World roundup: October 18-19 2025
Stories from Israel-Palestine, Ukraine, Colombia, and elsewhere
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TODAY IN HISTORY
October 18, 1009: Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim destroys the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Al-Hakim was known for wild swings in disposition, and the destruction of this and other churches within his domain was part of a turn toward persecuting Christians and Jews within the caliphate, a policy he then reversed a few years later. The destruction of perhaps the holiest Christian church in the world was a shock to European Christians and may have contributed indirectly to the calling of the First Crusade at the end of the 11th century. By then the church had already been rebuilt but that didn’t ease the sense of vulnerability that its destruction had triggered.
October 18, 1081: A Norman army under Robert Guiscard defeats the Byzantines, under Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, outside the Balkan city of Dyrrhachium (the modern Albanian city of Durrës). Guiscard decided to invade the Byzantine Empire following the 1078 deposition of Emperor Michael VII Doukas, whose son had been intended to marry the Norman leader’s daughter. After some initial success, the undisciplined Byzantine army fell apart and the Normans routed it. Dyrrhachium fell in February 1082, but Alexios established alliances with the Holy Roman Empire and Venice and used them first to redirect Norman attention to Italy and then to regain lost Balkan territory including Dyrrhachium by the mid 1080s. These moves helped to stabilize a Byzantine Empire that was still reeling from the 1071 Battle of Manzikert and this uptick in imperial fortunes is now known as the “Komnenian restoration.”
October 18, 1912: The Italo-Turkish War ends with a decisive Italian victory. The war not only brought Libya under Italian control—though that control initially didn’t extend very far inland—it also demonstrated the Ottoman Empire’s weakness and encouraged Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, and Serbia to form an alliance (the Balkan League) and go to war with the empire. The First Balkan War led to a Second Balkan War when the league broke up, and that led (in part) into World War I.
October 19, 1469: Prince Ferdinand of Aragon marries Infanta Isabella of Castile in the wedding that would eventually unite those two kingdoms and give birth to the nation of Spain.
October 19, 1781: The Siege of Yorktown ends with a French-American victory over the British army under Lord Charles Cornwallis. The surrender of an entire British army marked the effective end of the American Revolution.
MIDDLE EAST
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
The ceasefire in Gaza was hanging by a thread on Sunday, though by time of writing it seemed like it would last at least one more day. The Israeli military (IDF) conducted what it called a “massive and extensive wave” of airstrikes across the territory on Sunday, starting in Rafah after an alleged attack by Hamas militants killed two IDF soldiers. Those strikes killed at least 42 people. Israeli officials also announced a cessation of humanitarian aid shipments into Gaza “until further notice.” Despite the carnage, an Israeli statement late in the day (possibly made under pressure from the US) suggested that they were returning to a ceasefire posture. Consistent with standard Israeli practice, they regard any ceasefire as merely optional on their part but binding on the other parties.
The Trump administration teed up Sunday’s conflagration the previous day, when the US State Department declared that it had received “credible reports” of a pending Hamas attack on civilians in Gaza in violation of the ceasefire. This sudden concern for the well being of Gaza’s civilian population is heartwarming, though it would have been nice to see it manifest at any point over the past two years. Hamas denied the claim and it’s unclear if what happened in Rafah can be connected to this warning other than the obvious link that the US issued the warning on Saturday and the IDF started bombing the very next day. It may be worth noting that the Gaza Media Center now says that the IDF has killed at least 97 people across at least 80 ceasefire violations so far. That figure includes Sunday’s death toll as well as Friday’s bombing of a civilian bus in Gaza City’s Zaytun neighborhood, which killed 11 people including seven women and two children. But I digress.
Hamas has also denied any knowledge of an attack on Israeli forces in Rafah on Sunday but did say that it lost contact with its units in that area all the way back in March, so that could explain what happened. Al Jazeera cited “reports” that Hamas might attempt to attack one of Gaza’s Israeli-backed armed factions (who could euphemistically be characterized as “civilians” in that they’re not regular military) in Rafah, so that’s also a possibility. This assumes that the “attack” happened at all, of course, and at this point we only have the IDF’s word that it did. There is at least one claim circulating on social media to the effect that an IDF unit and/or contracted demolition team—the demolition of Palestinian buildings in Rafah could itself be considered a ceasefire violation—ran over a piece of unexploded Israeli ordnance and the IDF/Israeli officials either mistook that for an attack or cynically decided to claim that it was an attack. I offer it only as an alternative to the official IDF story.
