🇾🇪⚔️🇸🇦 Satellite imagery from Nov 8 shows possible signs of damage at Pumping Station 8 along Saudi Arabia’s East-West oil pipeline.

It's since been confirmed the pipeline experienced a fire that was quickly extinguished.

🔗 Soar Atlas (@SoarAtlas)

🇹🇷🇪🇺 Turkey's autocratic slide is now Europe's problem on four fronts - Carnegie - IntelliNews Lambda

"Turkey's Four Headaches Are Also Europe's", by Marc Pierini, a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe and former EU career diplomat with 14 years as a Turkey analyst at the think tank, sets out four fronts on which Ankara and the EU face "an uncertain future": money and trade, security, the rule of law and Europe's own shifting politics.

Money comes first because it is the first with a deadline and a forced seller attached. MSCI wants credible enforcement against coordinated trading and free-float data outsiders can verify, a rule-of-law test written in market language, so the investor's problem and the one European courts and diplomats have raised for years have become the same problem.

Paris and Berlin proposed on October 16 that cars qualifying for public contracts and support under the EU's planned Made in Europe scheme could come from the European Economic Area, with possible side deals for Switzerland and the UK. Japan, South Korea and Turkey would stay out. The test is single-market membership on January 1, 2020, which Turkey fails despite its 1995 customs union with the bloc, Hurriyet Daily News reported on October 17.

Turkey's automotive exports came to $41.5bn in 2025, of which $30.1bn or 72.5% went to the EU, according to the Uludag Automotive Industry Exporters' Association. Trade Minister Omer Bolat says European firms account for nearly 75% of Turkish car production, and Bosch, Fiat, Renault and Siemens all run large lines in the country. Ford of Europe's president warned in February that shutting out Turkey and the UK would weaken production inside the EU itself. The text still needs other member states and the European Parliament, and Ankara and Brussels agreed in February to work on modernising the customs union.

Whether the exclusion was a bureaucratic oversight or a lack of confidence in Turkey's governance is an open question, according to Pierini. The roots lie in an accession process Ankara never seriously pursued, because aligning with EU norms clashed with opaque procurement, a superpresidential system and political control of the courts, media and civil society. The EU's restrictions over Cyprus and French and German opposition from 2007 did the rest, leaving a debate the bloc never held on whether accession was the right vehicle for Turkey at all.

"A Europe that excludes Turkey from its security architecture cannot possibly be stronger or safer," President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the UN General Assembly in September.

Turkey's defence industry has won sales, joint ventures and acquisitions in Europe but no formal seat in Western European security talks beyond the coalition of the willing for Ukraine. The NATO summit in Ankara in July showcased its arms makers without delivering the political recognition Erdogan expected, according to Pierini. Three things stand in the way, in the same account: Ankara's close ties to Moscow, its equally close ties to the Trump administration and, above all, the degradation of the rule of law.

Libya's eastern-based parliament voted unanimously on October 20 to ratify a 2019 maritime memorandum with Turkey, reversing its earlier opposition. Egypt's foreign ministry rejected it as legally invalid and the EU also opposed the vote. On the Black Sea the picture is kinder: Turkey's navy, its role under the Montreux Convention and a planned grain corridor with Kiev give allies something to value, though Moscow could press Ankara to limit any operation that helps Ukraine.

Domestic polls show Erdogan would not win a third term, assuming he can legally run, even with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) alongside him, according to Pierini. Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, who led those polls, has been jailed since March 2025 and prosecutors have demanded up to 2,352 years in prison. He denies the charges.

An Ankara appeals court removed Ozgur Ozel as leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP) on May 21 and restored his predecessor, Kemal Kilicdaroglu. Critics call it a move to crush the opposition, while the presidency insists the courts are independent. Ozel then launched the New Party, and around 90 lawmakers and Imamoglu himself have followed him.

National or regional votes fall in Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, Slovenia and Spain by the end of 2027, a map drawn by Carnegie's Stefan Lehne, and hard-right parties with a shared anti-immigration streak are likely to make strong gains and could take power in some of them, according to Pierini. Turkey's best European partners for 20 years have been on the centre-left, and a more fractured continent may be less inclined to heed its security advice or trade requests.

