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The Trump administration has appointed Shelley Greenspan, a former Biden White House liaison to the Jewish community who previously worked for AIPAC, to lead external relations for the so-called Board of Peace, the body overseeing Trump's permanent occupation and colonization plan for Gaza, according to Common Dreams. ￭ Greenspan will handle congressional outreach, particularly to Democratic lawmakers, as the Board seeks to build bipartisan support for Trump's 20-point Gaza colonization plan ahead of the midterm elections and beyond 2028. She previously served as Biden's liaison to the Jewish community, worked at the State Department and National Security Council, and held a legislative manager role at AIPAC. ￭ The administration is trying to ensure the “Board of Peace” survives a future Democratic presidency, learning from the Abraham Accords, which stalled after Biden took office. Greenspan claimed she saw at the State Department how the plan "can tangibly deliver for the peoples of Gaza and Israel.” ￭ The Board has been broadly understood as a corrupt, anti-Palestinian body aiming for permanent occupation and colonization of Gaza. Matt Duss of the Center for International Policy urged Democrats to oppose it regardless of how many former AIPAC employees are sent to sell it. The Board has raised only $280 million of the $18 billion pledged for Gaza, while full reconstruction is estimated at $71 billion over a decade.

A hacktivist group calling itself "Department of Peace" has breached the Department of Homeland Security, exposing the names, phone numbers, email addresses, and job assignments of more than 41,000 employees, including agents working in surveillance, human intelligence, and undercover operations, according to CBC. ￭ The data was published Wednesday by the transparency group Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets), which received it from “Department of Peace.” The group said it accessed the data through Okta, the single sign-on service DHS uses to log into internal systems, though Okta denies any breach of its systems. ￭ The database includes records from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). It reveals which agents are assigned to special operations, surveillance, computer forensics, and undercover work. In some cases, the data includes non-public information about internal DHS organization charts and previously undisclosed programs. ￭ "On July 17th, Markwayne Mullin said he was 'turning up the heat.' This is what happens to ICE when you do that," a Department of Peace spokesperson said. DDoSecrets co-founder Emma Best said the leak "identifies the officials responsible for overseeing covert and undercover operations, the government's hunt for leakers... along with key personnel in DHS's ever-escalating rendition and deportation programs". ￭ Swiss hacker and journalist “maia arson crimew” developed a searchable database called "Icepick" to allow the public to browse the data. Best said the tool would "replace anonymity with accountability" and empower journalists and congressional oversight.

War Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired the Pentagon's top military planner, Lt. Gen. Brett Sylvia, as the administration signals it may re-escalate its war of aggression on Iran following next week's midterm elections. ￭ Sylvia was removed as head of strategy, plans, and policy on the Joint Staff, according to the Associated Press. No reason was given for the dismissal, and no replacement was named. ABC News reported, citing two sources familiar with the matter, that Sylvia has now retired. The move came after US officials told some West Asian countries to be prepared for potential renewed military action against Iran after the midterms, as well as for any Iranian retaliation. ￭ While Vice President JD Vance reportedly sent a letter to Iran "engaging one of Iran's most powerful hard-liners to revive peace negotiations," Trump downplayed the idea of peace talks, telling reporters: "They need help with medical supplies and various things. He asked me what I thought. I said, 'If you want to do that, that's OK.'" ￭ Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on X late Wednesday that "Iran continues to give diplomacy a chance to succeed." He said Iran remains in "close and ongoing contact with intermediaries to review ideas that can ensure implementation of our 7-Day Plan in even less than a week." Tehran has said it would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and restore normal maritime passage if conditions are met, including ending hostilities and releasing frozen Iranian assets. ￭ The firing and the military preparations come ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. The war remains deeply unpopular, with 31% of Americans approving of Trump's performance and 68% disapproving of his handling of the economy. Restarting the war could further jeopardize Republican chances.

Following public backlash, the NYPD has walked back its plan to award a proposed $750,000 contract to Israeli surveillance firm Cognyte without competitive bidding. But the reversal is deceptive: the contract is still on the table, and Cognyte remains eligible to bid.

