World News

Flávio Bolsonaro has to hand in his passports, Jordan hits back inside Syria, and Netanyahu goes into Israel’s election with a mushroom cloud on his feed. A small truce has also started in Oleshky, even as missiles fall on Kyiv. Ten stories as of Monday evening, October 26.

1. Brasília and São Paulo / Brazil. Hours after he lost the runoff, Flávio Bolsonaro was banned from leaving Brazil. Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered him to surrender all his passports, including his diplomatic one, within 24 hours, The Guardian reported. The ruling refers only to a federal police money-laundering investigation. Bolsonaro still hasn’t conceded. His Liberal Party has, though: “We recognise the presidential election results,” party leader Valdemar Costa Neto said, while adding that “the issues raised need to be properly clarified.” In Washington, Trump told reporters it “looked like another rigged election, frankly,” but said he “did not take sides,” per Al Jazeera. Markets hated the result. The real fell about 12% against the dollar in spot trading and the exchange briefly halted trading, Al Jazeera reported. The Bovespa closed down roughly 14%, per AP. Elsewhere in South America, the Vatican says Pope Leo is fit to go ahead with next month’s trip to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru after his lung-cancer surgery, BBC News reported.

2. Jerusalem and Hebron / Israel and the West Bank. Israel votes Tuesday, and Benjamin Netanyahu is campaigning on fear. He posted an AI-generated image of a nuclear mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv and told voters to have “a trembling hand” before backing the opposition, The Guardian reported. CNN reported that he had tried to talk Trump into renewing the Iran war, and that Trump ruled it out until after the U.S. midterms. Netanyahu and the defence ministry both deny any plan to strike. In Hebron, UN rights chief Volker Türk said threats to “empty and erase entire neighbourhoods” raise “serious concerns of ethnic cleansing,” DW reported. A 23-member international delegation, including British MPs Clive Lewis and Lara Bird, was held for nine hours at the Allenby crossing and then turned away, per The Guardian.

3. Daraa / Syria and Karak / Jordan. Jordan’s air force struck what it called “terrorist groups” in southern Syria in retaliation for Friday’s attack on a Greek Orthodox church in Karak, which killed nine people. Syrian authorities say at least seven people died in Daraa and Suweida, including three children and a woman, Al Jazeera reported. Jordan says the raids were coordinated with Damascus. Syria says they weren’t, has opened an investigation, and has closed the Nassib crossing, Jordan’s only passenger and commercial link with Syria, The Guardian reported. Earlier Monday, Jordanian police arrested three wounded suspects after a dawn shootout.

4. Tehran / Iran and Cambridge / UK. Defence and intelligence chiefs from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan were in Tehran on Monday trying to head off another round of U.S.–Iran fighting. Saudi Defence Minister Khalid bin Salman was among them, only weeks after Iran struck Saudi infrastructure. Speaking in Cambridge the same day, Oman’s foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, called for a non-aggression pact between the six Gulf states, Iran and Iraq, with the U.S. no longer the main security provider, The Guardian reported. He’s the first Gulf official to break ranks that explicitly.

5. Oleshky and Kyiv / Ukraine, and Brașov / Romania. A local ceasefire took effect at 3 a.m. Tuesday around Russian-occupied Oleshky, ahead of an aid mission led by U.S. first lady Melania Trump. Up to 2,000 people there are stranded and short of food and medicine, AP reported. Russian and Ukrainian negotiators both confirmed the truce, which is due to last through Saturday. Kyiv was hit anyway. Late Monday, Russian ballistic missiles struck the grounds of a university, and the strikes killed one person and wounded eight. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said medical facilities were damaged too, The Guardian reported. More ballistic missile explosions shook the capital minutes after the truce began, AP reported. In Romania, investigators say a network “coordinated” by Russia started a September fire near a state arms factory in Brașov, Al Jazeera reported.

6. Belgrade / Serbia, Paris and London. The day after Vučić’s defeat, Serbia’s Student List is getting ready for coalition talks, and nobody yet knows who its prime minister will be. Projections give it 53% of the vote and 141 of 250 seats, against 39% and 103 seats for the Serbian Progressive Party, The Guardian reported. The movement is deliberately leaderless. In France, the government offered class-size caps and a €4 billion loan for school repairs, but student leaders told pupils to keep their barricades up, per The Guardian. And at a ceremony in London, Harry Kane won the Ballon d’Or, the first Englishman to do so since Michael Owen in 2001, while Alexia Putellas took the women’s award for a third time, Al Jazeera reported.

7. Oromia / Ethiopia, Algiers / Algeria, and DR Congo. According to Ethiopia’s Orthodox Church, more than 60 people were killed in attacks on Christians in the Shirka district of Oromia, and witnesses said five of them were children, BBC News reported. A local official blamed a new rebel coalition that includes the Oromo Liberation Army, which has denied carrying out past attacks. Algeria’s parliament has approved sending troops to Niger to guard energy sites near the Libyan border, its first foreign deployment since 1973, per BBC News. In north-eastern DR Congo, local youths killed a nurse responding to an Ebola alert after accusing health workers of spreading the virus. Nigeria’s Ebola patient was flown to Switzerland on Monday, BBC News reported.

8. Washington and California / United States. For the third time in little more than a year, the Justice Department is trying to charge James Comey. Newly unsealed filings show prosecutors used a “criminal information” over an alleged leak from a decade ago, a step that pauses the statute-of-limitations clock, AP via NPR reported. “Well, they’re back — again,” Comey said. “I’m still innocent.” Eight days before the midterms, the 9th Circuit refused, 2–1, to let the administration sequester roughly 20,000 California mail-in ballots it says went to “likely” non-citizens, Al Jazeera reported.

9. New York and Redmond / United States. Wall Street rose on a jittery day. The S&P 500 gained 0.7% to 7,676.77, the Dow added 146 points, and the Nasdaq climbed 0.8%, AP reported. Nvidia led the way, while Meta swung after saying it would raise $35 billion by selling stock to fund AI. Anthropic’s 335-page IPO filing warns that advanced AI could “pose catastrophic or existential risks to humanity,” BBC News notes. Microsoft is offering voluntary buyouts to about 60,000 employees, roughly a quarter of its global workforce, as AI spending rises, according to Reuters and AP.

10. Kimbe / Papua New Guinea, Saipan / Northern Marianas, and Antarctica. In West New Britain, 12 armed men are dead after robbing a store, rolling their getaway car and then opening fire on police, Commissioner David Manning said, ABC News reported. Further north, Typhoon In-fa could become a super typhoon by Thursday and is on track to pass near Pagan Island on Friday, per RNZ. Washington has also suspended visa-free visits by Chinese nationals to the Northern Marianas on security grounds, RNZ reported. Down south, the 2026/27 Antarctic season is underway. The RRS Sir David Attenborough has sailed and BAS aircraft are landing at Rothera, with a plan for the largest-ever penguin count, the British Antarctic Survey says.

Coming Up

Confirmed dates on The Watch: October 27, Israel’s election for the 26th Knesset, as the Fed’s two-day meeting opens in Washington (October 27–28). November 1, Bulgaria’s presidential runoff (Iotova vs Gyurov). November 3, U.S. midterms. Full board at the link.