Ankara's stance of equal distance from China, Europe, Russia and the US is its sovereign choice but cannot coexist with EU accession or membership of the Council of Europe, according to Pierini. EU leaders share the problem: criticising Turkey's courts while taking no action "sends a signal that fundamental divergences on core issues are acceptable".

🔗 https://www.intellinews.com/turkey-s-autocratic-slide-is-now-europe-s-problem-on-four-fronts-carnegie-intellinews-lambda-481940/

🇯🇵🤝🇲🇲 Japan pushes FATF to remove Myanmar from blacklist

Japan is lobbying the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to take Myanmar off its blacklist so that companies can do business there more easily, according to The Japan Times.

The push is the latest indication that some major economies want to end the isolation of Myanmar's military-backed government. The army seized power in a 2021 coup, and the country continues to face scrutiny over scam centre operations and illicit finance. Delisting would loosen the checks now applied to commercial dealings with Myanmar.

Tokyo wants the watchdog to scrap a requirement that its member states carry out enhanced screening of financial transactions involving Myanmar. The measure is designed to guard against money laundering and the financing of terrorism. A senior Japanese government official and a second person with knowledge of the matter described Japan's position.

A spokesperson for the FATF Secretariat confirmed that confidential meetings were ongoing, with any blacklist updates to be announced following their conclusion on Friday. Myanmar’s military-backed government did not respond to requests for comment.

Myanmar was blacklisted by FATF in October 2022 following post-coup turmoil that fuelled drug trafficking and industrial-scale scam centres. Though the government claims to be tackling cyberfraud and narcotics, recent reports reveal it imported sanctioned Iranian jet fuel using forged documentation.

Japan is leading efforts to remove Myanmar from the FATF blacklist to facilitate business activity and economic recovery, aligning with wider international re-engagement following recent US-led talks in Naypyidaw.

🔗 https://www.intellinews.com/japan-pushes-fatf-to-remove-myanmar-from-blacklist-480697/

🇨🇳🤝🇺🇸 China extends suspension of new rare earth controls until January

China on Monday announced a two-month extension of export-control waivers ​due to expire this month, preserving ‌part of a wide-ranging deal struck after a summit between Presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump.

China ​introduced export controls on certain rare ​earths in April 2025, only to expand them ⁠further in October of that year, ​dramatically widening their scope and also adding new ​controls on certain diamonds with industrial applications and lithium battery technology. The measures were then paused for ​one year last November after a summit ​in South Korea between Xi and Trump.

The Ministry of ‌Commerce ⁠said in a short statement on Monday that the pause would be extended for two months until January 10. It gave ​no other ​details.

The extension ⁠is part of a broader suspension of trade countermeasures and tariffs ​announced by China on Monday as ​it ⁠negotiates with Washington over an enduring trade deal. Trump is set to travel to Shenzhen ⁠in ​southern China later this ​month for an APEC leaders summit, where he is ​expected to meet with Xi.

🔗 https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-extends-suspension-new-rare-earth-controls-until-january-2026-11-09/

👨‍💻 🇺🇸 🤖 Fable 5.2 shows substantially improved skills in controlling physical robots, even on tasks it has never explicitly been trained to do.

On RoboDojo, a benchmark with a simulated two-arm robot, it outperformed other models and most AI systems built to control robots.

📎 Claude

🇾🇪⚔️🇸🇦 Houthis claimed three separate attacks inside KSA. They said the first hit King Khalid Airport and several pumping stations along the East–West oil pipeline in Riyadh, causing fires and damage. A second attack targeted Aramco facility in Abqaiq, and a third struck Riyadh’s financial district.

Houthis warned companies and investors against keeping their investments in Saudi Arabia, urging them to move their assets to safer countries. The group said KSA would remain unsafe for investment until it ended its military campaign and lifted its blockade on Yemen.

🔗 Yahya Saree

🇮🇱 Gadi Eisenkot secured a 61-vote majority to oust the Speaker of the Knesset and Netanyahu's close ally, MK Amir Ohana.

Arab parties joined the left-wing bloc to vote out Ohana, despite the government coalition not yet being formed.

@CIG_telegram

👨‍💻 🇺🇸 🤖 During pre-release testing, Claude Fable 5.2 and Claude Mythos 5.2 worked on ambitious projects in many different fields. Here are a few.

From a one-paragraph prompt, Fable 5.2 designed three working electronic devices, including this home voice assistant hub.

