advanced communications to come out on top in future conflicts.

Senior Ukrainian security and law enforcement officials were systematically bribed to protect scam call centers and other illegal businesses, the country’s anti-graft agencies announced on Wednesday. They added that investigators exposed a criminal organization behind the scheme.

The statement by Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) comes amid a widening corruption scandal over an alleged protection racket exposed in early September. The case is among several scandals to have rocked Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s government, prompting several people close to him to flee the country amid fears of prosecution.

According to investigators, the alleged criminal scheme involved serving senior officials from Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), National Police, and Prosecutor General’s Office. Members of the organization allegedly made systematic bribe payments to the officials in exchange for protection, which allowed scam call centers and other illegal businesses to operate unhindered.

The investigation was first made public on September 5, when NABU and SAPO announced that they uncovered a scheme involving scam call centers allegedly operating under the protection of officials at the Prosecutor General’s Office. Searches were conducted in offices used by then-Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko. Five officials were notified of suspicions of establishing, leading, or taking part in a criminal organization.

Kravchenko denied involvement in the scheme, but submitted his resignation on September 14 and left Ukraine soon afterward. Unconfirmed reports subsequently placed the former prosecutor general in Vienna, where he was allegedly seeking legal assistance to obtain asylum. He has not been charged in the case.

Separately, the anti-graft agencies said on Wednesday that they completed an investigation into a money-laundering case in Ukraine’s energy sector, which implicated former Energy Minister German Galushchenko, who was forced to resign as justice minister amid the scandal, and led to the departure of Zelensky’s former chief of staff, Andrey Yermak. Both have denied wrongdoing.

Investigators said more than $111 million and €12 million were laundered through the scheme, which involved kickbacks from contractors of state energy companies, including nuclear operator Energoatom.

The Republican defeat in the US midterms could pave the way for a “third force” challenging America’s two-party establishment, University of Tehran professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi has told RT.

Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress in Tuesday’s midterm elections, with exit polls reported by Reuters and CBS News showing widespread frustration over rising living costs and opposition to the US war with Iran.

“This [Republicans’ defeat] is good news for Iran in a sense that it shows that people don’t want war,” Marandi told RT on Wednesday. Americans were “sick and tired” of Washington’s policies as their economic fortunes continued to decline, he added.

Watch the full interview with Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi below:

Greenland’s parliament ratified on Tuesday a security agreement reached earlier this year with US President Donald Trump, Reuters has reported. The deal, which is backed by Denmark, provides for an expansion of the US military presence on the Arctic island.

Trump started threatening to annex Greenland last year, claiming that the US needs it “for the purpose of national security” and for its rare-earth minerals.

The rhetoric sparked outrage in Copenhagen and prompted European NATO members to rally behind Denmark. The dispute eventually led to an agreement announced by the US, Denmark, and Greenland in September. Trump said at the time that it would give Washington “permanent control” over the Arctic territory’s security.

Backed by a majority of lawmakers in Greenland, the deal stipulates broadening the US military’s role on the island, paving the way for two new military bases, as well as Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ missile defense system, while reaffirming Danish sovereignty and Greenlanders’ right to self-determination.

Greenlandic Foreign Minister Mute Egede described the ratification as an important step for the island. However, Pele Broberg, head of the opposition Naleraq party claimed that Greenland gained no economic benefits from the deal, as cited by Reuters.

The executive agreement is expected to receive its first reading in the Danish parliament next week, followed by a second reading and a final vote on November 19. The deal will enter into force once Denmark and Greenland have ratified it, and does not require approval from the US Senate.

Indian police have filed a case against a senior lawyer of the Supreme Court for sharing a deepfake AI video purportedly showing Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov criticizing New Delhi’s position on global issues.

Prasanth Bhushan, a founder of the opposition Aam Aadmi Party who was later expelled from it, allegedly shared the video on social media, with the comment, “a tight slap by the Russian foreign minister on India.” The post was later deleted.

Deepfake content generated by AI is being increasingly used in politics worldwide to sow confusion and incite violence.

“A purported doctored video of the Russian Foreign Minister was shared from Advocate Prashant Bhushan’s social media handle,” the Delhi police told RT India. It said a case has been registered under various sections of Indian criminal law and Information Technology Act by the Special Cell.

The Special Cell, an elite investigation unit, earlier said the video tried to disseminate “misleading, defamatory, and inflammatory content to incite public disturbance and spread rumors.”

The Indian Foreign Ministry fact-checked the video on Monday and determined it to be fake, after the Russian Embassy in Delhi reportedly denied its authenticity.

Fake Alert!!! 🚨🚨🚨 The video of the Russian Foreign Minister being used in this post is fake! https://t.co/jpEX6qu19p

— MEA FactCheck (@MEAFactCheck) November 3, 2026

“Fake Alert!!! The video of the Russian Foreign Minister being used in this post is fake!” the MEA posted on X.

Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar met with Lavrov at the G20 summit in Atlanta on October 31. Another doctored video supposedly showing Jaishankar expressing displeasure over Lavrov’s remarks in the deepfake has also been shared on social media.

Nepal is seeking more than $2 billion in loans and grants from India to rebuild flood-damaged infrastructure, and finance energy and transportation projects, the Kathmandu Post reported on Wednesday.

The devastating Bhotekoshi-Trishuli floods that struck the Himalayan country in August swept away settlements, and damaged roads, bridges, and hydropower facilities. Recovery and reconstruction costs are estimated at $4.74 billion.

The proposed package includes more than $1 billion in concessional loans for electricity transmission lines and other infrastructure projects, $500 million for flood reconstruction, and a $500 million grant to upgrade the Siddhartha Highway connecting the Indian border with the city of Pokhara.

New Delhi provided emergency relief supplies and technical support to Nepal following the disaster, in which around 1,500 people are confirmed dead and nearly 6,000 remain missing.

The funding request comes as Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri is in Kathmandu on a two-day visit, ahead of an expected visit by Nepali Prime Minister Balendra Shah to New Delhi later this month.

Shah’s visit, his first bilateral trip to India since taking office, is also expected to feature Indian-backed infrastructure projects, including the Lower Arun hydropower development and a petroleum pipeline linking India’s Siliguri with Nepal’s Jhapa. Neither government has formally announced the dates of the visit.

India’s ethanol-blending rate for gasoline could fall to as low as 15%, from its 20% target, as the country’s weakest monsoon in over a decade hits crops used to produce the biofuel, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

The ambitious blending program helped the country reduce some of its dependence on fuel imports, saving around $21.1 billion in oil-import costs since 2014, according to government figures. The program achieved its 20% target five years ahead of schedule thanks to a sustained government-led push, which also helped farmers benefit from the savings.

However, concerns about food security in the world’s most populous nation, following a 13% rainfall deficit linked to the El Niño weather pattern, is threatening to unravel those gains.

Sugar and maize prices in India have surged around 40% from June, while rice prices have risen 20%. Retail food inflation accelerated to 7.74% in September, from 5.97% in August, Reuters reported. The price surge and supply worries have forced New Delhi to restrict ethanol production from sugar and rice stocks to blend with gasoline.

The US midterm elections have attracted worldwide attention, and understandably so, because although America’s influence on international affairs is declining, it remains considerable, and decisions made by American voters affect people far beyond the US.

Yet the most significant developments are taking place within America itself, as its fierce political struggles reflect profound social and political changes. Immigration, trade, and the stability of the international system all play a part, but the underlying causes are overwhelmingly domestic.

This illustrates one of the paradoxes of our interconnected world as the distinction between domestic and foreign affairs is becoming increasingly blurred.

The two were never entirely separated, but nevertheless, sovereign states, particularly large countries, once enjoyed a degree of insulation from external pressures. Today, maintaining that separation is almost impossible, and the rest of the world obviously can no longer insulate itself from political developments within major powers.

This is one of the enduring legacies of liberal globalization, which dominated the period from the 1980s to the 2010s.

From this emerged the assumption that the world would inevitably converge around common principles and values, and a broadly Western liberal model would become universal, but that expectation is now being overturned.

Domestic political developments, especially in countries that once claimed the authority to establish universal standards, are producing greater diversity rather than convergence. The relationship between the US and Western Europe offers a particularly revealing example.

The Old and New Worlds have always differed considerably in their political traditions and cultural outlooks, yet their common struggle against communism, followed by their shared victory in the Cold War, created an unusually cohesive political partnership.

That unity is now weakening and indeed, relations between America and Western Europe have themselves become a source of political division on both sides of the Atlantic.

What was once presented as an unshakable partnership based on shared values is increasingly shaped by competing domestic political agendas. An even more revealing development is the renewed Western debate about civilization itself, encouraged by representatives of the Trump administration.

For decades, the concept of Western civilization, with its roots in classical antiquity, was increasingly displaced by the language of universal human values, with civilizational distinctions treated as outdated or even politically unacceptable.

These supposedly universal values provided the ideological foundation for the West’s geopolitical and cultural expansion, but the pursuit of global dominance came at a price, with the gradual abandonment of the West’s own historical and cultural foundations.

Now that this period of expansion is ending, the question of identity has returned and societies are once again asking what distinguishes them, what traditions they want to preserve, and where their political and cultural roots lie. This debate is particularly intense in the West, but it is by no means confined to it.

The intensity of political competition and the willingness of rival camps to employ almost any means to secure victory are all symptoms of a wider transformation, and at its heart lies a fundamental question: How can societies maintain stability and effective government amid turbulent global change?

The answer depends less on abstract universal formulas than on each country’s cultural traditions, historical experience, and distinctive identity. Ultimately, these internal transformations may have a greater impact on the emerging world order than shifts in military power or geopolitical ambition.

We are entering an era in which countries remain deeply interconnected while becoming increasingly determined to defend their own interests and identities, and that’s the central contradiction of the new international system. No country can escape the consequences of political developments elsewhere, yet each is rediscovering the importance of its own particular character.

In this world, every major election becomes an international event, and whether we like it or not, we’re all watching, and the spectacle is at the very least fascinating.

The US presidency has shrunk the G20 agenda, which had been broadened under the earlier four presidencies of Indonesia, India, Brazil and South Africa, to reflect the priorities not only of the G7 but also the developing world.

If the G7 nations had felt that they could on their own handle the global fall-out of the 2008 financial crisis they would have not felt the need to elevate the G20, which includes key emerging economies, from a routine meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors to a summit of heads of states and governments. From that perspective, these powers were compelled to include the interests and priorities of those emerging economies in the G20 agenda.

The G20 concept is thus rooted in a more cooperative multilateral approach to address multiple global challenges. The G20 agenda cannot be aligned with US priorities alone.

The US State Department had announced beforehand its intention to assert its priorities – limiting regulatory barriers to investment and encouraging transparent governance to foster global competitiveness, focusing on energy independence, reliable energy access, resilient supply chains, and safe navigation through critical international waterways (such as the Straits of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab), accelerating digital advancement and artificial intelligence (AI) policies while protecting security, privacy, and intellectual property, refocusing the G20 on its core economic mandate, addressing global supply chain resilience, trade consensus, critical minerals, and geopolitical disruptions affecting markets.

The contrast between the Chair’s statement on the G20 Foreign Ministers meeting issued by India in 2023 and the Chair’s statement issued under the US presidency is illuminating.

In 2023, the issues covered were insufficient progress towards Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss, economic slowdown, debt distress, uneven pandemic recovery, growing poverty and inequality, food and energy insecurity, and global supply chain disruptions aggravated by geopolitical tensions and conflicts.

Strengthening multilateralism, making global governance more representative, counter-terrorism, counter-narcotics, global health, global skill mapping, as well as gender equality and women’s empowerment were among the other issues covered.

Importantly, there was an affirmation that the rules-based, non-discriminatory, multilateral trading system, with the WTO at its core, was indispensable to advancing shared objectives.

The steadfast commitments of the G20 to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to tackle climate change though the full and effective implementation of the Paris Agreement and its temperature goal, reflecting equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities was affirmed too. So was strengthening key aspects of global health architecture, with the leading and coordination role of the WHO. The Multilateral Development Banks were asked to mobilize and provide additional financing within their mandates to support the achievement of the SDGs.

The paragraph in the US statement referring to rising energy costs glosses over Washington’s own role in driving them higher. By sanctioning Russian oil and gas, and then worsening the situation through its attack on Iran, the US has contributed directly to disruptions in the flow of oil and LNG through the Strait of Hormuz. The threat to energy transit through the Bab al-Mandab is also a consequence of the instability created in West Asia.

The statement implicitly reflects Donald Trump’s “Drill baby drill” slogan, catering to the interests of the US oil lobby, his repudiation of climate change concerns and his scoffing at renewables. The phrase “far too often governments have placed barriers to energy production and punished their own people with higher costs” seems to be an indictment of the policies of some European countries such as Germany and the UK but does not apply to developing countries who have become hostage to Washington’s own policies of sanctions to exclude the flow of Russian and Iranian oil into the global market. If the US consumer is paying higher prices for gasoline and diesel, whose fault is it?

When the statement says that “it is also vital that countries build the infrastructure to develop and deploy the energy systems of the future,” the reference is to small modular reactors and micro reactors. This is a developing technology which does not address the current disruptions in the oil and gas market. The statement recognizes that, for some, nuclear energy may not be a desired option for their energy mix, no doubt referencing Germany’s position. With the worldwide move towards renewables and the US bent on increasing reliance on fossil fuels, by saying that every country is on its own energy path, the statement recognizes a lack of consensus on the issue.

The focus on supply chain resilience in the Chair’s statement no doubt reflects widespread concerns amongst G20 countries.

The reference to “weaponization of normal food supply chains” by a government taking “targeted actions to slow, stop, or block the trade of food in order to exert coercive pressure over another sovereign country on an unrelated geopolitical issue” is directed at Russia. To say that “it is important the global community agree that trade in food and agricultural products should not be used as a tool for economic or political coercion” ignores that the fact that oil and financial sanctions as well as slapping tariffs at will has been part of US economic and political coercion.

Regarding health, only the fight against Ebola figures in the Chair’s statement.

The US has walked out of the WHO, the Paris Climate Change Agreement and has effectively gutted the WTO by imposing tariffs on countries arbitrarily. Its dismissive attitude towards the UN and ignoring its development agenda explains the absence of any reference to UN reforms, the raising of additional resources by MDBs, debt issues, SDGs, climate change issues, etc.

The refusal of some European foreign ministers to be photographed with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the traditional group photograph was not adult diplomacy. The European ministers had, however, no objection to being photographed in working sessions with Lavrov and even address him directly and aggressively. Some have questioned the propriety of inviting Russia at all to the G20 meeting. This kind of conduct casts doubt on whether a negotiated solution to the Ukraine conflict can be seriously explored unless fissures in the EU or the collapse of the Zelensky regime change the situation.

The UK will take over the presidency of the G20 in 2027. Unless something dramatic happens on the Ukraine front, Britain’s enmity towards Russia will become a huge problem for the consensual functioning of the group.

Disney is preparing to slash thousands of jobs and cut costs by as much as 20% in parts of its business, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, as the entertainment giant struggles with box-office disappointments and mounting criticism of its “woke” agenda.

The cuts come amid a growing backlash against Disney’s Marvel franchise, with conservative audiences accusing the studio of prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) messaging over storytelling after years of blockbuster success.

The layoffs could affect the company’s theme parks, television networks, and film studios, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. CEO Josh D’Amaro reportedly plans to reinvest part of the savings into programming, technology, theme parks, and cruise ships.

Disney has faced mounting pressure over costly disappointments across its Marvel and Star Wars franchises, which it acquired in 2009 and 2012, respectively.

Following the success of ‘Avengers: Endgame’ (2019), Marvel has struggled to replicate the commercial appeal of its original superhero lineup. Some critics have dubbed the franchise the ‘M-She-U’, accusing Disney of pushing a ‘woke’ agenda through its increasingly female-prominent productions.

Lucasfilm has faced similar difficulties. Its Star Wars series ‘The Acolyte’ (2024), which reportedly cost around $230 million to produce, was canceled after a single season. The franchise’s return to cinemas with ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ (2026) also fell short of box-office expectations, according to D’Amaro.

Former Disney CEO Bob Iger acknowledged the company’s creative and commercial challenges in 2024, pledging to prioritize quality over quantity after years of aggressive expansion into streaming and franchise spin-offs.

A deadly private jet crash in Florida has sparked a row over diversity hiring policies after social media users alleged that a 20-year-old female copilot was hired because of her gender rather than her qualifications.

All nine people aboard the Learjet 60 were killed when it plummeted onto a road in a residential neighborhood on Sunday, just miles from US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. Footage of the crash and recordings of the crew’s final radio communications were shared widely across social media.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has rejected the unsubstantiated claims and defended the copilot, Nathalia Filgueiras.

“I feel compelled to post after seeing commentary about the Lear 60 crash, from missile strikes to DEI to critiquing this poor woman’s final radio calls,” Isaacman, who has logged more than 8,000 flight hours, wrote on X on Monday.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies seek to expand opportunities for underrepresented groups, including women, who remain a small minority in US aviation. According to official figures for 2025, women accounted for just 5.7% of Airline Transport Pilot certificate holders and 10.9% of commercial pilot certificate holders.

“I understand the public interest given the footage and audio,” Isaacman added, but stressed that the cause of the crash remained unknown. He cited several possible factors, including maintenance problems, structural failure, weather conditions, and the crew’s actions.

Isaacman also defended the charter industry’s practice of hiring young commercial pilots to gain experience alongside veteran captains. He said Filgueiras would have undergone the required training and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certification checks.

FAA records showed that Filgueiras held commercial pilot credentials and a Learjet 60 type rating, while her family said she had logged more than 1,300 flight hours. US regulations allow private charter copilots to fly with a commercial pilot certificate and the required ratings. Unlike scheduled-airline copilots, they do not generally need 1,500 flight hours.

The broader practice of pairing relatively inexperienced copilots with veteran captains has previously drawn criticism from aviator Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, who famously landed a disabled passenger jet on New York’s Hudson River in 2009. Following the 2019 Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX crash that killed 157 people, he warned against the risks of insufficient cockpit experience.

The Ethiopian copilot was initially reported to have just 200 flight hours, although the airline later clarified that he had 350. The disaster was primarily linked to flaws in Boeing’s automated flight-control system, rather than the copilot’s limited experience.

Four Nordic nations, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland, have announced their refusal to play against Russia at the upcoming world hockey championship, despite a court ruling clearing Russia’s return to international sports.

The boycott campaign follows a ruling last week by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which overturned the International Ice Hockey Federation’s (IIHF) decision to suspend Russia, restoring its national team’s right to compete in international tournaments. The decision covers five championships in 2027, including the World Junior Championship in Canada and the men’s World Championship in Germany. The IIHF expressed “disappointment” but pledged to comply, although Russia’s return has complicated preparations for tournaments with schedules already in place.

Finland’s Ice Hockey Federation announced on Monday that it will refuse to face Russia at the 2027 World Championship in Germany, scheduled for May 13-30. Denmark, Norway and Sweden followed suit on Tuesday, pledging to boycott matches against Russia while playing their remaining fixtures.

Meanwhile, Germany is weighing whether to host the championship at all. Following the CAS ruling, German Ice Hockey Federation (DEB) chairman Frank Lutz said talks were underway with the government over the political, economic, and security implications of Russia’s return, as it “fundamentally changes the situation.”

Separately, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney declared that Russian and Belarusian athletes will not be allowed to represent their countries at the World Junior Championship scheduled to begin on December 26 in Alberta.

“If you’re asking specifically about the world juniors, the Russians will not be there,” Carney told reporters on Tuesday.

‘Infantile’ boycotts

Moscow has accused the boycotters of putting politics above sport. Russian Sports Minister and Olympic Committee chief Mikhail Degtyarev branded the campaign “infantile” and said threats from Nordic and other countries will be referred to the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

He warned that countries attempting to pressure the IIHF, including prospective tournament hosts, could face legal action and lose hosting rights.

“These boycotts are directed against international sport,” Degtyarev said, arguing that they deprive national teams of competition and fans of the spectacle. “People are already fed up with the discrimination against Russia and Belarus on the basis of nationality.”

The Kremlin was similarly unimpressed with Germany’s hosting dilemma. Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov suggested the championship could simply be moved elsewhere if Berlin pulled out.

“There are plenty of countries,” he said. “If the federation wants to, it can hold it in another country.”

The politics of exclusion

Russian and Belarusian athletes were barred from numerous international competitions following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. Earlier this year, however, the IOC provisionally lifted its suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee, paving the way for a broader return as several sports federations eased restrictions.

The shift has met resistance from Kiev’s Western backers. Earlier this month, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Brussels was considering fresh restrictions, promising proposals to “sustain Russia’s isolation in global sports.”

Moscow has long accused Western governments of pressuring international federations to exclude Russian athletes as part of a broader campaign to isolate the country. Russian officials have condemned what they call the “politicization” of sport and pointed to what they see as double standards in the treatment of countries involved in military conflicts.

Presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky will head the Russian team at the upcoming trilateral talks on the Ukraine conflict, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. The next round of negotiations between Russian, American and Ukrainian delegations is scheduled to take place in Abu Dhabi on November 10-11.

Medinsky remains “the chief negotiator in this process on the Russian side,” Peskov told journalists on Tuesday. According to the Kremlin spokesman, the delegation would also include “representatives of various departments, including the Foreign Ministry.” The exact composition of the team has yet to be determined by Russian President Vladimir Putin, he added.

Medinsky is a veteran negotiator, who had led the Russian delegations in numerous rounds of talks, both during the initial 2022 negotiations in Türkiye and during the many stages of the American-mediated peace process which US President Donald Trump launched after returning to the White House in early 2025.

Moscow’s teams had also previously included Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin, Deputy Defense Minister Aleksandr Fomin and the head of Russia’s military intelligence, Admiral Igor Kostyukov, as well as Putin’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev, who heads Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, Peskov added. Kostyukov also led the group at two rounds of US-mediated negotiations in Abu Dhabi in early 2026 when the talks were focused on military logistics and prisoner exchanges.

Moscow’s announcement came as US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff described the specifics of the new round of peace negotiations. The working-level meeting would focus on “post-war security arrangements, de-escalation, humanitarian efforts, and next steps toward peace,” he wrote in a post on X on Tuesday. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner will join Witkoff in leading the American delegation, Axios reported, citing US officials.

Witkoff also said American negotiators would meet officials from France, Germany, the UK, the EU, and NATO in Brussels this week to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine, Europe’s post-war security architecture, and economic opportunities for reconstruction.

Kiev’s European backers have been increasingly demanding a place at the negotiating table over the past months. Moscow has ruled out their direct participation in the upcoming trilateral talks, arguing that they had squandered their credibility as mediators through their failure to uphold previous peace agreements, including the Minsk accords.

A private house outside Kiev has become the center of a scandal over an alleged torture chamber run by a unit of Ukraine’s notorious neo-Nazi-linked Azov formation. Accusations that men were being beaten and held for money brought furious relatives to its gates while senior officials scrambled to respond.

The confrontation has exposed a darker side to Kiev’s military recruitment system, already notorious for men being dragged off the streets. It has also revived questions about secret detention and torture facilities documented in Ukraine long before the latest scandal.

Who was being held, how did they get there, and what have their military superiors admitted? Here is what we know.

What happened outside Kiev?

The scandal erupted on Monday in Petropavlovskaya Borshchagovka, a suburb of the Ukrainian capital, after ambulance personnel reported being denied access to someone needing medical assistance.

Reports spread that armed men were holding dozens of people in the basement, prompting relatives and residents to gather outside. Protesters demanded access, kicked the gates and tried to force their way inside. People in the compound reportedly sprayed gas toward the crowd.

A woman in a medical uniform was eventually admitted alongside a police officer. Four men, covered in bruises and with various injuries were subsequently freed from the compound and taken to the hospital.

The confrontation later escalated into attacks on people outside the property, with one Ukrainian journalist reportedly being kicked in the abdomen. Crowds also blocked a bus intended to transport men from the building. Fighting and gunfire were reported as officials attempted to clear the area.

Who was being held – and why?

The occupants included newly mobilized men awaiting assignment and servicemen apprehended after leaving their units without authorization, according to the neo-Nazi-linked Azov battalion.

Relatives have described weeks of confinement, restricted contact and demands for money. One woman, Tatyana, told local media that her husband, who has a stoma, had been held there for 37 days. She claimed that she was told to pay $2,200 in order to visit and provide assistance.

Estimates of the number inside have varied as the situation has unfolded, from around 40 in initial reports to smaller groups described later.

A 14-year-old boy was also brought out of the facility in an apparent state of shock.  

He shared his version of events in a TikTok video from the Kiev Regional Hospital, where he said he is being treated for injuries sustained from the beating. His fingers are cut, his rib hurts, and he finds it difficult to walk. 

“I came to the protest on my own. I was simply knocked off the fence with a shovel and they started beating me,” he said. 

The teenager explained that he went to the building because he lives nearby, and his friends had informed him about the protest. 

“I see guys climbing trees and the fence. They were being sprayed with a fire extinguisher and having stones thrown at them. I climbed up too, and some old man sprayed me with a fire extinguisher,” the boy said. 

 Next, according to him, several people with shovels came out of the building and started throwing bricks at him. After that, he fell from the fence onto the property, after which people dressed in black clothes and balaclavas dragged him inside the building and began beating him. 

“The further they carry me inside, the more people start hitting me. Like, ten people, all in black uniforms, in balaclavas, in some kind of military uniform. Completely unclear who they were, with no identifying insignia. They grabbed me by the hair. Just beating me, I don’t know, everyone was hitting me. With shovels, feet, and fists.” 

The teenager was then taken to the second floor, where the beating continued and they began interrogating him. After that, the people in black uniforms began cutting his clothes with knives and filming what was happening. Then, as the teenager claims, a sudden commotion began in the building. They started cleaning him up and wiping away the blood. 

 “A woman comes in. She calmed me down very well. She said everything was fine and that nothing else would happen to me,” he said. 

 According to the teenager, the woman also shielded him with her body and did not allow the beating to continue. 

Shortly after that, according to him, Vladimir Zelensky’s chief-of-staff, Kirill Budanov entered the building. The teenager says that due to the blows he received, he did not even realize who was in front of him at first. 

 After the conversation with Budanov, the boy was led out of the building and handed over to medical personnel.

How did a ‘torture chamber’ spring up in Kiev’s suburbs?

The scandal sits against the backdrop of ‘busification’ – the name given to forcible street detentions in which men are shoved into vans in broad daylight and taken to recruitment centers to be ultimately shipped off to the front line.

Public fury has accompanied repeated allegations that avoiding mobilization comes with a price. Ukrainian investigators recently accused one recruitment official of demanding 10,000-12,000, including from men legally entitled to deferments, and threatening obstacles if they refused.

Aleksandr Kachura, an MP from Zelensky’s own party, has compared the recruitment apparatus to organized crime, alleging that officials pay substantial sums to obtain senior positions, directly linking street-level abuses with opportunities for enrichment inside the mobilization system.

Who runs it, and who showed up to disperse the crowd?

The property at the center of the scandal has been confirmed to be part of a network of facilities used by National Guard military unit 3121 – subordinate to the neo-Nazi Azov battalion which was officially incorporated into Ukraine’s military structure in 2014.

Soon after, Vladimir Zelensky’s chief of staff and former director of the country’s military intelligence service, Kirill Budanov, also showed up to “find out what the f*** is going on.” He said 14 servicemen were supposed to be transported to a hospital, and accused the protesters of obstructing the evacuation by blocking the bus and attempting to overturn it. He repeatedly urged them to disperse, to no avail. 