Youth-led protests across Europe are linking the cost-of-living crisis to government spending priorities and political accountability, especially when it comes to endless funding for the Israeli occupation and Ukraine instead of public services. ￭ However, mass mobilization does not automatically translate into structural change. The question remains whether Gen Z’s growing discontent can develop into sustained political organization capable of transforming the conditions driving these protests. By @mira_rehawi

The UAE’s “Spy Sheikh” now has his money in the AI infrastructure that millions of us use every day. ￭ Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, the UAE’s National Security Advisor, chairs MGX, which owns stakes in OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI. He also chairs G42, which is building Stargate UAE with Nvidia, Oracle and SoftBank and is backed by Microsoft. ￭ His rise began with Project Raven, a secret hacking unit built by former US NSA agents to spy on Emirati activists and journalists. Raven later became DarkMatter, and DarkMatter’s people now run G42. ￭ After Emirati-Israeli normalization, his firms partnered with Rafael and Israel Aerospace Industries. IAI was later named in a UN report on companies profiting from the genocide in Gaza. So who really controls the AI we use every day?

“We are not concerned with who governs the usurping Israeli entity. However, let him know that he will not be able to continue his occupation and must leave our land,” stated Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem on October 28 as he reaffirmed that Israel’s existence as a genocidal occupation, rather than the identity of its political leadership, remains the central issue, insisting that the IOF must withdraw from Lebanese land. ￭ Addressing political developments in Lebanon and the region, Sheikh Naim said the Iran-US agreement “is the only available source of strength alongside the steadfastness of the resistance, our people, and its supporters.” ￭ He argued that the “agreement has proven its effectiveness simply through the issuance of the memorandum of understanding, which lowered the level of aggression against Lebanon.” ￭ He also called for an end to US political “tutelage and its control over certain levers of the (Lebanese) state. Tutelage is like occupation, and both constitute a violation of sovereignty.”

Israeli occupation's October 27 elections ended without a clear majority, despite Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition securing more seats than the main opposition bloc. ￭ According to the Israeli Central Elections Committee’s October 29 count, Netanyahu’s coalition secured 53 seats, Gadi Eisenkot’s opposition bloc 48, and Arab parties 19, up from 10 in the outgoing Knesset. ￭ If Eisenkot’s bloc and the Arab parties agree to form a ruling coalition, their combined 67 seats would secure a majority. Alternatively, Netanyahu’s bloc and Eisenkot’s bloc could form a ruling coalition together if they reach a coalition agreement, although both scenarios face significant political obstacles. ￭ Netanyahu’s Likud remained the largest individual party with 27 seats, but his coalition fell eight seats short of the 61 required for a majority. ￭ The vote count is complete, but official certification is expected on November 4.

Brazil’s 2022 coup attempt exposed how far the Bolsonaro camp was willing to go to challenge democratic institutions. The subsequent prosecution and conviction of Jair Bolsonaro made clear that electoral defeat does not grant politicians immunity from legal accountability. ￭ Now, Flávio Bolsonaro’s appeal to Washington revives a familiar pattern in Latin American politics: US backing for right-wing opposition figures who claim to represent a country’s legitimate leadership while challenging the authority of democratically-elected governments. By @mira_rehawi

The IRGC’s Navy reported that three oil tankers exploded and caught fire after striking naval mines while attempting to cross an unauthorized southern route through the Strait of Hormuz over the past 24 hours, according to Mehr News Agency. ￭ According to the IRGC, cited by Mehr, the vessels had switched off their radar and navigation systems and ignored warnings before entering the route. The tankers were subsequently abandoned along the strait’s southern shores. ￭ The IRGC warned that the route was unsafe and held vessel owners and crews responsible for ignoring its regulations, urging them not to “pay attention to CENTCOM's illusions.” ￭ In a separate announcement, the IRGC said it had brought down and captured a US MQM-170 reconnaissance drone intact through an electronic warfare operation west of the Strait of Hormuz. ￭ The drone was reportedly tasked with gathering intelligence on Iran’s air defense systems along the Persian Gulf coastline and the strait. ￭ According to Mehr, IRGC Navy specialists examined the recovered data and determined that the drone’s flight originated from the coast of one of the southern Persian Gulf littoral states.

The Pentagon is treating freezer malfunctions that spoiled food at at least six US military base commissaries in August as a suspected cyberattack, according to an exclusive Reuters report citing four officials. ￭ Investigators from US Cyber Command and the Army Criminal Investigation Division are working with French law enforcement to examine possible links to a similar attack on more than 350 French supermarkets earlier this month. ￭ At Fort Huachuca, Arizona, cooling units reportedly switched into heating mode overnight, destroying stored food. ￭ The Pentagon said Cyber Command was “working in close coordination with interagency and law enforcement partners.” ￭ The French incident involved temperature controls being overridden, with some units catching fire and potential nationwide losses reaching tens of millions of euros. ￭ Investigators have not identified those responsible or confirmed the cause.

