Mario Nawfal

🇨🇳🇻🇪 China is about to help turn Venezuela's lights back on, even as Washington tries to push Beijing OUT of the country. A Chinese state-owned contractor apparently plans to restart a 600-megawatt unit at Venezuela's largest fossil-fuel power plant next month. The plant has been largely shut since 2021. And the electricity crisis is getting desperate. Venezuela recorded 531 protests over blackouts in September alone, more than 20 times the number a year earlier. The timing is awkward for Washington. Trump wants to dismantle Chinese influence in Venezuela, but Beijing is still helping repair the infrastructure the country desperately needs. China is competing for influence. Now, by helping to keep the lights on. Source: Bloomberg / Writer: Oliver

🇺🇸 A new U.S. intel memo has Washington on alert. It says Iranian plots to kill Americans abroad have reached "advanced stages," and embassies in the region are already shifting staff. That's past talk and into planning. And it's coming straight from the intel chief, so this is serious. Writer: Daniyal t.co/jkD5pEF51i

🇨🇿 Prague didn’t lag behind! Crowds GATHERED outside the Czech parliament over a media funding bill Hundreds stayed overnight while lawmakers advanced a plan to scrap the monthly fee for public TV and radio and pay them from the state budget instead. They pushed the vote through before sunrise. The square stayed full until then. Writer: Lucas t.co/aoCyMXu2RK

🇦🇱 Albania’s PM left pillows outside his office to invite students to talk, and opposition supporters burned them From there they headed to the education ministry in Tirana, where students were also protesting, as police sprayed crowds with water cannons. Students have spent over a week protesting high university fees and corruption, and some now want Rama, PM since 2013, to quit. Rama promised an answer “within a matter of hours or days,” but warned that anyone behind the violence will face a long, tough response. Hard to talk things over when the pillows are on fire. Source: Euronews / Writer: Daniyal

🇾🇪 Women in Yemen's Taiz are picking up guns against the Houthis Their city has been under siege since 2015, and this month alone Houthi shelling has killed and wounded dozens of civilians. With rifles and an RPG in hand, they say they'd rather die free than surrender, and they'll stand by their men no matter who walks away. Even the women are done waiting now. Writer: Daniyal t.co/BKudpoFfEP

🇫🇷 The march is still rolling through Marseille with a BIG CROWD Local counts put it at around 17,000, while unions say the real number is higher. After the prefect almost shut everything down, the fact that this one is still going shows how hard it is to contain the mood fully. Writer: Lucas t.co/cUBQk0lTYB

🇷🇺🇺🇦 Ukrainian drones hit deep inside Siberia, Russia again. Omsk's governor says the drones reached the city's industrial zone, and a huge fire broke out at what's reported to be a chemical plant, over 2,500 km from Ukraine. It's not the first time Omsk has been hit this month, distance clearly isn't keeping anything safe anymore. Siberia used to be the safe zone 👀 Writer: Daniyal t.co/IOglcien3h

🇫🇷 She walked off with a whole ZARA BOX in the middle of the street 😬 The same days of unrest have already left thousands of shops hit across France. The clip shows how fast the line between protest and open taking disappears once the windows are already broken. Writer: Lucas t.co/L7u6rsJz1u

🇫🇷 17,000 people marched in Marseille today, and it didn't stay calm for long Things kicked off with the police, people started running, and the guy filming says he took a grenade straight to the shin while recording. Every big French city seems to be going through the same thing this weekend. Marseille never really does quiet. Writer: Daniyal t.co/bnrr1IfM4r

🇫🇷 Men in black MARCH through Nice, in France, with a “don’t touch our city” banner Residents have decided the official response wasn’t enough. When the state can’t keep the windows intact, some people start showing up themselves. Writer: Lucas t.co/Do42PJBB2b

🇺🇸 The US still has a massive tanker presence around the Middle East. Around 190–195 refueling aircraft are now stationed across CENTCOM and Europe, roughly back to early September levels. But here's what's interesting. More than 90 KC-135 and KC-46 tankers have reportedly made their second or even third trip back to the region. That's a lot of aircraft moving back and forth. Source: DefenceGeek / Writer: Lynn