YEMEN
A liquefied natural gas tanker, the MV Falcon, caught fire in the Gulf of Aden on Saturday, forcing the crew to abandon ship. Two crew members were missing after the evacuation, according to Al Jazeera. There are conflicting reports as to what caused the fire, with UK maritime monitors reporting that the vessel had been struck by a projectile (presumably a Houthi drone or missile) while the European Union maintained that the cause was still unknown. The Houthis haven’t carried out an attack on maritime shipping since the Gaza ceasefire went into effect on October 10 so if they did attack this vessel on Saturday it’s unclear why. This may have been retaliation for the death of their military chief of staff, Muhammad Abd al-Karim al-Ghamari, though that’s questionable as well since as far as I know there’s nothing directly connecting this tanker to Israel.
Elsewhere, Houthi forces raided a United Nations facility in Sanaa on Sunday, detaining 31 staff members (11 of whom were released shortly afterward). The Houthis have clamped down severely on international NGO operations in northern Yemen since late August and now hold dozens of staffers from the UN and other organizations. They claim to have uncovered a spy network within those humanitarian groups.
ASIA
AFGHANISTAN
The Afghan and Pakistani governments agreed to an “immediate” ceasefire on Sunday following a round of negotiations in Qatar, ending (for now) a cross-border conflict that’s continued more than a week and left hundreds of people dead and wounded (specific casualty figures are unknown and each side is offering wildly different claims). Details are somewhat sparse and there may not be much else in this agreement beyond a commitment to stop attacking one another. The Afghan government reportedly agreed that it will not support militant groups that operate in Pakistan, but it’s made that pledge before and those groups are still clearly working out of bases on the Afghan side of the border. Further talks, meant to solidify the ceasefire, are planned for October 25 in Istanbul.
MYANMAR
Myanmar’s military claimed on Saturday to have retaken the town of Hsipaw in northern Shan state from the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, which had captured it last October, after a roughly two-week battle. Hsipaw sits along a major roadway that runs from the commercial hub of Mandalay to the Chinese border so this would be a significant win for the country’s ruling junta assuming it’s true. It doesn’t sound like the TNLA has confirmed losing the town but it did accuse the military of killing at least 29 people and “committing war crimes against innocent civilians” over the past couple of weeks.
JAPAN
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the Japan Innovation Party (“Ishin”) have apparently concluded the alliance that they were close to finalizing on Friday. Japanese media reported over the weekend that the two party leaders will sign a formal agreement on Monday. This alliance all but ensures that LDP leader Takaichi Sanae will win the parliamentary vote to become Japan’s next prime minister, which could take place as soon as Tuesday. Takaichi will need to find two more votes to win that election with an absolute majority in the first round, but if it goes to a second round runoff the threshold drops and she’ll only need to win more votes than the other candidate.
AFRICA
NIGERIA
AFP is reporting that jihadist militants ambushed an army unit in northeastern Nigeria’s Borno state on Friday, killing at least seven soldiers. It’s unclear whether the attackers were Boko Haram or Islamic State West Africa Province personnel.
MADAGASCAR
Madagascar is now under new leadership, but according to Reuters relations between this government and the protest movement that ousted the previous one may not be off to the greatest start:
[Olivia] Rafetison, leader of Movement Gen Z Collective, a coalition of several of the protest groups, is not the only participant in the uprising to feel ambivalent about a man in uniform filling the power vacuum left by [former President Andry] Rajeolina’s hasty exit. Many wonder if their concerns will be heeded or, as in the past, ignored.
On the night of the coup, [junta leader Michael] Randrianirina received Rafetison and other prominent Gen Z figures. “He said ‘we’re listening to you,’” she said, but the soldiers were all tired and soon ended the conversation, suggesting they talk more at a later date.
“I hope they follow up,” she said. “Because this isn’t the end of the struggle: we’re really fighting for system change, not to swap one president for another.”
EUROPE
EUROPEAN UNION
Jacobin’s Jan Boguslawski argues that tensions between the EU and the United States predate Donald Trump and stem from their very different post-Cold War “trajectories”:
In the United States, economic power has long gone hand in hand with global hegemony, built on the military-industrial complex, reinforced by the dollar’s role as world currency, and more recently extended through the dominance of its tech giants. Domestically, US growth has been powered above all by debt-driven domestic consumption, with services, mostly finance and tech, thriving as the industrial base declined and inequalities skyrocketed.
Europe’s trajectory was different. Foreign policy predominantly followed economic interests, particularly those of Germany as a “trading state” guided by the Wandel durch Handel, “change through trade” doctrine. Europe did not undergo the same scale of deindustrialization, as Eastern enlargement absorbed much of the offshoring of the 2000s, allowing the EU to retain a strong industrial core in cars, machinery, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals, as well as consumer goods and luxury items that were then exported across the world. Europe’s external weight has rested more on “orthodox” trade and symbolic capital than military power, global currency, or vast capital markets.
