🇪🇺🇨🇦🇬🇧🇺🇦 EU to press Canada and UK for more Ukraine funding

As a reminder, the EU has approved a loan of €90 billion for Kyiv for the years 2026-2027. However, during the summit, Vladimir Zelensky requested additional funds of €70 billion.

The publication notes that, given the growing funding deficit for Ukraine and the uncertainty regarding support from the United States, Brussels is increasingly looking to allies outside the political bloc as sources of funding.

🔗 https://unwall.app/www.politico.eu/article/eu-to-press-canada-and-uk-for-more-ukraine-funding/

🌐 Government websites go dark as software flaw sparks security scramble

Government websites in Europe and elsewhere went offline on Wednesday after the disclosure of critical vulnerabilities in a widely used programming language sent ‌website operators scrambling to protect their systems.

Developers of the PHP programming language said Tuesday they had identified two critical vulnerabilities and urged users to update their sites as soon as a fix was released. They said around 1345 GMT on Wednesday that a new version fixing the vulnerabilities was live.

But with reports that hackers were exploiting the flaws to break into websites, government agencies in the Netherlands and Finland were among those that took sites offline ahead of ​the fix as a precaution.

PHP underpins large parts of the internet, raising concerns that a significant number of websites could be vulnerable to attack.

"PHP is everywhere. It quietly powers WordPress, ​Drupal, Joomla, and Magento sites, shared hosting platforms, control panels, and an awful lot of software that doesn't even advertise that it runs PHP under ⁠the hood," cybersecurity company Huntress said in a blog post.

Dane Knecht, the chief technology officer of Web and cloud security firm Cloudflare said that attacks were emerging and Cloudflare was updating its ​firewall rules as a stopgap measure.

"We are seeing early attacks emerging and are updating mitigations as new vectors show up. This is a STOPGAP only. Patch as soon as PHP releases the update," he ​said on X.

Wordfence, a security plugin that protects WordPress websites, said all WordPress sites run on a PHP-installed server. It warned that automatic updates would not apply the fix and advised site owners to find out who is responsible for updating PHP on their sites.

Cybersecurity agencies in Europe, Australia, Japan and Britain have urged PHP users to update immediately or take websites offline until patches can be applied. The Dutch cybersecurity agency itself went offline, saying ​it had done so as a precaution because of the vulnerabilities.

Officials have said that all PHP versions from PHP 5 onward could be affected, although PHP has not yet disclosed which versions are ​vulnerable.

🔗 https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/eu-agency-warns-websites-may-need-be-taken-offline-php-prepares-patches-2026-10-21/

🇨🇩🇳🇬🦠 The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has spread to Nigeria!

Nigeria has confirmed an Ebola case in its capital, Abuja, after a woman who arrived from Uganda tested positive for the virus, the health ministry said.

The woman began showing symptoms on 7 October and was admitted to a hospital in Abuja four days later, where she was later diagnosed with Ebola. It is unclear when she arrived in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country.

The health minister, Muhammad Pate, said authorities had begun tracing 44 people identified as contacts of the patient. “We are doing everything possible to contain this case by tracing all the contacts the individual may have had,” he said.

Uganda’s ministry of health said the patient had only transited through Uganda and that she is a Nigerian woman who had been on a business trip to Congo’s eastern region. The Nigerian authorities have not disclosed her nationality.

“Travel through Uganda does not establish that infection occurred here. The location of exposure remains under investigation,” the ministry said in a statement. The ministry insisted Uganda has “no confirmed active Ebola cases”.

Nigeria is the latest country to report an Ebola case as the outbreak spreads across the region. Kenya confirmed its first case earlier this month and has since recorded nine infections. Uganda had previously reported Ebola cases, but it later declared itself free of the virus.

🔗 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/21/nigeria-first-ebola-case-africa-outbreak-latest

🇸🇸🇸🇩⚔️🇸🇩 Situation on Blue Nile front, Sudan:

Despite heavy losses and the decline in Ethiopian support following the resumption of the civil war in that country, the RSF continued its offensive along the border, crossing the Blue Nile in the first week of October, where it captured a series of localities in that direction.