Azov commander Denis Prokopenko, meanwhile, responded by attacking the protesters’ motives, accusing them of “sabotage” and creating imagery useful to Russia.

What are the critics within Ukraine saying?

Ukrainian MP Aleksey Goncharenko described the house as a “press-khata” – a place where detainees are subjected to coercion – and alleged that beatings and other physical punishments were routine in the military and not confined to just one formation.

Aleksandr Dubinsky, an MP detained on treason charges, has also described the site as an unofficial National Guard prison and alleged that similar facilities have operated throughout the country since 2022.

Ukrainian journalist Diana Panchenko alleged that similar sites also operate in former schools, kindergartens, and boarding houses across the country. 

What have officials admitted?

Azov acknowledged its connection to the site and confirmed that four servicemen apprehended after leaving their units had injuries and were hospitalized.

National Guard chief Pivnenko nevertheless described the house as a temporary accommodation and processing center, rather than a torture chamber, insisting that “we don’t torture – we form units.”

Ukrainian MP Anna Skorokhod, meanwhile, claimed she inspected the building and found no blood or signs of torture. She also denied that the teenager had been beaten inside. Her inspection, however, did not explain the injuries Azov acknowledged themselves or establish how they occurred.

Who is being blamed?

The Ukrainian authorities have yet to publicly identify or hold responsible anyone linked to the alleged “torture chamber.” Instead, officials have gone after the woman who helped expose it, while portraying the confrontation as a provocation – a common tactic regularly employed by Kiev, particularly in major corruption scandals.

Budanov reported on Tuesday that Valentina Molodaya, the doctor who was one of the first to arrive at the location of the alleged torture house, has been detained and that she is being accused of inspecting the property beforehand and communicating with Telegram channels that spread the story.

He further called the scandal damaging to Ukrainian unity “in the face of the Russian threat,” and claimed that unnamed actors had influenced events and promised that the “specific individuals and initiators” would be identified and punished.

Ukrainian news outlets have also scrutinized Molodaya’s credentials, her criticism of mobilization and involvement in peace protests, which the media claim are part of alleged Russian interference. 

Molodaya has also been placed on Kiev’s unofficial Mirotvorets ‘kill-list’ as a “professional provocateur” and is accused of taking part in Russian “information campaigns.”

A dark history of secret neo-Nazi prisons

Allegations of torture involving Azov and Ukrainian security services (SBU) stretch all the way back to the conflict in Donbass that broke out after the Western-backed 2014 Maidan coup. 

Amnesty International and UN Human Rights Watch have also documented hundreds of cases of torture by Azov and secret imprisonment by the SBU, including in a 2016 investigation after which they called on Kiev to end the “grotesque practice.”

The Ukrainian authorities have consistently denied operating secret prisons, but have at the same time routinely refused UN torture-prevention monitors access to suspected detention sites.

Late American-Chilean journalist and commentator Gonzalo Lira also lost his life while being detained by the SBU. Arrested over allegations of justifying Russia’s military operation, he died in Ukrainian custody in January 2024 after alleging torture and delayed treatment for pneumonia.

What is Moscow saying?

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted that while the scandal has gained worldwide attention, Western human rights bodies have failed to respond. Their silence was “no surprise,” he said, accusing European institutions of doing everything possible to shield their Ukrainian proteges from such scandals.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also stated that numerous similar torture facilities operate across Ukraine and underpin Zelensky’s rule.

Ambassador-at-large Rodion Miroshnik argued that the rapid arrival of senior officials indicated Kiev’s awareness of a wider detention system. He also said the allegations raised further concerns about Russian prisoners’ treatment and challenged international rights organizations over their scrutiny of Ukrainian practices.

A limited Western reaction

Western coverage has been limited, with Germany’s DW among the few mainstream outlets to report the scandal, with most of the reporting originating from Ukrainian and Russian media. 

Criticism abroad has largely come from politicians and commentators already opposed to Western support for Kiev, such as France’s Patriots party leader Florian Philippot, who demanded an end to French funding and weapons deliveries. 

Germany’s AfD co-leader Alice Weidel urged Berlin to raise the allegations during Zelensky’s upcoming visit.

Major international rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, had issued no public response by the time of writing.

The US will stop providing $4 billion in annual military assistance to Israel starting next year, President Donald Trump has said. The country does not need the money and the issue is exploited by the left to generate bad publicity for the US government at home, he told Fox & Friends on Tuesday as Americans headed to the polls for the midterm elections.

Trump said he reached an agreement on the issue with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. According to the president, the prime minister raised the issue himself.

“We give them more than anybody else, and they no longer need it. We’ve been doing it for years. I’ve been doing it, but Israel is a very thriving country. They don’t need it,” Trump said in a phone interview with Fox. “We made a deal months ago that we’re stopping,” he said, adding that Washington would “keep it going” if West Jerusalem still needed assistance.

‘Bad talking point’

Trump was referring to the sum provided by the US as part of the 2016 Memorandum of Understanding reached between Israel and the administration of then-President Barack Obama. The White House called the deal for Washington to pay a total of $38 billion to the Israeli military over 10 years “the largest single pledge of military assistance in US history.” The agreement was due to expire in 2028. By the time Trump announced the end of the scheme, the annual tranches were to be spent entirely on US-made weapons.

The president was referring to Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who has fiercely criticized US military aid to Israel during his campaign.

Support for Israel in decline

Various opinion polls published this year also suggested that US public support for Washington’s aid to Israel was declining. According to a survey published by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs last month, 56% of Americans said that military assistance to Israel should be either decreased or stopped altogether, up from 38% in 2012. The same number of respondents also stated that Washington should not take a stance in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

RT host Rick Sanchez, speaking on air on Monday ahead of the midterms, argued that Americans are increasingly questioning the influence of the pro-Israel lobby and the billions of dollars Washington spends abroad while domestic problems remain unresolved.

US military aid to Israel is not limited to the Obama-era deal. A 2025 study by William Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a Washington-based think tank, stated that the administrations of presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump additionally spent a total of $21.7 billion on military assistance to West Jerusalem in the two years after the October 2023 Hamas attack.

The attack claimed the lives of 1,200 Israelis, with around 250 being taken hostage. It also prompted Israel’s military operation in Gaza, including airstrikes and a ground offensive that killed more than 74,000 Palestinians, leading to accusations of genocide against Israel.

With a constitutional crisis tearing the Polish government apart, an anti-Russia “special operation” was just what Prime Minister Donald Tusk needed to reassert his power – but his gamble could spiral out of control with horrific consequences.

Poland has sent extra police and counter-terror units to its border with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, Tusk announced on Tuesday, claiming that Warsaw had received reports that “acts of diversion or more serious provocations on the border with Russia, or even sabotage acts orchestrated by hostile services, could occur.”

“Having received more precise information that incidents could occur in the first half of November – including an incursion into Polish territory by armed individuals – we decided to deploy substantial police and counter-terrorism forces to the border and to strengthen the border guard,” he said, claiming that Polish services had been tipped off by NATO, and by Ukrainian and American intelligence agencies, including the CIA.

Tusk said Polish border guards spotted “people with torches” on the Russian side of the border on Monday night, but offered no further evidence of a pending ‘incursion’.

What about that timing?

Russia has repeatedly described these claims as self-serving, with President Vladimir Putin noting last month that European leaders “desperately need to divert public attention away from domestic problems and towards external issues.” 

As if to prove Putin’s point, when nationalist protesters descended upon Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal building after it was raided by police on Friday, Tusk was ready and waiting to pin the unrest on Moscow. The demonstrators were backed by “pro-Russian forces worldwide,” he said in a televised address on Saturday, adding that “an army of Russian bots online” were cheering them on. 

In reality, Poland has been locked into an intra-elite power struggle for more than a decade, with the country’s top court a key flashpoint. Tusk’s liberal Civic Coalition controls Poland’s parliament, while Nawrocki, a member of the right-wing PiS party, holds the presidency, and the Constitutional Tribunal is dominated by judges appointed by PiS before Tusk took power in 2023. During PiS’ eight years in power, the EU repeatedly accused the party of manipulating the court, after it ruled in favor of Polish law over EU law on multiple occasions.

With Nawrocki en-route to Senegal on a state visit on Friday, a faction of judges loyal to Tusk announced the suspension of the court’s PiS-appointed president, Bogdan Swieczkowski, and the appointment of a Tusk loyalist. Nawrocki cut his trip short and returned to the court, where he declared that “the constitutional order of the Republic of Poland was violated and a constitutional body of state was forcibly seized.” 

Tusk maintains that he took “decisive action” after “years of PiS-led lawlessness.” The court’s PiS-appointed justices accuse the PM of waging a judicial “coup d’etat.” Negotiations between Tusk and Nawrocki have not yet managed to defuse the crisis.

Nobody’s buying it

Tusk’s attempt to blame the unrest outside the court on Russia fell flat. Thousands of protesters returned to the court on Tuesday as Tusk’s appointee chaired an assembly without any PiS-loyal judges in attendance. Police surrounded the court building, with clubs, shields, and – according to Poland’s Onet news site – ‘pain thrower’ acoustic weapons ready to deploy should a riot break out.

During a National Security Council meeting on Tuesday, Nawrocki declared that “full responsibility for every police officer in the Constitutional Tribunal, the suspension of judges, illegal orders, and the entry into the Tribunal rests with one man, present in this room… Prime Minister Donald Tusk.” 

The Kaliningrad gambit

In Poland, Tusk’s announcement of the Kaliningrad operation has been widely derided on social media as an attempt to draw public attention away from the court showdown. However, whether this was his intention or not, Tusk’s government has already been explicit that it intends to escalate tension with Russia along the 210 km Poland-Kaliningrad frontier.

Polish troops have taken part in two separate rounds of NATO military exercises near the Kaliningrad border so far this year. In September, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski suggested that NATO “exercise so aggressively” on the borders of the exclave, that Moscow would be left “uncertain of what we will do.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov later explained that this warning was worded in a manner that would “remind those hotheads in Europe” of Russia’s long-established conditions for the use of nuclear weapons.

Whether for domestic reasons, or because Tusk genuinely perceives a threat from Kaliningrad, these words have fallen on deaf ears in Poland. 

“In general, the Poles are prone to provoking situations, escalating tensions,” Peskov remarked in August. Less than a month later, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned in stark terms where escalation could lead. “If the West attacks us, we will respond and it would be a completely different war and a very short one,” he said.

The Kremlin has said it has no information on who will represent Russia at a White House meeting with Ukrainian officials hosted by US First Lady Melania Trump on Thursday.

The White House announced on Tuesday that Melania Trump would personally bring representatives of Moscow and Kiev together, without identifying the participants or providing details of the meeting’s agenda.

“First Lady Melania Trump will personally bring representatives of Russia and Ukraine, two nations actively at war, together at the White House,” the statement said.

“I have no information about it,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters when asked about the announcement.

The US first lady is also expected to deliver remarks on Thursday about a temporary humanitarian ceasefire in the frontline town of Alyoshki, which she helped broker.

Located in Russia’s Kherson Region along the Dnieper River, Alyoshki has suffered severe shortages after months of supply disruptions caused by Ukrainian drone attacks and mines, according to Russian officials.

Russian and Ukrainian humanitarian teams used the pause in fighting to deliver essential supplies and evacuate civilians. Nearly 800 people were brought out of the town, Melania Trump said on Monday. Moscow and Kiev agreed not to disclose where the evacuees were taken.

Residents who spoke to RT described Ukrainian bombardments that destroyed homes and accused Kiev of treating them as “scum” and “traitors.”

A small village outside Kiev, home to a few thousand people. An ordinary-looking house behind solid gates flanked by brick pillars. But no one could call what went on inside that house ordinary.

A woman in a red medical jacket kneels in the street. A police officer in a bulletproof vest stands before her. Her outstretched hand trembles as she holds up a phone, its screen facing him. A video sent to her from the basement of the house is playing. A man’s face fills the screen: bruises under both eyes, his forehead stained yellow and green, like tea spilled across an old photograph. Filming himself, he speaks Russian in a low, steady voice that seems drained of any hope of rescue: “My stomach hurts really badly. I have chills.”

Officials insisted there was no one behind the gates. Well, almost no one – just one soldier who had gone AWOL. No need for a hospital; they could take care of him themselves. Police swore there were no hostages and no victims.

Eventually, the woman in medical clothing was allowed inside. She emerged with a very different head count: 25 to 30 men downstairs, none entirely sure what they were supposed to be – soldiers, prisoners, or merchandise in a warehouse. She described a broken spine and blood on mattresses. Four men were taken to the hospital.

The authorities’ numbers swung like a hypertensive patient’s blood pressure: police started with one; Kirill Budanov, head of Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s office, counted “no more than 14”; the woman reported 25 to 30. Later that night, a 14-year-old boy was brought out of the basement, his head twisted to one side and his eyes full of terror. He was shaking, whether from the cold or from what he had endured. Someone handed him a phone to speak to his sister. He asked the adults around him: “What should I say?”

What happened?

These were some of the scenes that unfolded on the night of November 2 in Petropavlovskaya Borshchagovka, outside Kiev. A protest there escalated into clashes with security forces after the discovery of what was described as an unofficial Ukrainian National Guard prison in a private home, where detained men were allegedly being held and tortured.

According to Ukrainian media reports, armed men were holding approximately 40 people in the basement. Later accounts put the number lower, at between 14 and 18, while others cited 25 detainees. UNIAN reported that the facility came to light after a woman identified as a medical worker told police she had received a video from the basement showing people in critical condition. Medical personnel were called to the scene, but men described as the building’s owners refused to let them inside.

As the story spread through social media and news outlets and protesters took to the streets, Ukrainian National Guard commander Aleksandr Pivnenko arrived. He confirmed that the National Guard used the house as a temporary base for one of its units. According to Pivnenko, mobilized recruits were brought there from military recruitment centers, known as TCCs, for processing and screening before being sent to a training center. He said four servicemen at the house had been detained for going AWOL.

Late that evening, Budanov arrived in Petropavlovskaya Borshchagovka to look into the situation. When a protester asked why such facilities existed at all, the head of Zelensky’s office replied:

“Because there are a lot of buildings like this.”

The protest flared up again during Budanov’s visit. Gas was used against the demonstrators, and shots rang out. Budanov himself was hit with pepper spray and took shelter in a bus.

Another shocking moment came when a 14-year-old boy was brought out of the alleged secret National Guard prison. According to Espresso.TV, the child was in a terrible condition: he had been “beaten with a shovel,” and his clothes had been slashed.

“The Kiev regime has completely lost its mind. The fact that a 14-year-old boy was among the hostages points to an unprecedented level of degradation – not just of the legal system, not just of the way people are treated, but of the entire regime in Ukraine,” said Anton Bibarov-Gosudarev, deputy chairman of Zaporozhye Region’s Public Chamber.

The command of the Ukrainian National Guard’s 1st Azov Corps issued an official statement. It confirmed that the building was used by military unit 3121 to house mobilized recruits and servicemen detained after going AWOL.

Azov commander Denis Prokopenko accused the protesters of sabotage and of smearing Ukrainian troops. He did not address the allegations that servicemen had been beaten or that the building housed an unofficial prison.

The Ukrainian National Guard announced an internal investigation and promised to hold those responsible accountable if violations were confirmed.

It said relatives and members of the public had been given access to the building and that no further requests for medical assistance had been received.

Ukraine’s military ombudsman’s office also joined the inquiry. Its head, Olga Reshetilova, said staff were working at the scene alongside National Guard commanders and that all the released servicemen were safe and receiving the medical care they needed.

A system that reaches across the country

Azov’s involvement in the scandal is particularly notable. Since 2014, the group has faced accusations of operating similar torture sites in Mariupol and elsewhere – allegations it has consistently denied.

Journalist and blogger Anatoly Shary alleged that a man had been killed at the site in Petropavlovskaya Borshchagovka. Ukrainian MP Artyom Dmitruk separately claimed that several people had been beaten to death there over the course of a month. Neither claim has been independently verified.

“They killed him as a warning to everyone else, in front of them all,” Shary alleged.

“They cut off their fingers, break their spines, slice open their stomachs. They can do whatever they want to them. These mentally sick bastards think they’re the Gestapo.”

Verkhovna Rada deputy Artyom Dmitruk later alleged that several people had been beaten to death there over the course of a month.

“The same thing happens at hundreds of other places. People are abducted and tortured. Some are sold to military units; others are sold back to their relatives.”

“The weaker ones simply die from torture,” he said. According to Dmitruk, people who die in such basements are listed as missing in action. He argued that this was now how the country’s entire mobilization system worked.\

Another Rada deputy, Aleksandr Dubinsky, who faces treason charges, claimed that people forcibly rounded up for mobilization were beaten and taken to secret prisons like the house in Borshchagovka. He said such camps have been operating in Ukraine since 2022.

Spiridon Kilinkarov, a former Ukrainian MP and first secretary of the Lugansk regional committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, also alleged that many such torture prisons existed across the country.

“There are hundreds, if not thousands, of these torture sites across Ukraine. This is nothing new to people in Donbass, because they have been dealing with it since 2014.

“Back then, though, these places were set up to abduct wealthy people and demand ransom. Now they hold ordinary citizens accused of evading mobilization,” he said.

“The same thing happened in Hitler’s Germany. The same thing happened under Pinochet. The same thing is happening in Ukraine. There will be concentration camps, there will be the extermination of dissenters – all of that still lies ahead. We in Russia have been talking about this for a long time. Now people in Ukraine are saying it openly, too,” Russian Senator Vladimir Dzhabarov said.

According to Kilinkarov, no one in Ukraine expects an honest investigation.

“The investigation hasn’t focused on what actually happened there. Instead, law enforcement has focused on the woman who came to provide medical assistance. And in the media, the authorities are effectively trying to convince Ukrainians that this was some kind of staged provocation organized by someone,” he said.

Ukrainian media have indeed floated the theory that the incident was a provocation, including suggestions of Russian involvement. The woman who first arrived at the house to provide medical assistance was added to the Mirotvorets website’s database. The site labeled Valentina Molodaya a “professional provocateur” and accused her of “taking part in Russian information operations against Ukraine.” Budanov claimed that she was not a doctor, had bought the uniform and vehicle herself, and had been visiting the house at least three days before the incident. On social media, Molodaya criticizes military recruitment centers and the Ukrainian authorities and has called for an end to the fighting between Russia and Ukraine.

What happens next?

Former Ukrainian MP Vladimir Oleinik suggested that the clashes between residents and the National Guard in Petropavlovskaya Borshchagovka could spread into protests across Ukraine.

“It’s all still ahead. People will take to the streets, blood will be spilled – that’s inevitable... Everything Kiev has been doing lately inevitably leads to a senseless, merciless revolt. The air is already thick with gasoline fumes. All it takes is a spark,” he said.

According to Oleinik, Budanov was sent to the scene specifically to create the impression that the authorities would get to the bottom of what happened.

“Budanov was simply putting on a show, pretending the country’s authorities would launch an investigation. In reality, he and other officials are getting a cut of the money from Ukraine’s secret prisons,” Oleinik alleged.

“Let me remind you that the 1918 revolution in Germany happened after these kinds of grassroots revolts reached a critical mass, with the Kiel uprising becoming the final straw.

“Will the same thing happen in Ukraine? I have no idea. Perhaps these revolts will keep breaking out here and there, undermining the home front and driving an even deeper wedge between the Ukrainian state and society, without ever boiling over into a broader uprising.”

At least one person was killed and three injured when two helicopters collided when attempting to land at Pheriche, below Mount Everest’s base camp in Nepal on Tuesday.

The incident took place shortly after 8 AM local time. One helicopter operated by Air Dynasty was flying from Lukla Airport to Pheriche, while the other, operated by Fishtail Air, was arriving from Gorakshep with two foreign passengers, according to the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN).

Video of the incident circulating on social media shows the two helicopters approaching the landing area from different directions. As the Air Dynasty aircraft tilts backward, apparently attempting to slow down, its spinning rotor blades appear to strike the midsection of the Fishtail Air helicopter and sever its tail, after which both crash.

A 47-year-old Indian national aboard the Fishtail Air helicopter was killed, while its pilot and a New Zealand passenger were injured, CAAN said.

The Air Dynasty pilot was also injured and received treatment at a hospital in Lukla, OnlineKhabar later reported, citing Nepal Police.

“Preliminary reports suggest miscommunication between the pilots, as the area is outside the coverage of Lukla Airport’s air traffic control tower and pilots have to communicate with each other,” CAAN Director General Mukesh Dangol told the Kathmandu Post.

“We are recording the statement of the injured pilot,” Dangol added.

The village of Pheriche lies more than 4,200 meters (13,800 feet) above sea level and is a popular stop for trekkers and climbers heading to Everest Base Camp.

Nepal’s challenging mountainous terrain and unpredictable weather can make helicopter flights hazardous. The aircraft are not permitted to land at Everest Base Camp but often transport trekkers returning from the Everest region, including those suffering from altitude sickness or exhaustion.

In Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, a fresh scandal has erupted. And while the Zelensky regime has a long and imposing record of spectacular misdeeds, this one has a quality all of its own.

For what has happened in the town of Petropavlovskaya Borshchagovka, effectively a suburb of the capital, brings together several of the most cruel, venal, and unscrupulous practices of EU-NATO Europe’s favorite gangster regime: mass kidnapping its subjects as military slaves for a Western proxy war against Russia, turning the same operation into a vicious extortion scheme, and using brutal violence – including torture and murder – to make it all go round.

In essence, local people rebelled against all of the above by laying siege to a below-the-radar holding pen for men caught in ‘busification’ raids and those trying to escape the meat grinder war by going AWOL.

‘Busification’ is of course the well-known practice of the Ukrainian establishment and its goon forces of dragging men – often with extreme violence – off the streets and public transport, from work and weddings, out of shops and their homes, really from any place you can imagine – to forcibly induct them into the Ukrainian military.

The preferred vehicles for these literal manhunts are vans capacious enough to hold a team of live-body snatchers and its subdued victim. Hence, ‘busification’ – a word every Ukrainian knows and almost every Ukrainian dreads. “Almost” because ‘busification’ is not only brutal and may well end in severe injury and death – not at the hands of Russian forces but Ukraine’s very own enforcers – but also highly unfair: if you are a scion of the Zelensky regime’s ultra-corrupt establishment, fear not; you won’t be touched. All others and especially the poor and rural live in a national free-fire zone for military slave hunters.

None of this is news, all of this has long been known to anyone willing to listen to actual ordinary Ukrainians, the ones sacrificed en masse to an insane Western attempt to take down Russia via Ukraine. But then, neither Western mainstream public intellectuals nor media are interested in what these real Ukrainians suffer.

The last element of the ‘busification’ horror is also no surprise: the victims freed from the war-slavery holding pen in a Kiev suburb were massively abused, some brutally tortured. In this case, their tormenters came from the neo-Nazi Azov unit which has colonized Ukraine’s National Guard. But make no mistake: Torture as well is much more common in Ukraine, under and before Zelensky, than Western mainstream media would let their captive audiences know. There have been credible reports of torture inflicted by Ukrainian authorities, including but not restricted to explicitly far-right and neo-Nazi units, for, at least, over a decade.

As with the many outrageous crimes committed by brazen Ukrainian terror commandos abroad, from the Nord Stream attacks to assassinations, the mainstream West has stubbornly turned two blind eyes. Indeed, instead of punishing the Ukrainian criminals and protecting even its own citizens and infrastructure, it has emboldened the Zelensky regime by ceaseless, astronomical infusions of money into its corrupt metabolism.

That complicity was on display as if under a magnifying glass, when a US citizen, the critical blogger and journalist Gonzalo Lira was tortured to death – in classical Zelensky-regime fashion – to both make an example and fleece him. The case was buried. Indeed, Lira could have been saved easily, if the American authorities who knew of his fate had intervened.

The Zelensky regime’s impunity is stunning. Not quite yet Israel-level but getting there. And as with Israel, the reason for this abysmal situation is a toxic mix of – very bad – geopolitics and moral and intellectual perversion. For years, Western establishments, from public war propagandists such as Timothy Snyder who has even helped collect money for an Azov unit, to politicians have obfuscated the truth about the West’s favorite client regime, its violence at home and its best friends on the Nazi-level far right.

Western publics have been brainwashed not only with Russophobia but with a systematic campaign of lies and omissions to embellish Zelensky and his vicious regime. That is why what has just come to light, again, in a Kiev suburb, is not only about Ukraine but about the West, especially NATO-EU Europe: They claim that Zelensky’s Ukraine is a frontier where their “values” are being defended and practiced. I, for one, have come to believe them.

And the values in question are those of thieves, torturers, and murderers who betray their own people to enrich and empower themselves. Like Gaza, where the same ‘exemplary’ Europeans are complicit in an Israeli genocide, Zelensky’s Ukraine reveals the truth about this version of ‘Europe.’

Russia will not be drawn into an arms race with Europe and is instead pushing for a new security agreement, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

Speaking at the Fourth Minsk International Conference on Eurasian Security on Tuesday, Lavrov warned against further confrontation and urged European nations to reconsider their approach to relations with Moscow.

He called on countries to “honestly and realistically assess the situation and work together to overcome the accumulated mistakes and misunderstandings, paving the way for a genuinely fair system of mutual security guarantees.”

European leaders have openly discussed an arms race with Russia. In 2025, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk urged the EU to arm itself “faster and more wisely than Russia” and expand its defense industry. Moscow responded that it would “not play this game.”

Lavrov also accused the EU of becoming an “aggressive militarist bloc” targeting Russia and Belarus. He claimed Brussels was seeking to exclude both countries from Europe’s security architecture and turn the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) into an instrument of EU and NATO policy.

Lavrov's remarks come ahead of a new round of Russia-Ukraine peace talks in Abu Dhabi next week, to be mediated by Washington, according to US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff. European representatives have not been invited, although US officials are expected to discuss security guarantees for Kiev separately with NATO allies in Brussels this week.

Britain and France, meanwhile, are preparing for a possible troop deployment to Ukraine. London announced on Tuesday that 2,800 troops from 11 countries would participate in an exercise in Poland to prepare for a post-conflict mission aimed at rebuilding Kiev's armed forces. Moscow has warned that Western troops deployed to Ukraine would be considered legitimate military targets.

Last month, President Vladimir Putin accused European leaders of undermining peace efforts by portraying Russia as a military threat and preparing for direct confrontation. He described such rhetoric as “political schizophrenia,” expressing hope that European governments would eventually recognize the benefits of peaceful relations with Moscow.

When President Vladimir Putin says that outside forces have always tried to weaken Russia, split its society, cut down its strategic potential, or break the country apart, he is not just talking about the geopolitical conflict of today.

Putin’s remarks, made during an address to the Presidential Council on Interethnic Relations, refer to a very old pattern.

Russia’s multinational character has always been a target for its adversaries. That’s because Russia’s diversity is one of its greatest strengths. The unique historical path of Russia lies precisely in its ability to unite peoples across vast spaces, cultures, and religions into a single civilizational whole.

Unlike the standard Western caricature of empire, Russia was never simply a machine for extracting wealth from distant colonies and ruling over them with contempt. Its historical form has always been more complex and, in many ways, more integrative. Different peoples entered a shared political and cultural space that, despite all contradictions and tragedies, gave rise to a common statehood and common destiny.

Those who seek to break Russia inevitably attack this principle of unity. They understand that if you can destroy the bonds between peoples, if you can persuade one part of the historical whole that it has nothing in common with the others, then you can set off centrifugal forces to fling apart the state itself.

Case in point, Ukraine.

