Today In Issues:
FDD Research & Analysis
The Must-Reads
Flight to Israel makes emergency landing in Saudi Arabia after steep dive Hamas, Islamic Jihad and an ex-Fatah official form an unlikely Palestinian electoral coalition Iran receives US feedback on seven-day trust-building plan US imposes sanctions on 13 tied to Iran weapons procurement Iran appeals to US voters as American troops leave Iraq Iran’s currency hits a new record low as war erodes the country’s economic stability Ukrainian Science Academy, struck by drone, played key role in research WSJ Editorial: Ukraine has an F-16 emergency US forces exit Iraq, emboldening Iran's proxies and Islamic State See how the Houthi advance was powered by arms from Iran and China UAE vice president visits Saudi Arabia in first visit since rift The Free Press’s Eli Lake: The martyrdom of Mahmoud KhalilIn The News
Israel
A FlyDubai flight traveling from the United Arab Emirates to Israel made an emergency landing Wednesday in Saudi Arabia after the aircraft went through an extreme descent and rise in flight, preliminary flight-tracking data showed. – Wall Street Journal
More than 100 settlers overwhelmed Israeli security forces who were trying to escort a Palestinian family back to their home in the West Bank, showing the extent to which violence in the Israeli-occupied territory has spiraled ahead of tightly contested elections. – Wall Street Journal
A slew of reports that Arab officials warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about a serious threat emerging from Gaza days before the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas have put the longtime Israeli leader on the defensive less than 30 days before a pivotal election. – Washington Post
US Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked a bid to require President Donald Trump’s administration to report to Congress on increasing violence in the occupied West Bank, including the deaths of American citizens. – Reuters
Hamas and the allied Islamic Jihad group have agreed to form an unlikely electoral coalition with a former top Fatah official who has close ties to the United Arab Emirates, Israel’s closest ally in the Middle East, Palestinian officials told The Associated Press. – Associated Press
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the United Arab Emirates where he held talks with the Gulf nation’s president, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, according to the Israeli premier’s office and the UAE’s state news agency. – Bloomberg
Editorial: In Abu Dhabi, an Israeli prime minister can spend hours discussing common threats with an Arab leader. In Morocco, governments are working toward ambassadors, investment and more flights. In Amsterdam, Israelis wonder whether customs officers will inspect their suitcases for a bottle of Judean wine. There is something deeply strange about an Israel increasingly able to discuss its future with Arab and Muslim states while its citizens face growing suspicion and restrictions in European countries that once regarded friendship with Israel as essential. Some in the Middle East have carefully cultivated bridges with Israel. Europe should think very carefully before it starts tearing its own down. – Jerusalem Post
Iran
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi received US feedback via Qatari mediators in Doha on Tuesday on a seven-day plan aimed at building trust between Washington and Tehran, with sequencing the main sticking point, an official, who was not Iranian butwas briefed on the talks, told Reuters. – Reuters
The US government announced fresh sanctions on Tuesday against 13 individuals and entities, including some based in Russia, China, Hong Kong and Pakistan, saying they helped Iran procure weapons and components. – Reuters
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps urged Americans to vote out US President Donald Trump’s allies in Congress as US forces were due to withdraw from their remaining bases in neighbouring Iraq on Wednesday in a departure celebrated by Tehran. – Reuters
Oil prices rose on Wednesday after US President Donald Trump denied he would be willing to ease sanctions on Iran while Qatar pushed for peace talks, after falling in the previous session on a recovery in crude supply from the Middle East. – Reuters
Iran’s leaders may radiate bullishness in their war with the United States, but life is becoming ever tougher for ordinary citizens unable to afford basic necessities or rent as a US blockade cuts the state’s financial lifeline – oil exports. – Reuters
Qatar said on Tuesday it hopes that shuttle diplomacy between Iran and the US can lead to a breakthrough despite US President Donald Trump’s denial of media reports that he was willing to ease sanctions and release frozen funds in exchange for Iranian concessions on its nuclear program. – Reuters
President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he does not know if Iran is going to “give up yet” but cast the country as doing “very poorly” in its war with the US. – Reuters
Iran’s currency fell to a new record low on Tuesday, with traders in Tehran exchanging more than 2.5 million rials to the U.S. dollar in a stark reflection of how the war in the Middle East has steadily eroded the Iranian economy. – Associated Press
Medication prices are soaring in Iran and some treatments have become hard to find, leaving patients and their families scrambling as a U.S. blockade and stepped-up sanctions squeeze the country’s pharmaceuticals industry. – Associated Press