In a special meeting of the Cambridge, Massachusetts City Council on Wednesday, “councillors voted 5-4 in favor of calling on the city’s pension fund and other post-retirement benefits fund to divest from ‘companies with severe and consistent involvement directly contributing to genocide, apartheid, and occupation of Palestinians,’” according to Cambridge Day. ￭ Local activists said, “This is the STRONGEST divestment language in the US thus far. We named Israel's genocide of Palestine as the REASON to divest, permanently enshrining it in city records and policy.” ￭ “The council also considered a policy order to draft language requiring the city to boycott companies that do business with the Israeli military in its own procurement process,” according to Cambridge Day, but “This failed to reach a majority.” ￭ Cambridge, host to MIT and Harvard University, is a primary global powerhouse for military technology and national security research. The city’s MIT Lincoln Laboratory is the US War Department’s largest federally funded research and development center, focusing on air and missile defense, space surveillance, rapid prototyping, and quantum sensors. ￭ In 2024, pro-Palestine activists in the city permanently shut down an Elbit Systems “innovation center” there through a sustained campaign of protest and direct action.

The Palestinian Resistance Security Apparatus's media platform, Al-Haris, revealed that media training was provided to Israeli-backed collaborator gangs in Gaza, aimed at whitewashing their public image and luring Palestinians to move into the so-called “Yellow Zone.” ￭ On October 28, Al-Haris published excerpts from the alleged confessions of a collaborator who surrendered to resistance security forces. ￭ According to the account, an Arab individual speaking with a Gulf accent conducted journalism and media workshops for members of the gangs under the cover of a media organization called “Jusoor News.” ￭ The training "included instructions on how to appear before the media and emphasize humanitarian, civilian, and social aspects, as part of efforts to improve the image of the collaborator groups and encourage residents to move to the so-called 'Yellow Zone'." ￭ Earlier, a July 13 investigation by +972 Magazine had exposed Jusoor News as an intelligence front with ties to the US-based Center for Peace Communications, its promotion of Israeli-backed gangs in Gaza, and links to Israeli intelligence officials.

A container ship chartered by Israeli occupation shipping company ZIM sank in the Black Sea after being struck by three naval drones off Bulgaria on October 28, according to Israeli media outlet, The Times of Israel. ￭ Israeli occupation outlet Ynet reported that the CONTSHIP JET was sailing from Haifa to Constanța, Romania, under the Liberian flag, carrying 421 containers. ￭ i24NEWS Arabic reported that all 18 crew members were rescued. No injuries were reported. The report also claims all 421 containers were lost at sea, with some reportedly carrying lithium-ion batteries and other hazardous materials. ￭ Bulgarian authorities have launched an investigation into possible pollution following the sinking, while the origin of the drones and those responsible for the attack remain unknown and under investigation, according to Radio Bulgaria.

Irish author Chris Haughton and Welsh author Nicola Davies have pledged book royalties to Sally Rooney in solidarity with her over the UK’s proscription of Palestine Action. Their pledges accompanied an open letter co-authored by Haughton and Patrick Ness, signed by more than 850 writers, illustrators, poets and editors. ￭ According to Defend Our Juries, a UK campaign group calling for the ban on Palestine Action to be lifted, Haughton said: “Palestine Action have done more to block the illegal arms sales to Israel than any other organisation in the UK.” He pledged his UK book royalties to Rooney in support. ￭ According to Defend Our Juries press release, Davies said: “I can’t say that I am standing up for the children of Wales if I allow the children of Gaza to be murdered and mutilated without comment,” later adding “Sally is free to do what she chooses with them, including giving them to help the work of Palestine Action.” ￭ The solidarity statement, published on Substack and co-written by Haughton and author Patrick Ness with assistance from Joseph Nhan-O’Reilly, has attracted more illustrators, poets and editors, including Ali Smith, Brian Eno and Robert Macfarlane, and has asserted: “A country that bans its writers for speaking out is not a free country. If you ban Sally Rooney, you ban all of us.” ￭ According to the statement on Haughton’s Substack, Max Porter, Jackie Morris, and others have, alongside the two Laureates, also “offered proceeds from royalties of our UK books” to Rooney.

