Politics

Rachel Reeves, Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer, presented an expansive tax-and-spend budget. Taxes will rise by £40bn ($52bn; the biggest revenue raiser was an increase in employers’ national-insurance contributions. Ms Reeves changed her fiscal rules to enable lots more borrowing for capital investment and unveiled more spending on education, housing and green energy. The biggest winner was health care, which enjoyed the largest real-terms increase in spending since 2010, outside the pandemic.

Israeli warplanes targeted Iran’s air-defence systems and missile factories in retaliation for Iran’s missile attack against Israel on October 1st. Israel confirmed it had struck Iran, the first time it has officially acknowledged a direct strike on its foe. Iran played down the damage. America said there would be “consequences” for Iran if it attacked Israel again. Oil prices fell sharply amid relief that Israel had not hit Iranian energy facilities.

The Israeli parliament voted to ban UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinians, from operating within Israel. Nine UNRWA staff were sacked in August for their alleged involvement in Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel in October last year. America’s State Department and a host of NGOs urged Israel to reconsider the ban, as UNRWA plays a critical role in delivering aid to Gaza.

At least 93 people were killed in an Israeli strike on a building in north Gaza, according to the Hamas-run authorities. An Israeli operation in Lebanon’s Bekaa valley, a Hizbullah stronghold, killed 60 people, according to the local governor. Breakdowns of civilian and combatant casualties were not provided in either case.

Hizbullah chose Naim Qassem as its new leader following Israel’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah and elimination of other senior leaders in the Iranian-backed militia. Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defence minister, said Mr Qassem wouldn’t be leader for long.

A neglected conflict

A UN report found that the Rapid Support Forces, one of the two main parties in Sudan’s civil war, was responsible for widespread sexual violence amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity. The RSF recently stepped up its attacks around Khartoum, the capital, killing hundreds of people, mostly civilians. Since it began in April 2023, the war in Sudan has displaced more than 14m people, or about 30% of the population. Parts of the country are afflicted by famine.

Botswana held an election. The Botswana Democratic Party, which has ruled since 1966, was expected to win. Mokgweetsi Masisi, the president, is likely to stay on for a second term. The opposition alliance, which is fractured but popular with young people struggling to find work, has alleged there was vote-rigging.

Flooding caused by exceptionally heavy rains killed at least 95 people in Spain’s Valencia region in the country’s worst flood-related disaster in decades. A year’s worth of rain was recorded falling in one day.

Official results in Georgia’s parliamentary election suggested the pro-Russian Georgian Dream party had been returned to power with 54% of the vote. The pro-European opposition coalition refused to accept the result, as allegations of ballot-tampering emerged. The country’s electoral commission began a recount of votes in randomly selected polling stations. Georgia’s election follows allegations of Russian meddling in Moldova’s recent poll.

NATO confirmed that North Korean troops have been deployed to Russia to to help President Vladimir Putin wage war on Ukraine. The Pentagon estimates that 10,000 North Koreans are in Russia, some of them located close to the Ukrainian border, and that they could start fighting against Ukrainian troops within a few weeks.

North Korea test-fired its first intercontinental ballistic missile of the year. The missile flew for 87 minutes, the longest flight yet for the regime’s ICBM programme. Some analysts think the country may be getting technical help from Russia in in exchange for help with Mr Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

In a shock result, Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party lost its majority in a parliamentary election. It was a big blow to Ishiba Shigeru, the prime minister, who called the snap poll when he was elected as the LDP’s leader a month ago. The LDP and its partner, Komeito, took 215 seats in the lower house, short of the 233 needed for a majority and leaving it scrambling to find other parties to support the coalition. A record 73 women were elected to the 465-member chamber.

Canada’s deputy foreign-affairs minister told a parliamentary committee that India’s minister of home affairs, Amit Shah, was behind a campaign of violence and intimidation targeting Sikh activists in Canada. No evidence was provided for the claim against Mr Shah, the closest ally of Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister. Relations between Canada and India have soured after the murder last year of a Sikh separatist in Vancouver.

Eight of Mexico’s 11 supreme court justices handed in their resignations, to signal they will not stand in elections in June 2025. Under a controversial new judicial reform, judges at all levels in Mexico will be elected rather than appointed. The reform stipulates that their pensions would be at risk if they did not step down, and then lost the election. Three justices close to Morena, the ruling party, are staying on.

The government of Bolivia denied that it had attempted to assassinate Evo Morales, the country’s former president. Mr Morales says his car was shot at as he travelled through the centre of the country. The interior minister said Mr Morales’s convoy had fired shots at the police and ran over an officer. Mr Morales and Luis Arce, the current president, are feuding over who will lead their party, the Movement for Socialism, into an election in 2025.

The conservative president of Argentina, Javier Milei, sacked his minister for foreign affairs, Diana Mondino, after she voted at the UN to end America’s embargo against Cuba. Since Mr Milei took office last December Argentina had always voted in line with American policy at the UN.

It ain’t over ’til it’s over

America’s presidential candidates made their closing arguments ahead of the election on November 5th. Kamala Harris labelled Donald Trump a fascist. Mr Trump called Ms Harris a “radical left Marxist”. The opinion polls remained neck and neck.