Iran’s judiciary announced that two men were hanged on Wednesday over charges relating to anti-government protests that peaked in January, having begun a month earlier over economic grievances. – Agence France-Presse
Iranian security forces have stepped up their presence in Tehran and other cities, with motorcycle patrols, checkpoints and forces positioned across major urban areas as authorities brace for possible unrest, multiple sources inside Iran told Fox News Digital. – Fox News
Iran has reportedly offered a reward of up to $40,000 to any citizen who captures or kills an American soldier, according to Iran’s Army Spokesperson Mohammad Akraminia in a video circulating on social media on Tuesday. – Jerusalem Post
Students at Tehran’s Allameh Tabataba’i University, a large public university specializing in the social sciences, began protesting on Monday against compulsory hijab, university fees, and a lack of welfare services for students, according to footage of the protest. – Jerusalem Post
Iran threatened on Tuesday to attack infrastructure around the Middle East, intensifying its rhetoric as it awaits a formal response from Washington on a new plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. – Times of Israel
A source involved in negotiations between Iran and the United States, mediated by Qatar, told Channel 13 News that the sides remain far from reaching an agreement. According to the source, the talks are moving more in the direction of a clash than a deal. – Arutz Sheva
Russia and Ukraine
The Russian attack on Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences on Monday dealt a serious blow to the country’s pre-eminent research institution, a recent center of wartime innovation that is also responsible for almost every major Ukrainian civilian discovery of the past century. – New York Times
Russian air strikes killed three, including a child, and injured another seven people in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and the surrounding region early on Wednesday, officials said. – Reuters
Belgium will transfer three F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine by the end of the year to help in its war with Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday. – Reuters
Ihor Malchevsky focused solely on his family as he peered over the edge of his third-floor office window, thick black smoke billowing behind him after a Russian drone smashed into the historic building setting it ablaze. – Reuters
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s envoy Kirill Dmitriev held “constructive” talks with US officials on ending the Ukraine war, including possible US-Russia energy initiatives in the postwar period, a US official said on Tuesday. – Reuters
A Russian nuclear-capable strategic bomber crashed Tuesday on a training mission in the country’s far east, killing six members of its crew, the Defense Ministry said. – Associated Press
One of Russia’s Tu-95 strategic bombers crashed during a training flight in the Amur region, killing six crew members, the country’s defense ministry said on Tuesday. – Business Insider
Russia has threatened to use nuclear weapons against the United Kingdom if the NATO country attempts to cut off or attack Russia’s exclave of Kaliningrad. – Newsweek
Editorial: Ukraine’s defense-industrial base is also vulnerable. There’s a warning here for the U.S. The Government Accountability Office warned this spring of growing delays for maintenance for American military aircraft. Lt. Gen. Linda Hurry said this month that the U.S. Air Force has “a $14 billion hole in supply” for aircraft parts, according to Defense News. Ukraine’s air-defense emergency illustrates how maintenance capacity is combat power in a war. – Wall Street Journal
Dmytro Kuleba writes: Ukrainians remain committed to fighting on. Despite a bleak situation, the country has what it takes to survive the winter. But there will be no cease-fire in the spring. It is thus time for Europe and the United States to make sure that Ukrainians have what they need to not only survive but also to return fire. They need to act in concert with Ukraine to prove that Russia’s theory of victory will not be effective—and to turn Kyiv into a city where people can again plan for the future. – Foreign Affairs
Iraq
US forces ended their mission in Iraq on Wednesday, raising fears they will leave behind a security vacuum, further embolden Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias and give the resurgent Islamic State group an opening to regroup. – Reuters
US forces are set to withdraw on Wednesday from their last bases in Iraq, a departure celebrated as a victory by Iran and its allies, which have deep influence in the country where 4,500 Americans died during more than two decades of war. – Reuters
Iraqi Airways is preparing to resume flights to Iran in October, Iraq’s transport ministry said on Tuesday, following a suspension of flights amid US sanctions restricting services to Iranian airlines. – Reuters
Italy on Tuesday completed the withdrawal of its last troops from Iraq, ending a 12-year military presence in the country, a defence ministry statement said. – Reuters
Iraqi fuel trucks loaded gasoline at a Syrian port on Tuesday in a bid to meet surging energy demand as the critical Strait of Hormuz remains closed and mediators work with Iran and the United States to end the war. – Associated Press