AgriMovement (@AgrimovementLb) co-founder Bashar Abu Saifan examines how corporate power and economic policies could threaten Lebanon’s food sovereignty, linking the struggle over food production to the wider fight against the Israeli occupation’s aggression and economic domination. ￭ Watch the full mini-documentary by VPol journalist Mira Rehawi (@mira_rehawi) on YouTube here youtube.com/watch?v=ocfhoQvl…

“Nadia Beller, the Bolivian whistleblower who survived an assassination attempt ordered by Trump associate and political operative Fernando Cerimedo,” told journalist Camila Lourdes Galarza (@sovietwithsazon) that “authorities are seeking to arrest her as soon as Friday.” ￭ Lourdes Galarza reported that “According to sources within the Bolivian government and police, the case will argue that her (brave) testimony against Cerimedo’s crimes—which range from US backed election interference to drug trafficking—is evidence she had prior knowledge and failed to report. Beller, a lawyer herself, cites multiple legal grounds for immunity and says this is an obvious attempt to silence her for exposing a corruption network spanning from Washington DC to Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, and beyond.” ￭ “The Bolivian attorney general who arrested and charged Cerimedo with femicide for the attack on Beller was sanctioned by the US and later detained by Bolivian authorities,” Lourdes Galarza noted. “Beller says she fears for her life and the life of her unborn child, which Cerimedo allegedly fathered. She is calling on the international community to support her in the face of political lawfare, attempted femicide, and state repression.”

The Israeli occupation’s Central Elections Committee chair Justice Noam Sohlberg requested “Shin Bet chief David Zini to investigate allegations of foreign interference in Tuesday’s election,” reported The Times of Israel, as Netanyahu’s ruling Likud Party claimed an attempted “Islamization of Israel,” seeking “to use the Shin Bet investigation into foreign election interference to taint any potential attempt by the opposition bloc to partner with Arab parties” in forming a ruling coalition. ￭ “The Gadi Eisenkot-led bloc doesn’t have the votes to form a government on its own, but would be above the requisite 61 seats if it partners with the two Arab parties, or forms a minority government with their support. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc also does not have the seats to form a ruling coalition,” according to The Times of Israel. ￭ The investigation comes after historic turnout in the occupation’s Tuesday election, the highest levels since voter turnout began being tracked in 1973, particularly among 1948 Palestinian voters.

Oman’s Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Albusaidi challenged the foundations of the Gulf region’s security order during a lecture titled “Inclusive Security in the Gulf,” delivered at Girton College, University of Cambridge, on October 26, 2026. ￭ “What holds us back is that issues which ought to be handled at a regional level by the states of the Gulf themselves, are made more complex, more intractable and sometimes simply impossible to resolve because the region’s security arrangements are insufficiently developed,” adding that “they are insufficiently developed because they have relied for too long on the involvement of external powers.” ￭ Albusaidi explained that outsourcing security to superpowers through heavy military commitments and treaties has carried a long-term political cost that often fails to serve the region's true common interests. ￭ “Perhaps the most damaging of the priorities imposed on the region from the outside has been the requirement that Iran be excluded. Not just excluded. Worse. Positioned as the threat against which regional security had to be organised.” ￭ Offering an alternative, he says: “Instead of a genuine security structure designed to maintain stable relations between the eight states of the Gulf, this produced an unstable regional system constructed on the entirely false perception that there is a fundamental regional antagonism between Iran and the Arab states of the Gulf. There is no such fundamental antagonism…Today, Persia is a fact, 93 million people and three thousand years of history. Roughly half of the Gulf littoral.” ￭ “Any Gulf security architecture that doesn’t include them is inherently unstable. It’s structurally unsound. And recent events expose the terrible cost of allowing the false perception of antagonism and exclusion.”

Indonesia’s forest and peatland fires have blanketed communities in toxic haze, while environmental groups accuse the government of failing to address corporate drivers of the recurring crisis. ￭ According to Indonesia’s Ministry of Health, reported by ANTARA News on October 22, 333,470 acute respiratory infection cases were recorded in fire-affected regions, including 75,172 among children aged five and under. ￭ ANTARA News reported that thousands demonstrated outside East Kalimantan’s governor’s office in Samarinda on October 21, demanding stronger government action over the fires. ￭ According to Greenpeace Indonesia’s October 5 analysis, 6,811 fire-related smoke sources were identified between August 8 and October 1. Of these, 970 were inside 120 forestry concessions and 980 inside 233 palm oil concessions. ￭ Greenpeace Indonesia argues that degraded peatlands, corporate land expansion, and inadequate enforcement are driving recurring fires, while smoke continues to threaten public health and ecosystems.