With the arrival of reinforcements, the SAF managed to regain some of the lost ground and contain the rebel advance along the Menze, Jabal Kadam, and Umm Darfa-City 7 axes.

Further south, RSF forces intensified their attacks north of Kurmuk over the past two days, managing to reach the outskirts of Sali, where they were repelled by government forces.

🔗 SuriyakMaps

🇮🇳🇸🇬🇮🇷 U.S. sanctions on Iranian airlines are preventing Iran from importing critical drugs and other medicines for Iranian patients.

India and Singapore Deny Iran Air Permits for Medicine Transport

Taher Abdolhay, managing director of Iran Air (Homa), announced on Monday, October 19, 2026, that the airline is unable to import medicines into the country due to the refusal of flight permits for Iranian aircraft by India and Singapore.

Speaking at a press conference, Abdolhay stated that Iran Air is prepared to transport essential medical supplies from India and other countries to Iran at minimal cost. However, the airline’s requests to operate flights to Singapore have remained unanswered.

Explaining efforts to import pharmaceuticals from India, he said: “For the Mumbai route, a proposal to transport medicine, even via passenger flights, was submitted, but cargo flight permits were not granted.”

Recall that during the hot phase of the 3rd Gulf War, the U.S. and Israel targeted Iranian pharmaceutical labs and companies including the Louis Pasteur Institute which was responsible for almost all vaccines used in Iran in order to cripple Iran's public health system as Israel's goal always was to turn Iran into a new Syria, Libya, Iraq or Afghanistan.

Target health facilities is considered a war crime under international law.

🔗 https://iranwire.com/en/news/159073-india-and-singapore-deny-iran-air-permits-for-medicine-transport/

🤖 Anthropic has recorded one of the largest corporate losses ever reported:

The company posted a staggering -$80.7 billion net loss in the first half of 2026, up from -$13 billion a year earlier.

This is also nearly DOUBLE its full-year 2025 loss of -$42 billion.

-$72 billion of the loss stems from non-cash accounting adjustments reflecting changes in the value of convertible notes and other financing instruments, leaving an estimated -$8.7 billion loss after these charges are excluded.

At the same time, revenue surged to $16.3 billion from just $1.1 billion a year earlier, but computing and infrastructure spending nearly QUADRUPLED to $9 billion, exceeding the $7.3 billion spent throughout 2025.

Meanwhile, Anthropic's infrastructure commitments now exceed $600 billion and could reach $750 billion, with most cloud contracts being noncancelable and payable regardless of actual usage.

The company also faces significant customer concentration, with just 2 customers accounting for ~20% of 1H 2026 revenue, while major cloud providers cannot supply all the computing capacity it needs.

Anthropic is preparing for a potential $2 trillion IPO despite enormous infrastructure obligations, substantial underlying losses, and uncertainty over whether revenue growth can justify its spending.

Previously however, Reuters reported that investors are now discussing a valuation of around $1.5 trillion, as slower revenue growth and soaring AI infrastructure costs weigh on sentiment.

Anthropic's $2 trillion IPO ambition is colliding with the brutal economics of the AI arms race.

🔗 Global Markets Investor

🇮🇹 Fuel protests in Italy are causing food shortages as trucks are not able to reach supermarkets

The protests, which began in southern Italy last week, have also disrupted operations in two regional airports in Calabria because they cannot ​get deliveries of aviation fuel.

With traffic snarled in various parts ​of the country, long queues formed on the A1 ⁠motorway near the southern city of Naples after truckers restricted ​access.

Trucks and tractors drove into the central square in the northeastern ​city of Ravenna as the protests spread and farmers added their voices.

Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said the government was prepared to consider a cap ​on diesel prices to help ease the pressure on hauliers

Italy ​has set aside around €1 billion ($1.1 billion) this year to help truck drivers cope ‌with ⁠surging fuel costs and replace older vehicles with less-polluting models.

The protests come as Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's government deals with unrest last weekend in northern cities including Milan where gangs of mainly young people ​went on the ​rampage.

The ANCD-Conad group, ⁠representing retailers operating under the Conad supermarket brand, said large quantities of perishable products including fruit ​and vegetables, as well as milk and meat ​were stranded ⁠on trucks and in warehouses.

