Israeli election mess, African summit in Moscow, Latest Iran news

• Ahmed Eldin: Whoever governs Israel after Tuesday’s election, Palestinians will live under the same occupation, the same siege and the same settlements. The two blocs fighting over the Knesset agree on all three. They fight about Netanyahu, about drafting ultra-Orthodox men and about the power of the courts. On the question that decides whether millions of people live free, Israeli politics settled its answer long ago, and the answer is no. Diana Buttu said it plainly in Al Jazeera two days before the vote: the election may change “the face of the government, not the policy.” The exit polls promised a close race, and the count delivered a stalemate. With 84 percent of ballots counted on Wednesday afternoon, the Central Elections Committee gave Netanyahu’s bloc 54 seats, Gadi Eisenkot’s opposition bloc 49 and the Arab parties 17. Neither bloc comes close to the 61 needed to govern. Turnout reached 77.7 percent, the highest since 1999. Saul Sadka saw only two paths: a unity government of Netanyahu and Eisenkot, or Netanyahu as caretaker until another election in the spring. On election day, Muhammad Shehada reported what he saw: incitement from the top of government, Ben Gvir’s police at Arab polling stations, election workers obstructing Arab voters, Hebrew-only ballots, and Likud activists sent to film and intimidate. 

• Sovereignista: Flàvio Bolsonaro fled Brasil to the US with his wife and daughters after his presidential election defeat, CNN Brasil reports, amid fears of arrest after a court ordered his passport seized. US officials confirm Bolsonaro landed in Miami. He reportedly crossed the Argentinian border on foot and then flew to Ecuador and then Miami. He was granted a visa to enter the US. Bolsonaro flew with his Italian passport. This has been described as a classic CIA extraction operation planned well in advance. 

• Islander Reports: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov this week told a room of African editors what the Western client media spends its life tiptoeing around... political independence came with the 1960s wave of decolonisation, but Africa's "second awakening" will be economic, with its richest resources used "in Africa itself so that added value is created there, rather than in the former colonial powers." The UN's own trade body backs him up, with UNCTAD counting 46 of Africa's 54 countries as commodity dependent. And today 48 of those 54 states turned up in Moscow for the 3rd Russia-Africa summit, 22 of them at head of state level (up from 17 in 2023). He told them a story that says it all. More than once, in a "friendly" country, he couldn't get his own plane refuelled because the oil facilities belonged to Western companies that had decided Russia was "behaving badly". Today Putin went further, quoting Thomas Sankara on debt as "neocolonialism" and accusing the West of trying to drive Africans back into "debt bondage" on predatory terms. 

• “That sounds INSANE to me”. Mehdi talks to Palestinian human rights lawyer Noura Erakat about her arrest and attorney Lydia Ghuman about the billion dollars worth of Israel bonds that Palm Beach County in Florida bought to fund the genocide that she was protesting.  

• PressTV: Francesca Albanese put under the US gun at the UN again.  A US envoy to the UN has called for the removal of UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Palestine, Francesca Albanese, calling her a “moral fugitive” and a “lunatic.”   US Representative for UN Management and Reform Jeff Bartos accused Albanese of harboring hatred toward the US, the West, Israel, and the Jewish people.  “[The UN] allows a charlatan to soil the UN uniform—even as she stokes the very conflicts this body was created to end—and even as her words are found in terrorists’ chants,” he said.  He claimed that UN colleagues have privately expressed similar views, characterizing Albanese and others like her as “institutional poison” and “good for no one.” 
• Trump framed the recent talks initiated by Vice-President Vance through Qatar as “to deliver humanitarian/aid supplies to Iran.” This statement below is obviously aimed at American voters in hopes to make Trump appear 'peaceful and compassionate'. The US list of demands that was given to Iran, via Qatar, reportedly insisted Iran include 'nuclear concessions' as part of a deal ahead of the elections. Tehran did not accept this “demand.” Iran continues to insist on its seven long-standing conditions.  

• Chairman of Iran’s National Security Committee Arya Yadegaar: Iran’s Parliament's plan for withdrawing from the NPT is ready. The chairman says: “MPs have prepared bills for an exit strategy from the NPT, based on national interests, political and military doctrine.” Exiting the NPT has been a topic of discussion for a few days now in Iran. A very probable solution that was discussed is a 3-month plan to exit the NPT, in case the US & Israel attack Iran again. Right now, one of the main obstacles for Iran to exit the NPT is China & Russia. But this can be solved by not allowing IAEA inspectors, but allow Russian and Chinese inspectors in Iran. In this plan, Iran would agree to temporarily freeze its enriched materials, but on the condition that China and Russia guarantee that if the US attacks again, they will support Iran's withdrawal from the NPT and Iran's development of nuclear weapons. However this is only discussed and not actually official (yet). 
• Elijah J. Magnier: The Israeli elections between the right and the right parties: very fair and with multiple choices. (ha, ha) The right was not expected to win the majority over the right. Therefore, the two right camps will have to renew the elections or one right goes to war to force the other right to form one right government. Clear?

• Craig Murray: The social democratic compact that underlay western democracy is fatally fractured. Public provision is despised, and eked out grudgingly where the politicians whom the billionaires control see it as absolutely unavoidable to keep the helots quiet. The wars in Ukraine and Iran are directly responsible for much of the inflation. They are, however, a consequence of the concentration of wealth, not a separate factor. Billionaires make money from war. They make money from weapons and from lending to governments. They make money from military and security contracts. They make money from high hydrocarbon prices. They make money from asset value fluctuations between hot war and negotiation. Billionaires drive war. 

• Larry Johnson: If you want to understand what Washington’s war with Iran is costing ordinary people, forget the think-tank reports. Go to Sihanoukville, Cambodia, where a few hundred mostly American retirees spent Wednesday packing their lives into suitcases on a few hours’ notice. They had bought a home on the sea. The sea, it turns out, runs on diesel. The MV Odyssey, operated by Florida-based Villa Vie Residences, set sail in October 2024 on what was billed as a continuous, never-ending voyage around the world. The pitch was irresistible to a certain kind of American retiree: sell the house, buy a cabin for several hundred thousand dollars, and live at sea, wandering from port to port, with a promised minimum residency of 15 years. Some passengers did exactly that. They sold their homes. They gave away the furniture. They traded the HOA meetings for the Mekong Delta. The brochure, unfortunately, did not include a section on the Strait of Hormuz. Here is what happened, according to the company’s own numbers as reported by CBS News. Before the war began in late February, the ship’s fuel cost about $700 a ton. It now costs between $2,000 and $3,000 a ton. The Odyssey burns 700 to 800 tons a month. Its monthly fuel bill went from about $400,000 to roughly $2 million. Per cabin, fuel went from about $1,800 a month to between $6,000 and $8,000. The company did what any responsible business would do when its biggest variable cost tripled or worse. It slowed down. It spent five or six days in each port, waiting for the Middle East to calm down. Let me repeat that, because it is the most poignant business strategy of 2026: a cruise company decided to wait out an American war with Iran. Many of us have been waiting since 1979. It didn’t work. On Tuesday, October 27, the company suspended operations in Cambodia.