Trump's son-in-law: two billion dollars from the Gulf

The story begins in late 2017, when Dutch military intelligence turned over a Russian GRU agent – a specialist in stolen banking data – upon his arrival in the UK. The agent then granted the Dutch access to a GRU server based in Rostov, where they discovered screenshots from Jared Kushner's iPhone. In early 2018, spies in The Hague in turn found a vulnerability that allowed them to view the presidential adviser's screen every time he used it, and caught him logging into a bank account in the UAE, into which hundreds of millions of dollars had been transferred by a bank in Azerbaijan.

According to extracts from a book published by Vanity Fair, the Emirati leader Mohammed bin Zayed and the Saudi Mohammed bin Salman had initially discussed with Jared Kushner a fund of more than 10 billion dollars to support the Trump administration's foreign policy, an idea that was abandoned within a few months. The two leaders, and subsequently the Emirati leader alone, are said to have ultimately paid at least $2 billion into at least two accounts. The first, opened at the First Abu Dhabi Bank, chaired by his brother Tahnoun bin Zayed, received around $750 million, and Jared Kushner was an authorised signatory on behalf of a charitable foundation funded by the UAE government, which served as a front for military and intelligence operations. In exchange, according to a source cited by the author, he is said to have promised to defend their interests with Donald Trump.

The second, amounting to around one billion dollars, is said to have been deposited with the Bank of Israel on the advice of Benjamin Netanyahu, who insisted on being notified before each transaction, and a large portion of the money is said to have subsequently passed through Cyprus. A third payment from the UAE is said to have covered the cost of an Israeli commitment to defend the UAE in the event of an Iranian attack. Vanity Fair

🇷🇺 Russia - 🇺🇦 Ukraine • Russia fired 21 ballistic missiles at Kyiv and more than 200 drones at several regions during the night from Wednesday to Thursday, killing at least two people and injuring 34, including five children, according to Volodymyr Zelensky. Ukraine, for its part, targeted Moscow with 630 drones, according to the mayor of the Russian capital, whilst Russia claims to have shot down 808 drones over some 20 regions. These strikes came shortly after the tour by US envoy Steve Witkoff, who was received in Oslo by the Ukrainian president and then by Vladimir Putin. The Russian president said he was ready to resume talks next month under Washington's auspices, aiming for a final agreement rather than a "short pause in the fighting", and reiterated that, in his view, eastern Ukraine was "historically Russian" territory. The Kremlin is also preparing for a possible meeting between Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the APEC summit in China in November.

🇷🇸 Serbia • Serbs are voting on Sunday in snap general elections that are shaping up to be the biggest challenge yet for Aleksandar Vučić's Serbian Progressive Party (nationalist but pro-European), which has been in power since 2012. Opposing him is a list backed by the student movement – which emerged following the collapse of the canopy at Novi Sad railway station that killed 16 people in November 2024 – fielding 250 candidates, most of whom are new to politics, with the fight against corruption at the heart of its programme. Aleksandar Vučić, who stepped down as president at the end of September to stand for the post of Prime Minister, accuses the movement of being a foreign-led coup attempt.

🇮🇹 Italy - 🇪🇸 Spain • Italy and Spain have lifted the border controls introduced between them following the massive influx of migrants into Ceuta, the Italian Ministry of the Interior announced yesterday. The Italian government had suspended the Schengen agreements with Spain at the end of July, prompting Madrid to denounce the measures as "discriminatory" and to respond by introducing its own controls.

🇦🇹 Austria - 🇩🇪 Germany - 🇷🇺 Russia • A Ukrainian national has been arrested in Brandenburg on suspicion of spying for a Russian intelligence service, with which he had been in contact since July 2025, gathering information in particular on the production of armoured vehicles and ammunition and on military installations on NATO's eastern flank. Austria, for its part, today expelled four Russian diplomats for "activities incompatible with their diplomatic status", bringing the total number of expulsions since 2020 to 18.

🇫🇷 France - 🇬🇧 United Kingdom • Royal Air Force Typhoons took part for the first time in a French nuclear exercise, codenamed "Rummy", alongside Rafale jets over the Mediterranean. The French Ministry of the Armed Forces sees this as evidence of growing cooperation between the only two European nuclear powers, within the framework of the Northwood Declaration signed in July 2025, which enables them to coordinate their deterrent capabilities.

🇨🇳 China - 🇪🇺 European Union • China has condemned a "Cold War mentality" in the European Union's strategy for the Arctic, a region increasingly contested by major powers. The EU's plan includes, in particular, strengthening its fleet of icebreakers and surveillance capabilities, as well as establishing a long-term connection with Japan via a cable running through Greenland and Canada.

🇨🇳 China • A magnitude 7 earthquake struck northern Tibet last night, killing 16 people and injuring 65, according to local authorities. It is the strongest earthquake to hit Chinese territory since January 2024.

🇹🇼 Taiwan • Typhoon Champi struck north-eastern Taiwan today, killing one person, who was swept away by the waves, and injuring at least 350 others.

