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PROGRAMMING NOTE: I apologize for doing so many of these lately as I know the last thing anybody wants to read about is my personal ups and downs. However, I have a medical issue that will likely impact the newsletter. You may recall a couple of weeks ago when I said that I thought I was dealing with carpal tunnel syndrome. The good news is it's probably not carpal tunnel, but the bad news is that it may be something a bit more serious (albeit still treatable). The upshot is that I am still having a difficult time typing so I will do what I can by dictating the newsletter, but if the content or frequency of these round ups is affected, I thank you in advance for understanding.
TODAY IN HISTORY
October 30, 1270: The Eighth Crusade reaches an ignominious end outside the walls of Tunis. French King Louis IX, a Crusading icon despite the less than successful outcomes of both of the expeditions he led, was convinced by his brother, Charles of Anjou, that besieging Tunis would be the first step toward defeating Mamluk Egypt and securing the Holy Land. Charles of course had personal reasons for wanting to attack Tunis, whose ruler was a wayward vassal of Charles’ Sicilian kingdom. Unprepared for the hot Tunisian environment, Louis’ army was ravaged by dysentery and the king himself died in August. Charles took command and eventually agreed to lift the siege in return for trade concessions.
October 30, 1340: What would prove to be the final Muslim attempt to halt the Christian conquest of Iberia ends in failure at the Battle of Río Salado outside the town of Tarifa. An army from Marinid-ruled Morocco had arrived in Iberia earlier in the year and besieged Tarifa as part of an overall effort to relieve the beleaguered Emirate of Granada, the last Muslim polity on the peninsula. A joint Castilian and Portuguese relief force was able to cut off the Marinid-Granadan supply lines and then decisively defeat the besieging army.
October 30, 1918: Ottoman leaders sign the Armistice of Mudros, ending their involvement in World War I and ultimately consigning the empire to extinction.
October 31, 1517: Martin Luther mails his Ninety-five Theses to the Archbishop of Mainz, the event that has come to mark the start of the Protestant Reformation. He’s also more famously said to have nailed the text to the door of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg, though Luther’s own recounting of events raises questions about whether he did so on October 31 or, really, at all. It’s entirely possible he did, but while that act has been cast as a stunning display of rebellion by history, posting disputations in a public place like the door to the city’s church was common practice at the time. Whatever actually happened, it’s safe to say that word got around.
October 31, 1941: The USS Reuben James, a Clemson-class destroyer, is torpedoed by German submarine U-552 while sailing as part of a convoy that had set out from Newfoundland about a week earlier. The attack killed 100 of the 144 people on board and made the Reuben James the first US vessel to be sunk in combat in World War II’s European Theater.
November 1, 1922: The last Ottoman sultan, Mehmed VI, is deposed.
November 1, 1955: The Vietnam War begins, at least according to the US government. Even though the Viet Cong had already begun battling the South Vietnamese government and the North Vietnamese government wouldn’t officially get involved until the following year, this is the date when the US government reorganized its Military Assistance Advisory Group for Indochina by country. The birth of “MAAG Vietnam” is considered by Washington to mark the start of the war, and when it lists US deaths in the conflict it starts the count on this date.
MIDDLE EAST
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
There are a few items of note:
The Israeli military (IDF) killed at least eight people across Gaza on Sunday, one day after killing at least four people in the territory. One of Sunday’s strikes killed at least five police officers, as the IDF continues to focus on targeting security personnel. The United Nations human rights office warned on Friday that the IDF is furthering a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Gaza by continuing to expand the territory under its control behind the so-called “yellow line,” and by treating the line itself “as a kill zone” when any Palestinians approach it.
The IDF’s siege of the West Bank city of Hebron hit its tenth day on Sunday. According to Al Jazeera, the campaign has “displaced or affected” over 3300 people so far, with Hebron Mayor Yousef al-Jabari estimating economic losses of some $3.8 million per day. That displacement figure is actually lower than one reported by the Palestinian outlet WAFA a few days ago.
Two scenarios seem to be emerging after Tuesday’s Knesset election. Main opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot appeared to open the door to collaborating with the two Palestinian-Israeli parties, the Joint List and the United Arab List, on Saturday provided that they — or any other parties that might want to join his coalition — commit to “four principles” that include “recognizing Israel as a Jewish, democratic, liberal state based on equality; committing to the values of Israel’s Declaration of Independence; requiring all citizens to perform military, national or civilian service; and recognizing Hamas as a terrorist group whose military and governing capabilities in Gaza must be destroyed.” Even if the parties accept those prerequisites it is unclear whether Eisenkot can incorporate them and still keep the rest of his coalition together.