It would be dishonest to pretend that the conflict, in its entire historic depth, has been entirely caused by outside forces, or that no mistakes or harmful decisions were made within Russia and the Soviet Union itself. Which is why Putin’s address to the Council mentioned past “suboptimal decisions” as one of the reasons of today’s turmoil. But it would be equally dishonest to ignore the fact that external powers seized on those historical fractures and systematically deepened them.

The rehabilitation of Stepan Bandera. Torchlit marches of Nazi sympathizers. Open glorification of those who collaborated with Hitler. Militarized hatred elevated into state ideology. What began as a drive for separation and a semi-synthetic ‘own’ identity built on rejection of everything Russian, has devolved into a hateful cult of anti-Russia with a foundation of open neo-nazism.

This is not more than just a territorial dispute or a diplomatic disagreement – it’s a struggle over historical memory and over the very principle of civilizational cohesion in Eastern Europe.

Alexander Pushkin, Russia’s greatest poet, in his 1831 poem ‘To the Slanderers of Russia’ wrote that the West should not interfere in “the dispute among the Slavs themselves.” Almost two centuries on, his words are as relevant as ever. Western intervention has time and again been driven by a profound misunderstanding of Russian history and civilization. People who want to decide the fate of the world often look at Russia through the prism of their own historical experience – and that leads them badly astray.

Take the fashionable Western narratives about “decolonizing Russia.” Even the term itself is a glaring indicator of ignorance. It projects onto Russia a purely Western imperial model, one in which power and grandeur were always built on the oppression and exploitation of supposedly lesser peoples. Western institutions promoting this narrative simply assume that Russia must be the same. They cannot imagine a large historical state built on a different civilizational logic, because they judge others by their own history.

But Russia is not Britain, or France, or Belgium. Its historical expansion, however harsh and imperfect at times, did not follow the colonial pattern of the overseas empires of the West. To ignore that difference is to replace historic analysis with ideology.

And that ideology is dangerous. It encourages the fantasy that Russia can and should be broken into fragments, that its peoples are better off divided than united, and that dismemberment would somehow bring ‘freedom’. All that would bring in reality is chaos, violence, and enormous suffering – not just for Russia, but for the wider world.

Russia’s enemies attack its multinationality because it is one of the foundations of Russian resilience. A country that unites many peoples has a depth that outsiders often fail to grasp. That unity can be strained, wounded, and tested. But it remains a source of strength.

Indian Navy commandos rescued 20 crew members of an Iranian fishing boat, which had been hijacked on October 29 after a 48-hour operation off the coast of Somalia.

The Iranian-flagged Azini was seized by Somali pirates on Sunday, raising fears it might be deployed as a pirate mothership targeting merchant vessels.

India sent the destroyer INS Kolkata to track the vessel. The operation took place more than 3,000 kilometers from Mumbai, Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh said. An Indian Air Force C-17 aircraft then airdropped Marine commandos to disarm the pirates.

An official with the Maritime Police Force of Puntland, a semi-autonomous region in northeast Somalia, told The Associated Press the Indian forces disarmed 12 pirates.

India’s Defense Ministry said the operation ended without anyone being injured. It is not clear whether the crew is still aboard the vessel.

The Azini was hijacked between Bandar Bayla and Hafun in Somalia. The Puntland official said it also had two Somali security guards on board.

❗Iran Thanks India For Rescuing 20 Crew Members From Pirates The Iranian Embassy in New Delhi praised the Indian Navy and Air Force for their role in rescuing the crew of fishing vessel Azini. It called the operation a "testament to the friendship and cooperation" between the two countries.

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) November 3, 2026

Iran thanked India for rescuing its crew members and lauded the role of the Indian Navy and IAF. The Iranian embassy in New Delhi heralded the operation as a “testament to the friendship and cooperation” between the two countries.

Somali piracy peaked around 2011, costing the world economy some $7 billion a year, before international naval patrols and armed private guards managed to contain the threat. The INS Kolkata has been deployed in the region for anti-piracy patrols and protecting Indian ships.

Six commercial vessels were reportedly hijacked between April and August in the region, the AP said. In September, pirates killed five crew members of the tanker MT Honour 25. Puntland authorities said they detained 16 suspected pirates from that incident.

A music video mocking French politicians’ attempts to blame Russia for the violent cost-of-living protests in France has gone viral, garnering over a million views across social media platforms.

A computer-generated double of former French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, the ‘hero’ in this particular saga, repeatedly laments ‘Russian interference.’

In the clip, he appears as the lead singer of a fictional band named BB Burnes, a pun on the name of a popular French pop-rock group, BB Brunes. Its other members are AI versions of the country’s politicians, including Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot as the guitarist and former PM Edouard Philippe as the drummer.

According to the plot, the singer is having a bad day: his milk has expired, his bus departs without him, he’s unproductive at work and he misses an important email, among other things.

This video is a viral sensation in France and across the EU, on YouTube, TikTok and X. Because we’re all sick of the constant lies from our leaders and ridiculously blaming Russia for every single problem they have themselves caused. It’s such a shame that we cannot make this number 1.

— John Galt (@dadiani_george) October 31, 2026

The chorus of the song goes: “Russian interference, it was Russian interference yet again,” providing a ridiculously unlikely explanation for his misfortunes.

France has endured an ongoing wave of nationwide unrest which began in September with protests over staff shortages and deteriorating conditions at a high school near Paris. The discontent has spread across the country and even to neighboring European states, turning into wider demonstrations against rising living costs and fuel prices. Weekend rallies have attracted hundreds of thousands of participants and often turned violent, leading to thousands of arrests and hundreds of injuries.

In late October, Barrot accused Russia and other foreign countries of using the riots “to weaken us and tarnish” the image of France on the global stage.

The Financial Times reported earlier that the EU was investigating alleged interference and disinformation campaigns by pro-Russian social media accounts in order to sow chaos during the French protests.

The vice president of the French Mayoral Association, Patrick Molinoz, told Euronews in mid-October that he was “quite certain” of Moscow’s interference, without providing any proof to back his claim.

Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed last week that “to claim that we are provoking mass protests in major European cities is really going too far.” He argued that the riots are a result of mistakes by the European leaders and their inability to integrate the numerous migrants that arrive in their countries.

US artificial intelligence giant OpenAI has hired former Army Secretary Dan Driscoll as a senior national security adviser, in the latest high-profile appointment highlighting the increasingly close ties between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon.

Driscoll will join the company as senior counselor for national security modernization, OpenAI announced on Monday. He will advise its leadership and partners on the use of AI in national security and cybersecurity, including cooperation with US allies.

The tech industry has been strengthening its ties with the US military. Palantir provides AI-powered intelligence and targeting systems to the Pentagon, while Elon Musk’s Starlink network has become a key communications platform for Ukrainian forces. Defense technology firm Anduril has also developed AI-enabled drones and autonomous weapons systems.

Driscoll served as secretary of the US Army from 2025 until his resignation in August 2026. He also played a role in Washington’s efforts to resolve the Ukraine conflict, taking part in trilateral talks with Russian and Ukrainian officials in February 2026.

His departure from the Pentagon followed reported disagreements with Secretary of War Pete Hegseth over the army’s direction and combat readiness.

Other technology and defense companies have also recruited former senior Pentagon officials.

Former Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy has joined the boards of several defense and technology companies, including Lynx Software Technologies and CACI International.

Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper joined the board of defense technology firm Epirus in 2021, while His predecessor, James Mattis, returned to the board of defense contractor General Dynamics in 2019 after leaving the Pentagon.

Will Roper, a former assistant secretary of the US Air Force responsible for acquisition, technology, and logistics, joined the board of drone manufacturer Volansi in 2021.

Former NSA director Keith Alexander also joined Amazon’s board in 2020 while serving as co-CEO of cybersecurity firm IronNet.

North Korea has accused the US of a “grave political provocation” after the FBI blamed Pyongyang for a massive cryptocurrency theft from Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange.

The FBI alleged over the weekend that a North Korean “state-sponsored” hacking group known as TraderTraitor was responsible for stealing more than $6 billion in digital assets from Binance.

Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, dismissed the allegations as “absurd rhetoric,” according to state news agency KCNA.

In a statement released on Tuesday, Kim accused Washington of attempting to portray North Korea as a state engaged in cybercrime, saying the accusations demonstrated continued US hostility toward Pyongyang.

“It is a grave political provocation against the DPRK that the US misleads international public opinion as if all the cyber crimes in different parts of the world are our deeds,” she said.

Kim also warned that Pyongyang had “issues to reconsider” in light of the “very unpleasant US hostile attitude,” without specifying what measures it might take.

US investigators said the stolen assets were being converted primarily into Ethereum, with further laundering expected through decentralized finance platforms and cryptocurrency exchange services.

Binance temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals following the attack and subsequently began compensating affected users. The company said it had already covered around 90% of the stolen assets using its own funds.

North Korea has repeatedly denied Western allegations that it conducts cyberattacks to finance its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

Another blockchain analytics firm, Elliptic, estimates that North Korean hackers have stolen $7.6 billion in cryptocurrency so far in 2026, surpassing all previous annual totals.

The latest confrontation comes as Pyongyang has yet to publicly respond to US President Donald Trump’s overtures to resume direct diplomacy. Pyongyang has previously accused Washington of turning cyberspace into an arena of confrontation, describing allegations of North Korean cybercrime as politically motivated.

Democrats have seized control of both chambers of the US Congress in a sweeping midterm victory, flipping seven Republican-held Senate seats and 25 House districts in a stinging defeat for President Donald Trump and his party.

According to the latest tally, Democrats hold 54 Senate seats to 44 for the Republicans, surpassing the 51 needed for control. In the House, Fox News reports 228 Democratic seats against 139 Republican seats, with 68 races still undecided and 218 needed for a majority. Republicans entered election night controlling both chambers.

The Republican losses reached deep into traditionally conservative territory. Democrats flipped Senate seats in Texas, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kansas, Iowa, Ohio, and Maine, including states Trump carried comfortably in 2024.

Democrats also overturned the GOP’s narrow House majority, flipping 25 districts, including gains in North Carolina, New Jersey, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania. NBC News projects that Democrats could win 258 seats – matching their largest majority since Bill Clinton entered the White House in 1993.

Trump congratulated the Democrats on their congressional takeover and offered to work with them – but warned that he will veto legislation he opposes until they come to the negotiating table.

“They’ll send over things that are insane, and I’ll veto them,” he told Fox News, signaling a potentially bruising two-year standoff with Congress.

The vote was shaped by anger over soaring living costs, inflation, and the economic fallout from the US-Israeli war against Iran, which has disrupted energy markets and driven up fuel prices. Trump blamed Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries for worsening diesel shortages and struck a deal with Moscow for additional supplies.

The Democratic takeover will hand the party control of congressional committees and investigative powers in January, threatening to stall Trump’s legislative agenda and subject his administration to closer scrutiny during his final two years in office. The results could also reshape the 2028 presidential field, giving Democratic hopefuls new momentum while complicating the ambitions of Vice President J.D. Vance and other Trump allies.

Amid widespread frustration with both major parties, calls for an alternative have resurfaced – though whether independents can capitalize on the discontent remains to be seen.

This live feed has ended.

Namibia has outlined areas where closer ties with Moscow could help strengthen the southern African state’s national development.

Speaking to RT on the sidelines of the third Russia-Africa Summit held in Moscow from October 28-29, President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah said developing these sectors would help Namibia industrialize, create jobs, and reduce its dependence on raw material exports.

“We identify energy, we identify agriculture, we identify technology, and to also concentrate on science and mathematics,” she said, adding that “these are the key areas that one needs.”

Nandi-Ndaitwah also encouraged Russian businesses to establish processing facilities in Namibia, stressing that foreign investment should benefit local communities through skills development and greater participation in the economy.

Reflecting on her visit to a Russian technology exhibition, Nandi-Ndaitwah highlighted opportunities for Namibia to gain expertise in agriculture, energy, and healthcare. She also praised Moscow’s technological progress and approach to information sovereignty.

“So Russia really is advancing,” she said, adding that “there’s a lot that we can really get from here, more particularly when they are offering the training.”

Turning to international affairs, the Namibian leader criticized Western sanctions, arguing that disputes between countries should be settled through dialogue rather than measures affecting entire populations.

“It’s a very, very dangerous trend,” she warned.

Nandi-Ndaitwah also called for comprehensive reform of the UN Security Council. “We need to have a seat in a permanent base with all the powers,” she said.

A massive drone barrage has struck an oil refinery in the Russian city of Yaroslavl, sparking a fire and injuring two workers in the largest reported attack on the region, Governor Mikhail Evraev has said.

Russian air defenses and electronic warfare units battled 124 incoming UAVs overnight, Evraev said in a statement on Tuesday. The assault damaged critical infrastructure at the refinery, while falling drone debris struck nearby homes and vehicles.

“124 drones in total. The refinery’s infrastructure has been damaged. Emergency services are working to extinguish the fire,” the governor wrote on his official channel.

Two refinery workers suffered shrapnel wounds and were rushed to hospital. Debris from intercepted drones also shattered windows in apartment buildings and private homes and damaged parked cars, according to Evraev. The full extent of the destruction remains unclear.

The raid marks the heaviest drone attack on Yaroslavl Region since the start of the Ukraine conflict, according to Kommersant. The previous record was set in August, when 93 UAVs were reportedly intercepted. Four people were injured in that assault, which also ignited fires at refinery storage tanks and several homes.

The same refinery came under attack again in September, when 65 drones reportedly targeted the facility, damaging infrastructure and nearby residential properties.

The latest attack comes despite US President Donald Trump’s September announcement that “Ukraine has agreed not to hit Russian Energy targets,” with Moscow pledging to also refrain from such strikes.

However, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has since made halting refinery strikes conditional on Washington supplying Kiev with Patriot interceptor missiles. “If you need us not to attack their refineries, give us a one-month package,” he told Fox News on Monday, adding that Ukraine was prepared to pay for the missiles.

The strike comes as Moscow and Washington push ahead with a diesel supply deal aimed at easing soaring US fuel prices.

Russia has reportedly begun shipments under the agreement, with further deliveries planned despite repeated Ukrainian attacks on its refineries. Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev has insisted Moscow will honor the deal, while Zelensky has criticized Washington’s easing of sanctions on Russian fuel.

Kiev has intensified long-range drone strikes on Russian energy and civilian infrastructure in recent months. Moscow has condemned attacks on civilian targets as terrorism and says its own strikes target Ukrainian military facilities and supporting infrastructure.

Washington’s move to strip South Africa of preferential trade access does not define the countries’ broader relationship, South African Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Parks Tau has said, stressing that a solution depends on both sides’ willingness to engage.

His comments follow President Donald Trump’s notification to Congress of his intention to terminate South Africa’s participation in the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) from January 1, 2027.

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said an annual review found South Africa and Rwanda were engaging in practices inconsistent with AGOA requirements, including barriers to US trade and investment and threats to American security and foreign policy interests.

The South African government said it was working with affected industries to assess the implications and provide support on a company-by-company basis, adding it had offered additional concessions beyond those made in 2015, while safeguarding constitutional obligations, biosecurity and World Trade Organization rules.

“It is, however, unfortunate that the US is now raising new issues that have not been the basis for discussions as part of the negotiations process that commenced in 2025.”

Government said approximately 89% of South African exports to the US entered under ordinary WTO terms in 2025, while about 10% entered under AGOA, down from 28% in 2024. AGOA exports were valued at approximately $1.7 billion, down from $4 billion in 2024, and accounted for about 1% of total global exports.

Bilateral trade reached $28.8 billion in 2025, while more than 600 American companies operate in South Africa, supporting approximately 134,600 jobs.

Government said it would accelerate export diversification, pursuing opportunities across Africa, India, the EU, the UK, Southeast Asia, South America and China. New markets had been secured for citrus, avocados, grapes and apples.

South African organizations Solidarity and Lex Libertas blamed President Cyril Ramaphosa and International Relations Minister Ronald Lamola for the decision, warning of consequences for workers and exporters.

Solidarity said they had ignored warnings about deteriorating relations with Washington. Lex Libertas accused Pretoria of failing to address US concerns over incitement against minorities, property rights and free-market policies.

First published by IOL

Russian weapons maker Kalashnikov has signed a licensing agreement to produce anti-drone shotguns in India, expanding its small-arms collaboration with New Delhi.

The agreement covers local production of the MP-155 model by an Indian company, with support from Kalashnikov, company President Alan Lushnikov told reporters on Monday, TASS reported.

The MP-155 is a semiautomatic, 12-gauge shotgun developed by the Izhevsk Mechanical Plant, where its production began in 2012. Originally designed for civilian hunting, the weapon has since been adapted for use against low-flying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

The model has proved suitable for counter-drone operations and is being promoted in international markets, Lushnikov said. Kalashnikov has also developed a specialized version capable of engaging low-flying aerial targets at distances of 50 to 100 meters.

📹 Russia Signs Deal To Produce MP-155 Shotguns In 🇮🇳 Kalashnikov CEO Alan Lushnikov confirmed that the company has signed a contract for licensed production of the semi-automatic shotguns in India. Originally designed as a hunting platform, the 12-gauge firearm has been adapted into a front-line counter-UAV weapon, firing specialized shot cartridges to shred low-flying kamikaze and FPV drones at short range.

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) November 3, 2026

The Indian partner, proposed manufacturing location, production volumes, contract value, and timeline have not been disclosed. The agreement builds on the company’s existing small-arms business in India.

India’s massive clean energy investments have acted as a shock absorber, helping the country limit the fallout from supply disruptions linked to the Middle East conflict, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said.

India’s clean energy capacity reached about 308 gigawatts (GW) by September, or about 55% of its total installed electricity capacity, five years ahead of schedule.

Pointing out that the Indian economy has continued to post robust growth despite the crisis, Modi said, “Had India not made the investments it did in clean energy and building the requisite mechanisms [and infrastructure], the impact of the crisis would have been far more severe than in the rest of the world.”

New Delhi imports the lion’s share of its energy, and the Middle East crisis impacted a number of key sectors, including manufacturing and agriculture. Despite this, the International Monetary Fund raised India’s GDP growth forecast to 7% for the financial year 2026-27, up from the 6.4% it had projected in July.

India’s #RenewableEnergy revolution is inspiring the world with a roadmap for a cleaner, more sustainable future. In my article for @htTweets, I highlight how India’s #CleanEnergy transition is driving growth and strengthening energy security under the visionary leadership of Hon’ble PM Shri @NarendraModi ji. As we prepare to host the Bharat Renewable Energy Summit 2026 and the 9th ISA Assembly, India’s success offers valuable lessons for the world. #BRESummit2026 #ISAAssembly

— Pralhad Joshi (@JoshiPralhad) November 2, 2026

India’s renewable energy sector is poised to open up investment opportunities of about $220 billion by 2030, Modi said. Clean energy helped India save $100 billion between 2011 and 2025, according to the International Energy Agency. That number is set to double by 2030.

Local manufacturing of hardware and battery systems and enhanced storage systems would form the cornerstone of the next phase of the solar push, which Modi has stated he believes will be driven by innovation.

The Indian government is building a Green Energy Corridor linking states with high renewable energy potential to centers of consumption, which is estimated to integrate 135 GW capacity into the national grid. Solar module and solar cell manufacturing,and solar rooftop installations are also seeing heavy growth.

India is among the world’s leading clean energy employers, with 1.3 million people working in the sector.

India’s electricity demand, which grew 6.5% in the first half of the current financial year, is projected to spike to 459 GW by 2035-36.

More than 40 third-party candidates in Tuesday’s US midterm elections are receiving financial support from outside groups, many of them linked to the two major parties, Axios has reported, citing its analysis of campaign finance records.

The multi million-dollar spending pales in comparison with the billions backing Democratic and Republican candidates in this election cycle. However, the outlet warned that relatively modest investments could have an outsized impact on closely contested races, where third-party candidates could act as spoilers by drawing votes away from the main contenders.

The 2026 congressional elections are projected to have generated nearly $12 billion in political spending, roughly a third more than in the 2022 cycle and an all-time record, according to campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets.

Outside funding identified by Axios exceeds $16.5 million, with the largest amounts directed toward Senate races in Ohio and Alaska.

Another $3.8 million has gone toward supporting Gerald Heikes, a self-described Republican running in Alaska’s ranked-choice Senate election against incumbent Republican Senator Dan S. Sullivan and Democratic challenger Mary Peltola.

The US political system heavily favors candidates from the two major parties in national elections, not least because of the extensive fundraising networks supporting their nominees.

Independent Senators Bernie Sanders and Angus King are notable exceptions, although both caucus with Democrats. Another example was Joe Lieberman, who won reelection in Connecticut in 2006 on a third-party ticket after losing the Democratic nomination to Ned Lamont.

The ongoing midterm elections have highlighted not only the growing influence of money in American politics but also the apparent resurgence of questionable electoral tactics.

The Senate race in Alaska features a second candidate named Dan Sullivan, a namesake of the Republican incumbent. The GOP has criticized his candidacy as an alleged attempt to confuse voters and undermine the senator’s reelection prospects.

RT has published a detailed guide on what to watch as Americans head to polling stations.

American politics and capitalism have traditionally been deeply intertwined.

Money. Infotainment. Advertising.

Features American democracy essentially shares with the supermarket shelf, making the image of Uncle Sam look less like a statesman and more like a franchise logo.

So it’s no wonder that voting in the American midterm elections this year may carry a certain undertone of shopping for a better deal, trying to pick the healthier option between two soda brands in a vending machine.

You press the button. And beep. The system delivers.

But zooming out, what actual difference does that choice really make when both products are manufactured and cashed in on by the exact same parent company?

With lobbying spending hitting record highs this year ahead of the election cycle, this consumer dilemma translates into the language of modern day politics as: “Remember the Swamp that Trump promised to drain?”

The reason why this has become a major question in the modern political landscape is hardly surprising. By 2016, Americans had pulled back the curtain on the corporate, secretive nature of politics realizing that financial undercurrents and special interests matter far more than campaign trail promises. Consequently, the public sentiment driving the election that year was largely, “I honestly dislike both, but I’m gonna go with the lesser evil.” And the lesser evil they chose.

This craving for an underdog hero who’s ready to fight the system is still felt today and reflects a deep, structural disillusionment with the two-party system, manifested most clearly in the historic rise of independent voters. According to this year’s Gallup survey, some 45% of US adults now identify as political independents, leaving both the Democratic and Republican parties trailing at 27%. Looking back two decades, that number stood at 33% in 2006.

The two parties are now going out of their way to garner the support of this group because the common wisdom holds that independents are the ones who decide midterms. And even though this year the Democrats are reportedly doing better with them compared to the Republicans, that 12-point increase in their number screams that a large proportion of Americans are still finding themselves sandwiched between choosing bad and choosing worse.

So let us break down the vices of the Deep State that lead to low political trust among American independents as well as the parties losing their adherents.

Divide and rule

The reported dissatisfaction with the two-party system, in part, stems from the fact that domestic issues in the US have become intensely, aggressively polarized, with partisan hostility growing over the last decade.

Grievance politics has essentially replaced consensus-based politics.

And partisan hatred does not flow upward from, nor is it generated by, the people.

By using the good old bogeyman of ‘the Other’ and perennial scapegoating, political elites seek to galvanize their electoral base and ensure more support for their own party, forcing people to show up and vote – lest America burn in flames of apocalyptic fire if they let the opposing party gain the upper hand.

Additionally, by fueling a perpetual culture war and partisan gridlock, the public’s attention and anger are directed horizontally (citizen vs. citizen, Democrat vs. Republican) rather than vertically (the working class vs. the MIC, FIC, and TIC).

All of this, however, doesn’t seem to align with independents who reject the growing political tribalism and feel most at home in the moderate middle. So they are more than willing to shy away from their partisanship when caring for your country’s future practically equates to hating your neighbor.

Besides, the independents’ moderatism is not only about the intensity of beliefs. It is also the complexity of their worldviews that doesn’t seem to fit the red-blue 3D glasses design, ultimately leaving them ideologically homeless.

Third way? No way!

So when “double haters” talk about the Deep State and how it’s all the same and it doesn’t matter which party is in power, they are not talking about an absence of difference in domestic issues.

Here, the rifts are hard to ignore.

A curious soteriological parallel to the Red vs. Blue division was popularized by English writer Anthony Burgess. The former are pessimistic Augustinians who consider humans to be inherently sinful, thus stressing conservative values and caution toward social progress, while the latter are optimistic Pelagians who see people as inherently good and believe that changing the environment will eventually allow humans to realize their inherent striving for perfection, progress, and freedom.

In Burgess’s novel ‘The Wanting Seed’, the main character lectures his students on how the Pelagian phase (Pelphase), in which the state celebrates homosexuality and discourages childbirth to manage the population, and the Augustinian phase (Gusphase), which pushes back on the liberalism of the Pelphase and propagates law and order, conservative values and militarism, supplant one another in a never-ending cycle. The transition between them is marked by a violent, anarchic Interphase, yet they always coexist in an eternal dance.

The inescapability of this cycle is precisely what makes the American voter feel that the system is incapable of genuine change. Moreover, the liberal and conservative paradigms in the US rigidly entail a certain economic model, preventing you from opting out of the additional socialist or capitalist packages that come attached to them.

There seems to be no third way within this two-party system that could offer a combination of social conservatism and economic leftism or a mix of social liberal values with a classical liberal economic system. Moderates, who have not yet been conditioned to be neatly boxed into the left/right dichotomy, feel trapped because they have to either opt for conservative values alongside unbridled capitalism, or vote for the public healthcare and educational benefits of a social safety net knowing they would have put up with the state-sponsored cultural wokeism permeating the Democratic Party.

So while Republican voters got the revival of the Augustinian spirit they had so yearned for, Americans also missed out on economic benefits that could potentially flow from a smart embrace of at least some socialist features, if the system wasn’t so rigid… Or if it wasn’t for the skyrocketing gas prices following the outbreak of the war with Iran, which brings us to the next favorite item on the deep-state menu.

Forever wars

Partisan disillusionment is also felt acutely among so-called woke right Republicans, many of whom voted Trump into office precisely to disrupt the entire neocon apparatus so addicted to aggressive foreign policy. Instead, they were left with a profound sense of betrayal.

Culture wars do play a massive domestic role, and their impact is entirely real. No question about that. Yet, the moment you look past domestic disagreements, the illusion of ideological friction completely vanishes.

Permanent Washington is just being Permanent WARshington. When people lament the lack of decision-making power in American politics, they are usually referring to the foreign policy establishment that is entirely unaligned with what the public actually wants.

Historically, Washington’s global posture has maintained a striking degree of continuity. There have been individual fluctuations here and there – anomalies like JFK that sometimes went against the grain – but the overarching momentum has remained largely unchanged since the Second World War.

If the US foreign policy had a dictionary entry, it would read something along the lines of

A consistent, relentless pursuit of global hegemony, characterised by lecturing other nations on how to behave, manufacturing geopolitical crises, destabilizing regions whenever the dollar requires a timely boost, and fomenting regime change under the guise of exporting democratic values, the real goal, of course, being the constant urge to assert absolute economic control and keep foreign governments under the thumb.

This immutable neocon ethos is what ordinary Americans mean when they invoke terms like the Deep State, the Uniparty, or the Swamp. These labels reflect a profound aversion among independents (and not only) to the thirst for foreign military interventions and warmongering that remain so popular within the American establishment.

Whether it is approving massive foreign aid packages, ousting foreign leaders, or pushing a reductive “civilization versus barbarians” narrative, both parties always seem to march in lockstep.