Emzari Gelashvili writes: On Sept. 22, Trump told the United Nations he faced a choice between a deal with Iran after the midterm elections and annihilating the Islamic Republic, and accused Tehran of stalling until Nov. 3. Two days later Chinese President Xi Jinping came to Washington. Iran was on the agenda. The summit produced a trade truce extended to January 2027 and no announced breakthrough on Iran. In the same stretch of days, the Axis of Resistance gave an interview explaining that it operates under a single command, and warned that if America intervenes at the Bab el-Mandeb it will treat American interests as targets and close the strait to American ships. One side spent the week negotiating. The other spent it describing the architecture of its war. – Washington Examiner
Turkey
Turkey established a fund coordination council chaired by the vice president to oversee the rapid liquidation of investment funds to protect investor rights following a recent fund crisis, the presidency said on Tuesday. – Reuters
Turkey’s Capital Markets Board (SPK) has ordered the liquidation of 131 investment funds, with combined assets of around 1 trillion lira ($20.4 billion) as of September 16, marking the biggest fund crisis in the country’s capital markets history. – Reuters
Naomi Cohen writes: DAPEK is requesting up to 200 liters of water per second for its construction phase and twice that amount during operation, which it plans to extract from the Aslantas Dam. Bolukbasi, who also heads the board of the Adana Environmental and Consumer Protection Association, said that until it builds a water supply system, the company is transporting water from the Burnaz Springs, which risks depleting the surrounding districts’ groundwater and drinking water reserves. – Foreign Policy
Yemen
In a matter of weeks, Yemen’s Tehran-backed Houthis have catapulted themselves into the heart of the conflict in the Middle East. The militant group has stepped up attacks in the Red Sea, expanded its footprint along the Yemeni coast and asserted control over the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, a crucial corridor for global energy. – Wall Street Journal
Pakistan will use “whatever means are available” to defend Saudi Arabia against Iran-backed Houthi rebels, the country’s defense minister said Tuesday, offering one of Islamabad’s clearest indications yet that it could become directly involved in the widening regional conflict. – Associated Press
The U.N. envoy for Yemen said Tuesday he met with Houthi negotiators over the weekend in efforts to avert further escalation in Yemen amid fierce battles on the country’s western coast between the Iran-backed Houthis and the Saudi-supported, but fragmented, government forces. – Associated Press
Gulf States
UAE Vice President Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan visited Saudi Arabia on Tuesday and met with the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the kingdom’s defence minister, the first visit by a senior UAE official to the kingdom since a deep rift emerged between the two Gulf powers last year. – Reuters
President Donald Trump’s administration finalized a last-minute reprieve Tuesday to avoid the closure of a camp in Qatar that houses more than 1,000 Afghans who assisted America’s war effort or are the relatives of U.S. service members. – Associated Press
The United Arab Emirates on Tuesday said it “strongly condemned” National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s visit to the flashpoint Temple Mount compound a day earlier. – Times of Israel
Saudi Arabia on Tuesday rejected reports that a Saudi representative participated in an expanded meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed during Netanyahu’s visit to Abu Dhabi over the weekend. – Arutz Sheva
Middle East & North Africa
Oil prices fell Tuesday, as oil output from Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline is coming through faster than anticipated. Front-month November Brent crude futures fell 2.4% to $102.76 a barrel. The November Brent contract expires Tuesday, with December set to become the front-month contract. – Wall Street Journal
Fatima Zahra El Mansouri was named Morocco’s first female prime minister Tuesday after her party swept parliamentary elections last week. – Washington Post
Syria’s Internal Security Forces (ISF) claimed to have arrested a three-person Hezbollah cell planning an attack, in a Tuesday post on X/Twitter. – Jerusalem Post
Korean Peninsula
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Wednesday that North Korea should stop its fortification work near the inter-Korean border immediately, adding that such activities were increasing tensions on the Korean Peninsula. – Reuters
President Donald Trump could unveil plans as soon as Wednesday to tap South Korea’s pledged strategic investment package for about $54 billion to build a liquefied natural gas facility in Alaska and several other major US projects, according to two people familiar with the discussions. – Reuters
North Korea on Wednesday dismissed as a “farce” a South Korean investigation that found Pyongyang responsible for a mine blast in the Demilitarized Zone that wounded South Korean soldiers, as the UN Command said the incident constituted a violation of the Korean War armistice. – Reuters
