Viktor Orbán's name is being mooted as a successor to António Guterres, whose second five-year term ends on 31 December. According to the Wall Street Journal, officials in the Trump administration are championing the idea of a joint candidate for the United States, Russia and China, and sources in all three countries confirm Washington's support for the former Hungarian Prime Minister. The Americans are even said to have put the idea of entering the race to him.
No decision has yet been taken. A State Department official admits that the plan seems crazy at first glance, but consultations held by Washington suggest that Moscow and Beijing would back the initiative. "If the United States, Russia and China want the same thing at the UN Security Council, they usually get their way," two officials, one American and the other from a third country, told the newspaper.
As early as the end of May, investigative journalist Szabolcs Panyi reported in the VSquare newsletter, citing Hungarian and foreign sources, on a plan originating in MAGA circles to offer Viktor Orbán a high-ranking post at the UN, with the associated diplomatic immunity mattering more than the exact nature of the role. In August, he also mentioned FIFA and the post of UN Deputy Secretary-General, possibilities dismissed as "fake news" by Fidesz spokesperson Bertalan Havasi. As yet, neither the White House, nor Moscow, nor Beijing, nor Orbán himself has confirmed the WSJ's reports.
Donald Trump's support will not be enough. The procedure requires at least nine votes in favour from the 15 members of the Security Council: France and the United Kingdom could therefore block the process, even if Washington, Moscow and Beijing were to back the Hungarian. Euronews
Americas
🇧🇷 Brazil • Lula (left) caused a surprise on Sunday by winning a fourth presidential term with 51.8% of the vote, becoming the first candidate since the return of democracy to win after trailing in the first round, in this case behind Flávio Bolsonaro (far right). Jair Bolsonaro's son is refusing to recognise the result and is calling for it to be annulled, contesting a two-hour extension of voting ordered by a Supreme Court judge. Leaders of the world's major powers have hailed Lula's victory, with the notable exception of Donald Trump.
🇻🇪 Venezuela • María Corina Machado, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and opposition leader, returned to Venezuela yesterday after nearly a year in exile, cheered by thousands of supporters chanting for "elections now". Excluded from the transition talks led by interim President Delcy Rodríguez with part of the opposition, she now says she is ready to take a seat at the negotiating table.
Europe
🇷🇺 Russia - 🇺🇦 Ukraine • A Ukrainian drone attack killed two people and injured 13 in Belgorod overnight into Sunday, with further casualties reported across the region. On the Ukrainian side, Russian strikes killed four people in the Dnipro region on Saturday evening and injured six overnight in Zaporizhzhia and the Chernihiv region, with Moscow claiming to have targeted power stations, the port of Chornomorsk and a cargo ship.
🇬🇧 United Kingdom • Storm Boelo claimed one life yesterday, when a 60-year-old man was killed by a falling tree in south-west Scotland. Gusts of up to 135 km/h left tens of thousands of homes without electricity and caused major disruption to roads, trains, flights and ferries.
🇦🇱 Albania • Clashes broke out in Tirana on Saturday between police, armed with rubber bullets and water cannon, and protesters wielding firework mortars, leaving 13 people injured. The protests, which began in opposition to a tourism project linked to Jared Kushner (Donald Trump's son-in-law), are also denouncing corruption and conditions for students.
🇷🇺 Russia - 🇺🇦 Ukraine • Yuri Ushakov, Vladimir Putin's foreign policy adviser, said on Sunday that Europe needed to be involved in the peace talks, arguing that Washington had failed to force Kyiv to back down. Moscow says it is ready to resume three-way talks after 4 November, with a technical meeting scheduled in Abu Dhabi in early November according to Volodymyr Zelensky, but the Kremlin has no intention of scaling back its strikes. A summit between Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping is also in the pipeline, possibly on the sidelines of Apec in China on 18 and 19 November.
🇷🇸 Serbia • The student movement won yesterday's snap general election against Aleksandar Vučić, who swiftly conceded defeat after fourteen years in power. According to the NGO Cesid, the students' list secured 52.9% of the vote and 140 of the 250 seats, against 38.8% and 103 seats for the SNS, on a turnout of 69.3%, the highest in more than 30 years.