📎 Claude

👨‍💻 🎮 🤖 Felix Rieseberg on X: I wanted to test Fable 5.2's quality with one-shot prompts without human feedback.

Everything in this game is from scratch: models, sounds, textures. ~$550 at API pricing, ~2.7M output and 445M input tokens, heavily cached. Took 8 hours!

https://claude.ai/artifact/BGY1SztrAYcJQHSsnHHGmp

📎 Felix Rieseberg

🇪🇺🇦🇲🇬🇪 Armenia replaces Georgia as EU's closest South Caucasus partner

Georgia's political relations with the European Union have deteriorated to the point where they now rank below its ties with Russia, while Armenia has emerged as the bloc's closest partner in the South Caucasus, according to a survey by Dutch think-tank Clingendael.

The survey of 41 regional specialists gave Georgia-EU relations a score of 2.57 on a scale of 1 to 10, compared with 3.71 for Georgia-Russia ties. Armenia's relations with the EU scored 8.47, the third-highest rating among 51 bilateral relationships assessed.

Only Armenia-Pakistan relations, at 2.07, scored lower than Georgia-EU ties, according to the interactive map shared in the report, "Realignment and competition: the 2026 geopolitical map of the South Caucasus", by Clingendael researchers Marina Ohanjanyan, Wouter Zweers, Sam de Vet and Jonne Soepenberg.

The findings mark a sharp reversal from 2023, when Georgia was the EU's closest partner in the region. At that time, Clingendael classified Georgia-EU relations as good, while ties between Tbilisi and Moscow were rated bad.

The EU "now rallies mostly around Armenia rather than the former favourite Georgia", the report says, identifying three key tests for Brussels: its next decision on Georgia in January, Armenia's possible application for EU membership and whether Yerevan can amend its constitution to unblock a peace agreement with Azerbaijan.

The survey was conducted between April 22 and May 18, before Armenia's June 7 election returned Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's Civil Contract party to power and the EU announced a €52mn assistance package and tariff relief for Armenia in July.

Armenia's political ties with France scored 9.27, second only to Azerbaijan-Turkey relations at 9.31. Its relationship with the United States scored 7.87 and with the EU 8.47, while ties with Russia received a rating of 3.80.

Relations with Moscow have deteriorated from ambiguous in 2023 to somewhat adversarial, although Armenia remains economically and strategically dependent on Russia.

Armenia "remains structurally dependent on Moscow for the time being", the report says, pointing to vulnerabilities in energy infrastructure. Russia pushed through a reduction in the diameter of the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline from 1,420 mm to 700 mm in the 2000s, leaving it able to supply only part of the Armenian market.

Trade data underline the shift towards Europe. Armenia's trade with Russia fell 19.2% year on year to $3.59bn in January-August, while trade with the EU rose 53.9% to $2.43bn, according to official figures.

Pashinyan said on November 3 that Armenia could apply to join the EU in 2027 or 2028, despite warnings from Moscow that it must choose between the EU and the Eurasian Economic Union.

🔗 https://www.intellinews.com/armenia-replaces-georgia-as-eu-s-closest-south-caucasus-partner-481930/

🌐🇷🇺❌🇦🇲 Russia is moving to strip Armenia's voting rights in the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) amid Yerevan's push to build ties to NATO

Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov said that the heads of state of the CSTO will consider on Wednesday the issue of stripping Armenia of its voting rights within the organization. He noted that Yerevan has not been paying its membership fees for more than two years.

At the same time, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry clarified that even if Armenia is deprived of its voting rights in the CSTO, the republic will retain all its main rights under the Collective Security Treaty.

While it is a minor sanction, Russia could quickly end up suspending or outright kicking out Armenia from the CSTO if it believes Armenia is leaking classified information to Western officials.

@CIG_telegram

🇮🇷⚔️🇺🇸 Iran’s top security chief, Mohsen Rezaei:

We have asked the Americans to provide a clear and unambiguous response to our conditions, but they have not yet provided us with a response like that. Their response is deceptive.

All claims made by the US regarding the continuation of negotiations with Iran and the holding of a meeting in Qatar are lies. They are aimed at reducing economic pressure and lowering oil prices.

This includes about me meeting with the US Vice President, which is completely false and baseless.

The Strait of Hormuz will not be reopened until Iran's 7 conditions are met, bluntly said.

🔗 Arya