The second scenario is a “national unity” government, which might be acceptable to Netanyahu according to a Sunday report by the Israeli public outlet Kan. Whether it would be acceptable to Eisenkot or anyone else in the opposition remains to be seen. Supposedly, Donald Trump and Israeli President Isaac Herzog would serve as “guarantors” of whatever deal Netanyahu and Eisenkot might strike and I guess that’s supposed to reassure Eisenkot that Netanyahu won’t screw him over at some point.
YEMEN
The Yemeni government claimed on Saturday that its forces had seized “military positions and strategic heights” in northern Yemen’s Jawf province. Ansarullah, by contrast, insisted that its fighters had “thwarted advances by government forces” in Jawf and in Marib province further east.
IRAN
Schrödinger's war continues to teeter on the edge of either resuming or ending. On the “ending” side of the ledger, an Iranian negotiating team has been in Qatar for three days amid reports of a potential breakthrough around a proposal under which the US would lift its blockade and make other economic concessions and Iran would reopen the Strait of Hormuz within two days of an agreement. Each side wants the other to make the first move, however, and the US is also demanding nuclear concessions that the Iranians are unwilling to make until a subsequent round of negotiations. That plus a general lack of trust may prevent an agreement. The New Arab reported on Saturday that “a US delegation is expected to join [the] negotiations,” but there’s no indication when that might happen.
On the “resuming” side, MS NOW reported on Friday that Donald Trump wants to start attacking Iran again literally the day after Tuesday’s midterm election in the US. Or at least his administration has been telling Gulf Arab states to prepare as though the war could resume that soon. The USS Theodore Roosevelt and its carrier group won’t arrive in the region until late November so that may argue for waiting and seeing if this latest diplomacy can really work, but if Trump feels sad after Tuesday’s results come in he may decide that he needs to cheer himself up by bombing a foreign country. Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is telling his senior military commanders to respond to any US attack with “maximum” force, so whenever the war does resume it’s likely to last for quite a while. Supposedly Trump and Netahyahu held a “candid phone call” on Saturday to discuss the issue, with Netanyahu pushing for a quick resumption of war and Trump seeming to favor waiting.
ASIA
AZERBAIJAN
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev no-showed the Organization of Turkic States summit in Ankara that wrapped up on Friday, suggesting that despite the Turkish government’s recent concession the tension between those two countries has not been resolved. Eurasianet suggests that the controversy over Azerbaijan’s hijab ban has unlocked deeper resentments over its close relationship with Israel, which has made it a target for Turkish criticism. The deeper underlying issue remains the disconnect between the Turkish government, which views itself as the natural leader of the other Turkic states, and the Azerbaijani government, which views that relationship as one of equals.
AFGHANISTAN
The Trump administration is planning to start deporting Afghan nationals from the United States starting Monday. They will be trafficked to Pakistan, and from there the understanding is that they will be repatriated to Afghanistan. Many of these people may have migrated to the US toward the end of the Afghan war when it became clear that the Taliban was going to take power again. This group may include people who worked with the US military or civilian administration in Afghanistan, and who therefore may face retaliation from Afghan authorities once they return. This is, in short, one of the more unconscionable things that the Trump administration has done.
VIETNAM
The Financial Action Task Force removed Bulgaria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, and Monaco from its money laundering “grey list” on Friday, while warning the Vietnamese government that it may face demotion to the FATF blacklist if it “does not make tangible improvements to rectify its strategic deficiencies by the next Plenary meeting.” Being on the FATF grey list doesn’t carry any automatic penalties but can make financial activity more difficult. Getting put on the blacklist is far more serious and generally results in sanctions that can include losing access to global financial networks.
NORTH KOREA
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation is pointing toward North Korea as the perpetrator of a $6.3 billion heist from the cryptocurrency exchange Binance that came to light on Thursday. In a statement released on Saturday, the bureau said that its personnel had “observed TraderTraitor actors converting stolen assets primarily into Ethereum.” “TraderTraitor” is a hacker group that is apparently tied to the North Korean government.
AFRICA
MOROCCO
The UN peacekeeping force in Western Sahara, which has been in place since 1991, began shutting down on Sunday after the UN Security Council failed to pass a resolution extending its mandate. A US-drafted resolution that would have extended that mandate by one year while recognizing Morocco's claim over the territory drew a Russian veto on Friday, while a Russian-drafted resolution that would have simply extended the mandate was defeated. This is all music to the Moroccan government's ears, since the end of the peacekeeping force more or less ratifies Moroccan control over the territory. But the Polisario Front, which represents the Sahrawi independence movement, expressed disappointment over this outcome.