🇮🇹 Italy is now sending ELITE PARATROOPERS into the streets of Milan. 500 soldiers from the battle-trained Folgore Brigade are patrolling the city after last weekend's looting and violent clashes. Armored vehicles, surveillance drones and rapid-response units are also being deployed. Milan is Europe's fashion capital. Now it has paratroopers guarding the shopping streets. Writer: Oliver t.co/rIVUYqoOaZ

🇫🇷 France hasn’t even hit the afternoon yet, and at least 135 people have already been detained That’s on the second Saturday in a row of people pouring into the streets, just a week after the October 17 protests turned into violence and looting. The authorities also switched up the march routes in Paris and Orléans last night, and France’s interior minister says they had a good reason for it. And there are still plenty of hours left in the day. Source: CNN / Writer: Daniyal

🇫🇷 Protest in Paris is growing WILD! Writer: Oliver t.co/BOwYa2CJvn

🇫🇷 French riot police move to arrest a rioter armed with GLASS BOTTLES About time we see somebody get detained for the outrageous violence. Writer: Oliver t.co/6brgJEYwuD

🇫🇷 Police PUSH forward against crowds in Marseille as today’s protests roll on Most events in the city stayed blocked after the heavy shop damage last weekend, though one union march got a late green light Writer: Lucas t.co/wwYWsn0OaP

🇫🇷 French students think they've caught an undercover cop trying to infiltrate their Snapchat protest groups, and the alleged attempt is HILARIOUS. An account calling itself “Mamadou” showed up using Algerian flags and an absurd combination of Arabic expressions and street slang. “Bismillah, it's the darkness.” Students suspected it was a police officer desperately trying to sound like a teenager. Nobody has proven who was behind the account, but the phrase has now become a PROTEST SLOGAN across France and beyond. Imagine trying to infiltrate a protest movement and accidentally writing its catchphrase. 😂💁 Writer: Oliver t.co/WByOi99eDn

🇮🇹 Milan’s biggest department store is BOARDING UP and closing early as the next protests approach La Rinascente by the Duomo is shutting this afternoon after shops across the center have already covered their windows. Luxury windows behind wood panels are the new look in the middle of town. Writer: Lucas t.co/9bhjE2OCcm

🇮🇷🇱🇧🇺🇸 Iran has reportedly told Hezbollah it can sit out the next war with the U.S. Iran’s deputy foreign minister met lawmakers from Hezbollah and its ally Amal in Beirut earlier this month, and they say his message was short: “You are not required to help.” He reportedly thinks a new war is more likely than a deal, and said Iran is ready to hit Israel too if it joins the U.S. The U.S. has already called Lebanon’s president, asking him to keep Lebanon and Hezbollah out of any new fight. Last time, Hezbollah broke its promise to stay out, firing 6 missiles at Israel after Khamenei was killed in late February. Now it’s up to Hezbollah to actually stay out this time. Source: Asharq Al-Awsat / Writer: Daniyal

🇮🇷🇷🇺 Russian Embassy DENIES any Bushehr specialist evacuation after recent flights Russian planes landing in Iran over the past 2 days fueled talk that nuclear specialists were being pulled out of the plant. The plant stayed staffed through earlier wartime pullouts, and Moscow is signaling it still is. Writer: Lucas

🇧🇪 Protesters in Liège, Belgium decided the motorway was the best place to make their point A few hundred of them marched through the city, sprayed tags all over the city hall doors and then just walked straight onto the motorway and shut it down. They're fed up with the government's austerity cuts and clearly done asking nicely. Honestly, this is starting to look like France. Writer: Daniyal t.co/LsCLRFMaDv

🇫🇷 Nancy banned protests today and people pulled up anyway Police locked down the city center and brought out the water cannon, and it didn't take long before they had to use it. Bans clearly aren't scaring anyone in France right now. Long day for the cops in Nancy. Writer: Daniyal t.co/jWS6hBDbzI

🇫🇷 France is now BANNING protests across major cities as authorities brace for another weekend of unrest. Lyon, Nice, Montpellier, Lille, Rouen and several other cities have imposed bans on demonstrations in key areas, with more than 100 municipalities affected by emergency restrictions nationwide. In Marseille, trade unions secured an exception to march after authorities initially imposed a blanket ban. Paris is even more extraordinary. Police initially approved a march from Bastille to Nation, only to SCRAP the route at the last minute and push protesters toward the city's outskirts. Authorities say they're trying to prevent a repeat of last weekend's violence and looting. Source: CIG on TG / Writer: Oliver