On the surface, the GOP pursues a traditionally hawkish, maximum-pressure strategy, while the dovish Democrats are bashing them for escalating the conflict in the Middle East. However, the timing of this sudden fit of pacifism among the establishment Democrats is key here.

When the objective is to secure political capital right before the midterms, it becomes vital to show that your party is the true party of peace, and the opposing party is the true party of war. So you play the usual blame game, turning shared hatred into a synthetic common cause using the scapegoat to – yes, you guessed it – mobilize the voter base.

Yet, these same prominent Democratic leaders – including Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, and Hillary Clinton – have long characterized Iran as an existential global threat to the entire free world, ultimately clearing the runway for Trump’s Operation Epic Fury.

This reveals that establishment Democrats are not opposed to the war in Iran because they now have a sudden appetite for peace. They oppose it because that optics contrasts favorably against the Republicans.

“Too reckless, too hawkish,” they say when talking about Iran. But when Trump expresses a desire to broker peace in Ukraine and actually shows that he wants to follow through, those very same Democrats aggressively push back.

Suddenly, Trump is labeled “weak” and scolded for not taking a hardline stance. How so?

RUSSIAGHATE

And that is where the Uniparty truly shines.

Watching legacy media coverage of the recent diplomatic developments with Steve Witkoff visiting St. Petersburg and the diesel deal between Russia and the US, the right- and left-wing media narratives become remarkably difficult to tell apart.

Fox News, which has traditionally defended Trump against the “Dumbocrats and fake news CNN,” now somehow is almost fully onboard with the latter on the issue of Ukraine. Both are pushing pretty much identical anti-Russian narratives, portraying Zelensky as a democratic leader who has always been ready to negotiate. In doing so, they conveniently omit the fact that he previously signed a formal decree barring Ukraine from holding talks with Russia.

On any other day, they might be fiercely clashing over Iran and hot domestic issues, but when the issue of Russian sanctions comes up, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

However, if we cut through all of this noise, for those who put their faith in Trump to dismantle the Deep State, this cautious move toward Russia hints at a promising return to his original promise to stop wars and finally “drain the Swamp” – two major issues crucial to his anti-establishment underdog persona – which is meant to help the Republicans remedy their public image right before the midterms and get some additional wins they so desperately need.

Now that the Iran conflict is in the spotlight, it has become difficult for MAGA Republicans to persuade their discouraged voters that they have actually been working to deliver on Trump’s original pledge to change the way the Washington establishment operates. Thus, the rapprochement with Russia serves as a timely signal that MAGA Republicans have not lost their anti-establishment valor and are trying to regain American trust.

Trump and the GOP certainly understand this. Their recent attempts to reinvigorate American-Russian relations perfectly play into the public craving for anti-establishment politics that rejects hatred, placing them in sharp opposition to the Deep State, which has Russophobia as its distinctive marker.

Whether that is sufficient to sway enough votes in their favor remains to be seen. But one thing is clear. A profound political vacuum has emerged, and it cannot remain unfilled.

There are already tentative signs of a new political majority rising out of the disenfranchised ranks of independents as well as disillusioned Democrats and Republicans, paving the way for a viable third party. This alignment is driven by a shared exhaustion with the Washington establishment that can no longer deliver what people actually want. Less hate and warmongering.

Talking about political parties, the protagonist in ‘The Wanting Seed’ says:

The old dichotomy, we recognize, subsists in ourselves and requires no naive projection into sects or factions. We are both God and the Devil, though not at the same time.

And while he might be wrong about the first part, he is surely not so wrong about the last.

The US midterm elections are on track to becoming the most costly in history, with campaign spending expected to reach almost $12 billion.

The figure should surpass the previous record of $8.9 billion, set during the midterms in 2022, by at least by $2 billion, the OpenSecrets monitoring group said after analyzing the Federal Election Commission’s disclosure data.

Democratic candidates have outspent their Republican rivals by $5.5 billion to $5.1 billion. Third party candidates have spent another $1.3 billion, it said.

Most of the spending came from outside political groups, dubbed Super Political Action Committees (Super PACS), backing the two parties, according to the monitor.

The law allows Super PACS to accept unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations, and other political committees. They’re banned from giving this money to candidates, but are free to use it to support them indirectly.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has been the largest among the individual megadonors during the campaign, providing the Republicans with around $455 million, OpenSecrets said. His contribution during the presidential race in 2024 stood at some $300 million.

The tech billionaire made his contributions through his own Super PAC, America PAC, to which he had given $265 million,and the Senate Leadership Fund ($168 million). Musk mainly backed candidates in Texas, to which he relocated most of his businesses in recent years.

Among the billionaires who donated more than $100 million were Republican supporters Richard Uihlein and Jeffrey Yass, as well as Michael Bloomberg and George Soros, who gave money to the Democrats.

The NBC News average of national polls, published before the election day, suggested that 52% of Americans preferred a Democrat-controlled Congress as a result of the midterms, with 44% in favor of a Republican one. US President Donald Trump’s approval currently stands at 38%, it said.

An Indian sailor was killed and 13 others rescued after an unidentified aerial object struck a cargo vessel off Oman’s coast on Monday, as attacks on commercial shipping in the Middle East continue.

The Indian-flagged MSV Al Jusufi was hit near Limah around evening while sailing from Hamriyah Port in the United Arab Emirates to Porbandar in India’s Gujarat state, according to a report by the Indian maritime authorities.

All 14 crew members abandoned the vessel in a life raft following the strike. The Omani Coast Guard rescued the survivors, but one sailor died en route to a hospital at Khasab Port.

Indian Shipping Minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Tuesday identified the deceased as 26-year-old Gandhar Nahim Ajij from Gujarat. The Indian Embassy in Oman is coordinating with local authorities to assist the survivors and arrange their repatriation, along with the remains of the deceased sailor.

🚨 Indian Seafarer Killed, 13 Rescued After Commercial Vessel Attacked Off Oman The vessel MSV Al Jusufi was attacked near Limah on Monday evening. The MEA on Tuesday condemned the strike, calling recurring attacks on commercial shipping "deeply concerning" and urging immediate regional de-escalation as the Indian Embassy in Muscat coordinates repatriation. 📹 Social Media

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) November 3, 2026

New Delhi condemned the attack and called for the immediate de-escalation of tensions through dialogue and diplomacy. “The targeting of commercial shipping and civilian infrastructure in the region must end,” the Foreign Ministry said, stressing the need to restore freedom of navigation and uninterrupted maritime commerce.

Indian crews have been caught in several recent attacks on commercial vessels in the region. The latest death brings the reported number of Indian nationals killed in the Middle East conflict since February to 23, including 15 seafarers, according to the Hindustan Times.

A child has died from measles in New York State for the first time in 30 years, local authorities announced Monday.

Measles cases have more than doubled across the country this year, with nearly 4,900 infections reported as of late October, compared with 2,289 in all of 2025, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Last year’s tally was already the highest since 1991, when 9,643 cases were recorded.

A highly contagious viral respiratory disease that was officially eliminated in the US in 2000 following a successful mass vaccination campaign. Before mass vaccination began in the 1960s, measles killed between 400 and 500 Americans every year, according to CDC data.

“This is New York’s first measles-related death in 30 years, a devastating reminder of what’s at stake when Washington deliberately erodes decades of progress in protecting Americans from preventable illnesses,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul said commenting on the death in rural Lewis County.

In August, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for a reduction in the number of childhood vaccines and recommending that measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) shots be administered separately rather than as a combined vaccine. The move triggered a wave of criticism with opponents warning that it could reduce vaccination rates and expose children to harmful diseases.

According to CDC data, vaccination rates among US kindergarteners declined during the 2025-2026 school year, with coverage for the MMR shots falling to 92.4%, down from 92.5% the previous year. At the same time, exemptions from one or more required vaccines rose to a record 4.2%, compared with 3.6% a year earlier.

Globally, measles killed an estimated 95,000 people in 2024, most of them unvaccinated or under-vaccinated children under the age of five, according to the World Health Organization. At the same time, vaccination prevented nearly 59 million deaths worldwide between 2020 and 2024, the organization said.

Uganda has begun withdrawing its troops from Somalia after nearly two decades of military operations against Islamist militants, a local news agency announced on Monday, citing the country’s armed forces. 

The pullout initially covers troops deployed under bilateral agreements with Somalia’s federal government, according to Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) spokesman Colonel Chris Magezi. The operation took effect immediately, he said in a statement on November 2.

“The first cohort of troops under the phased withdrawal operation have already arrived back in Uganda,” Magezi said, adding that the withdrawal of soldiers serving under bilateral arrangements would be completed within days. 

The decision comes amid cuts to international and US funding for logistical missions and the gradual transfer of security responsibilities to Somalia’s army. The Ugandan military did not disclose how many personnel had returned.

Around 4,500 soldiers serve under the AUSSOM, while an additional 2,000 troops were deployed under a bilateral agreement with Mogadishu, AFP reported in August, citing a military source.

Uganda was the first country to send troops to Somalia under the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) in March 2007. Its forces helped Somali authorities fight Al-Shabaab militants, who controlled parts of the capital, Mogadishu, at the time.

The mission later became the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) before being replaced by AUSSOM in January 2025. Other countries, including Kenya, Ethiopia, Burundi and Djibouti, have also contributed troops to African Union operations in Somalia.

Al-Shabaab, an Al-Qaeda-linked militant group, has fought Somalia’s government for nearly two decades. It continues to carry out bombings and armed attacks against military and civilian targets.

“Things are not dire now, but it could create problems if their troops suddenly pull out,” Somali State Minister for Foreign Affairs Ali Omar told Reuters.

Thousands of young people danced the night away at a ‘literary rave’ held in Moscow’s Russian State Library, widely known as the Lenin Library, according to organizers.

One of Russia’s most famous libraries traded its traditional silence for electronic beats, transforming historic reading halls into dance floors in an unusual attempt to attract a new generation of readers.

The event dubbed LitRave took place on Saturday and was organized by publishing group Eksmo-AST in cooperation with the institution. Three dance floors featured electronic music, accompanied by light installations, photo zones, and performances inspired by Russian and foreign literary classics.

The historic interiors provided the backdrop for DJs playing techno, electronic pop, and ambient music. The program also featured installations drawing on works by Russian writers, including Mikhail Lermontov and Yevgeny Zamyatin.

Admission was free, with organizers reporting that around 3,000 visitors received library cards. The event was designed to introduce younger audiences to the institution and encourage them to explore literature beyond the classroom.

The unusual spectacle quickly spread across Russian social media, with videos showing crowds dancing beneath the library’s ornate ceilings and monumental chandeliers.

It also sparked debate over whether historic reading halls should be used for mass entertainment. Some commentators welcomed the initiative as a fresh approach to promoting reading, while others questioned whether a rave was appropriate for one of Russia’s most important cultural institutions.

Ekaterina Mizulina, head of Russia’s Safe Internet League, raised concerns about the safety of the library’s valuable collections, questioning whether rare books had been adequately protected during the festivities.

The library defended the initiative, stressing that it was not a disco in a book depository but an attempt to communicate with a younger generation in a language it understands.

Officials also dismissed concerns about possible damage, saying the building remained intact and clean after the event and was ready to welcome readers.

The rave was part of a broader effort by Russian cultural institutions to reach new audiences through unconventional formats. Libraries across the country have increasingly hosted exhibitions, performances, lectures, and other events alongside their traditional reading services.

The US plans to strip South Africa and Rwanda of preferential access to its market next year, accusing both countries of undermining American trade and foreign policy interests.

Pretoria has pushed back, saying it would accelerate efforts to diversify export markets by pursuing opportunities elsewhere in Africa, India, the European Union, and China to protect jobs.

President Donald Trump has notified Congress and both governments of his intention to terminate their participation in the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) from January 1, 2027, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer announced on Monday. Greer said an annual review identified “barriers that undermine American trade and investment and practices that pose a threat to US national security and foreign policy interests in the region.”

Washington cited corruption and trade barriers in South Africa, while its concerns about Rwanda also included human rights, workers’ rights, political pluralism, and the rule of law.

Established in 2000, AGOA grants eligible sub-Saharan African countries duty-free access for thousands of products. Trump signed an extension through December 2028 in September, but individual countries remain subject to eligibility reviews.

South Africa exported about $1.7 billion in goods under AGOA in 2025, accounting for roughly 10% of its exports to the US and 1% of its worldwide exports, according to the DTIC. The department stressed that it would accelerate efforts to diversify markets. President Cyril Ramaphosa warned last month that exclusion could have a “devastating” impact on jobs, particularly in vehicle manufacturing and agriculture.

Trump previously suspended Rwanda’s apparel benefits in 2018 over tariffs on imported secondhand clothing and footwear, following complaints from the American used-clothing industry.

There was no immediate response from Rwanda’s authorities to the latest move, which follows US sanctions on its Defense Ministry on October 28 over alleged support for rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Kigali denies backing the fighters.

Washington has repeatedly withdrawn AGOA benefits over governance and human rights concerns. Ethiopia, Guinea, and Mali lost eligibility in 2022, followed by Burkina Faso in 2023. The Central African Republic, Gabon, Niger, and Uganda were removed in January 2024. Gabon was reinstated under a proclamation issued in May 2026.

The White House has listed an “improved” trade agreement with India among US President Donald Trump’s achievements, although New Delhi and Washington are still negotiating to finalize the pact first outlined in February.

New Delhi has held off on the deal, while seeking greater tariff certainty and preferential market access for its exporters and vowing to shield its sensitive agricultural sector.

The claim appeared on a list the White House released ahead of Tuesday’s midterm elections, among 127 promises that it touted Trump as having fulfilled during his second term. It also comes just two weeks after Trump himself described the deal as “pretty close” – not as finalized.

The claim, under the heading “Igniting a Blue-Collar Boom and Restoring Fair Trade,” said Trump had “secured new and improved trade agreements,” which cover more than half the global GDP, with major trading partners including India, the EU, Japan, and China.

The reference to India links to a February 9 fact sheet titled “The United States and India Announce Historic Trade Deal.” The document only says the countries would work toward finalizing an interim agreement. A joint statement days earlier had only proposed reducing US reciprocal tariffs on Indian goods to 18%, and India lowering duties on American industrial goods and selected agricultural products.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has questioned Kiev’s enforcement of mandatory Ukrainian-language rules for officials after Vladimir Zelensky’s top aide was filmed speaking Russian while trying to defuse a riot over a suspected “torture chamber” site.

Kirill Budanov, the head of Zelensky’s office, was filmed on Monday evening speaking Russian during a confrontation sparked by shocking revelations about a black site operated by the neo-Nazi-linked Azov unit, which is part of Ukraine’s National Guard.
Several other people at the scene also spoke Russian, including a distressed teenager who was escorted out of the facility, the exact purpose of which remains disputed.

In a social media post on Tuesday, Zakharova asked Ukrainian language commissioner Elena Ivanovskaya whether she intended to fine Budanov, the teenager and the media outlets that broadcast their exchange.

Ivanovskaya previously launched an official investigation into officers from Ukraine’s military intelligence agency HUR and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) who spoke Russian during a volatile argument that eventually escalated into a gunfight in September.

The Ukrainian government has pursued policies aimed at removing Russian culture from public life and promoting Ukraine’s national identity. The measures are supported by ultranationalist groups, which played a prominent role in the 2014 overthrow of the government, but have faced opposition from more moderate sections of Ukrainian society.

Many senior officials in Zelensky’s administration, including Zelensky himself, are widely believed to speak Russian in private, with occasional slips of the tongue caught on camera lending credence to that perception.

Russian is also frequently heard in recordings involving figures suspected of profiting from corruption networks within the Ukrainian government. Surveillance tapes released by anti-corruption agencies investigating members of Zelensky’s inner circle have repeatedly featured suspects discussing their alleged criminal activities in Russian.

The riot in the village of Petropavlovskaya Borshchagovka, where the alleged secret Azov prison was located, erupted following accusations that military deserters were being detained, tortured and held for ransom at the facility.

Budanov acknowledged that there were “many” similar places across Ukraine and welcomed the exposure of suspected abuses at the site.

Azov commander Denis Prokopenko, meanwhile, accused the civilians involved in the confrontation of “sabotage” and “creating imagery that benefits Russia.” He delivered his video statement in angry Ukrainian.

The teenager’s role in the incident remains unclear. He told Budanov that he was 14 years old and had arrived at the facility “with guys” who subsequently fled, leaving him behind.

Hundreds of far-right activists have marched through the city of Lviv in western Ukraine, carrying lit torches and a portrait of World War II-era nationalist leader and Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera.

The rally took place amid heightened tensions between Ukraine and Poland over Kiev’s glorification of its nationalist icons, whom Warsaw blames for the ethnic cleansing of up to 100,000 Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia between 1943 and 1945.

An estimated 1,500 people participated in the march, which was staged after dark on Sunday.

Videos from the scene show the demonstrators holding Ukrainian national flags as well as the red and black banners of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which were active during World War II.

The procession was headed by men in historic military uniforms and an activist carrying a battle standard with Bandera’s face emblazoned on it.

A portrait of Stepan Bandera leads the procession. “Ukraine above all!” shout participants in a march commemorating the November Uprising — an insurrection organized on November 1, 1918, in Lviv, which escalated into a war with Poland. The march was organized by right-wing organizations.

— Marta Havryshko (@HavryshkoMarta) November 1, 2026

Bandera was a prominent member of the OUN militant wing and one of the leaders of the UPA, which allied with the invading Nazi Germans to massacre Poles, Jews, Russians, and Ukrainians that they accused of collaborating with the Soviets. Modern-day Ukrainian nationalists venerate Bandera as “the father of the nation.”

Last month, Lviv Region declared 2027 the year of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, causing outrage in Warsaw. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk condemned the decision as “unwise” and “suicidal tactics,” while Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz called it “unacceptable” and warned it would deepen divisions between the neighboring countries. Several Polish cities have also moved to suspend ties with Lviv Region.

Ukraine has also moved this year to establish a national pantheon of prominent historical figures, with leaders associated with the UPA being the first selected for state reburial in January. Warsaw has threatened to block Kiev’s bid to join the EU if it continues to honor Nazi-linked figures.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in August that the neo-Nazi nature of the current Ukrainian regime has become so visible that even the Polish authorities, who are gripped by Russophobia, cannot ignore it.

Moscow has named the denazification of Ukraine as among its key goals in the conflict with Kiev.

Türkiye, Qatar, Pakistan, and Indonesia signed the ‘Badr’ defense cooperation accord in the Qatari capital, Doha, on October 21. It is intended to deepen their defense industry cooperation, reflecting a broader effort by countries in the region to widen their network of security partners amid the prolonged US-Israel war on Iran.

The four countries are planning to build on existing military projects through joint production, technology transfers, and more closely integrated supply chains. The initiative is a result of the failure of the US and Iran to reach a concrete peace agreement, which pushes countries in the region to diversify their defense partnerships and look beyond overreliance on Washington for their security.

The four countries clarified, however, that closer cooperation does not mean abandoning long-standing alliances. Instead, the ambition is to gain greater control over their own security while strengthening pre-existing partnerships.

The implications could extend well beyond the four participants. It will impact both the Gulf Region and South East Asia. India, for instance, has been watching the Mecca Accord which earlier brought Türkiye, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia together. Now, Badr brings in Indonesia, a country with the largest Muslim population, and with which New Delhi is involved in practical cooperation, including in the defense sector.

Inside the military pacts

The Mecca Joint Defense Agreement (also known as the Mecca Pact), is a trilateral security pact concluded in August by Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan and covering collective defense, military and intelligence cooperation, defense-industrial development, logistical support, and institutional coordination. The Mutual Defense Clause in the document is modelled similarly to NATO’s Article 5, stipulating that an armed attack against any one of the three member states is regarded as an attack against them all.

The Badr Accord (officially the Badr Memorandum of Understanding) is a joint defense cooperation agreement with a core goal to deepen military and defense industrial collaboration, move past simple “off-the-shelf” arms purchases, and build shared domestic manufacturing and technological capabilities. Focus areas include joint production of military hardware (including drones and precision missiles, airborne radars, air defense systems, and rockets).

Unlike the Mecca Accord’s mutual defense focus, the Badr Accord focuses primarily on defense-industrial cooperation rather than an automatic collective-defense trigger. The pact is designed to reduce the nations’ reliance on external Western or foreign arms suppliers and pool their complementary manufacturing strengths. Each country will bring its own resources or set of skills to the table. Türkiye contributes technological expertise, systems integration, and a mature defense industry; Pakistan and Indonesia offer manufacturing capacity, skilled workforces, and sizeable domestic markets; and Qatar provides investment potential and demand.

Such arrangements could give buyers a larger role in producing and supporting their own equipment, while providing manufacturers with longer-term orders and investment. This could bring down costs for Turkish companies and bring jobs to Pakistan and Indonesia, while tapping into Qatari financial muscle.

Pakistan’s existing naval manufacturing project with Türkiye is an example of how weapons purchases can support domestic manufacturing. Of the four ships announced under the project, two are to be built in Istanbul and two at Karachi Shipyard. Türkiye and Indonesia are meanwhile jointly building a tank.

Islamic symbolism

While the Badr Accord functions strictly as an industrial framework for joint weapons production, its nomenclature is deeply rooted in Islamic religious and historical symbolism. The accord derives its name directly from the Battle of Badr (624 CE), the most consequential and spiritually significant early military engagement in Islamic history. In Islamic tradition, the Battle of Badr represents a foundational victory where a small, under-equipped group of early Muslims (around 313 men) defeated a much larger, well-armed Meccan Quraysh army (around 1,000 men) through steadfast faith and divine intervention. By choosing the name for the pact, the signatory nations explicitly invoke themes of resilience, unity, and overcoming asymmetric structural disadvantages.

The word “Badr,” which literally translates to “full moon” in Arabic, was chosen to symbolize how the four distinct nations complement one another. The agreement aims to promote cooperation in military production, strengthen military capabilities, and support collaboration in technical military training and research and development, the Turkish Defense Ministry said.

Türkiye, under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has actively staked a claim to leadership in the Islamic world by presenting itself as the modern heir to the Ottoman Empire and the defender of global Muslim causes. Erdogan frequently champions the Palestinian cause, opposes Western policies in the Middle East, and speaks out on issues affecting minority Muslim populations such as the Uyghurs and Rohingya, and supports Pakistan on Kashmir. As a part of NATO, Türkiye has the most developed military industry while it faces heavy competition and deep-seated political rivalry from nations like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, and the UAE.

Saudi Arabia is not only a significant petro-dollar economy and one of the world’s top three largest defense importers, the King of Saudi Arabia also holds the title of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, which represents the monarch’s official responsibility for protecting and maintaining the two holiest sites in Islam.

Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population, with approximately 251.25 million Muslims. Pakistan follows it with a Muslim population of 231 to 234 million people. Pakistan also has the seventh largest military and possesses the so called “Islamic bomb” (nuclear weapons).

Badr Accord limitations and complexities

As the Badr pact relies on deep, cross-border integration rather than traditional arms buying, it faces several foundational limitations and operational complexities. The Badr Accord is explicitly a defense-industrial and technology co-production framework, not a military alliance. Signatories are under no obligation to intervene militarily if another member is attacked.

While the goal is to bypass Western arms suppliers, many advanced defense systems produced by nations like Türkiye still incorporate critical subsystems (such as engines, optics, or microchips) patented or licensed by NATO allies. The Pakistani military is dominated by Chinese and American equipment.

The pact faces a structural ceiling if Western nations enforce strict end-user export restrictions on components required for joint production.

The pact relies on a complex, multi-layered decision-making process. Individual nations must first identify their distinct defense needs. These are sent to an “Executive Board” to map out joint production designs, which must then clear a “Strategic Board” tasked with finalizing budgets and allocating manufacturing locations. Managing national bureaucratic red tape across four geographically dispersed nations will naturally slow down project timelines.

Qatar is unlikely to abandon its strategic relationship with Washington, while Türkiye seeks greater technological independence within NATO, not autonomy from it. Türkiye, which has NATO’s second-largest army and a robust defense industry, has been helping Gulf nations, including Qatar, where it has a military base, bolster their defenses amid the Iran war.

A major complexity will be navigating intellectual property (IP) sharing. While the accord calls for technology transfers, high-tech hubs like Türkiye must balance regional goodwill against the risk of losing ownership of their proprietary R&D. Ensuring that financial backers (Qatar) and manufacturers (Pakistan/Indonesia) feel equity is distributed fairly remains a tough hurdle. Joint production facilities are primarily slated to be established in Türkiye due to its superior industrial infrastructure. This creates a logistical and operational imbalance. Harmonizing industrial output, supply chains, and technical military training protocols across disparate manufacturing floors in Islamabad, Jakarta, and Istanbul will test the pact’s long-term viability.

Implications for India

During the most recent military conflict between India in Pakistan in May 2025, Türkiye openly supported Pakistan with military hardware and technical support. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed the bilateral Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement in September, just four months after the standoff between New Delhi and Islamabad.

Perhaps, Pakistan was as desperate for security support as Saudi Arabia. In case of a future skirmish, will Türkiye and Saudi Arabia provide more material support or even send in troops, if requested?

While the Mecca Accord focuses on collective deterrence and military cooperation, the Doha Accord could provide the industrial and technological foundations for such partnerships. Such cooperation could also create economies of scale. The arrangement could help Pakistan and Indonesia manufacture more equipment domestically while giving Turkish defense companies access to larger markets and longer-term orders.

Pakistan already gets military technology support from China. This additional support will help Pakistan bridge the military capability gap with India as Islamabad could use the Badr agreement to strengthen its military capabilities through partnerships beyond Beijing, helping it to reduce the existing dependence.

Türkiye is particularly important in this context because of its experience in drones, electronic warfare, naval platforms, and other defense systems. It will also boost the Pakistani defense industry.

India would have to factor this into its defense planning, particularly if Pakistan becomes better equipped to sustain its military capabilities over the long term. For Islamabad, access to technology, joint production, and external markets could help sustain an industry constrained by economic pressures and dependence on imported components. If these relationships generate tangible advances in unmanned systems, electronic warfare, sensors, naval capabilities, or precision weapons, New Delhi will need to account for them in its threat assessments.

Indonesia’s participation in the Badr agreement could affect India’s own defense partnerships with Jakarta. In July, India and Indonesia announced a $630 million deal under which India would supply BrahMos cruise missiles and Astra air-to-air missiles. The concern is whether Indonesia could share information about Indian weapons with the other Badr participants, including Pakistan, potentially giving Islamabad access to sensitive technical knowledge.

Indian diplomacy has handled its global relations well. Saudi Arabia and Indonesia are already working closely with India on economic front. The Badr and Mecca pacts should not be seen as strategic encirclement of India.

New Delhi’s policies such as Make-in-India and Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) are already bringing results, while India continues partnering with Russia, US, and European nations for many projects and technologies. India has advantages in the scale of its industrial base.

While overtly visible, India should, for the moment, not look at these pacts through a religious prism until they prove otherwise. The pacts are still at a very early stage. The Mecca Accord is already under test against Houthis. Badr will take long to evolve. It is a wait and watch stage for India and it must continue diplomatic engagement with military and industrial growth as a deterrent.

Italy should spend money tackling real domestic problems rather than driving itself deeper into debt to defend against fictional threats like the “Cossacks from the Russian steppes,” right-wing leader and MEP Roberto Vannacci said on Monday.

Vannacci, who leads the right-wing Futuro Nazionale party, made the remarks at a press conference in Milan alongside his party’s mayoral candidate, Carmelo Burgio.

“Any defense system must be commensurate with a real threat… If we were to ask the people of Milan what the real threat is, they certainly wouldn’t point to Cossacks coming from the Russian steppes,” he told the press. “They would likely point to harassers, vandals who smash shop windows, or ‘youth gangs’ roaming the streets with knives.”