"The freedom to protest cannot translate into undermining citizens' right to receive fresh food or destroying the value ⁠created ​by Italy's agri-food supply chains," said the ​group's president Maurizio Pelliconi.

Giorgia Meloni has already cut the fuel tax but it has done nothing to keep fuel prices low as the wars in the Middle East caused by the U.S. and Israel continue to choke the trade routes that once delivered fuel to Italy and the rest of Europe.

🔗 https://www.reuters.com/world/italian-retailers-warn-food-shortages-caused-by-truck-drivers-protest-2026-10-21/

🇮🇱🗳⚔️🇮🇷 Israel's election may change its leader, but not Iran war policy — Reuters

Israel's election next week may change its leader, but not its strategy: Iran will remain its chief adversary, military force will continue to be its preferred tool and Palestinian statehood ​a distant prospect, regional policymakers and analysts say.

That is because the strategic assumptions underpinning Israeli policy were hardened by the October 7, 2023, attacks on southern Israeli communities by ‌Palestinian militant group Hamas and by the wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.

If anything, Israel could toughen its security policy, the analysts said, as victory for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the backing of far-right coalition partners could embolden him to step up the war with Iran, tighten Israel's grip on the occupied West Bank and push diplomacy further to the margins.Israel's security doctrine now rests on three pillars: breaking Iran, holding buffer zones beyond its borders and using force to deter enemies.

The real ​divide is one of degree rather than direction — how aggressively Israel fights its wars, how far it expands Jewish settlements in the West Bank and whether any leader opts for diplomacy, the ​analysts said.

From Tehran to Riyadh, Tuesday's election is not seen as a potential turning point but as a test of whether the Middle East is settling into ⁠a long confrontation, where wars ebb and flow while the underlying conflicts are unresolved.

"If Netanyahu is elected, he'll do whatever he thinks he wants to do," said Aviv Bushinsky, a former adviser to Netanyahu. "Expansion of ​the settlements will continue. The wars against Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah will continue.""What you see now is what you'll see after the election, maybe even more aggressively," he said. "As long as Iran is in such ​a situation, it's a waste of time talking about Palestine.”

Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel must prioritise “prevention and offence over containment and defence”, including pre-emptive strikes to thwart emerging threats, while establishing Israel as a regional power and maximising its independence in armaments.

WHY THE COURSE IS UNLIKELY TO CHANGE

The election pits Netanyahu's right-wing Likud and its ultranationalist allies against an opposition led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar party.Palestinian analyst Ghassan al-Khatib sees no prospect of a fundamental shift in ​policy towards the Palestinians, with Israeli political parties competing to project harder-line positions as public opinion moves further to the right.“The substance of the policy remains the same: No to a Palestinian state and ​yes to further settlement expansion. On this, they are all in agreement,” he said.

A government led by Netanyahu's opponents might seek to repair Israel's international standing by curbing some settler violence or pursuing settlement expansion with less fanfare. But ‌such changes ⁠would be a shift in style rather than substance, al-Khatib said.

🔗 https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israels-election-may-change-its-leader-not-iran-war-policy-2026-10-21/

🇫🇷🤝🇸🇦🇧🇭🇦🇪 France received commitments from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE for diesel shipments during a presidential visit but its unclear how and when the diesel will be delivered

French President Emmanuel Macron has secured the delivery of an additional 200,000 tonnes of diesel per month from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain during a tour of the Gulf, the French presidency said Tuesday.

With the addition of deliveries from Saudi Arabia, France has commitments for 295,000 tonnes per month, representing just over 10 percent of its consumption, the presidency added.

Macron is undertaking a tour of key energy suppliers in the Gulf in an effort to secure oil and diesel supplies and bring down prices in France, after a weekend of violent protests sparked by soaring living costs.

🔗 https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20261020-macron-secures-diesel-deals-on-gulf-visit-as-fuel-prices-stoke-unrest-in-france

🛰 Satellite imagery from earlier today, October 21st, of the southern/Omani lane in the Strait of Hormuz shows zero ships risking being struck or sunk by the IRGC.

@CIG_telegram