World roundup: October 27 2026

World roundup: October 27 2026

Stories from Israel-Palestine, Serbia, Brazil, and elsewhere

PROGRAMMING NOTE: With apologies I have to forego tonight’s usual voiceover. Those who require it can use the text-to-voice feature in the Substack app.

TODAY IN HISTORY

October 27, 1942: A Japanese fleet defeats a smaller US fleet in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, part of World War II’s Guadalcanal campaign. Although the US took heavier losses in this engagement, with two ships sunk including the fleet carrier USS Hornet, Japan’s losses in aircraft and trained pilots proved to be more strategically significant in the long term and so this battle is regarded as a Pyrrhic victory.

October 27, 2019: During an overnight US special forces raid in the town of Barisha, in Syria’s Idlib province, Islamic State leader and would-be caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is killed. According to US officials Baghdadi attempted to flee, but upon being surrounded he detonated a suicide vest, killing himself and two children.

MIDDLE EAST

JORDAN

The Jordanian government says that its Monday evening airstrikes in southern Syria “killed more than 20 Islamic State militants,” apparently connected with Friday’s attack on a church in Jordan’s Karak province. It’s also acknowledged and expressed “regret” for the seven civilians who were also killed in those strikes, according to Syrian officials. This incident has unsurprisingly had a negative effect on bilateral relations, with the Syrian Foreign Ministry criticizing Jordan’s “unacceptable violation and breach of Syrian airspace without any prior coordination” in a statement on Tuesday. Jordanian officials had claimed initially that the strikes were coordinated with the Syrian government so somebody appears to be mistaken on that subject. Despite the tension, the two governments have agreed to form a “security committee” to investigate the airstrikes and perhaps manage cross-border threats.

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

The Palestinian news outlet WAFA reported on Tuesday that a six year old child had died of wounds suffered in an Israeli military (IDF) attack on Gaza’s Mawasi displaced persons area. From the way that report is worded I’m not sure if the attack took place on Tuesday or previously.

Israeli voters headed to the polls in what looks like record numbers for Tuesday’s Knesset election. Israel’s Central Elections Committee reported turnout of 66.7 percent at 6 PM local time, which was four hours before polls close. By comparison, turnout in the 2022 Knesset election was around 70 percent in total. It’s tempting to speculate that high turnout is a bad sign for incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition but that would just be speculation.

If the increased turnout is being driving by Palestinian-Israeli voters who are voting for Arab parties then that could make problems for both Netanyahu and the opposition, whose right-wing elements have already refused to work with those parties in forming the country’s next government. Netanyahu did roll out his traditional election day “Arabs are voting in record numbers” routine but that’s just a racist appeal to turn out his own base that he makes during every election and may not reflect reality. Polling has leaned toward the governing coalition losing its majority, perhaps by a lot, but the opposition may also wind up short of a majority without the Arab parties.

Early exit polling, to the extent that it is actually reliable, is pointing toward a hung parliament with the opposition parties holding perhaps two or three seats more than Netanyahu’s coalition. Even so, Netanyahu’s Likud may end up as the largest individual party in the next session, which would give him an argument for remaining as PM in a “national unity” type of government should the opposition be open to an arrangement like that. An extended post-election cycle may be the result, possibly ending with another election.

EGYPT

The Egyptian government has shut down one of the country’s few independent media outlets, Mada Masr, after a court convicted editor-in-chief Lina Attalah of “operating a website without a license.” She was issued the maximum fine of 3 million pounds (a bit over $53,000). Mada Masr has frequently covered the Egyptian government in a less than flattering manner and in that sense the surprise here is that it’s taken so long for Cairo to shut it down. The site has been around since 2013 and Attalah applied for the appropriate license in 2018 (when the law requiring licensure was implemented) and 2020 but apparently received no response from authorities.

YEMEN

AFP reported on Tuesday that at least 97 combatants (63 Ansarullah personnel and 34 pro-government personnel) had been killed across Yemen since the previous evening, mostly in fighting near the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. It characterized that fighting as “the fiercest” since Ansarullah captured most of Yemen’s Red Sea coast from government forces last month. Ansarullah also accused pro-government forces of killing at least two people near the heavily embattled city of Taiz.

In Saudi Arabia, Ansarullah struck the Ras Tanura oil refinery in the kingdom’s Eastern Province on Tuesday, reportedly causing a fire that the Saudis were able to bring under control. That is Saudi Arabia’s largest oil refinery and thus a major target. Saudi officials also claimed to have intercepted two Ansarullah missiles that were headed for Riyadh.

ASIA

PAKISTAN

Drop Site’s Mehr Sher reports that the Pakistani government is using the state of emergency it imposed earlier this month in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, ostensibly over security issues, to break former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party and take direct control of the provincial government:

The party had been negotiating Khan’s access to health care and his release from prison with the federal government, but the talks stalled. On October 4, thousands of PTI supporters began marching from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa toward Islamabad to press those demands.

