🇾🇪⚔️🇸🇦 The Saudi Ministry of Energy reports that the Houthis struck the Yanbu — Abqaiq East-West pipeline in the Medina region however they claim that the pipeline is still operational.

The Saudi government has a long trackrecord of playing off Yemeni and Iranian attacks on its infrastructure, claiming damage from "falling debris" when in reality the facilities were directly struck by missiles.

@CIG_telegram

🇵🇾 — CRISIS IN PARAGUAY: President Pedro Alliana, who took office three days ago, asked all ministers to resign on Monday as the country faces a severe banking crisis that has left millions of people unable to access their accounts.

🇪🇺🇩🇪🇺🇦 German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has threatened to block the EU’s 2028–2034 budget unless all member states agree to help finance Ukraine in 2027 and beyond.

Kiev faces a €70bn funding gap next year, with the EU pledging to cover about €45bn.

Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic have signalled opposition to further contributions.

Berlin also wants future Ukraine funding decisions to require a qualified majority rather than unanimity, reducing the risk of vetoes.

Source: FT

📝 Anon: Germany is increasingly becoming discontent with being the powerhouse of the EU, expected to carry the financial weight of every adventure Brussels involves itself in, a burden it can no longer carry with the same ease as before.

Chinese competition, massive bureaucracy and red tape introduced by EU, hysteric environmentalism and most importantly, the loss of cheap Russian natural gas are destroying what remains of German industry and with it will go European prosperity.

France isn't faring any better and having net recipients of EU funds like Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Czechia refuse to play ball on funding Zelensky's expenses is not tolerable any longer as the EU's biggest economies get poorer each and every year.

But with less German and French contribution to the EU budget, how much longer will it take until states in Eastern, Central and Southern Europe decide EU membership with all of its restrictions and obligations is no longer worth the money?

🔗 Clash Report

🛢 The price of paper oil continues to crash with Brent Crude falling to $91/barrel after it was alleged that U.S. Vice-president, JD Vance will meet with SNSC Secretary, Mohsen Rezaei in Qatar, a claim that was denied by Iranian medias who labelled it false.

@CIG_telegram

🇺🇸🇨🇳🇷🇺 The summit between Russia, the United States, and China is in doubt because the US and China are unable to agree on the format of a potential meeting, according to The Wall Street Journal, citing sources.

Beijing wants to limit the meeting to prepared statements, while Washington wants a free-flowing discussion.

Furthermore, the United States wants to discuss the issue of nuclear arms control. However, Beijing is unwilling to participate in three-way negotiations on this issue, according to WSJ.

According to a representative of the US administration, Xi is not ready for an exchange of views without a pre-prepared script.

🔗 https://www.wsj.com/world/china/u-s-balks-at-chinas-demand-for-tightly-scripted-trump-xi-putin-summit-77001908

🇾🇪⚔️🇸🇦 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/