At the height of Western power such differences between Europe and the United States were manageable. But the current geopolitical turn — driven by China’s rise and underscored by Russia’s aggression against Ukraine — has put the relationship under strain. The Scotland [trade] deal is the clearest evidence of this shift in mood. It required [European Commission President Ursula] von der Leyen to accept terms that leave EU producers worse off than before Trump’s tariff war and exposed her to sharp criticism at home.
UKRAINE
Though it went unreported initially, according to The Financial Times Donald Trump’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House on Friday was a fiasco. Following from his phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin the previous day, and in marked contrast with his most recent public position on the war in Ukraine, Trump reportedly got into a “shouting match” with Zelensky, “cursing all the time,” after he demanded that Ukraine accept Putin’s terms of surrender and Zelensky resisted.
The description sounds pretty similar to what happened during Zelensky’s disastrous White House visit in February except inasmuch as this time it happened behind closed doors. At one point FT claims that Trump threw aside a map of the current front line in eastern Ukraine while demanding that Zelensky make territorial concessions to Russia, then insisted that the Russian economy is “doing great” and that Putin will “destroy” Ukraine absent a surrender. Around this time last month Trump was musing on social media about the weakness of the Russian economy and the possibility that Ukraine might take back all of its lost territory.
I’d say that this could be evidence that Trump has lost his mind, but it’s pretty clear that he lost his mind many years ago and has long since given up trying to find it. What it does make clear, yet again, is that his position on this war or really anything more complicated than his next McDonald’s order is wholly dependent on the last conversation he had on the subject, which in this case was with Putin. Zelensky had good reason to think that he’d cracked the proverbial code in terms of keeping Trump on Ukraine’s side over the past few months but he should understand now that he cannot rely on the US for support moving forward. His problem is that he really doesn’t have anywhere else to turn as an alternative.
BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
The parliament in Bosnia’s Republika Srpska region named Ana Trišić-Babić as interim president on Saturday ahead of a snap election on November 23. She replaces Milorad Dodik, who was removed from office—at least in a formal sense—earlier this year after being sentenced to a year in prison for defying Bosnian High Representative Christian Schmidt. Dodik had shown no inclination to obey his removal order and his political allies control the parliament, so the decision to replace him comes as something of a surprise. I’m not aware of any comment on this from Dodik though it’s unlikely that the legislature would have gone through with this if he wasn’t on board.
AMERICAS
BOLIVIA
Bolivian voters headed to the polls for the second round of that country’s presidential election on Sunday, and the initial results have first round winner Rodrigo Paz defeating former President Jorge Quiroga comfortably (he’s at 54.5 percent of the vote at present). Both candidates are on the political right—the first round in August made it clear that Bolivia’s socialist days are done, at least for the foreseeable future—but Paz had presented himself as more centrist while Quiroga ran to the far right. If this result holds it will confound polling that suggested at least a closer race if not a Quiroga victory. Notably, polling didn’t predict Paz’s first round victory either.
COLOMBIA
The US military apparently blew up another boat in the southern Caribbean on Friday. This time around Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is claiming that the vessel belonged to Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN) rebel group and was, of course, carrying drugs. Unsurprisingly there’s no evidence for either claim. At least three people were killed in this strike.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump announced on Sunday that he’s cutting off US aid to Colombia, deeming President Gustavo Petro to be “an illegal drug leader” who “does nothing to stop” the manufacture of drugs in that country. The Trump administration decertified Colombia as a War on Drugs “partner” last month but maintained aid at the time, citing national security interests. Since then it has revoked Petro’s visa while he was in the US attending the UN General Assembly after he spoke at a pro-Palestine protest and called on US soldiers to “disobey” Trump’s orders. Petro later accused the US of attacking Colombian “drug boats” alongside Venezuelan vessels, an accusation that turned out to be accurate though the White House feigned offense when he initially made it. Trump also obliquely threatened to take military action against Colombian “drug operations,” and later on Sunday he characterized Petro as a “lunatic” and told reporters that new tariffs on Colombia will be forthcoming.
UNITED STATES
Finally, the Trump administration is apparently repatriating the survivors of Thursday’s boat (actually a “narco submarine,” apparently) bombing (there were two) to Ecuador and Colombia. This seems extremely lenient for people who we’re supposed to believe were engaging in international narco-terrorism, a real thing that is definitely an existential threat to the United States, but what do I know? At least the administration isn’t going to stage some sort of display with these survivors to support its supposed right to blow up Caribbean boats at will. The repatriation presumably reflects a concern that there are no grounds on which the administration can detain or prosecute the survivors since pretty much everything about this operation is flatly illegal. The plan seems to be that they’ll face prosecution in their home countries, though that’s also uncertain.