South Korea made no promise to provide military support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia in the transfer of two captured North Korean soldiers, a South Korean lawmaker said on Wednesday, citing the country’s intelligence agency. – Reuters
A restaurant in South Korea named after Chinese leader Xi Jinping has been vandalised by a group of Chinese nationals who fled home right after the attack, police say. – BBC
China
China will offer subsidies on interest costs for eligible first-home mortgages as Beijing attempts to revive home sales and turn around the years-long slump in the property sector. – Wall Street Journal
China’s government on Wednesday accused Taiwan of “desecrating the martyrs” with its criticism of Beijing’s interpretation of World War Two, saying that to question the narrative over the conflict was a betrayal of history. – Reuters
China has opened a new military support and training centre in Laos, Beijing’s Ministry of National Defence said on Tuesday, a rare overseas expansion. – Reuters
China has vowed a “resolute response” to safeguard its industries if the European Union goes ahead with restrictions against Chinese companies or products, according to its commerce ministry. – Reuters
China will start collecting an additional 55% tariff on Brazil’s beef shipments on October 1 after the South American country reached its annual quota of 1.1 million metric tons, the commerce ministry said on Wednesday. – Reuters
China’s factory activity expanded in September for the first time in three months, striking a more positive tone as Chinese officials look to bolster economic growth. – Associated Press
China’s top diplomat suggested relations with Japan had deteriorated to a low point unseen in decades, adding pressure on Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to amend her Taiwan remarks. – Bloomberg
South Asia
The death toll from a Myanmar military airstrike in Rakhine state, which lies on the border with Bangladesh, rose to 50 after rescuers found more bodies on Tuesday, according to a rebel group that controls the area and a local aid worker. – Reuters
The United Nations expressed alarm on Tuesday at reports that an airstrike by the Myanmar military near the country’s border with Bangladesh had killed 50 people and wounded dozens more, many of them critically. – Reuters
Andy Mukherjee writes: Across India, large industrial users paid roughly 7 cents per kilowatt-hour last year; Chinese rivals paid 6.8 cents. Adjust for purchasing power, and Indian energy is twice as pricey — a stubborn gap first highlighted by the International Energy Agency in a 2020 study. The rapid growth of solar may have eased India’s past shortages of power, but erratic policymaking is still keeping it costlier than it needs to be — both for traditional industries and for the upcoming AI data centers. – Bloomberg
Asia
Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has been admitted to hospital, his office said on Wednesday, two days after the death of his wife, Siti Hasmah Mohamad Ali. – Reuters
The death toll from rains and flooding in Thailand has risen to 23, authorities said on Tuesday, as waters receded from the hard-hit capital Bangkok, where its main airport operated in chaos, and the government approved a multi-million aid package. – Reuters
The United Nations Refugee Agency on Wednesday said it was concerned by Malaysia’s return of more than 1,000 people to Myanmar because of the dire humanitarian conditions there. – Reuters
Taiwan’s defense minister said Tuesday that existing U.S. arms sales to Taiwan remain unchanged, and that Taipei remains in talks with the U.S. over individual deals. A record $14 billion arms package to the island, however, remains stalled. – Associated Press
Police in Vietnam have detained three members of a pro-democracy group, including a Norwegian citizen and an Australian national of Vietnamese origin, on terrorism allegations, according to the government and the organization. – Associated Press
Europe
At first glance, it would seem like a chilling tale of a terrorist attack narrowly averted: Five masked men caught only a few hundred yards from an air base that hosts U.S. bombers used in the war with Iran. They had three white vans and large black drums with what police feared contained explosive material. – Wall Street Journal
With energy prices driven up by the wars in Iran and Ukraine, the European Union is mobilizing to prevent an energy crunch this winter if President Donald Trump bans U.S. exports of diesel fuel. – Washington Post
Jordan Bardella, a star of the French far right, faced condemnation and scattered calls to resign on Tuesday after an investigative news site published antisemitic messages that it said he had sent as a 17-year-old. – New York Times
The counterterrorism police in Britain said on Tuesday that they had found no explosives in three vans operated by five men who were arrested on suspicion of planning a terrorist act near an air base used by American bombers to strike Iran. – New York Times
A fire at a defense technology company in Estonia that supplies Ukraine was a “deliberate and preplanned” attack commissioned by Russia’s security services, Estonia’s national security agency said on Tuesday. – New York Times
Italy signalled on Tuesday it wanted to avoid a diplomatic rupture with Egypt after three Egyptian security officials were found guilty in absentia of the 2016 kidnapping of student Giulio Regeni, who was killed after his abduction. – Reuters