Vannacci has previously argued that the EU’s €150 billion rearmament loan instrument under ReArm would drive Italy deeper into debt without addressing its domestic issues.

Italy’s public debt stood at nearly 140% of GDP in mid-2026, the second-highest ratio in the European Union, according to Eurostat.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni came to power in 2022 on a platform promising tax cuts, stronger border controls, support for Italian families, and responsible management of public finances. Her government has nevertheless continued to commit billions of euros to military assistance for Ukraine, while also backing increased defense spending.

The Russian president has also blamed European governments’ economic and financial policies, including high public debt, for the riots and unrest sweeping EU countries since September. The reasons lie in “their own mistakes… in economics and finance,” he told Vesti last month, stressing that some EU countries have public debt exceeding 100% of GDP.

The US carried out airstrikes against Iranian targets on Qeshm Island near the strategic Strait of Hormuz on Monday, the Wall Street Journal, NewsNation, and Fox News have reported, citing American officials.

The attack came in response to Iranian forces firing at an unspecified American aircraft, a source told Fox News, insisting that it did not signal a renewed military campaign. According to NewsNation, the US strikes targeted Iranian radar systems and missile launchers.

US officials described the operations as “defensive,” claiming they were intended to prevent Iran from threatening commercial shipping through the strait. The strikes, along with several similar operations in recent weeks, have been deliberately kept limited and out of the public eye to avoid signaling a return to full-scale hostilities ahead of Tuesday’s midterm elections, the Journal reported.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) previously claimed to have shot down an American MQ-9 Reaper drone east of the Strait of Hormuz and captured two MQM-170 reconnaissance drones near Qeshm. Iranian media also released footage purporting to show the drone being destroyed, although its authenticity has not been independently verified.

US and Iranian forces exchanged fire in the Strait of Hormuz overnight, with Iran shooting down an MQ-9 Reaper drone and US aircraft striking Iranian sites on Qeshm Island. https://t.co/CykGeTJiXG

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) November 3, 2026

Iranian state news agency IRNA reported five powerful explosions on Qeshm Island late Monday, citing a correspondent who said the blasts occurred in rapid succession and appeared to have struck the island itself. Residents also reported seeing two aircraft overhead.

“We had a war with Iran. We won,” Trump told reporters Monday, insisting that Washington had not been engaged in fighting “for months.” Asked whether he was considering further strikes after the midterms, he replied “no.”

However, US officials told the Journal that Trump continues to weigh military options. Washington has reportedly warned Gulf nations to prepare for a “short and intense” campaign after the elections, while US Central Command has been reinforcing its regional missile defenses and munitions stockpiles.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also reportedly pressed Trump to renew attacks immediately after the vote. According to Axios, the two leaders held a “tough” phone call on Saturday, during which Trump insisted on giving diplomacy another chance before resuming major combat operations.

Iran has demanded an end to the US naval blockade, relief from sanctions and the release of frozen assets in exchange for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Washington, meanwhile, insists that any agreement must include verifiable restrictions on Tehran’s nuclear program.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Monday that Tehran remains open to diplomacy but is “more prepared than ever” to respond to renewed American aggression, adding that the prospects for peace depend entirely on Washington’s political judgment.

The US and Israel launched their war against Iran on February 28, triggering months of hostilities that severely disrupted global energy markets. Although large-scale fighting has been paused, the US naval blockade has kept tensions high and oil prices elevated. Trump nevertheless claimed Monday that prices were “DROPPING LIKE A ROCK” amid hopes for peace with Iran, as WTI fell to around $96.50 per barrel and Brent to $104.

US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff has announced that Washington will mediate a new round of peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi on November 10-11, as US President Donald Trump seeks to bring an end to the conflict.

In a statement on X on Tuesday, Witkoff said the working-level talks would focus on “post-war security arrangements, de-escalation, humanitarian efforts, and next steps toward peace.”

Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner will join Witkoff in leading the American delegation, Axios reported, citing US officials.

“We look forward to building on the progress made in Kyiv, Oslo, and St. Petersburg toward a comprehensive, durable peace agreement that delivers lasting security for generations to come,” Witkoff wrote.

The United States will mediate working-level negotiations between Ukraine and Russia on November 10–11 in Abu Dhabi, advancing President Trump’s mission to end the war. Discussions will focus on post-war security arrangements, de-escalation, humanitarian efforts, and next steps toward peace. Additionally, American negotiators will meet this week in Brussels with representatives from France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the EU, and NATO to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine, Europe’s post-war security architecture, and economic opportunities to support Ukraine’s reconstruction. We look forward to building on the progress made in Kyiv, Oslo, and St. Petersburg toward a comprehensive, durable peace agreement that delivers lasting security for generations to come.

— Special Envoy Steve Witkoff (@SEPeaceMissions) November 2, 2026

The US envoy also announced that American negotiators would meet representatives from France, Germany, the UK, the EU, and NATO in Brussels this week to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine, Europe’s post-war security architecture, and economic opportunities for reconstruction.

Moscow has repeatedly expressed its readiness to resume trilateral negotiations, but has yet to confirm the exact dates or the composition of its delegation. Following Witkoff’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg on October 21, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said the talks could take place in mid-November, with a focus on establishing a post-war security framework for Russia and Ukraine.

The Kremlin has insisted that any lasting settlement must address the underlying causes of the conflict, including Moscow’s security concerns. Putin has repeatedly stressed that Russia remains open to negotiations but will not accept a temporary ceasefire that merely allows Kiev to regroup and rearm.

A six-day ceasefire in the frontline town of Alyoshki in Kherson Region, coordinated with the assistance of US First Lady Melania Trump and Pope Leo XIV, allowed Russian and Ukrainian humanitarian teams to deliver supplies and evacuate more than 750 civilians. The operation involved direct cooperation between human rights officials from Moscow and Kiev, despite the ongoing hostilities.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has suggested that the Alyoshki agreement could serve as a precedent for similar humanitarian initiatives elsewhere along the front line.

Moscow has ruled out direct European participation in the upcoming trilateral negotiations. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently argued that European governments had squandered their credibility as mediators through their failure to uphold previous peace agreements, including the Minsk accords.

The US is heading for two years of political gridlock as Democrats appear poised to seize control of the House of Representatives in Tuesday’s midterm elections, RT host Rick Sanchez has predicted.

President Donald Trump’s decision to launch a war against Iran earlier this year could cost Republicans their House majority, Sanchez said in an exclusive interview. However, he expects Democrats to fall short of securing enough power in Congress to force through their agenda.

“They [the Democrats] are going to win the House. I mean, that that’s kind of a foregone conclusion. I don’t think they’re going to come close in the Senate and they may win the Senate, but that’s not a done deal that they’re going to win the Senate,” Sanchez said.

Trump has already vowed to become “Mr. Veto” if Democrats prevail, suggesting he would block their legislation until the two sides reach agreements. Sanchez, however, sees little prospect of compromise.

“There’s not going to be any deals made,” he said. “The Democrats are not going to deal with him.”

Instead, Sanchez expects Democrats to pursue impeachment proceedings against Trump, although they would likely lack the two-thirds Senate majority needed to remove him from office.

“We’re talking about an ugly situation for the next two years in the United States where politics is essentially a standstill,” he warned.

Sanchez also linked Republican losses to growing public frustration with US support for Israel, particularly following the war against Iran. He argued that Americans are increasingly questioning the influence of the pro-Israel lobby and the billions of dollars Washington spends abroad while domestic problems remain unresolved.

According to Sanchez, public anger extends to funding for Ukraine, with voters increasingly demanding that taxpayer money be spent on healthcare, housing and infrastructure at home.

However, he questioned whether either major party would fundamentally change Washington’s foreign policy.

Sanchez also accused the US defense industry of wielding enormous political influence, claiming arms manufacturers have spent “tens of millions on both sides of the political spectrum” to protect their interests.

“Those guys are literally buying the politicians and making sure that they keep the war in Ukraine going,” he said, arguing that weapons producers stand to profit from prolonging and escalating conflicts.

RT will provide exclusive live coverage of the US midterms from the moment the last polls close, featuring Rick Sanchez in Moscow, Ben Swann in Miami, and Scottie Nell Hughes and John Kiriakou in Washington.

Protesters attempted to storm an alleged secret military prison outside Kiev overnight, accusing its operators of torturing soldiers and denying them medical assistance. The scandal escalated into violent clashes, prompting the personal intervention of several senior officials, a confession by the neo-Nazi grouping Azov and a personal visit by the head of Vladimir Zelensky’s office.

The incident unfolded on Monday in Petropavlovskaya Borshchagovka, a suburb of the Ukrainian capital, where a private home allegedly used to hold mobilized men and suspected deserters became the center of a rapidly escalating confrontation.

Videos circulating on social media and published by Ukrainian news outlets showed attempts to force open the property’s gates, confrontations between protesters and unidentified individuals, and visibly injured men later emerging from the building after medics were finally allowed inside.

Suspected torture chamber exposed

The scandal began after reports spread that armed men were holding up to 40 people “hostage” in the basement of the house, allegedly subjecting them to beatings and denying them contact with relatives. Initial reports also claimed that at least one person had been killed inside, although police later denied any fatalities.

Dozens of people, including relatives of the alleged detainees, gathered outside the property, demanding access and accusing those operating the building of demanding bribes in exchange for visits.

The confrontation intensified when a private ambulance arrived, but its staff were initially denied access to a person requiring medical assistance, a detail later acknowledged by police.

Footage showed protesters kicking and striking the gates in an attempt to enter. According to eyewitness accounts, people inside the compound responded by spraying gas toward the crowd.

A female paramedic was eventually admitted alongside a police officer. After examining and filming the occupants, in various states of injury and pain, she told reporters that approximately 25–30 people were inside and that four seriously ill men required hospitalization.

The four were subsequently taken for treatment. Ukrainian media published footage showing men with apparent bruises and other injuries. One was reportedly suffering from a serious spinal condition, although the cause and extent of his injuries remain unclear.

One of those escorted out of the building was said to be just 14 years old, according to videos from the scene. The circumstances of his presence at the facility, and whether he had been detained remain unverified.

’We don’t torture – we form units’

As the footage spread, senior Ukrainian officials rushed to contain the escalating scandal. Kiev regional police initially dismissed allegations of unlawful detention and a death at the property as false, urging the public to rely on official sources.

“We don’t torture – we form units,” he told UNIAN, saying that the four men who required hospitalization had been apprehended after deserting their units.

Azov, the National Guard formation that originated as a neo-Nazi volunteer battalion in 2014, subsequently acknowledged that the facility belonged to one of its units. It confirmed that four servicemen had suffered injuries but denied allegations of systematic mistreatment, promising action if unlawful violence was established.

Budanov admits numerous such centers exist in Ukraine

The scandal soon drew in Kirill Budanov, Zelensky’s chief of staff and former military intelligence chief, who personally arrived at the scene to “find out what the f*** is going on,” as he put it. He said some relatives had been allowed to inspect the building and speak to those inside, while investigators were examining the conditions at the facility.

Budanov also acknowledged that Ukraine had multiple “similar facilities” and promised to launch an investigation into how they operate.

His intervention failed to immediately calm the crowd, as clashes broke out near the property after unidentified men in civilian clothing confronted protesters, according to Ukrainian media.

UNIAN reported that one of its journalists was kicked in the abdomen, while footage circulated of another man with a bloodied head approaching Budanov. The official advised the injured man to contact police.

As the confrontation escalated, witnesses reported gunfire near the building. Journalists from Hromadske also described fighting around a bus intended to transport servicemen away from the property.

Nothing to see here, go home

The confrontation flared again as authorities attempted to transfer the remaining servicemen from the building. Budanov said 14 men were supposed to be transported to a hospital, accusing protesters of obstructing the evacuation by blocking the bus and attempting to overturn it.

Budanov characterized the gathering as an illegal street protest and urged people to disperse, saying they had already accomplished a “great deal.”

Despite official attempts to reassure the public, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry announced a formal investigation into the facility, confirming that the State Bureau of Investigation and the military ombudsman’s office had become involved.

Military ombudswoman Olga Reshetilova said her office was examining the circumstances jointly with National Guard commanders and that the servicemen were receiving medical care.

A darker history of secret prisons

The scandal has revived questions about unlawful detention and torture in Ukraine, practices documented by international human rights organizations since the 2014 Maidan coup and the outbreak of the conflict in Donbass.

The investigators also documented credible allegations of abuses involving nationalist volunteer formations, including Azov and Aidar. Ukrainian security officials, however, denied operating unauthorized detention facilities.

Brutal mobilization and mass desertion

Public resentment over Kiev’s brutal, coercive and corrupt conscription campaign, widely known as busification, is growing.

Military press gangs have mobbed and apprehend hundreds if not thousands of men in public places to transport them to recruitment centers.

Ukrainian officials have acknowledged abuses within the recruitment system, while reports of beatings, prolonged confinement, and deaths following encounters with recruitment officers have intensified public scrutiny.

The problem is compounded by widespread desertion. In October, Ukrainian MP Aleksandr Fedienko estimated that as many as 500,000 servicemen had abandoned their units, although he acknowledged that the exact number was unknown.

With US President Donald Trump’s Republicans tied to an unpopular war and record high gas prices, the party is fighting to maintain control over Congress in Tuesday’s midterm elections. RT explains the election process, examines the polls, and asks whether Democrats can pull off a ‘blue wave’ – and if anything will change.

Every four years, halfway through a presidential term, Americans vote on which party gets to control the House of Representatives and Senate. Representatives serve a two-year term, so all 435 seats in the lower house are up for grabs; Senators serve for six years, and this year 35 seats in the upper house are being contested. Voters in 36 out of 50 states will also choose their governors on Tuesday.

More than 51 million Americans have already cast their ballots, surpassing the previous early voting record set in 2022.

The Republican Party currently holds a 218-214 seat majority in the House and a 53-47 majority in the Senate. Maintaining this razor-thin majority, particularly in the House, is of vital importance to Trump. Should they win one or both houses of Congress, the Democrats have vowed to launch multiple investigations into the president’s personal finances, handling of the Epstein files, and prosecution of the war on Iran, all with a view to impeaching Trump.

With Congress in their hands, Democrats could stymie Trump’s legislative agenda, rendering him a lame duck president for his remaining two years in the White House.

Does every US president lose the midterms?

Although voters are technically choosing which candidates to represent their districts and states in Washington, the US two-party system effectively makes every midterm election a referendum on the president’s first two years in office. Voters punish Republican presidents by voting Democrat, and vice-versa, and it’s become a widely-accepted truism that every president loses some seats in the midterms.

In 20 out of 23 midterm elections since 1934, the president’s party has lost seats in the House. With fewer seats changing hands, the Senate is less volatile: since 1934, the president’s party has lost seats in 15 out of 23 midterms.

“The president always loses for whatever reason, the midterms, whoever it is, Republican, Democrat, great president, lousy president,” Trump told reporters in late October. However, accepting defeat as a foregone conclusion ignores the real issues shaping this year’s elections.

What are the key midterm election issues in 2026?

It’s the economy.

Democrats and Republicans alike see the economy as the number one issue in the elections, according to a Pew Research survey taken in October. On economic matters, Trump is on shaky ground. The US-Israeli war on Iran and the resulting blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has pushed gasoline prices to a record high of $4.29 per gallon on the eve of the vote. According to an AP poll published on Monday, 65% of US adults blame higher costs on Trump’s policies, with six in ten Republicans disapproving of his handling of the cost of living.

Majorities of Democrats and Republicans alike told Pew that they view “the future of democracy” as a key issue in their vote, although with both parties routinely accusing each other of threatening democracy itself, this is now par for the course in American elections.

What else?

Behind these top two issues, Democrat voters rate healthcare, education, and foreign policy as their next three election-deciding issues. Republicans highlighted immigration, violent crime, and government overreach. On the latter three, Trump and the GOP can show some clear victories: illegal border crossings have fallen to essentially zero; the US foreign-born population has dropped by more than 2.3 million since Trump took office; violent crime fell 9.3% in 2025; and Trump has dramatically reined in the scope of the US government, closing USAID, firing more than 250,000 federal bureaucrats, and slashing funding to nearly two dozen government departments and agencies.

What are the most important midterm races to watch?

With a win in the House almost certainly on the cards, RT news anchor Rick Sanchez has singled out Michigan, Maine, North Carolina, and Texas as “the four key states that are going to make or break” the Democrats’ bid for the Senate.

In Michigan, progressive Muslim Democrat Abdul el-Sayed is leading former Rep. Mike Rogers by around four points in a showdown that’s spiraled into a national debate on the influence of the powerful Israel lobby – and Michigan’s rapidly changing demographics.

In Maine, five-term Senator Susan Collins – a Republican critic of Trump – is on track to finally lose her seat to Troy Jackson. Maine is unusual in that its electorate has repeatedly elected Collins, despite choosing Democrats in every presidential election since 1992. Collins’ flagging popularity can be interpreted either as a grim bellwether for the GOP, or a sign that after nearly 30 years in the Senate, voters simply want a change of face.

With Republican Senator Thom Tillis set to retire, Tuesday’s election in North Carolina is a showdown between former Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, and former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley. With voters there overwhelmingly highlighting the economy as their top issue, Cooper’s 11-point lead over Whatley suggests that high prices may cost Trump dearly nationwide.

How Israel and Iran are looming over the midterms

Republicans and Democrats disagree strongly on Trump’s handling of the conflict in Iran, but few Democrat leaders have questioned the premise of intervening against Tehran in the first place. Although Democratic members of Congress have overwhelmingly backed resolutions that would prohibit military action against Iran, these resolutions have been symbolic, designed-to-fail affairs.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has focused his criticisms on the cost of the war and the fact that Trump embarked on it without seeking Congressional approval, while refusing to state whether he’d push to cut funding for the war. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer – a self-described “guardian of the people of Israel” – has taken a similar line, echoing Trump’s assertion that “Iran must never be allowed to attain a nuclear weapon,” and attacking the president for going to war without an “exit strategy.” 

Opposition to the war, and to Israel’s outsized influence on American politics more broadly, has come from the fringes of both parties. However, the Republican and Democrat establishment has worked to sideline these voices. On the Republican side, the Israel lobby invested record sums of money to oust Rep. Thomas Massie in a primary election earlier this year, after he voted against military aid to Israel and in favor of making the most powerful Israel lobby group – AIPAC – register as a foreign agent. 

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene faced a similar lobbying campaign after she described the war in Gaza as a “genocide,” and resigned from Congress in January following a broader feud with Trump and the Republican establishment. 

For anyone who is confused about why Democrats are likely to win. Here’s your starter pack of reasons. We tried to stop all this. But Trump doesn’t like me and Massie. 🤷‍♀️ He likes his Epstein friends and Netanyahu.

— Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@FmrRepMTG) November 1, 2026

Joe Kent followed suit two months later, leaving his post at the National Counterterrorism Center in March. In a resignation letter to Trump, Kent argued that “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”

AIPAC, the Republican Jewish Coalition, J Street, and other pro-Israel groups spend vast sums of money to enforce this kind of ideological conformity. 354 of the 433 sitting members of the House have taken campaign funding from AIPAC alone, according to figures compiled by ChamberLight, while every sitting US Senator has taken funds from at least one of these groups.

“If you don’t stand with the Jewish community, if you don’t stand with Israel, Republican or Democrat, the RJC will work to defeat you,” the Republican Jewish Coalition said in 2024.

Is the time right for a third party to break through in the US?

The alignment of Republicans and Democrats on matters of war and foreign influence are increasingly at odds with the views of their voters. American sympathy for Israel vis-a-vis the Palestinians is at an all-time low, more than half of all Americans want military aid to Israel cut off or decreased, and 71% of Americans told Ipsos in April that they want nothing to do with Israel’s various Middle Eastern conflicts.

Third parties have played only a minor role in US politics in recent history, serving primarily to siphon votes from Democrats or Republicans. Moreover, while 65% of respondents told the Independent Center that they would “be likely to vote for a strong, well-funded independent candidate,” only 6% plan to do so on Tuesday.

Conservative journalist Tucker Carlson is frequently cited as a potential third party leader. A nationalist and staunch critic of Israel, Carlson has met with progressive Democrats and Republican outsiders like Massie and Greene, but despite releasing a ten-point vision for a post-MAGA reimagining of the American right, he has denied harboring any plans of running for office.

How does Russia view the midterm elections?

Despite the claims of ‘Russian meddling’ and ‘Russian collusion’ thrown at Trump and the GOP during every election since the former real estate developer famously came down the golden escalator in 2015, Moscow has little riding on Tuesday’s vote. Even if Democrats – who are generally more supportive of US aid for Ukraine – were to take Congress, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted on Monday that “President Trump will remain president until the end of his term and will continue to conduct his foreign policy.” The elections, Peskov added, are an internal affair for the US. 

How is RT covering the elections?

RT will be covering the elections live all day, from the moment voting begins until long after the last polls close. Rick Sanchez will be reporting from Moscow, Ben Swann from Miami, and Scottie Nell Hughes and John Kiriakou will be live in Washington. For the latest developments and political drama, stick with RT.

This weekend, a conflict flared up with renewed intensity between Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who leads his country’s governing coalition, and his opponent, President Karol Nawrocki, a supporter of the Law and Justice (PiS) party. 

The presence of police equipment and a significant deployment of security forces on the streets of Warsaw, the emergence of memes across the Polish internet featuring the key figures involved, and reports that the country’s presidential plane had to turn back while over Africa have all drawn global attention to the unfolding situation. What brought Poland to this point, and how far could its leaders go to break the deadlock? 

The current constitutional crisis – described by right-wing conservatives as an attempted coup d’état – is a direct consequence of a protracted conflict between elites, often referred to as the “Polish-Polish war.” This latest, acute phase of the confrontation began when a faction of judges on the Constitutional Tribunal, loyal to the government, announced the suspension of the powers of the tribunal’s conservative president, Bogdan Swieczkowski. 

Taking advantage of the fact that President Nawrocki was away on an official visit to Africa, Donald Tusk’s administration deployed security forces: police cordoned off the Constitutional Tribunal building in Warsaw, blocking the incumbent leadership’s access while attempting to facilitate entry for new appointees. The situation escalated instantly, leading to street clashes between opposition supporters and security forces. 

As the crisis intensified, President Nawrocki cut short his trip to Senegal, turning his plane around while still over Africa to return to Warsaw. Subsequent developments – including Nawrocki’s personal arrival at the Constitutional Tribunal, attempts at tactical negotiations by the Law and Justice (PiS) party, and a televised public address by Tusk invoking the “proper understanding of democratic values” – have yet to resolve the situation.

It is important to recognize that these events represent a logical stage in an ongoing escalation. In the current landscape of “dual power” in Poland, the ‘big tent’ coalition led by Prime Minister Tusk holds a parliamentary majority – secured in the 2023 elections – while the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party retains control over the presidency, following the victory of their candidate, Karol Nawrocki, in the 2025 presidential election. Under these conditions, the clash between the parties inevitably entails an uncompromising struggle for key political, legal, and regulatory institutions, as well as representation in foreign policy, national public broadcasting, and instruments for exerting direct influence over the public sector.

The battle for the prosecutor’s office served as a strategic staging ground for a subsequent offensive by Tusk’s center-right Civic Platform party and its allies on the left. By seizing control of the investigative apparatus and the state prosecution system – bypassing the direct objections of Belvedere Palace – Donald Tusk laid the foundation for dismantling the entire political architecture of his opponents. Control over the prosecutorial corps granted the government a monopoly on the legitimate use of force and criminal prosecution. Now, backed by loyal investigators and the administrative resources of the police, the prime minister has moved to the second, decisive phase of this protracted war: the physical and legal ousting of the conservative opposition from the Constitutional Tribunal.

It is worth noting that the roots of the current crisis surrounding the Constitutional Tribunal date back to 2015. At that time, Civic Platform – anticipating its inevitable defeat in the upcoming elections – attempted to hastily appoint five judges in advance, circumventing established procedures. Subsequently, the victorious Law and Justice (PiS) party refused to confirm these appointees, annulled the decisions of the previous legislature, and – during late-night sessions – swore in its own candidates, triggering a deep and lasting rift within the judiciary.

First, there is a wholesale purge of the judiciary, aimed at the immediate annulment of all appointments of conservative-leaning prosecutors and judges made during the eight-year rule of the Law and Justice party. Brussels has repeatedly stated that overturning Warsaw’s previous legal precedent – which asserted the primacy of Polish law over EU law – is a fundamental condition for unfreezing approximately 137 billion euros in EU subsidies. 

Second, there is an administrative takeover of national public broadcasting and media outlets, with the liberal cabinet attempting to replace their leadership through direct, mandatory orders. For Tusk, controlling the TVP media group is crucial; it deprives his rivals in the PiS party of a potent electoral weapon ahead of upcoming parliamentary elections and effectively cuts off the opposition’s access to lucrative state media contracts. 

Third, there is the introduction of strict environmental quotas and the transfer of a portion of national excise tax revenue to the pan-EU budget. For the European bureaucracy, these levies serve as a means to replenish the EU’s dwindling coffers by tapping into the industrial wealth of Central and Eastern Europe. While Tusk demonstrated solidarity with his Visegrad allies – Andrej Babiš and Peter Magyar – at the latest EU summit by blocking these quotas, he is simultaneously pursuing an aggressive, hardline overhaul of the judiciary at home. And although the issue of adopting these laws was not raised by Tusk’s team during the election campaign, the question of whether his government will accept the ETS1/ETS2 quotas – and whether it would be prepared to hand over revenue from excise taxes on tobacco and alcohol (which would automatically bankrupt the Polish budget) – is by no means a trivial one.

The political economy of the crisis 

Poland is the only country in Central and Eastern Europe that, following its accession to the EU, has successfully leveraged the newly available financial opportunities and EU grants to build a robust national industrial base and strong corporations. Today, the country is home to major players such as the energy conglomerate Orlen, the retail giant Dino Polska, and leading firms in heavy machinery and technology. Concurrently, backed by Euro-Atlantic funding and large-scale defense loans, Poland has developed a unique and formidable military force, with plans to systematically increase its personnel to 300,000 troops. The key features and competitive advantages of this force include its modernization and re-equipment with state-of-the-art American and South Korean armored systems, as well as the establishment of an extensive, dual-use logistical infrastructure – effectively transforming Poland into NATO’s primary military frontier on the alliance’s eastern flank.

At the same time, it is necessary to highlight the fragility of this economic system. On one hand, it appears prosperous: recent Eurostat data point to historic highs, including the highest employment rate in the EU for the Warsaw region (86.9%) and an exceptionally low national unemployment rate (3.3%). On the other hand, there are clear signs of an overheating, systemic crisis – for instance, a budget deficit of 5.9% of GDP, with the nominal public debt reaching 64.5% in the second quarter of 2026. Furthermore, Poland has experienced the most rapid growth in its debt burden among all EU member states – a direct consequence of the costs of accelerated militarization, which have proven unsustainable for the national treasury. 

Poland’s ruling elite are well aware of the current situation and the risks it poses to their continued hold on power. The country requires a new economic model – one that would necessitate “shock” measures, which no one is willing to implement during an election year. Consequently, the government has opted for half-measures. For instance, in October of this year, a 60% tax on the windfall profits of companies in the fuel sector was introduced. The primary impact has fallen on the national energy giant, Orlen, from which the government is forcibly extracting billions of zlotys to plug holes in the national budget. At the same time, the government is banking on the release of frozen EU subsidies, which would provide it with a greater sense of security amid the looming financial and economic crisis within the European Union. This lies at the heart of the current confrontation.