🇧🇬 Bulgaria • Outgoing President Iliana Iotova, who favours dialogue with Moscow, came top in the first round of yesterday's presidential election with more than 34% of the vote, ahead of former caretaker Prime Minister Andrey Gyurov, who is backed by the pro-Western opposition. The two will face each other in a run-off on 1 November, after a campaign dominated by drone attacks on merchant ships in the Black Sea that have left around 20 people missing. Turnout was just 22%.
🇨🇿 Czech Republic • Thousands of people demonstrated in Prague yesterday against the abolition of the broadcasting licence fee, passed at first reading at the instigation of the SPD, a far-right party in Andrej Babiš's coalition. The reform would cut public broadcasters' budgets by around 15%.
🇸🇪 Sweden • Centre Party leader Elisabeth Thand Ringqvist has failed to form a government and has handed the task back to the Speaker, Andreas Norlén. The four centre-left parties, which have held a majority since the general election, back Magdalena Andersson as Prime Minister but cannot agree on the make-up of her cabinet.
🇺🇸 United States - 🇳🇴 Norway • Donald Trump yesterday called Norway a "shithole country" at a rally in Michigan, once again criticising the Nobel Committee for not awarding him the Peace Prize, which went this year to South Africa's Navi Pillay. Norway's foreign minister responded calmly, pointing out that the Nobel Committee is independent of the government.
🇪🇺 European Union • From 1 November, a €2 handling fee will apply to parcels imported into the EU through distance selling, on top of the €3 levy on small parcels, to fund tighter customs checks in response to the influx of Chinese goods.
Middle East
🇯🇴 Jordan • Security forces today arrested three members of the same family suspected of opening fire on Friday during a funeral at a Greek Orthodox church in the village of Hammoud, in the south of the country. The attack, unprecedented against the kingdom's Christians, left nine people dead and dozens injured.
🇮🇱 Israel - 🇵🇸 Palestine • An Israeli drone strike killed three security guards and injured eight students at the Islamic University of Gaza yesterday, with the army saying it had diverted a strike aimed at a Hamas member. According to the Civil Defence, eight people were killed in the territory over the day. Israel will seal off the West Bank tomorrow, election day, after two soldiers were killed in an attack near Hebron. The army has launched a large-scale operation there and driven some 2,000 Palestinians from their homes, which the governor of Hebron called "collective punishment".
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia - 🇾🇪 Yemen • The Houthis today again targeted Riyadh airport, which had reopened yesterday after a two-week closure, with the Saudi-led coalition saying it had intercepted a ballistic missile and destroyed four launch pads. The pro-Iranian fighters also claim to have struck oil pumping stations, and the 2027 Dakar Rally will not be held in the kingdom.
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia - 🇮🇷 Iran • Saudi Defence Minister Khalid bin Salman travelled to Tehran today, the first such visit since the conflict began, accompanied by senior Turkish and Pakistani officials, in an attempt to prevent a resumption of the war following Israeli and American threats.
🇮🇱 Israel • Some 7.3 million voters go to the polls tomorrow in the first general election since 7 October, widely seen as a referendum on Benjamin Netanyahu.
Asia-Pacific
🇨🇳 China • The fifth plenum of the Communist Party's Central Committee opened behind closed doors today for four days, with Xi Jinping presenting a draft decision on "rigorous" party governance and the fight against corruption. Owing to the purges, attendance is expected to be the lowest since 1976, a year before the Party Congress expected to hand him a fourth term.
🇨🇳 China - 🇰🇵 North Korea • Kim Jong Un made a surprise visit to Dandong, China, crossing the new bridge between the two countries and praising their "invincible friendship". A South Korean MP sees it as a "positive signal" for a possible summit with Donald Trump on the sidelines of Apec.
🇯🇵 Japan • Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Monday promised a package of emergency cybersecurity measures by next week, following a wave of hacks targeting dozens of Japanese companies. A Chinese AI-based tool, Artex, was used in several of the attacks.
Africa
🇳🇬 Nigeria • The authorities have widened the hunt for Ebola cases, with 53 primary contacts traced around the sole confirmed case, a Swiss woman who had returned from Uganda and fell ill in Abuja. Linked to the Bundibugyo strain, for which there is no vaccine or specific treatment, the outbreak has killed more than 4,600 people in the DRC since May.