Spain is planning to override standard migration procedures and tighten rules on asylum seeking for migrants who arrived in its North African enclave of Ceuta in July’s mass crossing, a draft decree seen by Reuters showed, prompting outcry from legal experts and NGOs. – Reuters
Air operations at airports in Lublin and Rzeszow have resumed after temporary closures due to military aviation operations, Poland’s Air Traffic Authority said on Wednesday. – Reuters
European Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner unveiled a broad plan on Tuesday to strengthen controls on the European Union’s external borders in the wake of a chaotic surge of migrants into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. – Reuters
European countries should have shown more solidarity and offered more support to Spain after the mass arrival in Ceuta of tens of thousands of migrants, Spanish King Felipe VI said on Tuesday during a gala dinner to mark a visit by French President Emmanuel Macron. – Reuters
French centre-right presidential candidate Edouard Philippe proposed on Tuesday raising the retirement age to 65 and making private pension savings compulsory, tackling one of France’s most politically explosive issues. – Reuters
Hungary will soon release tens of thousands of records previously restricted to broad public access that identify people listed by the Communist-era state security services as officers, informants, collaborators or recruitment targets during Hungary’s 20th-century dictatorship. – Associated Press
Lawmakers in Romania are set to vote Wednesday on a new center-right Cabinet proposed by Prime Minister-designate Siegfried Muresan, who seeks to end a monthslong political crisis. – Associated Press
The Czech government led by populist billionaire Andrej Babiš faced a parliamentary no-confidence vote Tuesday over a ballooning budget deficit and questions about the prime minister’s conflict of interest. – Associated Press
Dutch police said Tuesday that they have arrested a suspected member of the ShinyHunters hacker group that has been held responsible for a string of serious data breaches, and accused the man of trying to arrange two murders. – Associated Press
The Trump administration has withdrawn the United States from a top European anti-corruption watchdog as it forges ahead with plans to disengage from international and multilateral organizations that it accuses of exceeding their mandates, being inefficient or not adapting to U.S. policies. – Associated Press
Bosnian Serb pro-Russian ruling politicians on Tuesday met with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin just days ahead of a general election this weekend in Bosnia. – Associated Press
The European Union is poised to remove Vietnam and Panama from its list of tax havens when EU finance ministers meet in Luxembourg next month. – Bloomberg
Chancellor Friedrich Merz said talks between the top envoys of Germany and Russia showed that the Kremlin has no interest in ending its war in Ukraine. – Bloomberg
An Israeli minister came out in defense of French far-right politician Jordan Bardella on Tuesday, after an investigative website alleged that he had made antisemitic comments in 2013. – Agence France-Presse
A British government source denied on Tuesday a Jewish Chronicle report that the United Kingdom has widened restrictions on military exports to Israel. – Times of Israel
Elizabeth Buchanan writes: The United States pressured Europe, Denmark, and NATO to develop a framework to deal with the realities of strategic competition in the Arctic. But the noise around that pressure is not the story. The outcome is. Hemispheric strategy, at its core, is about securing approaches—including through denial. Three partners identified a source of disunity and acted swiftly to ease domestic-level tensions in the service of regional security. The Trump administration worked to secure a masterstroke deal that will help secure the future of the North Atlantic, the Arctic, and continental America. – The National Interest
Africa
A former television news anchor was crowned king of Uganda’s Tooro Kingdom on Tuesday, becoming the 13th monarch of the Batooro people in a ritual-laden coronation that ended a succession dispute. – Reuters
Somali pirates killed five crew members of the hijacked MT Honour 25 petroleum products tanker before it was rescued by security forces, the information ministry of Somalia’s semi-autonomous state of Puntland said on Tuesday. – Reuters
Deposed Guinea-Bissau President Umaro Sissoco Embalo plans to return to the country on October 4 to run for the presidency in an election scheduled for December, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. – Reuters
Ghana’s Environmental Protection Authority has issued a pre-closure notice to Chinese-owned Cardinal Namdini Mining over an alleged unreported accident as it ramps up enforcement across the mining sector, a senior regulator said. – Reuters
Three Nigerian nationals have been killed in recent weeks in South Africa, Nigerian authorities said Tuesday, adding to tensions between the two countries over persistent violence against migrants. – Associated Press
Burkina Faso has opened its first gold refinery as its military-led government seeks greater economic sovereignty after severing ties with traditional Western partners. – Associated Press
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa committed more resources to deal with gender-based violence and femicide, days after police found the body of an 11th woman east of Johannesburg. – Bloomberg
