🇺🇦🇷🇺⚡️- Ukrainian forces have struck two major Russian military-industrial facilities, targeting the Proton-Electrotex electronics plant in Oryol and the Tolyattikauchuk petrochemical plant in Togliatti.

Proton-Electrotex manufactures components for Iskander-M ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and Pantsir air-defense systems, while Tolyattikauchuk produces synthetic rubber used in solid rocket propellant. Ukraine also reports striking a Russian aircraft at the Yeysk military airfield, although the extent of the damage remains unclear.

🇺🇸🇮🇷⚡- A U.S. LUCAS one-way drone was shot down over Bandar Abbas, southern Iran.

🇩🇿🇳🇪🇱🇾⚡- BREAKING: Algeria’s parliament has unanimously approved the forward deployment of Algerian military forces into Niger.

The deployment expands on Algeria’s existing military presence at Air Base 101 at Niamey International Airport, established following the attempted coup on 29 August. Algerian forces are now set to deploy to key oil infrastructure sites across Niger, but more importantly to the Madama Air Base (at 21.9554711, 13.6470986), a strategically significant installation in the country’s northeast.

Once a vocal opponent of the Sahelian junta bloc, Algeria appears to have softened its stance toward Mali and Burkina Faso, while openly backing the authorities in Niamey, which included the sale of military helicopters just a few month ago.

Algiers’ shift is understood to be driven by the growing influence of Saddam Haftar and eastern Libyan factions, which Niamey accuses of supporting Tuareg separatists in northeast Niger as well as the anti-junta Patriotic Liberation Front, FPL. Certain sections of the Nigerien junta have accused the FPL of orchestrating the August 29 attacks.

Algeria has long opposed the Haftar warlords, and the deployment to Madama Air Base places Algerian forces directly on the doorstep of FPL areas of operation in northeastern Niger, while also positioning them close to the Libyan border, particularly Fezzan, a region controlled by the remnants of the infamous 128th Brigade of Haftar's Libyan National Army.

Rerum Novarum’s proprietary maps are now available at MINIMAP.TECHNOLOGY

🇮🇷🇶🇦⚡- A Qatari delegation has arrived in Tehran, Iran.

🇮🇳🇨🇳⚡- Protests in Pasighat, Arunachal Pradesh, turned violent over the past 24 hours, with demonstrators setting fire to an NHPC office and a police headquarters.

The unrest was triggered by New Delhi’s decision to move forward with the Siang Upper Multipurpose Project, SUMP, a 11,200 MW hydroelectric project that has faced strong opposition from local groups since 2009. Protestors are demanding the release of detained activists and the withdrawal of Indian security personnel from the area.

China, which claims the entirety of Arunachal Pradesh as part of its southern Tibet territory, has also strongly condemned the project.

🇺🇸🇹🇼🇨🇳⚡- President Trump makes yet another geopolitically ignorant statement and assumes the Taiwan file's importance is simply its chip industry:

"Look, if we had smart presidents, the Taiwan problem with China wouldn't exist. Nobody would care. They stole our chip business."

🇮🇷🇮🇱⚡️- BREAKING: Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is demanding a strike on Iran before Tuesday’s elections but is currently being refused by IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir.

Zamir is demanding evidence and justification for resuming the war with Iran. This is an unprecedented dispute, according to Channel 13.

🇮🇷🇮🇱⚡️- Israeli security officials are urgently warning that Prime Minister Netanyahu and his leadership could push for a dramatic escalation against Iran in the coming days, according to Israel’s Channel 12.

Rerum Novarum assessed the major tensions between Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and IDF officials and military leadership in late September, before any dispute was publicly known.

🇮🇷🇮🇱⚡️- "The left will not eliminate the nuclear weapons, Iran will destroy us." - Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to Channel 14.

🇧🇷🗳⚡️- Polls have closed in Brazil and the first results of the runoff election have come in.

Lula takes an early lead with 57.7% of the vote.

🇧🇷🗳⚡️- The Supreme Court has ordered a nationwide two-hour extension of voting at the request of Lula, who claims that multiple municipalities lack the public transportation to vote in time.

🇷🇸⚡- Aleksandar Vucic has conceded defeat in Serbia's parliamentary elections.

The Student List has won the elections.

🇧🇷🗳⚡️- Multiple Brazilian Regional Electoral Courts have rejected Brazil's Supreme Court extension of voting by now.

🇧🇷🗳⚡️- The Brazilian Superior Electoral Court has issued a document demanding that the Regional Electoral Courts respect the decision to extend the voting time by 2 hours.

At least five Regional Electoral Courts have refused to apply the Supreme Court's extension of voting so far.

🇧🇷🗳⚡️- Polls closed in Brazil. Allegedly.

🇧🇷🗳⚡️- At 1.78% counted:

Flavio Bolsonaro: 48.5%
Lula: 51.5%

🇧🇷🗳 - Note: counting in the north-eastern regions seems way faster than the reported pace during the first round. It is unsure if all polling stations remain open in all regions at this time.