In response, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif convened an emergency cabinet meeting, and on October 11 President Asif Ali Zardari imposed a state of emergency and governor’s rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, suspending its elected government on Sharif’s advice and citing a surge in terrorism and political unrest to justify the decisions. The Chief Minister Sohail Afridi, provincial PTI president Junaid Akbar, Assembly Speaker Babar Saleem Swati, and several other party leaders were detained. Pakistan’s Army was deployed to the province the same day and will remain there throughout the duration of emergency rule.

“The government is sort of willing to say [Afridi] is in protective custody, but isn’t willing to produce him before a court, or give any evidence of where he is. This is the chief executive of a province of 45 million people,” said a senior PTI leader, who was in hiding and spoke to Drop Site on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

Six days after assuming governor’s rule, Governor Faisal Karim Kundi said the province would extract and sell its mineral resources, and specifically referred to mineral resources in districts including Lakki Marwat, Tank, and Bannu. He also called for joint ventures with domestic and foreign companies to develop its oil and gas reserves. The province is rich in natural resources, including natural gas, copper, chromite, lead, emeralds, marble, limestone, and coal, and produces up to 50% of Pakistan’s total daily domestic crude oil production.

MYANMAR

A couple of new reports indicate that Myanmar’s ruling junta has been buoyed over the past few years by covert fuel shipments from Iran:

Myanmar’s military authorities have imported Iranian jet fuel using “sham paperwork” designed to circumvent the U.S. sanctions on both nations, according to reports published by Reuters and a local activist group yesterday.

The reports, which were based on shipping records, satellite imagery, and documents from Myanmar’s foreign exchange regulator and Ministry of Commerce, show how both the origin and content of the shipments were falsified. These shipments of jet fuel, which were disguised as diesel, have allowed the Myanmar Air Force to sustain its brutal air campaign against those opposing its coup d’etat in February 2021.

It has been clear for some time that Myanmar’s military was receiving fuel shipments from Iran’s large tanker “shadow fleet” – both Reuters and the rights group Amnesty International have reported on the issue – but the exact mechanism by which the shipments were being concealed was previously unknown.

AFRICA

SUDAN

A drone strike reportedly killed at least 21 people and wounded 40 more in the Sudanese city of Nyala on Monday evening. The Sudanese military (SAF) was presumably responsible though it doesn’t sound as though it has claimed responsibility as yet. Nyala is both the capital of South Darfur state and the de facto “capital” of the Rapid Support Forces militant group and its proxy government. It is subject to frequent SAF attacks. Elsewhere, an RSF drone strike hit a power station near the city of Omdurman on Tuesday, knocking out power to the neighboring city of Khartoum.

The UK government blacklisted 15 SAF and RSF commanders on Monday. All are accused of “sexual violence, torture and attacks on civilians.” The sanctions, alongside the release of a report on Sudanese atrocities by the UK’s Centre for Information Resilience, were timed to mark the one-year anniversary of the RSF’s genocidal seizure of the city of El Fasher in Sudan’s North Darfur state.

NIGERIA

The death toll from Friday’s attack on a village in eastern Nigeria’s Taraba state has risen to 62 according to provincial authorities. Recovery work is continuing and that figure may rise further.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

The DRC’s Ebola outbreak crossed an unfortunate milestone on Tuesday, as the latest batch of official figures puts the country at 10,060 confirmed cases with 4887 deaths. As ever it’s important to point out that those figures undercount the true extent of the epidemic, which wasn’t declared until several weeks (at least) after authorities believe the virus began circulating in the DRC’s Ituri province.

EUROPE

RUSSIA

Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday. There’s no indication that they made any progress on settling the Ukraine war, their primary reason for calling, but the call itself is noteworthy and somewhat surprising given how little European leaders have been in direct contact with Putin since 2022. It also drew some rare (and very mild) criticism from other Nordic leaders, specifically Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.

Reuters reported on Tuesday that “Russian oil refineries increased crude processing by 25% in the second half of October” amid a near-cessation of Ukrainian drone strikes. Prior to Donald Trump’s declaration of an “energy ceasefire” earlier this month the Ukrainians were attacking Russian refineries fairly regularly. After that the Ukrainians halted those attacks for several days, resuming only after it became abundantly clear that the Russian military wasn’t participating. But that resumption lasted only a couple of days and there have been no further refinery strikes since October 16. Presumably this is the result of some sort of deal with the Trump administration to ease bilateral tensions.

UKRAINE

The Melania Trump-brokered (apparently) ceasefire seems to have held on Tuesday in the Ukrainian city of Oleshky and has been expanded to allow for the delivery of humanitarian aid from other parts of Kherson oblast. The remaining residents of Oleshky have been living in dire conditions with minimal food and clean water and no safe way to evacuate. In addition to allowing aid in the ceasefire is supposed to offer those residents an opportunity to leave the city if they desire.

SERBIA

Al Jazeera reports that before Serbia’s political upheaval translates into any foreign policy changes, the country’s new leaders will need to establish their rule domestically:

Aleksandar Popov, director of the Centre for Regionalism in Novi Sad in Serbia, told Al Jazeera that a rapid reset in regional relations was unlikely.