Mihir Sharma writes: Sadly, Andersson’s failure to unite left and center might allow the Sweden Democrats a way back into the governing picture. It was foolish of Kristersson to promise, when he was trailing in the polls, to give the far-right ministerial posts this time around. But this election shows mainstream conservatives can take the heat out of migration politics in a modern European democracy. They just need to be disciplined — and then deliver. – Bloomberg
Taiwo Hassan writes: The ultimate solution to the Sahel’s multifaceted crisis is the enthronement of stable, democratic governments that derive their mandate directly from the people, not puppet regimes propped up by foreign bayonets—whether of the Western or Russian variety. Russia’s Sahel strategy may have succeeded up to this point, but it’s only a matter of time before the Kremlin is forced to realize that underwriting fragile military dictatorships is an unsustainable strategy. – Foreign Policy
The Americas
Former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who is under house arrest, has asked the United Nations Human Rights Committee to review her corruption conviction and suspend the lifetime ban on holding public office that currently prevents her from running for election in 2027, her lawyer said on Tuesday. – Reuters
When Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York this month, he used one of the world’s biggest diplomatic stages to deliver a message that has come to define what is likely the final presidential campaign of his decades-long career. – Reuters
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Senator Flavio Bolsonaro remain statistically tied in a simulated runoff ahead of next month’s election, an AtlasIntel/Bloomberg poll showed on Tuesday, with the right-wing challenger now 0.1 percentage point ahead of the incumbent — within the survey’s margin of error. – Reuters
Ecuador’s bonds extended losses as President Daniel Noboa made an unexpected change to the leadership of the finance ministry. Bonds due in 2039 fell 2.3 cents to 92.9 cents on the dollar after Noboa issued an executive decree on Monday replacing Sariha Moya, who had managed the South American country’s finances for more than two years, with a little-known official. – Bloomberg
Juan Pablo Spinetto writes: Yet that will require time, money and sustained engagement, not exactly the defining traits of today’s politics. Washington may view a Bolsonaro victory as its own, a vindication of its Brazil policy and proof that Latin America’s rightward shift is complete. Translating that into business, investment and lasting strategic influence, however, will be much harder. Just ask Argentina’s Javier Milei or Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa, two of the White House’s closest regional allies who continue to exploit economic ties with China. If the US wants to win back Brazil’s heart and soul, an ideological affinity at the top won’t be enough. – Bloomberg
North America
The United Nations Security Council on Tuesday extended by six months the mandate of an international security force in Haiti intended to fight powerful armed groups that have taken control of much of the country. – Reuters
Comando may be tiny, but Mexico’s National Guard is giving him a very big role. Outfitted with miniature goggles, a fitted tactical vest, a helmet and even a petite head-mounted camera, the 7-kilogram (15-pound) Chihuahua has become the most unusual — and smallest — canine member of the force. – Reuters
An informal poll by the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday placed former Costa Rican Vice President Rebeca Grynspan as the frontrunner in the race to become the 10th UN secretary-general, sources close to the process said. – Reuters
Cuba’s top trade official dismissed reports that companies linked to US President Donald Trump had come to Cuba this year to talk business, while calling the US trade embargo the biggest impediment to the roll-out of historic free-market reforms. – Reuters
U.S.-Canada relations, already tense, are likely to deteriorate further after the United States went ahead early Tuesday with a decision to ban nearly $1 billion worth of Canadian imports, including alcoholic beverages, dairy products and motorcycles. – Associated Press
The US Treasury Department sanctioned 46 suspected gang leaders and facilitators tied to Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa Cartel, including the son of the jailed drug lord Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada. – Bloomberg
United States
Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday announced a new strategy for combating a rise in antisemitism in New York City, designating $7.4 million toward education campaigns, the advancement of Jewish cultural institutions and security upgrades at synagogues. – Wall Street Journal
The Supreme Court on Tuesday gave President Trump a temporary victory on a central piece of his mass deportation agenda, agreeing the administration can, for now, resume rapidly deporting immigrants to countries other than their own. – New York Times
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is preparing for another hiring surge to support President Trump’s deportation campaign, with a goal of bringing on 5,000 new employees by the end of the year, according to four people familiar with the plans. – New York Times