ETHIOPIA
Several drone strikes hit a displaced persons camp in Ethiopia’s Amhara region on Friday, killing at least 15 people and wounding at least 36. There is no indication as to who was responsible for the strikes, though according to Reuters members of the Amhara Fano militia were seen in the vicinity of the encampment around the time of the strikes. The Fano has allied with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front in its conflict against the Ethiopian government.
Elsewhere, the AP reports that clashes between the governments of Ethiopia’s Oromia and Somali regions has sent thousands of people fleeing over the border into Kenya. As of Wednesday, the UN refugee agency was claiming that the fighting had created upwards of 50,000 refugees. One AP reporter claimed that there had been outbursts of sporadic gunfire daily since October 22, though it seems that the fighting has tapered off since Wednesday. Conflict between these regions (and the Oromo and Somali communities more broadly) goes back decades but the immediate cause here seems to have been the opening of a Somali regional government office in the border town of Moyale on October 18.
SOMALIA
The UN also closed its political mission in Somalia this weekend, shutting things down on Saturday after a two-year transition as had been requested by the Somali government in 2024. There are still UN humanitarian operations in Somalia, though they are being hit hard by funding cuts, and it still has an office connected to the African Union’s Somali peacekeeping mission.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
The ongoing Congolese Ebola outbreak passed another grim milestone on Friday, when government statistics showed that the death toll has now topped 5000. Congolese authorities have now tracked over 10,300 cases across eight of the country’s provinces. Cases have also been confirmed in Uganda, Kenya, and Nigeria, were two new suspected cases were identified over the weekend though those patients are still being tested.
EUROPE
RUSSIA
Reuters reported on Friday that the Trump administration has been asking European governments to temper their comments about the Russian government, saying that their criticisms have in some cases “undermined continental security.” It’s unclear how many European governments have been given this message, though it is known at least that the three Baltic states — Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — are among them. European leaders have, of late, been warning of potential Russian “hybrid” attacks on the continent, as well as intensifying their criticisms of the Russian war effort in Ukraine.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the Trump administration “is backing a quick resumption of Russian natural-gas sales to Europe via pipelines running through … Ukraine.” This would be a carrot to entice Moscow to agree to an “energy ceasefire” with Ukraine heading into winter. It runs counter to the European Union’s project to phase out Russian oil imports altogether by 2027, though apparently the administration has come up with a workaround — the gas would be sold by Russia to a “US intermediary” that would then sell to European customers. As the WSJ rather politely put it, this “could create a lucrative opportunity for American investors,” though I’m sure there’s no way the lucre would benefit the Trump Family or any of its associates because that would be unseemly to say the least. This proposal also has Russia putting the revenue from these sales “into an escrow account in a third-party jurisdiction,” which would ensure that they’re not used to fund the Russian war effort and probably create some attractive rent-taking opportunities on the back end as well.
UKRAINE
In Ukraine-related items:
The Russian military’s overnight bombardment killed at least one person in Kyiv from Thursday night into Friday morning. On Saturday night into Sunday morning the Russians targeted electrical infrastructure across Ukraine, reportedly leaving hundreds of thousands of people without power. Ukrainian officials are also claiming that the Russian government hacked the country’s air raid alert service, sending erroneous messages about possible nuclear or chemical attacks to people in and around Kyiv on Sunday.
An apparent Ukrainian drone strike hit an oil refinery in Russia’s Samara oblast on Friday. There were no casualties but this strike came after The Wall Street Journal reported that Ukrainian officials had promised their US counterparts that they would stop attacking Russian refineries until sometime after the US midterm election. It’s unclear why the Ukrainians decided to scrap that arrangement but so far there’s no indication that there will be any repercussions from the US.
The Melania Trump-brokered ceasefire in the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky continued to hold through Sunday, allowing an aid convoy to enter the city on Friday and for those residents who wanted to evacuate to do so. There’s no estimate of the number of people who chose to leave. Hopes of extending or expanding the ceasefire ended when the Russian government reportedly rejected a Ukrainian offer to that effect. While focused on Oleshky the ceasefire had also benefited people in other parts of southern Ukraine’s Kherson oblast, who were preparing for a resumption of violence on Sunday.