The Polish economy’s reliance on EU subsidies constitutes its greatest vulnerability. Economic stagnation and fiscal crises in the leading eurozone nations are forcing the bloc to radically overhaul its budgetary policy – a shift that will inevitably lead to a reduction in traditional subsidies for Poland over the next seven-year budget cycle (2028–2034). This financial “time crunch” explains the timing of current events; Donald Tusk is compelled to act preemptively, launching an aggressive siege on the judiciary. 

The intense domestic dynamics are further driven by the rapidly approaching APEC summit in Shenzhen, where a high-level trilateral meeting between Russia, the United States, and China is scheduled to take place. Experts have aptly referred to this summit as a “New Yalta,” where the great powers are expected to negotiate directly on the restructuring of Eurasian security and the resolution of the conflict in Ukraine – entirely bypassing EU institutions. Tusk realizes that the time for maneuvering has definitively run out, and that a global storm, combined with cuts to subsidies from Brussels, will inevitably cause his party’s approval ratings to collapse. He is therefore making a desperate attempt to completely dismantle Kaczyński’s right-wing, sovereignist stronghold, hoping to avoid losing power in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

How will events unfold from here?

A full-scale, forceful coup in Warsaw is off the table for now – the right-wing conservatives have held their ground. However, this means that Poland is entering a period of long-term systemic paralysis and a “dual power” scenario.

Against this backdrop, the risk of an uncontrollable external escalation is growing critically.

Should an economic crisis in the Eurozone deal a final blow to Poland’s industrial base, the right-wing nationalists – who control the judiciary and the presidency – might decide to go “all in.” Faced with a domestic political stalemate, they could easily radicalize their foreign policy agenda, reviving long-standing doctrines regarding Poland’s historical influence over the country’s “Eastern Borderlands” (Kresy Wschodnie).

Warsaw has spent the last few years laying the infrastructural, logistical, and legal groundwork in these territories; in the context of a global security realignment, this could be leveraged – purely as a means to achieve a militaristic consolidation of Polish society and to maintain control at home.

In Moscow, Warsaw’s geopolitical ambitions are being noted at the highest level. Recent, direct statements by Vladimir Putin – suggesting that the Polish leadership still dreams of reclaiming its historical territories – provoked a pointed reaction in Poland, with officials rushing to publicly disavow any latent expansionist plans. This only underscores the obvious: Russia is well aware of the hidden mechanisms driving Polish policy. It appears that the Vatican, too, is clearly aware of the inevitability of these processes and has deemed it necessary to gently counter Polish influence. This serves as a clear indication that major global players are already calculating scenarios for the long-term transformation of the Eastern European region.

At least nine people were killed after a small private jet plummeted into a Florida street just miles from US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort on Sunday.

The aircraft crashed at about 12:50 PM near Military Trail in Palm Beach County's Greenacres area, around an hour after Trump left Mar-a-Lago that morning. 

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said nine people were aboard the Learjet 60 plane, which was heading from Texas to the Bahamas.

All nine people aboard died, US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed in a statement on X.

The victims included Austin-based tech entrepreneur Adam Robinson, his wife Helen Sharp, and their two children, four-year-old Emma and two-year-old Charlie, according to a joint statement released by their families on Monday. Also killed were family friends Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr, along with the children’s nanny, Anita Maria Cetina. The crew members were identified by CBS News as 55-year-old pilot Jeffrey Gregory and 20-year-old co-pilot Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, who reportedly earned her pilot’s license at just 17, before obtaining her driver’s license.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said on Monday that investigators had found preliminary evidence suggesting the aircraft may have begun breaking apart before hitting the ground. Officials stressed that the cause of the crash remains unknown and that the investigation is still in its early stages.

Dashcam footage showed the airplane plunging almost vertically down toward a busy street before exploding into an enormous fireball.

Videos of the aftermath showed a large crater in the pavement, a ruptured waterline, and burning wreckage scattered across a nearby trailer park.

UPDATE: Authorities now say there are MULTIPLE fatalities after a private jet slammed into a mobile home park in Greenacres, Florida. > Flight-tracking data shows it was a Learjet 60 business jet > It left a fiery crater in the road and destroyed at least one home > Palm Beach County Fire Rescue confirms an "aircraft incident" and says it will be an extended scene Still unclear how many were aboard or on the ground. Prayers for that neighborhood. 🎥 Eduin Cruz/FB, per NY Post

— James Reichert (@_jamesreichert) November 1, 2026

Around 20 NTSB investigators have been deployed to the crash site, where debris is scattered across an area reportedly measuring roughly half a mile by four-tenths of a mile. Officials said recovering the main wreckage from a water-filled crater in the roadway would not be easy.

Investigators are also trying to determine whether a cockpit voice recorder was aboard the aircraft, as past maintenance records suggest. However, they noted that it would be difficult to find salvageable clues. “That’s going to be a real challenge, and I think you’ve seen the video,” NTSB Member Tom Chapman said in a press briefing on Monday.

NTSB officials said the crew reported icing conditions and moderate turbulence while flying at 35,000 feet. The pilots requested permission to climb to 37,000 feet, but less than 30 seconds after receiving clearance, they reported descending and issued a mayday call.

In the final radio exchanges recorded by LiveATC.net, the crew reported turbulence, precipitation, and icing – a buildup of ice on the aircraft’s wings and other surfaces that can make it harder to control.

“We are in an over speed condition descending,” the crew said in one of its final transmissions, according to investigators. The aircraft crashed approximately three minutes later. In the final harrowing exchange with air traffic control, a female crew member can be heard saying: “Holy f**k, we’re out of time.” 

The crash site was around eight miles from Mar-a-Lago, with Flightradar24 data showing the jet’s final dive taking it even closer before veering away.

Trump had departed the resort for Iowa around an hour before the crash, according to the White House press pool.

The crash came about two weeks after short-range Avenger surface-to-air missile systems were photographed around Mar-a-Lago and the nearby airport. NORAD and US Northern Command confirmed on October 23 that ground-based air defenses had been deployed at the request of the US Secret Service.

The withdrawal of UN peacekeepers from southern Lebanon, where Israeli forces continue to occupy parts of the country, has raised security concerns. RT’s Steve Sweeney reports on the uncertain future facing local communities after nearly five decades of international monitoring.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), established in 1978 following an Israeli invasion to help restore peace and government authority in the south, currently comprises around 7,500 peacekeepers from 46 countries. Its mandate expires on December 31, 2026, with personnel due to leave over the following year and their positions to be gradually handed over to the Lebanese army.

The decision to end the mission followed pressure from the US and Israel, which have accused UNIFIL of failing to contain the militant group Hezbollah. The Trump administration has also sought to cut UN peacekeeping spending, arguing that the Lebanese army should assume responsibility for security in the south.

UNIFIL has documented violations and reported them to the Security Council but has been unable to prevent repeated Israeli military attacks. 

“Objectively speaking, it must be said that, unfortunately, UNIFIL has failed to fulfill its role in protecting the residents of the south,” local resident Mahdi Yaghi told RT.

He nevertheless warned that the absence of international peacekeepers would create a “security vacuum” that Israel would seek to exploit.

The handover to Lebanese government forces is complicated by the continued Israeli occupation of areas where the army is expected to establish control.

France and Italy have discussed forming a new international coalition, while the EU has established a separate mission to train Lebanese security forces. However, the latter is not intended to replace UNIFIL, and no agreement has been reached on a successor peacekeeping force.

More than 4,300 people have been killed and over 12,000 wounded in Israeli attacks on Lebanon since early March, according to the country’s Health Ministry. The latest escalation began after Hezbollah launched strikes against the Jewish state in retaliation for the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in a joint US-Israeli operation against Iran.

WATCH the full report from southern Lebanon below.

Renowned US economist Jeffry Sachs has called for cooperation, not competition, between India and China.

The two Asian economic powerhouses can help to build a truly multipolar world, the economist argued. He also said India should not fear China and that Beijing should promote New Delhi as the 6th permanent member of the UN Security Council.

“Understand that China and India working together makes the multi-polar world, not the competition between them,” Sachs said.

“I strongly believe that India will not be the new world hegemon, and China will not be the new hegemon,” he argued.

Sachs serves as director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University and president of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network. He was addressing the World Symposium in the northern Indian town and spiritual center Varanasi, where 200 scholars, philosophers, and experts from across the world gathered on Monday.

Jeffrey Sachs To New Delhi: Don't Join Quad Sachs To Beijing: Promote 🇮🇳 As 6th UNSC Member Speaking at the World Symposium in Varanasi, the American economist argued that cooperation between the two Asian powers - not competition - would build a truly multipolar world. "China will not be the new hegemon," he said. 📹 ANI

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) November 2, 2026

The economist projected that by the end of this century, India would have twice the population of China and emerge as the single largest economy. “This is absolutely in the deep trends,” he said.

India is the world’s most populous country, commanding a $4 trillion economy, while China’s is pegged at $19.5 trillion. The two Asian neighbors are poised to clock 7% and 4.5% GDP growth respectively in 2026, according to the IMF.

New Delhi and Beijing were locked in a years-long diplomatic and economic battle following a border standoff in 2020. In 2024 the leaders of the two neighbors met at the BRICS summit in Russia’s Kazan and announced their willingness to improve ties.

Speaking on Monday, Sachs warned India against joining groupings like the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad), an informal bloc comprised of Australia, India, Japan, and the United States that is generally seen as anti-China. Sachs described the bloc as an example of “Western attempts to prolong their declining power.”

Sachs described American ideology as being stuck in 1950. “It is fitting we have a president who is stuck somewhere around age three in his development, and his world is a world in which the US is the boss,” he argued. Europe too is “stuck” in a world in which the West is “the boss,” the academic said.

German lawmakers and government officials have been targeted in a spyware attack, Digital Transformation Minister Karsten Wildberger has said.

Berlin suspects state involvement in the targeting of officials’ iPhones, with affected users being notified of the vulnerability, Wildberger told German broadcasters ARD and ZDF on Monday.

“The whole matter is still under investigation,” he said.

Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) has described the threat as “mercenary spyware,” citing Israeli-developed Pegasus as a prominent example. The agency said state actors are frequently behind such attacks but has not identified those responsible.

The scale of the operation remains unclear. The BSI said on Monday that “other public figures” had also been targeted, but did not identify those affected or disclose their number.

According to the BSI, such attacks can infect devices without any action by their owners, including through specially crafted messages that do not need to be opened. Once installed, spyware can potentially access encrypted communications, steal passwords, track locations, and remotely activate cameras and microphones.

Pegasus, developed by Israel’s NSO Group, is known for its ability to infiltrate smartphones without requiring users to click malicious links. The software has been used in nearly a dozen EU countries since 2016, including to monitor journalists, political opponents, and senior officials.

In 2023, the European Parliament called for “more rigorous control mechanisms” to prevent spyware abuse, but the European Commission did not implement the proposed measures.

The latest incident follows the arrest last month of former German foreign intelligence chief August Hanning on espionage and treason charges. Hanning, who headed the BND from 1998 to 2005, is accused of obtaining classified documents for private consultancy work, including a report for an unidentified foreign intelligence service.

Evidence reportedly emerged during a separate investigation into allegations that Hanning recruited former Mossad chief Danny Yatom for a child abduction operation. Hanning has previously acknowledged maintaining close ties with senior Israeli intelligence figures after leaving office.

An EU in which Brussels approved member states annulling elections, jailing their political opponents, and replacing their citizens with migrants, would have been unimaginable when Slovenia joined the bloc in 2004, the country’s Prime Minister Janez Jansa has argued.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s raid on the country’s constitutional court last week was not the first authoritarian act of an EU leader since Slovenia became a member, Jansa claimed in a post on X on Saturday. When Slovenia completed its accession process more than two decades ago, he wrote, “no one imagined that in any of its member states or in the Union as a whole it would be possible” to engage “without consequences” in a series of self-harming and anti-democratic policies.

The Slovenian PM listed ten examples, starting out with the annulment of Romania’s presidential election in 2004. After Euroskeptic right-wing politician Calin Georgescu won a clear victory in the first round, Romania’s Constitutional Court overturned the result, citing “irregularities” in his campaign and alleged Russian interference.

The allegations of interference centered around TikTok, but the social media company revealed in a post-election report that it had actually been asked by Bucharest to stifle pro-Georgescu content, including “disrespectful” posts that “insult the [ruling] PSD party.” Using its legislative super-weapon, the Digital Services Act (DSA) the EU ordered TikTok to further tighten these measures, and the French-educated, pro-EU Nicusor Dan was eventually elected president six months later.

The victory of Peter Magyar – the EU’s favored candidate in Hungary – has set the country down an anti-democratic path, Jansa argued. The Slovenian PM pointed to Magyar’s suspension of news broadcasts on the country’s M1 TV station and Kossuth Radio in July, which precipitated a purge of editors supposedly loyal to his predecessor, Viktor Orban. Three of Orban’s former ministers have also been arrested on corruption charges since Magyar took power, and all three have had appeals against their detention rejected.

Jansa also held up his own conviction and imprisonment on corruption charges as a red flag for EU democracy. The Slovenian PM spent five months behind bars in 2014 after he was convicted of accepting bribes. Jansa maintained that the prosecution was politically motivated, and the conviction was overturned by Slovenia’s Supreme Court in 2015. 

As in Hungary, Jansa condemned his predecessor, Robert Golob, and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, for purging their respective countries’ national broadcasters of political opponents. After they took power – Tusk in 2023 and Golob in 2022, both leaders claimed that their national media outlets were under the control of the right-wing governments that preceded them, and used this as pretext to sack senior managers and appoint loyalists in their place.

Jansa also took issue with the decision of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s government this June to announce a sweeping amnesty for illegal immigrants. More than 900,000 foreign nationals have since applied for legal status in Spain, according to the country’s Migration Ministry. The conservative opposition People’s Party slammed the move as “unsustainable” given the country’s already strained housing market and public services.

In August, thousands of Moroccan migrants descended on Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta after the country’s Supreme Court ruled that migrants intercepted at sea could not be immediately deported. Multiple EU member states have condemned Madrid’s permissive approach toward migration, with some tightening border controls for those arriving from Spain. 

Concluding his list of grievances, Jansa took aim at the EU’s environmental policies, including Germany’s decision to phase out nuclear energy in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan, and Brussels’ decision to “tax carbon energy sources while simultaneously closing [Nuclear Power Plants] and relocating industry to countries with low environmental standards under the pretense that this is how we save the planet.”

All of these developments and decisions have created “an EU that must now save itself from itself,” Jansa concluded.

The elephant in the room

However, despite portraying himself as a defender of democracy and national sovereignty, Jansa’s return to office this year was tainted by allegations of foreign interference. Jansa reportedly met with executives from Black Cube, an Israeli private intelligence firm staffed by Israel Defense Forces and Mossad veterans, in Ljubljana last December. Three months later, a series of covertly-recorded conversations were released, in which members of Robert Golob’s center-left Svoboda party discussed petty corruption within the Slovenian government.

Slovenia’s Intelligence and Security Agency (SOVA) has since established that Black Cube deliberately attempted to “influence democratic elections” by releasing the videos. “This interference was most likely commissioned from within Slovenia,” the agency concluded, without directly mentioning Jansa.

During his first week in office, Jansa lifted an embargo on arms sales to Israel that had been imposed by Golob, removed import restrictions on goods originating in illegal Israeli settlements, and froze Slovenia’s planned recognition of a Palestinian state. Jansa blocked an EU condemnation of Israeli settlements in August, and after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in September, told Slovenia’s parliament that “under international law, there is no genocide in Gaza.”

RT examined Black Cube’s actions in Slovenia in our ‘Wired for War’ series, and discovered that the EU has consistently refused to investigate election interference by Black Cube, Blackcore, and a multitude of private intelligence and spy-tech firms linked to the Israeli state.

Tuesday’s mid-term elections hang over the heads of the American voters like an executioner’s sword – halfway through President Donald Trump’s second term in office, the elections are not simply a referendum on the state of the union, but perhaps more importantly, a hearing on the fate of the president himself.

The first two years of Donald Trump’s come back tour have not gone anything like the American people who voted him into office two years ago were led to believe. They were promised an end to the endless wars in the Middle East, yet the US finds itself embroiled in an endless war in the Middle East which clearly did not need to be fought, and perhaps worse from the perspective of the psyche of the American voter, is a war America is losing badly.

Failed military adventures in the Middle East and Southwest Asia have been a regular feature of the American experience for the past three decades, and elections – especially midterm elections where the president’s name is not on the ballot – do not normally hinge on foreign policy or national security issues, but rather local issues – the domestic agenda, so to speak. And there is no greater barometer for a consumer-driven society like the US of the success or failure of a domestic agenda than American economic health. The age-old question, “Are you better off today than you were two years ago?” is very much the talk of the town, and the answer should send shivers down the spine of every Trump loyalist scanning the polls as they would an EKG, desperately looking for evidence of viable political life: Americans most certainly are not.

“It’s the economy, stupid” is a famous American political aphorism attributed to James Carville, a Democratic strategist who helped manage Bill Clinton’s successful run for the US presidency in 1992. It is as valid a point today as it was 34 years ago, something Donald Trump and his supporters seem to have forgotten. “Short term pain for long term gain” has emerged as the Trump counter to Carville’s words of wisdom, a reflection on the price Americans are paying at the pump when putting gasoline into their cars or diesel into their trucks.

And that someone generally is the man whose desk once famously bore a sign reading “The Buck Stops Here.”

“It’s the economy, stupid” is a sad condemnation of what America, and Americans by extension, have become – a land of consumer-oriented individuals who long ago abandoned any notion of the kind of collective citizenship which once served as the bedrock of the nation known as the United States of America. This mantra reveals a harsh truth about the American people – as long as politicians keep them wrapped up in a cocoon of perceived comfort, where they are led to believe they can coast from one day to the next awash in a sea of consumer excessiveness, the American people will ignore just about anything, regardless of what it says about them as a people.

We ignore the fact that our lifestyle is built on the back of a colonial system disguised as a “rules-based international order,” which to provide the American consumer with the goods they crave, requires American industry to acquire resources at far below fair market value. This leads to the kind of exploitative economic relationships that produce child labor in Africa to harvest the rare-earth minerals that give us the smartphones our culture revolves around, or the sweat shops of Asia that make the clothes we drape around our bodies and the shoes we prance around in as if on parade.

In our greedy embrace of personal consumerism and the artifice of prosperity it creates, we turn a blind eye to the corporate greed that has seen the personal wealth of our nation gravitate exclusively toward the top 1%, while the rest of us wallow in a swamp we’ve convinced ourselves is paradise.

How strong is the narcotic of greed and avarice?

Strong enough for Americans to ignore a president who sells access to his social media postings so that those who seek to profit from their manipulative effects (which have taken on the role of instruments of declaratory policy), or the empowerment of friends and family to conduct national diplomacy as little more than a front for the enrichment of the president’s inner circle.

Strong enough for Americans to turn a blind eye toward the facilitation of genocide of the Palestinian people by America’s “friend and ally” Israel.

Strong enough to allow this very same “friend and ally” to lure us into a military disaster in the Middle East, where our leaders committed an act of perfidy as the opening act of an illegal war of aggression, which simply put should never have been considered, let alone fought.

Strong enough to ignore historical truths by supporting the hate-filled progeny of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi German regime, in the form of Ukrainian nationalists who embrace the odious ideology of Stepan Bandera, all in support of rampant Russophobia that has seen us turn our back on the ally who made the defeat of Nazi Germany possible.

We are collectively dead as human beings, economic zombies infected by greed and all that accompanies this affliction.

Which is why “It’s the economy, stupid” is more than a political warning. It’s the epitaph of a nation.

The American people will go to the polls tomorrow and vote. They will vote their pocketbooks. Which means it will be a bad day for Donald Trump and those who have embraced and facilitated his failed policies.

But they will not vote with their conscience. Which means that the executioner’s sword will not be stayed regardless of the outcome.

Their votes will solve nothing, because their votes seek to solve a problem that has not been accurately defined.

The high price of fuel and the resultant rise in the cost of living for the average American has burst open the cocoon of comfort we have wrapped ourselves in for far too long.

Tomorrow we should be voting to liberate ourselves from the narcotic of this cocoon. Instead, most Americans will be voting for putting the cocoon back in order. And this will be an indictment not of President Trump, but of us.

The latest round of indirect US-Iran talks has ended without a deal, raising fears that renewed American strikes could trigger a wider Middle East war.

The United States and Israel launched a military campaign against Iran in late February, triggering months of fighting that disrupted global energy supplies and shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened further hostilities, with media reports suggesting Washington could resume strikes after the November 3 midterm elections.

Iranian negotiators left Doha on Sunday after three days of Qatari-mediated talks. An official told Reuters on Monday that further talks are possible, stressing that the delegation’s departure did not signal a breakdown in negotiations.

The discussions have focused on a seven-step plan submitted by Tehran in September. It calls for Washington to lift its naval blockade, ease restrictions on Iranian oil exports and release frozen assets in exchange for reopening Hormuz and continuing negotiations.

Trump rejected the initial proposal, insisting that any deal must address Iran’s nuclear program. Tehran, meanwhile, wants its conditions met before broader talks proceed.

“The ball is in the US court,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Monday, insisting that Tehran had made its demands clear.

Trump said Sunday the conflict would end soon, “one way or the other.” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the president had yet to decide on further strikes but preferred diplomacy.

The Pentagon has reportedly weighed attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities, underground military sites and Kharg Island, a major Persian Gulf oil export hub.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose right-wing bloc failed to win a parliamentary majority in last week’s election, reportedly urged Trump to resume strikes during a Saturday phone call. 

Persian Gulf countries fear renewed US strikes could trigger wider Iranian attacks on their energy infrastructure, Bloomberg reported. Earlier Iranian strikes on American military bases in the region reportedly caused up to $15 billion in damage.

Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has reportedly ordered the military to prepare for retaliation without geographical restrictions, potentially expanding the range of US and Israeli targets.

Maritime tensions also persist. UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) reported that a vessel was struck by an unidentified projectile in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, two days after a Qatari gas tanker was attacked without casualties.

Dozens of supermarkets in Belgium, Sweden, Luxembourg, Ireland and Estonia reported problems with their refrigeration systems on Monday, raising suspicions of a cyberattack similar to one that disrupted French stores several weeks earlier.

In October, cyberattacks disrupted cooling equipment at around 700 French supermarkets, including stores operated by Intermarche, Cooperative U and Carrefour, forcing retailers to discard products. The attackers appeared to have remotely manipulated defrosting mechanisms, causing fridges and freezers to overheat. No group has publicly claimed responsibility.

It has not been confirmed whether Monday’s incidents are connected to last month’s attacks or exploited the same software vulnerabilities used to target French supermarket chains.

RTL Belgium reported that an alleged cyberattack had affected several dozen stores in Belgium, including around 40 Delhaize outlets and 15 stores each operated by Carrefour and Intermarche. Hackers reportedly activated the defrost mode remotely, causing temperatures to rise and forcing some retailers to discard fresh and frozen stock.

A spokesperson for the Centre for Cybersecurity Belgium told Politico that the agency was “closely” following the incident.

Dutch broadcaster NOS reported that Delhaize stores in Luxembourg had also been affected by the apparent cyberattack.

In Ireland, food wholesaler Musgrave said a cyber incident had affected cooling equipment at 13 SuperValu stores, forcing the chain to remove chilled and frozen products from sale.

According to Swedish broadcaster SVT, refrigerators and freezers at several ICA and Coop supermarkets were affected overnight, causing large quantities of food to spoil. Most of the affected stores were in the southern province of Skane, but equipment was also targeted on the island of Oland, in Varmland and in Stockholm. Temperatures in some freezers had reportedly reached around 50°C by morning.

An ICA spokesperson told SVT that the equipment in the worst-affected stores was connected to networks outside the company’s centralized system. Coop reported similar problems at six stores.

Estonia was also affected, with one Selver supermarket reporting an issue involving its cooling system. Public broadcaster ERR reported that a freezer setting had been raised to 50°C, but the problem was contained within minutes and no significant product losses were reported.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has accused North Korean hackers of stealing approximately $6.3 billion from Binance in the largest cryptocurrency heist on record. US President Donald Trump meanwhile, has stressed that Pyongyang’s involvement remains unproven.

In an alert published on Saturday, the bureau attributed the October 29 attack on the world’s largest crypto exchange to TraderTraitor, a group it claimed is related to North Korean malicious cyber activity and which it also blamed for last year’s $1.5 billion theft from Bybit.

Investigators said the attackers were primarily converting the stolen assets into Ethereum and would likely move them through cryptocurrency services to conceal their origins. The FBI urged exchanges and other providers to block transactions linked to hundreds of identified digital addresses.

Trump, however, stopped short of endorsing that scenario when questioned by reporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate on Saturday.

Binance’s preliminary investigation suggested that attackers accessed an internal system through a compromised employee laptop, allowing them to submit unauthorized withdrawals. The company said it had found no evidence that the private keys used to control its cryptocurrency wallets had been leaked.

The exchange suspended withdrawals after discovering the breach and worked with law enforcement, blockchain investigators, and other companies to freeze roughly $3 billion in stolen assets.

Withdrawals began resuming in stages on Sunday. The company warned of possible delays due to security checks and heavy demand.

There have been several other major penetrations of cryptocurrency platforms. Last week, prediction-market platform Polymarket disclosed a breach involving a compromised third-party provider, with at least $2.6 million taken from user accounts. 

In September, hackers also stole around $388 million from the Bitget exchange. Attacks on the Drift Protocol and Kelp DAO platforms in April resulted in losses of $285 million and $292 million, respectively. In February 2025, suspected North Korean hackers stole around $1.5 billion from Bybit in what was widely described as the largest cryptocurrency heist on record at the time.

Ghana has hailed its participation in the Russia-Africa Summit in Moscow as a success, announcing commitments on nuclear power, defense, and education from a gathering that Western coverage framed around the Kremlin’s supposed pursuit of influence.

Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa said President John Dramani Mahama secured six commitments during bilateral talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, including cooperation on a proposed 2,000-megawatt nuclear power plant to strengthen energy security and support industrialization.

The announcement followed Mahama’s participation in the October 28-29 summit and talks with Putin on October 30. His week in Moscow also included meetings with the Ghanaian diaspora, two honorary doctorates, and an interview with RT in which he challenged perceptions of Russia and explained why African governments should choose partners according to their own needs.

Reuters described the gathering as a “showcase summit,” emphasizing Moscow’s effort to expand its political, economic, and military influence. CNN likewise examined Russia’s search for allies, while acknowledging that African governments were pursuing their own interests through multiple partnerships.

Mahama’s explanation to RT centered on access to financing.

“If I wanted to build a railway, I’m more likely to get financing from those countries than from, say, Europe or America,” he said, referring to Russia and China.

African countries, he added, “should be free to look for credit wherever they get it.”

Energy was prominent among the commitments Ablakwa outlined. Russia has agreed to work with Ghana toward establishing a nuclear plant, the minister said, linking the initiative to the country’s longstanding ambition to develop nuclear energy.

The announcement did not specify financing terms or a construction timetable. On October 30, Aleksey Likhachev, CEO of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, said the company was discussing large nuclear power projects with Ghana, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Egypt.

The initiative builds on nuclear cooperation dating to the presidency of Ghana’s first post-independence leader, Kwame Nkrumah, when the country pursued a Soviet-backed research reactor project and established the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission in 1963. The project stalled following Nkrumah’s overthrow in a February 1966 coup supported by the US, whose officials had maintained contact with the plotters and welcomed his removal.