A Venezuelan man shot by a federal immigration agent on September 20 in Austin, Texas, appeared in federal court on Tuesday after being charged with assaulting, resisting, interfering, and impeding a federal officer, the Justice Department said in a press release. – Reuters
Republican US Senator and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker said Washington’s security commitments to Taiwan must be upheld, following a meeting on Tuesday with Alexander Yui, the democratically governed island’s representative to the US. – Reuters
Editorial: This offers two lessons: The first is that the government cannot manufacture consumer demand for products through mandates — something the European Union has struggled to grasp as it slowly walks back its strict EV mandates. The second is that relying on market forces doesn’t automatically mean harming the environment.No reasonable consumer would oppose fuel efficiency; the hard part is managing the trade-offs that come with it. Manufacturers, seeing a market, are producing options that reduce pollution and appeal to consumers. Meanwhile, vehicle batteries keep improving, promising faster charging times and lower prices. If that trajectory continues, sales of fully electric vehicles may rebound. The best part: Such innovation does not require subsidies from American taxpayers. – Washington Post
Eli Lake writes: Today, he has emerged as a secular saint for New York’s progressive literati. His legal battle to remain in the United States is being fought by a team of more than 20 lawyers representing the Center for Constitutional Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union, and other progressive groups. New York’s socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, hosted Khalil for a Ramadan dinner in March, paying tribute to his “profound courage.” The New Yorker compared the appearance of his 6-month-old-son, Deen, to “a Rubens portrait of the infant Jesus, if the Flemish had been more realistic about a Nazarene’s complexion.” This month he spoke at a Yom Kippur rally with anti-Zionist Jews in Brooklyn at a podium draped in a sign reading, “For the sin of genocide, we atone.” – The Free Press
Cybersecurity
The Trump administration has built a tool powered by artificial intelligence that its developers promise will serve as a “concierge” to the federal government, as it attempts to modernize the relationship between citizens and the state. – Wall Street Journal
President Trump promised not to hamper the artificial-intelligence industry with regulations, doubling down Tuesday on his light-touch approach despite growing calls from Silicon Valley and the public for new guardrails. – Wall Street Journal
OpenAI apologized on Tuesday for four instances in which its artificial intelligence models acted without authorization and gained access to Australian government websites in recent months, in some instances bypassing cybersecurity defenses. The company acknowledged it had mishandled the response and provided a detailed account of the breaches. – New York Times
President Trump summoned the world’s most powerful technology executives to the White House on Tuesday, and praised the assembled billionaires as “very brilliant” minds who wanted to make the world a better place through job creation, the construction of data centers and the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence. – New York Times
Months before OpenAI’s artificial intelligence went rogue, two employees raised an alarm with top executives. They were ignored. In emails, the employees said they worried that OpenAI’s newest artificial intelligence models were not being appropriately monitored during testing to gauge the technology’s sophistication and to secure the models, according to messages viewed by The New York Times. – New York Times
Developing nations are demanding a greater role in shaping the rules governing artificial intelligence, warning that a technology poised to transform economies could instead deepen global inequalities if its development and regulation remain concentrated in wealthy countries. – Reuters
Chinese AI developer Moonshot is conducting an internal review after researchers were able to persuade two of its popular Kimi models to tell them how to make biological weapons and carry out assassinations. – BBC
A group of Russian government hackers is refining its attacks to make it easier to eavesdrop on victims and significantly expand its targets among governments, think tanks and nonprofits around the world, with an emphasis on Ukraine, Microsoft research published Tuesday concludes. – Cyber Scoop
The U.S. government is working with critical infrastructure operators to integrate artificial intelligence into the nation’s most vital systems and strengthen cyber defenses, National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross said Tuesday. – CyberScoop
The Arizona Supreme Court announced Friday that the state’s court system was attacked by hackers who stole the personal information of “many Arizonans.” – The Record
Christopher Cytera writes: Before a potential downturn, the US needs to establish transparency and stress-testing for AI infrastructure financing. American and European regulators should require clear disclosure of vendor guarantees, equity stakes, prepayments, minimum-revenue commitments, residual-value support, and data center capacity purchase agreements. Banks and institutional investors should stress-test projects against lower GPU rental prices, slowing utilization, fast hardware depreciation, higher power costs, and customer defaults. Chip and data center investments may create productive infrastructure. But what happens if the bubble bursts? The West should act before it does. – Center for European Policy Analysis