🇫🇷 BREAKING: Nantes is ERUPTING as France's latest wave of protests turns violent. Riot police are deploying WATER CANNONS against demonstrators as clashes break out in the streets. France deployed around 70,000 police officers nationwide to prevent another weekend of chaos. And Nantes is already seeing the kind of confrontation they were trying to avoid. Writer: Oliver t.co/ZJugM9pfMN

SpaceX just pulled in $14.6 BILLION in three months. That's a hell of a quarter. Revenue jumped 161% in a year, and Starship has now started earning its keep. Its first commercial mission delivered 26 Starlink V3 satellites into orbit, adding roughly 10X the downlink capacity of a Falcon 9 Starlink launch. Meanwhile, Starlink has grown to 13.6 million subscribers across 174 countries. More people connecting, more satellites going up, and bigger rockets doing the heavy lifting. Building your own rockets to deliver your own internet is a pretty powerful business model. @SpaceX @Starlink @spacexai / Writer: Annette, Designer: Janné

🇺🇸🇮🇷 HOLY HELL. THE U.S. NAVY IS LOADING UP FOR ANOTHER POSSIBLE ROUND OF STRIKES ON IRAN. And this time, the Wall Street Journal actually went ABOARD THE WARSHIPS to see what's happening. On the USS George Washington in the Arabian Sea, American fighter jets are flying nighttime operations while enormous quantities of fresh munitions arrive. We're talking LONG-RANGE MISSILES and BUNKER-BUSTING BOMBS. Meanwhile, Trump is considering another bombing campaign, Iran is threatening to hit American warships, and diplomats are desperately trying to prevent the whole thing from exploding again. Imagine trying to negotiate a peace deal while one side is unloading bunker-busters and the other is threatening to sink the aircraft carrier. Nobody has announced a new attack. But the preparations are very real. Source: WSJ / Writer: Oliver

🇫🇷 The doctors and engineers of the future are at it again in Lyon! Despite the city banning demonstrations across many of its central areas today, it's starting to look like the police may have to deploy a lot more than tear gas to avert another disaster. May France survive the onslaught. 🤞 Writer: Mhedi t.co/74BmcSmfaA

🇦🇪 The oil slick is now sitting right next to one of the UAE’s main water plants Naqa’a, the big desalination facility in the northern part of the country, sits inside the zone where the spill has been coming ashore. It turns seawater into drinking water for roughly 2 million people across the northern emirates. Local beaches were already shut while teams work to contain what’s leaking from the tanker hit earlier this month. Source: BBC / Writer: Lucas

🇫🇷🇧🇪 NO, this is not France.... This is Brussels, Belgium. Rioters are building street barricades out of electric scooters and barriers, and they look ready to set them on fire. The violence is tied to ongoing anti-austerity protests against the Belgian government's budget cuts, with masked groups clashing with police on the sidelines of larger demonstrations. Scenes like this are becoming routine across Western Europe. Writer: Daniyal t.co/WLvL7fMvoD

🇮🇱🇺🇸 Trump threw his FULL SUPPORT behind Netanyahu ahead of Tuesday's Israeli election, while some of his closest advisers actually wanted him to STAY OUT OF IT. And even JD Vance refused to follow his lead. Trump gave Netanyahu his “Complete and Total Endorsement,” despite saying earlier this month that he was finished getting involved in Israeli politics. But behind the scenes, frustration with Netanyahu has been building for months. Some Trump officials are fed up with his handling of GAZA, SYRIA and settler violence in the West Bank. Others believe an Israeli government without Netanyahu's far-right coalition partners could actually be easier for Washington to work with. And Netanyahu has a serious problem at home. The final polls from Israel's three major television networks put his bloc at just 50 SEATS, well short of the 61 needed for a majority. Neither side has a clear path to forming a government. Trump has made his preference VERY clear. His own team is considerably less convinced. And with another confrontation with IRAN potentially looming after the U.S. midterms, whoever leads Israel next could have an enormous influence on Washington's next move. Source: Axios / Writer: Oliver