“These questions will not be on the agenda immediately,” he said, referring to relations with Serbia’s neighbours.

The new authorities will first have to tackle domestic problems, he said, including dealing with a system that has “captured all democratic institutions”, as well as problems in the judiciary, prosecution service, police and media sector.

“Tidying up at home” will take priority before “solving problems with the neighbours”, Popov said, despite noting that the outgoing regime had done everything possible to undermine regional relations.

The potential implications are pretty substantial and could impact surrounding countries like Bosnia and Herzegovina depending on how the new government deals with Republika Srpska’s secessionist leadership. Beyond that Serbia’s European Union candidacy may get a boost as well.

AMERICAS

BRAZIL

Brazilian presidential runner-up Flávio Bolsonaro has reportedly fled to the United States. In keeping with his family’s (alleged) predilection for corruption, Bolsonaro has been under investigation for money laundering, and following Sunday’s runoff the Brazilian Supreme Court gave him 24 hours to surrender his passport lest he attempt to evade prosecution. When that deadline lapsed the court invalidated his passport, but by then it seems he may have already been on his way to the US, where the Trump administration has already said that it will give him a visa even though he no longer has a valid passport. Being friendly with Donald Trump does have a few benefits, even if Trump isn’t prepared to invade Brazil and install Bolsonaro as president.

At In These Times, Andre Pagliarini considers how incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was able to win Sunday’s runoff despite having lost the first round earlier this month:

How did Lula pull it off? By both expanding and compressing the electorate. The first round of voting was characterized by the highest abstention rate since 1998. Almost 35 million eligible voters, or 21%, failed to cast a ballot. The scale of the absence was striking. The state of São Paulo alone accounted for more than 7.6 million non-voters. The second round presented both campaigns with an enormous pool of potential voters to mobilize, in addition to those who had supported other candidates or who cast blank and invalid ballots.

The first round also allowed dissatisfaction with the incumbent to find expression across a fragmented field of candidates. In hindsight, this gave the impression that Lula was probably more unpopular than he actually was. By reducing the choice to two alternatives, the runoff raised both the saliency and the stakes of the decision. The prospect of the Bolsonaro family’s return to power appears to have mobilized a broad range of voters who had either taken a Lula victory in the first round for granted — and so did not show up to vote — or had reasons to question or even oppose another Lula term. Lula didn’t ultimately need to convince skeptics to become committed supporters. He needed enough of them to conclude that his opponent represented the greater risk.

In the end, Lula more than made up the difference. He gained roughly 10.3 million votes between rounds, outpacing Flávio’s 3.7 million additional votes. He also doubled the margin of victory he secured four years ago against Jair Bolsonaro, Flávio’s father, who is currently in prison for attempting a coup after losing to Lula in 2022.

ECUADOR

Jacobin’s Carlo Campo warns that Ecuador has taken a turn toward dictatorship:

“I’d be lying to you if I told you that yesterday I didn’t double-lock the door, just in case they come to take us down in the middle of the night.”

Those were the words of Jahiren Noriega, a member of Ecuador’s National Assembly, the day after the detention of Luisa González, the Movimiento Revolución Ciudadana’s presidential candidate in the country’s last two federal elections and the main opposition figure today.

In Ecuador, where the separation of powers no longer exists, the use of lawfare by the far-right government of President Daniel Noboa blurs the line between democracy and dictatorship. For members of the Movimiento Revolución Ciudadana, the party aligned with the former socialist president, Rafael Correa, the political persecution is nothing new, and left-wing leaders and social movements across Latin America will surely recognize the playbook. But González’s detention last Thursday marks a shocking escalation in Noboa’s bold use of the courts to persecute opponents, and in Ecuador, a country with a rich history of protest that has been unusually quiet throughout his presidency, the Left faces its biggest test yet.

UNITED STATES

The US military conducted another round of extrajudicial executions on Tuesday, killing five people in an alleged “drug boat” in the eastern Pacific. “Confirmed intelligence,” which in this context means “take our word for it,” apparently “verified” that the boat and its occupants were involved in drug trafficking. The Pentagon has murdered over 240 people in these strikes since September 2025.

Finally, ProPublica reports that the US Department of Energy has been fighting tooth and nail to deny benefits to former employees who became sick due to exposure to nuclear waste at its Hanford facility in Washington state:

Cascade PBS and ProPublica spoke to workers, surviving family members, lawyers representing workers and state officials. They all pointed to a pattern: The DOE systematically challenges and then drags out workers’ compensation claims for years with recommended denials and subsequent legal appeals. Along the way, it has spent millions on outside lawyers and expert testimony, including doctor evaluations that point to other causes for workers’ illnesses.

The DOE has paid out benefits to Hanford workers in some cases, lawyers and families said, but it has done so while still actively appealing the claims. It warns workers that they may have to pay the money back.

Our reporting found that not even death ends the cycle of appeals. About 152 workers’ claims remain stranded in this legal limbo — approved by the state but still under appeal by the DOE. Half of those workers are dead. The DOE continues to fight to deny their families survivors’ benefits.

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© 2026 Derek Davison
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