Robert C. O’Brien writes: At a moment when the country needs vastly more electricity, American companies are answering with real capital and real factories, and Washington is finally clearing a path for them to build here at home. The AI race will decide who leads the global economy for a generation. As one of the fastest sources of new power backed by an increasingly domestic supply chain, solar is a vital asset. America must bring solar online to continue driving AI development and U.S. technological leadership. – Fox News
Defense
The Navy chose Boeing BA to build its next-generation jet fighter, the latest in a run of contract wins at the aerospace giant’s military unit. – Wall Street Journal
One year after it began striking boats suspected of ferrying drugs, the Pentagon is dramatically expanding the military’s role in tracking drug cartels across Latin America and the Caribbean, deploying high-tech drones to map smuggling networks and sending U.S. troops to assist in ground raids. – Wall Street Journal
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will announce plans to cut by 20% the number of positions reserved for generals and admirals during a speech to servicemembers on Wednesday, according to Pentagon officials. – Wall Street Journal
The Republican chair of the Senate intelligence committee asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to review the Pentagon’s supply chain after F-35 warplane parts ended up in Chinese government hands after being diverted to Hong Kong on a United Parcel Service Inc. flight. – Bloomberg
The US task force leading the military’s response to the drone threat is ready to spend billions of dollars on contracts for counter-drone technologies, betting that a mixed arsenal will be needed to contend with one of the fast-growing battlefield problems. – Business Insider
The Defense Department announced this month a $450 million investment in The Elmet Group to strengthen the U.S. supply chain for tungsten, a critical mineral used for manufacturing military weapons ranging from bullets to missiles. – Defense News
Boeing has been selected to build the Navy’s sixth-generation carrier-based strike fighter, dubbed F/A-XX, icing out what was considered to be its biggest competitor in late-stage negotiations, Northrop Grumman. – Defense News
The Defense Department has awarded Raytheon a multiyear contract worth up to $20.7 billion to build Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles, or AMRAAMs. The Pentagon said the deal will nearly double AMRAAM production. – Defense News
The Army issued 10 indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contracts Tuesday with a total ceiling of $4.15 billion for systems to disable or destroy unmanned aerial drones, including command-and-control systems, sensors, and weapons. – Defense One
The Pentagon’s latest report about its implementation of the National Defense Strategy notes progress on accelerating weapons production, cutting red tape, and persuading European governments to boost defense spending—but is light on problems such as Russia’s increasing aggression in Europe and the high cost of U.S. wars in the Middle East. – Defense One
Three Louisiana-based shipyards will build unmanned surface vessels for the U.S. Navy following recent at-sea testing, the service announced Tuesday. – USNI News
The Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group quietly departed Monday from San Diego for a scheduled deployment, USNI News has learned. – USNI News
The Navy will purchase 30 medium unmanned surface vessels (MUSV) from three defense firms after successfully completing at-sea testing as part of the sea service’s novel MUSV marketplace. Breaking Defense
Army acquisition leaders and Joint Interagency Task Force 401 officials announced today that the service awarded multiple contracts worth up to $7 billion for counter-drone capabilities. – Breaking Defense
The Pentagon’s Drone Dominance program is testing more than industry’s ability to field new drone designs. It is also testing whether industry can repeatedly manufacture reliable, affordable unmanned aircraft at scale, sustain the supply chain under them, and integrate new capabilities, payloads, and mission systems as requirements evolve. – Breaking Defense
Kurt Shulkitas writes: The filing and its disposition should not be included in the officer’s evaluation. Reporting seniors and senior raters may evaluate independently observable conduct, including whether the officer continued to execute lawful orders and protected classified information. False statements, unauthorized disclosures, and disobedience remain punishable. Commanders remain accountable for suppression or reprisal. A rejected good-faith concern is not misconduct. Professional military education should rehearse the judgment before the crisis arrives. We train officers to recognize and refuse unlawful orders. We owe them preparation and a protected institutional path for the harder case: raising a credible constitutional concern about a lawful order while remaining bound to execute it. – War on the Rocks