Ablakwa also announced a new defense pact covering the acquisition of strategic military assets and expanded agricultural cooperation to increase grain production and fertilizer supplies.

The two governments would revive their Permanent Joint Commission for Cooperation, with Moscow ready to host a meeting in the coming weeks, he said.

Russia also strongly supports Ghana’s application to join BRICS as a partner country, Ablakwa announced on X on October 28 following a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Diplomacy amid Western criticism 

Mahama used the visit to advocate a negotiated end to the Ukraine conflict. In an exclusive interview with RT, he said the conflict was “taking too many lives on both sides,” adding that “I wish that the conflict comes to an end as quickly as possible.”

The West African nation’s diplomatic relations with Moscow date to 1958. The relationship has drawn criticism from Western officials. In September, EU Ambassador to Ghana Rune Skinnebach described Russia as “neither a reliable nor credible partner to Ghana,” citing nuclear, railway, and financing commitments he claimed had not been fulfilled.

The Russian Embassy rejected Skinnebach’s remarks as unfounded, saying Moscow remained a consistent and predictable partner to Ghana and other African countries.

Mahama has stressed that Ghana’s partnerships reflect its longstanding policy of non-alignment. He told the Financial Times Africa Summit in London on October 21 that Accra’s relations, including with the US, the EU, China, and Russia, are “not about competition” but investment and fair returns for all sides.

He also advocated better access for African goods to Russian markets and consideration of local currencies and digital payment systems for legitimate trade settlements.

Beyond the negotiating table

In his RT interview, Mahama challenged stereotypes about Russia, saying members of his delegation had expected to find a sanctions-hit economy in ruins and “bombs were flying all over the place,” but instead experienced “a cultural shock.”

Mahama, who studied social psychology in Soviet-era Moscow, said witnessing reforms under then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had taught him to put pragmatism before ideology.

“No ideology is perfect. It depends on the peculiarity of your country,” he said.

During the visit, he received honorary doctorates from the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia for advancing education and academic cooperation, and the Russian University of Transport for his contributions to infrastructure and professional training.

He also met the Ghanaian diaspora on Thursday, where he encouraged investment in manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, textiles, and agro-processing rather than leaving those opportunities to foreign businesses.

The Russia branch of the National Democratic Congress Professionals Forum also honored Mahama, Ablakwa, and Ghana’s ambassador to Russia, Koma Steem Jehu-Appiah, for strengthening Ghana-Russia ties.

The third Russia-Africa Summit brought together delegations from 48 African countries, including 21 heads of state or government. Participants adopted a 2027-2029 action plan covering cooperation in areas including trade, energy, and food security, alongside a declaration on civilian artificial intelligence.

Mozambique and Russia have maintained close political and diplomatic ties for decades, President Daniel Francisco Chapo has said, highlighting the longstanding partnership between the two nations.

Speaking to RT during his visit to Moscow for the third Russia-Africa Summit, Chapo noted the relationship dates back to Mozambique’s struggle for independence, when Moscow provided military and security assistance. He stressed that cooperation in these areas continues today.

“Mozambique and Russia already enjoy excellent political and diplomatic relations,” the president said.

Chapo said his visit to Russia was intended to strengthen economic cooperation and attract new investment, building on the countries’ established political ties. He noted that bilateral trade has increased but that considerable room remains for further growth.

Mozambique is also seeking Russian partners to develop gas pipelines, power plants, and fertilizer production facilities, Chapo said, adding that the countries could “work together to find solutions and develop these projects.”

Security cooperation also featured prominently in the interview. Chapo said Mozambican military and law enforcement cadets are currently receiving training at Russian academies. The president also confirmed that Mozambique is discussing possible cooperation with Russia to address terrorism in the African state. He pointed to Moscow’s counterterrorism experience and said the two sides are exploring potential solutions through their existing security partnership.

Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado province has faced an insurgency by Islamic State-linked militants since 2017. The violence has killed thousands and displaced more than a million people, prompting the deployment of Rwandan troops in 2021 to support government forces. The conflict also forced the suspension of a major liquefied natural gas project led by TotalEnergies, which resumed operations in January 2026.

The government of Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has pledged to recover approximately $10 million in taxpayer funds paid to a dubious company that failed to deliver a single artillery shell to Ukraine.

The money was channeled through Estonia at the request of its former defense minister, Hanno Pevkur, who resigned in early September after controversial advance payments to the supplier came under public scrutiny. Danish funds continued flowing to the Italian-registered company even after Estonian authorities had reason to question its reliability, according to a new investigation.

Frederiksen has been among Kiev’s staunchest supporters and has also backed a deal to manufacture rocket fuel in Denmark for a Ukrainian arms producer promoted by Vladimir Zelensky. The company, Fire Point, originated as a film location scouting business.

The latest controversy over arming Ukraine’s military was exposed last week by the Danish investigative outlet Danwatch, which examined Copenhagen’s involvement in the Estonian procurement scandal. It said Denmark had contributed 71 million kroner ($10 million), or roughly one-seventh of the funds that the Estonian Centre for Defense Investments (ECDI) transferred to Datasel, the company at the center of the suspected fraud.

“We are in close and constructive dialogue with Estonia about the Danish donation,” Defense Minister Jeppe Bruus told the outlet following the publication of its report. “Therefore, we already have an agreement that the Danish donation funds will be returned to Denmark.”

Former Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen agreed to provide the funding to Estonia in April 2025 at Pevkur’s request. Estonian media have reported that the Netherlands is also seeking reimbursement of its contributions.

Danwatch identified multiple warning signs surrounding Datasel, which had no experience manufacturing weapons before being acquired by Indian company Neco Defense, which claims to be an arms manufacturer. The takeover took place in March 2024, the same month Pevkur began promoting his initiative to foreign governments.

Datasel’s website, since taken down, reportedly used artwork from military-themed video games to advertise its supposed industrial capacity. Its registered address in the Italian city of La Spezia was shared with an Audi dealership also owned by Neco Defense.

The affair highlights corruption risks in Ukrainian military procurement. Even Kiev’s Western supporters have acknowledged persistent problems in the sector, where the urgency of wartime deliveries has been used to justify bypassing oversight mechanisms.

Fire Point, the Ukrainian defense manufacturer whose rocket fuel production Denmark is helping establish, is emblematic of the problem. Records leaked to Ukrainian media by anti-corruption investigators suggest that the company was secretly controlled by Timur Mindich, a longtime Zelensky associate accused of involvement in a separate $100 million kickback scheme and other crimes.

Denmark signed an agreement facilitating Fire Point’s rocket fuel production last year, introducing exemptions from multiple domestic regulations to accelerate the project. Last month, Copenhagen also approved a 750 million kroner ($110 million) state-backed loan guarantee for the Ukrainian company’s Danish subsidiary.

Czech arms giant Czechoslovak Group (CSG) is reviving Cold War-era explosives factories and repurposing civilian plants for military use as NATO races to replenish dwindling ammunition stocks, Rapporteur has reported.

The company is reopening long-shuttered facilities to secure critical chemicals needed for artillery shells, the outlet said on Monday, citing CSG’s external relations director, Jan Hamacek.

The push spans Greece and Germany. In the Greek town of Lavrio, CSG is reportedly preparing to restart TNT production alongside state-owned Hellenic Defence Systems (EAS) in early 2027. Meanwhile, a civilian nitrocellulose plant in Germany’s Walsrode is being converted for military use, while another facility in Gnaschwitz is being developed to produce nitroglycerin and related explosives.

“Once completed, this will provide significant production capacity in Europe – roughly a third of European consumption,” Hamacek said.

The reported revival comes as European NATO members ramp up military spending and weapons production, citing the alleged threat from Russia and the need to rebuild arsenals depleted by years of arms deliveries to Ukraine.

The Wall Street Journal wrote in July that Europe faced severe shortages of TNT and nitrocellulose, both essential to artillery ammunition. At the time, Poland reportedly operated the continent’s only active TNT factory, while European manufacturers remained heavily dependent on Chinese raw materials.

According to the WSJ, NATO members have launched at least 24 projects to expand explosives production and tackle supply-chain bottlenecks.

Moscow has repeatedly warned that Europe’s military buildup risks provoking a confrontation with Russia. Russian officials have said that expanding NATO infrastructure near the country’s borders would prompt additional security measures.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed claims that Russia intends to attack NATO countries as “horror stories” used to justify higher military spending and prepare European populations for further militarization. Moscow maintains that it has neither the intention nor any geopolitical, economic or military reason to attack the US-led bloc, while stressing that it would defend itself if attacked.

Belgium’s government has been pushed to the brink of collapse by a budget battle under EU spending rules. Prime Minister Bart De Wever submitted his resignation to King Philippe on Monday morning after negotiations on budget cuts failed over the weekend.

De Wever and his coalition partners have spent months arguing over roughly €10 billion ($11.2 billion) in cuts and additional revenue. Overnight talks ended without agreement, leaving the government struggling to meet Brussels’ demands while protecting public services and financing higher military expenditure.

The Royal Palace subsequently announced that King Philippe has postponed a decision on De Wever’s resignation and will begin consultations with the leaders of the governing parties starting Tuesday. The prime minister is due back at the palace on Friday. 

Brussels demands savings as arms spending rises

De Wever’s request comes as the conservative, liberal, socialist, and centrist partners of his ruling coalition have consistently failed to agree on who should pay for repairing the country’s budget, which has been under EU supervision since 2024.

Belgium’s deficit reached 5.2% of GDP last year, against the EU’s 3% ceiling. Its debt has also climbed above 110% of GDP, far beyond the bloc’s 60% reference level, prompting Brussels to demand limits on spending growth and a correction by 2029. 

Belgium is among several member states facing such proceedings, including France, Italy, and Poland.

De Wever and his liberal partners have proposed to resolve the crisis through spending cuts, including in healthcare, while socialist and centrist parties demand higher taxes on the wealthy instead. The prime minister has also warned of an “interest snowball” in which Belgium could end up having to take out new loans just to service existing debt. 

Military spending, however, has continued to rise with the government reining in benefits and public sector pay. The EU has also relaxed its budget rules to give Belgium more room to spend on its armed forces.

Public pushback

The spending cuts and rising living costs have sparked repeated mass protests across Belgium, bringing tens of thousands onto the streets. Recent unrest has included clashes with law enforcement, burning barricades, tear gas, and water cannons. 

Protesters have demanded protection for wages, pensions, and public services, with critics contrasting the cuts with the billions being spent on weapons and rejecting the alleged Russian threat being used by Brussels to justify rearmament.

Resisting the Russian asset grab

De Wever has consistently distinguished himself from other EU leaders and blocked attempts by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to tap Russian sovereign assets held at Belgium-based Euroclear. 

He has cautioned that confiscating the funds and handing them over to Ukraine would amount to an “act of war” and has vehemently ruled out Belgium carrying the legal and financial fallout of any such move.

The position, however, has landed him in hot water with his colleagues. EU Foreign Policy chief Kaja Kallas claimed his calls would spark “more wars,” while his own foreign minister called talk of normalization “a signal of weakness.” 

His stance prompted a personal attack from Axel Springer-owned Politico, which branded De Wever “Russia’s most valuable asset.” The prime minister mocked the outlet, sarcastically stating he would later be returning to his “dacha in St. Petersburg.”

Threats against Moscow and ‘drone’ scares

Earlier this year, Defense Minister Theo Francken defended a €50 million ($56 million) emergency response to alleged 2025 UAV sightings, none of which produced any evidence of Russian involvement. Some even turned out to be local police helicopters. A subsequent investigation, which was later closed, raised questions about inflated prices and contracts awarded without public tenders. 

Francken has also threatened that NATO could “wipe Moscow off the map” and has refused to retract his words. Russian officials have condemned his statements as irresponsible and symptomatic of Europe’s “military psychosis.”

A reported US plan to restart Russian gas supplies to Europe through Ukraine is impossible under current conditions, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

He was responding to a Wall Street Journal report that Washington is pushing to revive the route as part of a proposed energy ceasefire between Moscow and Kiev.

Russian gas transit through Ukraine stopped on January 1, 2025, after Kiev refused to renew a five-year agreement with Moscow, cutting off a major supply route to Europe. The EU in turn has sought to wean itself off Russian energy following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022.

“The situation on the ground speaks for itself,” Peskov told reporters on Monday, explaining that current circumstances make such plans impossible.

Earlier on Monday, the WSJ reported that Washington was pushing for a swift resumption of Russian gas exports through Ukraine, citing American, European, and Ukrainian officials. The plan may also hand US investors lucrative opportunities in the European energy market.

US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff floated the proposal during visits to Moscow and Kiev in September, according to the outlet. The scheme would see Russian gas sold through a US intermediary, allowing supplies to resume despite European sanctions.

The Trump administration is seeking a deal to halt attacks on energy infrastructure ahead of planned trilateral peace talks between Russia, Ukraine, and the US in Abu Dhabi in November. Under the proposed arrangement, Kiev would collect transit fees, while American investors would profit from handling Russian gas exports.

European governments have reportedly shown interest in a deal that could sharply cut gas prices across the region. Washington believes Brussels may soften its opposition if Kiev backs the arrangement as part of a wider peace agreement, the outlet said.

The proposal, however, runs into the EU’s existing policy of halting Russian energy imports. The European Commission has rejected the idea of restoring large-scale gas purchases from Moscow, while Brussels plans to phase out Russian gas entirely by the end of 2027.

Moscow has repeatedly accused Brussels of damaging its own economy by rejecting Russian energy. President Vladimir Putin said Europe was “dealing a blow to its own policies, industry and social sector.” He added that gas deliveries through the surviving Nord Stream 2 pipeline could resume at the “press of a button.”

Russia has also pushed back against proposals for a temporary energy truce with Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated in October that Moscow’s position remained unchanged, stressing that Russia seeks a lasting peace rather than a ceasefire.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to persuade US President Donald Trump to order a new attack on Iran immediately after the midterm election on Tuesday, Axios has reported, citing sources in Washington and West Jerusalem.

In its article on Sunday, the outlet revealed the details of a phone call between the two leaders about a possible resumption of military action against Tehran, which took place a day earlier and was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

An Israeli source said that the call was “tough,” while an American one described it as “direct,” it said.

According to the sources, Trump told Netanyahu that, instead of bombing Iran right away, he wants to give negotiations between Washington and Tehran a chance first. The Israeli prime minister is concerned by this strategy, they said.

US journalist Tucker Carlson claimed in a post on X on Monday that the US “may be within days of launching a nuclear strike on Iran” under pressure from Netanyahu, who “calls Trump about it every day.” According to Carlson’s sources, the prime minister wants an American strike on a facility at Pickaxe Mountain in central Iran, where Israeli intelligence believes the Iranians have restarted their nuclear enrichment program.

Trump told journalists on Saturday that negotiations with Tehran were “going fine.” However, he added that Washington still needed to get rid of some Iranian nuclear sites, claiming “we can do that in 10 minutes. We have that planned. You can look at Pickaxe Mountain. We need to take care of that.”

The US president has repeatedly warned that he could strike Iran again if Tehran fails to meet his peace terms. He made the threats despite the Pentagon inspector-general warning in September that heavy expenditure of key weapons in the conflict in the Middle East “has resulted in strategic inventory shortfalls and revealed industrial base bottlenecks for munitions resupply.” Tehran’s missile and drone strikes have also inflicted up to $15 billion in damage to US bases in the region, according to the Wall Street Journal.

On Sunday, Iranian negotiators left Doha after exchanging messages with the Americans via Qatari mediators for three days. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said that the discussions focused on a seven-step plan that Tehran had proposed in September, with the possibility of its accelerated implementation if the deal reached.

Tehran’s terms “are reasonable and logical: no final agreement can be initiated, nor can the Strait of Hormuz be reopened or secured, unless the US naval blockade is brought ‌to an end, Iran’s demands are respected, and Iran’s legitimate requirements are addressed,” Baghaei insisted.

Meanwhile, Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei ordered the military to prepare for “an immediate and effective response, without geographical restriction” if the Islamic Republic is attacked again, according to a statement released by his office on Saturday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff during their meeting in St. Petersburg last month that Moscow remains ready to facilitate the settlement of the conflict between Washington and Tehran, presidential aide Yury Ushakov said.

Putin stressed that “the possibilities for diplomacy are far from being exhausted, and that it’s both possible and necessary to reach an agreement with Tehran, which is our [Moscow’s] strategic partner,” Ushakov noted.

The Indian authorities are evacuating thousands of people from the eastern coast on Monday as the second cyclone in less than a week bears down, threatening renewed flooding in a region still recovering from the previous deadly storm.

Cyclone Murasu intensified into a “severe cyclonic storm” over the Bay of Bengal and is expected to make landfall overnight between Nellore and Narsapur in Andhra Pradesh state on November 2-3.
The state authorities started evacuating up to 30,000 people, Disaster Management Authority managing director Prakhar Jain told Reuters.

The storm is expected to bring sustained winds of 100-110 kph, gusting up to 120 kph, the India Meteorological Department said. It also warned of a storm surge of up to 1.5 meters above normal tide levels, raising the risk of coastal flooding.

❗🇮🇳 Second Cyclone In Less Than A Week — 30k To Be Evacuated As Murasu Approaches Around 2k people have already been evacuated from Andhra, with authorities planning to move another 30k to safety. Odisha has also begun evacuations from vulnerable areas as the storm approaches a region still recovering from Cyclone Arnab.

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) November 2, 2026

In the Konaseema district, fresh rain flooded homes and disrupted recovery efforts after Cyclone Arnab, which struck the region on October 28.

Arnab hit the coast as a “very severe” cyclone, with winds gusting up to 150 kph. It killed six people, damaged homes and farmland, and disrupted electricity supplies. More than 180,000 people were evacuated before it made landfall.

Murasu is expected to be less powerful than Arnab, arrives as damaged electricity infrastructure is still being repaired and coastal communities are still recovering from the flooding.

Five districts, including Krishna, Guntur, Bapatla, Prakasam, and Nellore, were placed under a red alert for extremely heavy rainfall. Neighboring Tamil Nadu, Odisha, and Telangana states also faced heavy rain warnings.

The approaching cyclone has already disrupted transportation and daily life. Heavy rainfall waterlogged parts of Chennai city, where schools and colleges were closed on Monday. Nearly a dozen flights were canceled.

Fresh clashes broke out in Bangladesh on Monday between garment workers and police, after a wage strike on Sunday resulted in the closure of more than 500 factories, affected a million jobs, and raised concerns about a disruption in shipments to foreign buyers.

The readymade garments industry is the backbone of the South Asian nation’s export sector, generating $39 billion in earnings annually. The country is second only to China in global apparel exports and is the primary manufacturing floor for mass-market retail.

Garment industry workers are demanding a 30,000-taka ($241) monthly wage, more than double their current pay of roughly 13,000 taka, Kalpona Akter of the Bangladesh Center for Workers Solidarity was quoted as saying by a local news outlet. The protests turned violent as workers took to the streets and vandalized vehicles. Police fired tear gas to disperse them.

The government announced a wage board to consider the workers’ demands after an emergency cabinet meeting on Sunday. However, that failed to placate the workers who said the stir, which intensified on Saturday, is also about surging living costs and high inflation.

Bangladesh’s annual inflation rate rose to 8.34% in September, its highest level since June.

The sector accounts for 80% of Bangladesh’s merchandise exports, employs nearly 4 million workers, and contributes around 10% to gross domestic product.

The 27-nation European Union is Dhaka’s largest export market, accounting for nearly half of its shipments, followed by the US, the single largest individual buyer, that accounts for about a fifth.

❗🇧🇩 Bangladesh Garment Workers Demand 140% Wage Hike, Protests Disrupt 500+ Factories (Local Reports) Protestors are asking for a Tk 30,000 monthly minimum wage, up from Tk 12,500, amid rising living costs. Clashes with police, arson and road blockades have disrupted production, affecting nearly one million workers. (Reports) The government has formed a wage board, but unrest continues. 📹 Social Media

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) November 2, 2026

The protests have erupted at a time when Bangladesh’s garment industry, which competes with those in India and Vietnam, is staring at a raft of challenges. The Middle East conflict and the resulting energy crisis have pushed the industry to the brink, with higher fuel and shipping costs also putting pressure on factory margins.
Bangladeshi experts have warned that a substantial wage increase would spike manufacturing costs, shrink export profits, and weaken price competitiveness.

India’s attempts to secure a competitive advantage in the US market over other exporters have also worried the Bangladeshi garment industry.

Dangerous objects, including metal needles and magnets, have been found in sweets collected by children during Halloween celebrations in several German federal states, according to local police.

The first reports came from Thuringia, where children in the village of Wintzingerode found metal needles in several sweets after doing trick or treat activities. A similar incident was reported in Herbsleben, where a needle was discovered in a chewy candy. Police are investigating which houses the children had visited before finding the contaminated treats.

In Baden-Wuerttemberg, two families in the town of Filderstadt found several needles in milk-and-hazelnut wafer bars. Metal objects were also discovered in sweets in Rielasingen-Worblingen. In Bavaria, parents in Landshut found screws and other sharp metal objects in candies and chocolate bars, while children in Nuremberg discovered needles in chocolate.

Similar reports came from Lower Saxony and Bremen. In Hanover, a nine-year-old girl found sewing needles in three sweets. Another needle was discovered in a chocolate bar in the city of Salzgitter, while a nail was found in candy in Bremen.

As of November 1, no injuries to children had been reported.

Similar incidents have been reported in Germany in previous years. In 2025, a mother in Kiel found razor blades among her children’s Halloween treats, while a chocolate bar containing a nail was discovered in Bavaria in 2024.

Reports of suspected Halloween candy tampering have also emerged from North America. In the US, cases were registered in five states, involving needles, metal hairpins, wire, screws, and pins found in children’s treats. In Canada, police received reports from several provinces. In Toronto, a father found sewing needles and pins concealed in five Halloween treats, while authorities in Quebec began investigating two cases involving a needle and a metal pin. In Newfoundland and Labrador, police received three reports of small metal objects found in miniature chocolate bars.

The 2026 Summer Youth Olympic Games have opened in Senegal, marking the first Olympic event ever held on African soil. The inaugural ceremony took place on Saturday at the Abdoulaye Wade Stadium in Diamniadio, near the capital Dakar.

Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye declared the Games open on October 31. The event was also attended by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Kirsty Coventry and Dakar 2026 organizing committee chief Mamadou Diagna Ndiaye.

The ceremony featured traditional African dances, music, light shows, and performances celebrating Senegalese culture. More than 1,100 performers took part, including hundreds of dancers, according to the IOC. The program also included a parade of participating delegations.

Pour l'histoire, pour l'Afrique. Le Sénégal accueille le monde pour les premiers Jeux Olympiques organisés sur le continent africain. Bienvenue à Dakar ! #Dakar2026 #JOJDakar2026 #Olympics #jeunesse https://t.co/m4uQxRGrxM

— Présidence Sénégal (@PR_Senegal) November 1, 2026

Faye praised the ceremony in a post on X on Sunday, highlighting the country’s cultural heritage and thanking the organizers. “Authentic Senegal! What a people! What a culture! Tonight, we showed the world the beauty of what we are,” he wrote.

Sénégal authentique !🇸🇳 Quel peuple ! Quelle culture ! Ce soir, nous avons montré au monde la beauté de ce que nous sommes. Merci à toutes celles et tous ceux qui ont rendu cette soirée inoubliable. https://t.co/U1CYY8nMj4

— Bassirou Diomaye Faye (@PR_Diomaye) October 31, 2026

Kirsty Coventry, a former Olympic swimmer from Zimbabwe, welcomed the athletes and celebrated the significance of holding an Olympic event in Africa for the first time.

“This is the Africa that I am so proud and so excited for the world to experience,” Coventry said.

🔥 The lighting of the cauldron. 🫶 Always a very special moment. #Olympics #YouthOlympics #Dakar2026 #OpeningCeremony @jojdakar2026 https://t.co/ULzo6dliMm

— The Olympic Games™ (@Olympics) October 31, 2026

The ceremony ended with the lighting of the Olympic cauldron, following a torch relay that covered more than 3,600 kilometers across Senegal’s 14 regions.

Russia was represented by 13 athletes carrying the national flag during the opening ceremony, the Russian Olympic Committee reported. Russian competitors are participating under their national symbols at an IOC event for the first time since 2020. The athletes previously faced restrictions imposed after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022.

The Games run from October 31 to November 13, with around 2,700 athletes representing 204 national Olympic committees and a refugee team. The event was originally scheduled for 2022 but was postponed for four years following the Covid-19 pandemic. 

India is plowing billions into becoming a global chipmaking hub, while smartly taking a route different from that of industry giants racing to produce the most advanced processors powering the AI boom.

The South Asian country already has a substantial presence in semiconductor design. Now, New Delhi wants to establish a domestic manufacturing industry and become a reliable global supplier.

That ambition was on display at the Semicon India event in New Delhi in September, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi pitched India as an alternative manufacturing destination amid growing demand and concerns over global chip production bottlenecks and supply uncertainties.

“The world needs new and trusted locations for chip manufacturing and India is preparing itself for this,” Modi told the conference.

A month earlier, in his Independence Day address, Modi had made semiconductor development an important component of the wider Make-in-India manufacturing push. “Chips are indispensable; without them, the world would come to a standstill,” he noted.

The initiative comes as artificial intelligence, data centers, electric vehicles, and expanding electronics production drive demand for semiconductors. But India’s strategy is not to immediately challenge the industry’s technological leaders on their own terms.

“I believe this is one of the smartest and most far-sighted choices India has made,” the co-founder and CMO of chip startup Indiesemic, Jinal Shah, told RT in emailed comments. Indiesemic is based in Ahmedabad, the capital of Modi’s home state Gujarat.

Why India is betting on older chips

While manufacturers such as Taiwan’s TSMC and South Korea’s Samsung compete to produce ever-smaller processors, including 2-nanometer chips used in high-performance computing and AI, India is initially concentrating on established technologies known as mature nodes.

These chips, ranging from 28 to 180 nanometers, may not be at the cutting edge of technology, but are essential to automobiles, industrial machinery, telecommunications, household appliances, and electricity networks.

Even the AI boom needs them. Because data centers cannot work without power-management chips, networking components, and other such chips.

Mature-node technologies account for nearly 70% of global chip production by volume, said Neil Shah, the co-founder and vice-president of research at the think tank Counterpoint Research. Starting with mature-node fabrication, specialized semiconductors, and conventional chip assembly and testing is “the only commercially rational entry point for India,” Shah told RT.

Pursuing 2-nanometer production is “simply too expensive,” the secretary at India’s Electronics and Information Technology Ministry, S. Krishnan, recently admitted.

Although eclipsed by the AI chips, mature-node chips are a high-growth market. Industry researcher TrendForce reported in June that rising demand for power-related semiconductors, including those used in AI infrastructure, was tightening manufacturing capacity and could sustain price increases into 2027.

India designs chips for the world. Why doesn’t it make them?

India is hardly a newcomer to the semiconductor business. The country accounts for nearly a fifth of the global chip-design workforce and hosts major research and development centers for companies such as Intel, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments.

Indian engineers contribute to the development of sophisticated chips used around the world. Yet, much of the actual manufacturing takes place overseas.

Imports currently meet an estimated 90%-95% of India’s semiconductor demand, according to NITI Aayog. The think tank projects that the country’s chip market will grow to more than $200 billion by 2035, driven by electronics, automobiles, telecommunications, and digital infrastructure.