The US State Department approved the sale of 500 Patriot PAC-3 air defense interceptors to Ukraine on Friday, in a deal estimated at around $2.1 billion. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the deal, but also noted that the timetable means those missiles may not get to Ukraine for several years. He reiterated the country’s current need for more air defense munitions.
BULGARIA
Acting Bulgarian President Iliana Iotova has won Sunday's runoff election for a full term in office, with challenger Andrey Gyurov conceding on the basis of early results that showed her winning 58 percent to 38 percent. As you may recall, Iotova also won last Sunday's first round but fell short of an outright victory, amid record low turnout that would have forced a runoff anyway. This Sunday’s turnout looks like it will come in at the 27-29 percent level, a bit higher than last week’s 23 percent. Iotova is politically aligned with Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev and in terms of geopolitics she favors diplomacy with Russia.
GERMANY
“Gen-Z” protests turned violent in parts of Germany on Saturday, especially in the cities of Cologne and Frankfurt. German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt blamed “violent left-wing groups and troublemakers from migrant communities” for the unrest, which according to police involved vandalism and in some cases the use of Molotov cocktails. Protests continued in other countries including France, where the turnout for nationwide Saturday protests has declined over the past three weeks from 550,000 to 410,000 to 320,000 according to government estimates. Italy and Portugal also saw mass demonstrations.
AMERICAS
VENEZUELA
The Trump administration’s deal to loot Venezuela’s oil via the shady firm “North American Blue Energy Partners” is, according to Reuters, running into some significant constraints:
NABEP says it will lift oil output fourfold to more than 1 million barrels per day (bpd), up from about 224,000 bpd in mid-October.
That will be far harder than Trump and NABEP have suggested, according to Reuters interviews with 15 oil workers, contractors, financiers and industry experts. Eight of them — seven oilfield workers and contractors and one business associate familiar with NABEP operations — said the company was carrying debt to contractors and struggling to hire staff and repair infrastructure.
Even the headline reserves figures Trump cites [an alleged 64 billion barrels of oil] may overstate the prize.
HAITI
Axios reported on Friday that Donald Trump has “blessed” Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s invasion of Haiti, though he’s apparently stopped short of offering material support for it. There is an outside chance that this new Salvadoran military operation could finally break the hold that criminal gangs have over Haiti, but given the country’s history with external interventions the likelihood is that it will just further immiserate the Haitian people. Bukele apparently pitched this operation to Trump as a test case for El Salvador to act as a US proxy elsewhere in the Americas, perhaps in concert with mercenary entrepreneur Erik Prince’s “Vectus Global” firm, which is also operating in Haiti. He sought direct US support but that doesn’t appear to be on the table. Instead he may get assistance from the Colombian government, which according to Axios would serve as a cutout or “go-between” with Washington.
CANADA
Donald Trump claimed on Sunday that recent trade talks with the Canadian government have produced the “concept” of an agreement that would include the construction, at Canada’s expense, of a new Keystone XL oil pipeline. The previous Keystone project, intended to bring oil from western Canada to US refineries on the Gulf coast, was shelved in 2021 because it would have been an environmental disaster and due to opposition from Indigenous communities along the proposed route. There’s been no comment from the Canadian government on this front, but Prime Minister Mark Carney did indicate on Sunday that the talks have made progress.
UNITED STATES
Finally, after what must have been an exhaustive search NBC News has managed to find some folks who are actually winning the Iran war:
The two largest U.S. oil companies, ExxonMobil and Chevron, on Friday reported blowout profits that easily beat expectations as oil prices remain sharply elevated because of the U.S. war with Iran.
ExxonMobil reported a profit that doubled from the same period last year, while Chevron’s earnings surged more than 180% from a year earlier.
As part of the bumper returns, Exxon said it was increasing the dividend it pays to investors.
The returns at both companies came as the price of oil surged beyond $100 per barrel and has remained there for months. On Friday, prices accelerated again, with Brent oil trading closing just under $118 per barrel.
The highest level that Brent reached since the United States and Israel launched the Iran war in late February was $126, which it is now approaching again.
Since the start of the year, Exxon shares have risen 52%, and Chevron shares have returned 50%.
Overnight, another major oil company, BP, reported that its profit skyrocketed to an 18-year high.
This windfall is due to US consumers paying 40 percent more for gasoline and near-record prices for diesel, but surely we can all agree that it’s a small price to pay to do something nice for our wonderful oil companies. If you ask me it’s about time something went their way.
As a grateful subscriber, I think it's OK to cut back to every other day.