🇰🇵 North Korea - 🇰🇷 South Korea • Kim Yo Jong, Kim Jong Un's sister, announced yesterday that Pyongyang would reactivate its loudspeakers along the border within a few days, threatening Seoul with "the most horrific and agonising situation" and vowing to "mercilessly eliminate" South Korean forces if their warning shots caused any damage. South Korea responded by proposing military talks on the demarcation line, following the explosion of landmines that injured South Korean soldiers in September, which Seoul attributes to the North.

🇰🇵 North Korea - 🇺🇸 United States • Donald Trump is stepping up his overtures to Kim Jong Un with a view to a meeting at the APEC summit in Shenzhen in November, but Pyongyang is not responding. Analysts consider a meeting unlikely, as the North Korean leader is already capitalising on his military support for Russia and backing from China, and is now refusing any discussion on denuclearisation.

🇮🇳 India • New Delhi launched its annual measures to tackle air pollution yesterday, with pollution levels around 15 times higher than the permitted limit. Open-air waste burning is now banned, parking fees will double from 1 November, and construction work will be completely suspended from 10 December to 20 January.

🇬🇹 Guatemala • A Guatemalan court has sentenced seven former police officers to prison terms of up to 60 years for the "extrajudicial execution" of Eldin Choc and Milton Santamaría, a gay couple who were arrested, tortured and killed in April 2024 at a police station. Recordings made by a female police officer proved decisive, and NGOs have denounced the incident as a hate crime – a concept not recognised under Guatemalan law.

🇧🇷 Brazil • Lula and Flavio Bolsonaro are neck and neck heading into Sunday's presidential run-off, with the former president's son polling at 47 per cent and the incumbent president at 46 per cent, according to Datafolha. Having come second in the first round, Lula is counting on older voters – who make up nearly a quarter of the electorate and fear for their social entitlements – as well as on the North-East, where he secured nearly 64 per cent of the vote.

🇻🇪 Venezuela • Thousands of Venezuelans demonstrated on Thursday in Caracas and several other cities to demand free elections – the first such demonstrations in nearly two years – following a call by the movement led by opposition figure María Corina Machado.

🇮🇱 Israel - 🇵🇸 Palestine • Two Israeli soldiers, aged 20 and 23, were killed today by two Palestinian attackers, who were in turn shot dead, at a checkpoint near Hebron in the occupied West Bank. Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a lockdown of the city and announced the evacuation of the attackers' home neighbourhood, describing it as a "very large-scale" operation the likes of which had not been seen "since the Six-Day War", whilst Hamas hailed it as a "heroic operation" without claiming responsibility. Violence has been escalating for weeks amid the olive harvest, with the Israeli NGO Yesh Din recording 125 attacks on Palestinian olive pickers and 168 instances of crop theft in 24 days, while three Palestinians have been killed in attacks by settlers, according to the Palestinian authorities.

🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia - 🇾🇪 Yemen • An attack on Dammam airport in eastern Saudi Arabia left two people dead and eight injured on Wednesday evening, and staff at the nearby headquarters of Aramco (the oil giant) were ordered to evacuate on Thursday. Attacks by Yemeni Houthis on Saudi infrastructure are reaching unprecedented levels, with 22 people killed in attacks on airports across the kingdom this month, although the rebels deny carrying out Wednesday's attack, and Washington has ordered the withdrawal of non-essential staff from its embassy in Riyadh.

🇮🇱 Israel • Israelis are voting on Tuesday in the first general election since the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, a vote that is taking on the air of a referendum on Benjamin Netanyahu. At 77, the Prime Minister is presenting himself as the country's sole protector, buoyed by Donald Trump's support, but the polls predict that the Likud (far-right) will lose a third of its seats. His main rival, former Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, whose Yashar party is neck-and-neck with or ahead of Likud depending on the polls, is banking on a measured approach and a "hawkish" profile, opposing a Palestinian state and promising to end Hamas's rule in Gaza within 18 months.

🇨🇩 DRC - 🇰🇪 Kenya - 🇳🇬 Nigeria - 🇺🇬 Uganda • The Ebola outbreak is becoming "more complex", warns the WHO, following confirmation in Nigeria of the first case in West Africa. The patient, a Ugandan woman married to a Swiss diplomat posted in Abuja, arrived on 3 October after a stay in Uganda, and 44 close contacts have been identified. Kampala, which insists it no longer has any cases, had claimed that she had travelled to the DRC, but Switzerland denies this and considers it likely that she was infected whilst on holiday in Uganda. Nigeria thus becomes the fourth country to be affected, after the DRC, Uganda and Kenya.

🇦🇹 Austria - 🇱🇾 Libya - 🇳🇪 Niger - 🇨🇭 Switzerland • A 76-year-old Austrian woman and a 69-year-old Swiss woman, who were abducted in 2025 in Agadez during kidnappings attributed to Islamic State in the Sahel, have been released after more than a year and a half in captivity thanks to the intervention of Libyan Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar's clan. After being transferred to Benghazi, Eva Gretzmacher and Claudia Abbt returned to their respective countries on Thursday, with no details given regarding any ransom payment.