Getting into chip fabrication gives India two opportunities: reducing the dependence on imported chips for its expanding domestic industries, and supplying overseas markets looking for alternative manufacturing locations.

Bridging the gap: From designing chips to making them

India’s first semiconductor mission resulted in 12 approved manufacturing projects involving more than $17 billion in planned investment. These include a silicon fabrication plant, two specialized semiconductor facilities, and nine assembly, testing, and packaging units.

Five of the nine units have already begun commercial production, including those operated by US memory-chip maker Micron and Indian companies Kaynes Semicon, CG Semi, CDIL Semiconductor, and Suchi Semicon. Modi inaugurated commercial production lines at CDIL in Punjab and Suchi Semicon in Gujarat during the September industry event.

However, these units largely focus on assembly, packaging and testing rather than manufacturing integrated circuits directly on silicon wafers. Building that capability is the next major step.

The Semicon 2.0 program, backed by $13.5 billion, is intended to build an industry around such factories, extending support to equipment manufacturers, specialized chemicals, raw materials, chip design, research, and workforce development.

“India currently relies almost entirely on foreign nations for these foundational raw materials and machinery,” the director of the Sudeet Foundation, Raghava Srinivasan Balakrishnan, told RT.

Indian conglomerate Tata Group is building an $11 billion fabrication plant in Dholera, Gujarat, with Taiwan’s Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation. Commercial production is targeted for mid-2028, initially using 55-nanometer and 90-nanometer technology before moving to 28 nanometers.

At the September conference, US-based Applied Materials announced plans to invest $5 billion in India over the next decade, including in research, domestic supply chains, and workforce development.

The government is also trying to help Indian companies move from designing chips to developing commercially viable products of their own.

Centralized access to professional design tools and infrastructure “significantly lowers the initial capex barriers,” technology policy researcher Pranay Kotasthane wrote in August, welcoming the support for chip-design startups.

Could India eventually make advanced chips?

New Delhi’s ambitions don’t stop at mature-node manufacturing.

In a roadmap released in May, NITI Aayog proposed building a semiconductor value chain worth $120 billion-$150 billion by 2035, with India becoming one of the world’s top three destinations for outsourced semiconductor assembly, testing, and advanced packaging.

”Instead of chasing the global wafer race from behind, India should define its own pathway,” the report says.

The NITI Aayog also recommends building strength in specialized analog semiconductors and materials, such as silicon carbide and gallium nitride, which are important for electric vehicles, renewable energy, and industrial power systems.

India is not abandoning the ambition of making cutting-edge processors altogether, but just being pragmatic by going for the low-hanging fruit first.

Getting to the top of the hill will require experience in operating commercial wafer fabrication plants, developing a skilled workforce, and building a domestic network of equipment and materials suppliers.

For now, the country is seeking to establish itself in parts of the semiconductor industry where demand is already substantial and its existing strengths offer it a clear commercial edge.

NATO is worried that Donald Trump could significantly reduce US involvement in the bloc if the Republican Party loses the midterms on November 3, Politico has reported, citing European officials and diplomats.

Officials in the military bloc are “bracing for a worst-case scenario” as a result of the vote on Tuesday, the outlet said in an article on Sunday.

If a victory for the Democrats blocks Trump from legislating domestically, he may decide to go after NATO to rally his MAGA base, diplomats told the outlet.

The US could withdraw thousands more troops from Europe, cut American funding for the bloc, or limit the NATO-backed PURL arms-buying scheme for Ukraine, they suggested.

Trump “could be very pissed off” after the midterms, if so, “he’ll be very harsh,” one diplomat reportedly warned.

“The president will never settle for the West’s managed decline and will continue to unapologetically advance our interests at home and abroad,” she said.

However, Wales stressed that Trump “remains firm that our NATO allies should have been there for the US” during the war with Iran.

After the bloc’s members in spring refused to join the US-Israeli campaign against the Islamic Republic and countries such as Spain and Italy barred the Pentagon from using bases on their territory for attacks, Trump said he was “never swayed by NATO. I always knew they were a paper tiger.” When asked if he could reconsider the American membership in the bloc, Trump said: “Oh yes, I would say [it’s] beyond reconsideration.”

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said previously that the US and the rest of NATO members were “engaged in an unhealthy, traumatic relationship,” which required the attention of a therapist.

Around a half of the 2,000 US soldiers stationed in Romania left the country last year, with some 5,000 American servicemen currently being in the process of withdrawing from Germany.

According to media reports, Trump wanted to order a pull-out of as many as 25,000 soldiers from Europe earlier this year, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio talked him out of it. American forces on the continent number around 80,000.

The NBC News average of national polls, published on Monday, suggested that 52% of Americans preferred a Democrat-controlled Congress as a result of the midterms, with 44% being in favor of a Republican one. Trump’s approval rating stands at 38% a day before the vote.

Senior Indian opposition leaders from 19 political parties led tens of thousands protesters in a march in New Delhi on Sunday, demanding the removal of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, accusing him of voter-roll manipulation.

The demonstration at Ramlila Maidan, one of the Indian capital’s designated protest sites, was led by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and regional party leaders. It is the latest in weeks of protests over the nationwide revision of electoral rolls that has cut more than 130 million names from draft voter lists, including those recorded as deceased, relocated, or untraceable.

Sunday’s protests were peaceful although a large number of police personnel were deployed on the streets.

Opposition parties allege that those who tend to vote against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have been deliberately excluded from the voter lists, and it will help tilt elections in favor of the party.

📹❗️RT India LIVE From Ramlila Maidan: Prominent Opposition Leaders Address INDIA Bloc Protest In Delhi RT India correspondent @rujutathete reports from the ground.

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) November 1, 2026

The controversy intensified after the Indian Express revealed that two election commissioners in the three-member panel had objected at least 14 times to decisions involving voter registration, deletions, and electoral procedures. Last week, the panel told India’s Supreme Court that all three commissioners had unanimously approved the orders authorizing the revision.

The poll panel denies favoring any political party, and maintains that the revision is intended to remove duplicate and ineligible entries. It also says any wrongly excluded voters can apply to be re-included in the rolls.

Addressing the rally, Gandhi accused Kumar of facilitating electoral manipulation and warned that he would face prosecution. “Gyanesh Kumar will be removed as CEC. Gyanesh Kumar will go to jail,” he declared.

Ukrainian intelligence agencies have attempted to provide Russian military supply chains with booby-trapped equipment into Russian military supply chains, exploiting volunteer organizations supplying troops, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has warned.

The agency said on Monday that it had recently thwarted a series of attempted attacks on Russian drone operators involving first-person view (FPV) headsets rigged with explosives. It urged volunteer groups to scrutinize potential donors more carefully and outlined warning signs that could indicate a Ukrainian sabotage operation.

The alleged tactic resembles a high-profile Israeli intelligence operation in Lebanon in 2024, when thousands of booby-trapped pagers infiltrated Hezbollah’s supply chain and were subsequently detonated, killing and injuring members of the Lebanese militant group and others. The devices were supplied through a network involving a Taiwan-based manufacturer. The Ukrainian operation described by Russian security officials has been much smaller in scale.

Kiev claimed responsibility in early 2025 for supplying Russian troops with 80 explosive-rigged drone goggles. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, HUR, was reportedly inspired by Mossad’s pager operation. Russian military-linked sources reported at the time that a batch of Skyzone Cobra X V4 goggles had been fitted with explosives, resulting in the injury of several servicemen.

According to the FSB, the latest plot was uncovered after a Russian serviceman received an offer of suspicious drone headsets and contacted military counterintelligence. Specialists examined the equipment and confirmed that it contained explosives. A subsequent investigation identified several other suspicious donations allegedly linked to Ukraine, the agency said.

As with the devices attributed to HUR last year, explosives had allegedly been installed in place of the headsets’ cooling fans.

Ukrainian intelligence agencies, which reportedly received extensive CIA training following the 2014 armed coup in Kiev, have also been implicated in a series of targeted bomb assassinations, including attacks that killed civilians.

The FSB warned volunteer organizations that donors unwilling to disclose identifying information, including photographs or mobile phone numbers, should be treated with suspicion. It also identified requests for video confirmation that donated equipment had reached its recipients as a likely indication of a sabotage attempt.

Ukrainian operatives allegedly used psychological manipulation to gain the trust of volunteers. One woman involved in collecting aid said the person who sent her the booby-trapped equipment had claimed to prefer smaller volunteer groups because larger organizations were supposedly more susceptible to embezzlement.

The UN’s peacekeeping mission in the disputed territory of Western Sahara has ended after 35 years following a Security Council standoff over a US proposal that Russia said would deny the region’s people the right to decide their future.

The mandate of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) expired on October 31. Moscow expressed regret over the outcome, having vetoed Washington’s proposed overhaul and unsuccessfully sought an extension of the existing mandate.

“Russia was unable to support the intention of depriving Western Sahrawis of the right to vote,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Sunday, accusing Washington of trying to “artificially accelerate the settlement process.”

Morocco governs most of Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony it annexed in 1975 following Spain’s decision to withdraw. The Algeria-backed Polisario Front seeks independence for the territory.

MINURSO was established alongside a UN-brokered ceasefire in 1991 to organize a referendum offering independence or integration with Morocco. Disputes over voter eligibility prevented the vote, and Polisario resumed hostilities in 2020.

During Friday’s Security Council meeting, Russian UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said the council “cannot automatically predetermine issues of sovereignty,” arguing that Washington’s recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara undermined its impartiality.

Washington recognized Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara in 2020 under President Donald Trump as part of a deal involving Rabat’s normalization of relations with Israel.

US Ambassador Mike Waltz defended changing a mission whose referendum had never materialized. “We will not lend our vote to business as usual,” he said. The UK and France criticized Russia’s veto.

Polisario representative Sidi Omar thanked Russia for blocking a text he said would “torpedo the foundations of the UN peace process,” Reuters reported. In a separate statement on Sunday, the movement said Morocco and its allies bore “full responsibility” for weakening MINURSO’s mandate and for any consequences arising from the mission’s closure.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned of escalating hostilities on Sunday and said the mission’s departure did not extinguish the Sahrawis’ right to self-determination.

Austria has launched an espionage investigation after two Ukrainian military intelligence operatives were detained in Vienna, the Austrian newspaper Kurier reported on Saturday.

The report comes after former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko, who fled to Austria in September, alleged that a team had been sent to kill him on orders from Ukraine’s presidential office.

According to Kurier, the head of the Artan Group, a special operations unit within Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR), was spotted at the Park Hyatt hotel in Vienna. The man, identified as Viktor T., reportedly told Austrian security officials that he was on vacation. The unit was originally established to carry out operations in Russia but has also been accused of involvement in plots to assassinate “Ukrainian defectors,” the newspaper said.

Kravchenko and Ukrainian media identified the Artan commander as Viktor Torkotyuk, known by his callsign Titan.

On October 5, Austrian police reportedly arrested two operatives under Torkotyuk’s command who were carrying surveillance equipment. Investigators initially believed that one of the men had rented a car in Vienna together with Yaroslav Bondarenko, a cameraman working with Ukrainska Pravda investigative journalist Mikhail Tkach. Subsequent findings, however, indicated that Bondarenko had been mistaken for someone else.

Tkach and Bondarenko were detained on October 8 and released the following day. Tkach said he had been trying to locate Kravchenko as part of a journalistic investigation and denied any wrongdoing.

Kravchenko fled Ukraine after the country’s Western-backed anti-corruption agencies, NABU and SAPO, launched an investigation into allegations that his subordinates had protected fraudulent call centers. He accused anti-corruption investigators of abusing their powers and claimed the case was politically motivated. Both agencies rejected his allegations.

The former prosecutor general has also drawn parallels with a bombing in Monaco earlier this year that targeted Ukrainian businessman Vadim Yermolayev. The explosion injured Yermolayev, his teenage son and his partner.

In an October interview with the BBC, Zhikovich claimed that senior HUR officials had authorized the Monaco operation.

Moscow has long accused Kiev of carrying out terrorist attacks abroad. Following the Monaco bombing, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova argued that Western governments “could no longer control the monster they had created.”

Western nonprofit organizations (NPOs) are seeking to undermine Russia from within, Russian Security Council Secretary Sergey Shoigu said on Monday. He accused foreign actors in NATO states such as Poland and the Baltics of recruiting and financing rogue groups.

The former Russian defense minister made the remarks at the “Peoples of Russia” week in Moscow.

“It is no secret that there is currently an active effort underway to recruit and fund individuals – to embolden those prepared to support the destruction of Russian statehood from within,” he said.

Foreign actors “began an intensive campaign to dismantle” Russia and established numerous NGOs in the 1990s, seizing what they perceived was “a moment of weakness” following the collapse of the Soviet Union, he said.

Some activists claim to represent Russia’s many ethnic minorities and have been courting Western support for what they call the country’s “decolonization,” RT’s Igor Zhdanov reports.

Ukrainian and Western officials have helped the activists gain platforms in the EU, the Council of Europe and the UN.

Some of their claims, including the portrayal of Russia, home to roughly 200 ethnic groups, as Europe’s last colonial empire, have been echoed by French President Emmanuel Macron and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas.

In his latest report, RT’s Igor Zhdanov examines the activists’ ties to Ukraine and questions their claims to represent communities inside Russia.

Among those featured is Pavel Sulyandziga, who left Russia in 2017 after coming under suspicion of embezzling more than $100,000 in funds donated to support indigenous culture in one of the country’s northern regions.

Watch the full report here:

Rioters who rampaged through Frankfurt following Gen Z protests on Saturday night were predominantly from migrant backgrounds, according to Roman Poseck, interior minister of the German state of Hesse.

Authorities said on Sunday that 54 people had been arrested after mobs ransacked shops in Germany’s financial capital and attacked police with bottles, stones and incendiary devices. More than 100 officers were injured, while 17 businesses were damaged, five of which were looted.

Speaking at a press conference on Sunday, Poseck said he was “shocked” by the scale of the violence, adding that police had faced between 1,000 and 1,500 rioters. Those arrested were aged between 13 and 29, he said. Most were German citizens.

“In Frankfurt, an enormous wave of violence erupted involving left-wing extremists and violence-prone young people, most of them with migrant backgrounds,” the minister said.

“This group of perpetrators was predominantly made up of people with migrant backgrounds. And we must address that as well. There must be no false taboos here.”

Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt also accused “violent left-wing groups and troublemakers from migrant communities” of hijacking initially peaceful demonstrations, according to Bild.

Immigration and crime have long been contentious issues in Germany, where people have more recently become dissatisfied with the rising cost of living and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Fatigue with Berlin’s immigration policy has driven the success of Alternative for Germany (AfD), the second-largest party in the Bundestag, which finished first in state elections in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in September, marking its first victories in those two states.

An October poll by Forsa found that 87% of Germans were dissatisfied with Merz’s performance, while just 11% were satisfied. The survey also showed that 61% of supporters of his own CDU/CSU alliance were unhappy with his leadership.

The riots in Frankfurt coincided with a broader wave of protests across Europe over rising living costs, housing shortages, and deteriorating public services. In France, demonstrators clashed with police in Paris during protests against government policies, while Spain and Italy have also seen demonstrations over housing costs, wages, and economic pressure.

Ukraine’s government-backed mobile air alert app sent out false warnings of nuclear and chemical attacks on Sunday night, Ukrainian media reported.

At around 11 PM, the Air Alert app sent notifications urging residents to seek shelter due to a “radiation threat” and a “chemical attack.” It also warned of “street battles” in Kiev.

According to screenshots shared by Ukrainian media, one of the messages read in Russian: “Don’t worry, Oreshnik is coming,” referring to Russia’s nuclear-capable intermediate-range ballistic missile.

The Ukrainian Air Force urged residents to rely only on official sources. “The Air Alert app may have been compromised by hostile actors. There is no radiation threat!” it said in a brief statement on Telegram.

Ukraine’s Digital Transformation Ministry later confirmed that the app had been temporarily disabled following a suspected cyberattack.

Although Mash described the hackers as Russian, the group has not previously been linked to any known cyberattacks. Moscow has consistently denied allegations of involvement in such operations.

About three hours later, the Russian Emergencies Ministry said its mobile app had also been hacked and used to send “false information” to users. The ministry said it was working to restore normal operations.

The incident came days after an apparent glitch in Kiev’s automated air alert system on October 26, when air raid warnings were issued and canceled several times within just five minutes. Officials blamed a “technical malfunction” and apologized for the disruption.

Ukraine has stepped up requests for additional air defense interceptors from the US and its European partners in recent months as its own defenses have struggled to counter Russian missile barrages and jet-powered drones.

Relations with Washington have become strained, however, as Kiev has refused to halt strikes on Russian oil refineries, which US President Donald Trump has blamed for soaring fuel prices, and criticized his decision to lift sanctions on Russian diesel exports.

Ukraine was also caught off guard by sudden disruptions to Starlink and Starshield, satellite services widely used by its military, which officials in Kiev linked to US efforts to pressure Vladimir Zelensky.

Acting Bulgarian President Iliana Iotova, backed by the country’s EU-skeptic government, has a double-digit lead on pro-Western candidate Andrey Gyurov in the country’s presidential runoff.

Iotova, a critic of military aid to Ukraine, has secured 57.66% of the vote, compared with Gurov’s 39.38%, the election commission reported on Monday morning, after counting 99.68% of the ballots.

Iotova thanked voters as well as Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev and his Progressive Bulgaria party for their support.

“Their vote means a lot, because we will listen to what they have told us,” Iotova said, according to BTA.

“I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to Progressive Bulgaria. Mr. Radev, we would not have succeeded without you,” she added.

Radev, who took office in May, halted weapons deliveries to Ukraine and withdrew Bulgaria from the so-called coalition of the willing, a group of countries led by Britain and France that have pledged to help provide security guarantees for Ukraine following a potential peace agreement with Russia.

Gyurov, meanwhile, has backed closer security cooperation with Kiev and argued that Russia must end its military offensive before peace negotiations can advance. He accused Moscow of threatening European security while ruling out sending Bulgarian troops to Ukraine.

The elections took place after multiple cargo vessels were struck by drones off Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast and several aerial drones entered Bulgarian airspace, incidents Radev described as “absolutely unacceptable.”

Bulgaria summoned a Russian envoy last month following attacks on two commercial ships, one of which sank. Sofia also summoned a Ukrainian envoy in August after a drone exploded near the Trans-Balkan gas pipeline, a major energy route linking Russia and the Balkans through Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria. The Bulgarian military said the UAV was likely a Ukrainian-made Maya decoy drone.

A federal judge has ordered the administration of US President Donald Trump to stop intimidating election officials who refuse to follow its instructions on handling ballots during the midterms on November 3.

In July, the Department of Justice (DOJ) sent letters to all 50 states warning that election officers could face criminal liability if they allow non-citizens to take part in the vote. Last month, the agency contacted the counties in California demanding that they identify illegal aliens on the lists of registered voters or face potential legal action.

On Friday, US District Judge Trina Thompson, who is based in California, ruled that the Trump administration was operating outside of its constitutional authority and likely violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibits “attempting to intimidate, threaten or coerce” officials, facilitating the election process.

“Although Defendants claim that their actions are designed to halt unlawful voting by non-citizens, their actions are likely to have the effect of interfering with election administration and disenfranchising lawful voters,” she argued.

The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed just a day earlier by labor unions and other groups, who blamed the Trump administration for interfering in the administration of the midterms.

Later on Saturday, the Department of Justice challenged Thompson’s decision at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California.

A DOJ spokesperson said in a statement that “the judge issued an order against the federal government without even waiting to hear from the US, while in other cases the Department’s own urgent election claims are delayed by judges until after Election Day.”

On Friday, the Trump administration lost an appeal against an earlier decision by another federal judge, who denied the DOJ’s request for California to block more that 20,000 ballots from alleged non-citizens, arguing that it “violates longstanding constitutional principles mandating that states have control over their elections.”

Yemen has claimed its army has been able to stop an advance by Houthi militants in the southwest of the country.

The hostilities between Yemen and its coalition allies and the Iranian-backed Ansar Allah movement escalated in September when the Shiite group seized the strategically important Red Sea port cities of Mocha and Dhubab as well as Perim Island in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The Houthis have since also encircled the country’s third-largest city, Taiz, with forces loyal to the internationally recognized government trapped inside.

According to Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, which allegedly has close ties to the Saudi royal family, the Houthis mounted an offensive along the border between Lahij and Taiz governorates on Friday.

However, Saudi-backed troops reportedly pushed back the advancing militants, with airstrikes and artillery fire disrupting the Houthis’ supply lines, and staged a counteroffensive.

Fighting has also continued around the besieged city of Taiz.

Conflicting reports have been coming in regarding the situation in the north of Yemen over the weekend.

On Saturday, the internationally recognized government announced that its troops had recaptured positions in the northern governorate of al-Jawf, which borders Saudi Arabia. The Houthis, in turn, said that they had thwarted advances in the same governorate, as well as in neighboring Marib.

In a statement posted on X last Saturday, the Shiite group’s spokesman, Yahya Saree, stressed that the Houthis were conducting such attacks in retaliation for Saudi airstrikes on Yemen.
Ansar Allah’s representative warned that strikes on Saudi territory would continue until Riyadh ended its “aggression” and lifted a blockade it had imposed on the neighboring country.

After the Houthis seized large stretches of Yemen’s Red Sea coast and territory around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in September, government troops mounted a counteroffensive, claiming to have recaptured key positions near the vital shipping route connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.

Meanwhile, Riyadh has stepped up its air support, intensifying strikes on Houthi-held territory.

Yemen has remained locked in a civil war since 2014, with the situation further aggravated by a Saudi-led intervention launched the following year. Large-scale fighting largely subsided following a UN-brokered truce in 2022 but flared up again in July after Saudi-backed government forces struck the Houthi-held Sanaa Airport.

Serbia will need to sanction Russia in order to eventually join the EU, European Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos has said.

The Brussels official spelled out that condition just days after Serbia’s opposition Student List movement secured 52.5% of the vote in the snap parliamentary election, defeating former Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. While conceding defeat, Vucic warned of renewed EU pressure on Belgrade to impose economic restrictions on Moscow, which he had consistently refused to do citing key trading and cultural ties.

In an interview with Polish broadcaster TVP World on Tuesday, Kos was asked if it was possible for Serbia to become an EU member if it also refrained from slapping curbs on Moscow. Brussels has introduced 22 sanctions packages against Russia since February 2022.

She replied by saying the EU demands “strategic alignment” from possible new EU members as part of its pre-accession review.

However, Kos stressed that “we haven’t started yet to talk to the new [Serbian] government. So, first, they will have to have a new government and then we’ll see how we’ll be able to move in this field or not.”

There is currently no certainty on Student List’s agenda regarding Russia sanctions. One of its representatives, university professor Jovo Bakic, told RT Balkan earlier this week that the movement’s members “respect Russia both as a great power and as our historically important partner and, in many cases, protector.” Any restrictions imposed by “small Serbia” would have little effect on Moscow, but would be “symbolically very bad” for Belgrade, Bakic argued.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that Moscow hoped to maintain mutually beneficial relations with Serbia under the Student List leadership. “As you know, it takes two to tango,” he added.

Previously, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova slammed the “heavy-handed, unscrupulous manner,” in which the EU has tried to drive a wedge between Moscow and Belgrade.

Making Serbia join the sanctions against Russia “is not merely a political gesture… It means that Serbia would effectively be shooting itself in the foot by ceasing to receive supplies of our energy and by being unable to sell its own goods to us,” she insisted.

An estimated $2 trillion in market value was wiped from the tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 during October as investors grow increasingly skeptical that enormous spending on artificial intelligence will ever pay off.

On Friday, the Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.9% in its biggest one-day fall since June. Over the whole month, the Nasdaq shed about 5.2%, its worst showing since March 2025, while the S&P 500 slipped 1.2%, and the Dow – which includes many traditional businesses – still finished October up 1.5%.

Among the hardest-hit companies was Google owner Alphabet, whose shares plunged 12.6% on Thursday in its worst day on record. The slump was triggered by its earnings showing slower growth in search advertising, its core business.

Amazon reported negative free cash flow of $42.4 billion over the preceding 12 months, largely due to AI investments, with its shares falling 1.4% on Friday. Chipmaker Intel came out worse, plunging 28.6%, its worst day since 1974, after forecasting weaker profits amid trouble in its PC and manufacturing businesses.
Nvidia – which produces powerful chips used to train and run AI systems – slipped 4.2%, becoming the biggest drag on the S&P 500, while rival AMD dropped 10.9%.

Enormous spending on AI and data centers has become a staple of US tech giants in recent years. Together, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Alphabet are projected to spend more than $700 billion on data centers, computing equipment and other long-term investments in 2026 alone, and much of it is AI-related.

According to various estimates, global AI-related investment is valued at between $900 billion and $2.7 trillion dollars this year, depending on the methodology. Companies are also borrowing more to finance expansion, fueling concerns among investors.

Market analysts meanwhile warn of further near-term losses. Bank of America strategist Michael Hartnett expects weakness until mid-November, while Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson says the S&P 500 could fall even further within weeks before recovering by year-end.

Other major tests for the US market are the midterm elections on Tuesday, which could reshape AI regulation, as well as quarterly results from Apple, Nvidia, AMD and Palantir, and Friday’s jobs report.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has accused his political opponents of receiving support from an “army of Russian bots” amid an escalating constitutional crisis in Warsaw. The pro-EU leader offered no proof for his claim, which came after a government-backed judge moved to oust two key officials supported by his rival, right-wing President Karol Nawrocki, from the Constitutional Tribunal, triggering public outrage.

Unrest erupted on Friday when Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, a judge elected by Tusk’s governing majority, ordered the suspension of Constitutional Tribunal President Bogdan Swieczkowski and his deputy Bartlomiej Sochanski, both linked to the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party. The tribunal’s existing leadership rejected the suspensions, declaring that all those participating in the attempted takeover “are committing the crime of a coup d’état.”

The development triggered street protests around the court building and a heavy police deployment. Nawrocki, who canceled a planned trip to Senegal, personally pushed his way into the tribunal to confront Korwin-Piotrowska and her allies, telling them that “you are not judges of the Constitutional Tribunal.”

“Is it greed, stupidity or treason?” Tusk asked, claiming that the opposition was receiving support from “pro-Russian forces worldwide.”

Moscow has repeatedly said it does not interfere in other countries’ domestic affairs. While Russian officials have yet to respond to Tusk’s allegation, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov in July denied that Russia was responsible for cyberattacks on Polish energy infrastructure.

Responding to Tusk’s address, the president’s chief of staff, Zbigniew Bogucki, called the prime minister a “pathological liar” and accused him of setting Poland ablaze while pretending to extinguish the fire. “It’s hard to find a single word, expression, or sentence that would be true, that would reflect the actual or legal reality,” he added.

Tusk’s accusation comes after several Western media outlets, anti-Russia hawks, and Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky propagated the claim that Kiev’s drone strikes, which damaged several data centers operated by Russian technology giant Yandex, crippled alleged Russian bot networks supporting Western right-wing movements, including Germany’s AfD and US President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement.

However, several independent investigations by cybersecurity and research firms quickly debunked the narrative. Experts in particular pointed out that one viral graph supposedly showing a collapse in AfD-related activity was found to contain fabricated or unverifiable figures.

Commenting on the chaos, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev described it as a “constitutional coup.” He suggested that “Brussels’ protégé Tusk” was persecuting PiS conservatives over the latter’s hostility toward Ukrainian Nazi collaborators. Medvedev concluded by sarcastically invoking an old schoolyard joke, saying, “And these are the people who scold my brother and me for picking our noses.”