Evening Brief, Monday 26 October

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva overturned a first-round deficit and beat the senator Flávio Bolsonaro in Brazil's presidential runoff on Sunday. The reported margin varies slightly by outlet, but all put Lula near 51.7% against about 48.2% for Bolsonaro. ANSA said Lula had been roughly two million votes behind after the first round and closed the gap over three weeks of street and online mobilisation. Europa Press said turnout stayed below 20% abstention, the lowest rate for a runoff since 2006, and Lula drew more than 64m votes.

The market gave Lula no honeymoon. Brazil's Ibovespa fell 17% on Monday, enough to trigger the automatic trading halt, which suspends trading in shares, derivatives and private fixed-income securities while prices stabilise. ANSA said the mechanism had not been activated since March 2020, during the coronavirus panic. The fall gives Lula's fourth term an immediate financial problem, before he has named a cabinet or set out how much fiscal room he wants for social programmes.

Flávio Bolsonaro did not recognise the result, according to Europa Press, and a Democratic Party MEP said the Bolsonaro camp had already asked for the vote to be annulled. Foreign governments moved faster than the loser: Mexico, Cuba, Chile, Ecuador and Bolivia sent congratulations, and China's foreign ministry said Beijing was ready to keep building cooperation with Brazil. Marco Tarquinio, an Italian MEP in Bolivia, praised Lula's return in ideological terms.

Anthropic filed IPO papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, setting up a Nasdaq listing under the ticker ANT. The San Francisco company behind Claude was founded in 2021 by former OpenAI leaders and now competes directly with ChatGPT's maker. Reports put investor marketing in the week of 9 November and the listing itself in the week of 16 November, though the timing can still move. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley lead an offering that mixes new shares with stock sold by existing shareholders.

The numbers are large even by AI standards. Reports say the sale could raise as much as $100bn, topping SpaceX's $86bn June IPO, and could value Anthropic somewhere between $1.5trn and $2trn. The filing leaves the share count and target size for a later amendment, but it gives investors a first proper look at the engine room. Revenue in the first half of 2026 rose to $16.3bn from $1.2bn a year earlier, while the net loss widened to $80.7bn from $13bn as data centres and computing costs surged.

The prospectus also reads like a warning label. Its risk factors run to 94 pages and describe dangerous uses in weapons, healthcare, law, finance and government decisions. Anthropic says advanced systems could act in ways no user asked for and that those actions may become harder to predict as models gain more autonomy and outside connections. That is awkward and useful at the same time: the company is selling the fastest revenue story in Silicon Valley, while telling buyers the product category may outrun its own safeguards.

Israel votes on Tuesday to elect the 120 members of the Knesset. About 7m voters can choose among 37 parties, and polling stations open from 07:00 to 22:00 local time. Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud faces its strongest challenge from Yashar!, the party led by former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot. Polls suggest neither bloc reaches the 61 seats needed for a majority, which means the result may start bargaining rather than end it.

Iran dominated the campaign's final hours. Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli intelligence had warned that Iran and its allies could try to disrupt the vote, and he said Israeli forces were ready for both defence and attack. Tehran dismissed the election as irrelevant, with foreign ministry spokesman Esmaïl Baghaï saying whoever leads Israel has brought only violence to the region. Israel has bombed Iran twice since June 2025, and talks to end the conflict that began on 28 February remain deadlocked.

The last-minute row turned inward after Channel 12 reported that army chief Eyal Zamir had resisted an unspecified military action related to Iran and asked for signed legal authorisation. Benjamin Netanyahu called the report rubbish, and Defence Minister Israel Katz said there were no gaps between the political leadership and the army. Avigdor Liberman asked the attorney general to investigate Benjamin Netanyahu for treason over the reports, while Yair Lapid accused him of seeking to delay the vote by provoking Iran. Gadi Eisenkot gave the bluntest reply.

Israeli troops expanded an operation in Hebron after two Palestinian gunmen attacked a military checkpoint on Friday, killing two Israeli soldiers and wounding three others, according to the Israeli military. Both attackers were killed. Benjamin Netanyahu promised a large-scale operation in the occupied West Bank, and troops entered the Ein Deir Baha neighbourhood, where the attackers had lived. Residents were ordered to gather belongings and leave, and Hamas welcomed the checkpoint attack without claiming it.

Hebron's municipality said on Monday that 3,189 people had been displaced by the operation, including 491 families, 209 children under two and 258 people aged 60 or older. The governor gave a similar but slightly lower count for the wider governorate, and the mayor said 3,043 displaced people came from inside city limits. Palestinian authorities declared a state of emergency and formed a crisis group with officials, businesses and civil society groups. Local philanthropists opened homes, and a developer offered apartments in Dura.

The operation also brought demolitions, closures and detentions. Israeli bulldozers demolished ceramic and marble factories run by the al-Qawasmi family in Farsh al-Hawa, businesses the owner says supported more than 70 people. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich described the demolitions as deterrence and the extraction of a price. The army closed land crossings between Israel and the West Bank for the election and barred Palestinian workers with permits from entering Israeli communities in the West Bank and Jordan Valley from Sunday. The IDF said about 40 suspects were held; the Palestinian Prisoner's Society put detentions at at least 71 over four days.

Serbia's student movement has turned a protest wave into a parliamentary majority. Final projections from CeSID and Ipsos gave the Students' List 52.9% of the vote and 140 seats in the 250-seat parliament. Aleksandar Vučić's Serbia United list took 38.8% and 103 seats, while later official figures reported by Mediafax put the student list at 53.3% and the Serbian Progressive Party at 39.6%. Turnout neared 70%, a level ANSA said had not been seen in at least 30 years.

Aleksandar Vučić conceded on Sunday evening after fears that he might claim victory. He accused the students of an unfair and deceitful campaign and blamed a foreign-backed revolution, but he acknowledged that they had won the most seats. Aktuálně reported that he announced a move to the opposition benches. Ilija Srdjanović, the student slate's top candidate and a cardiologist, said the country had turned its back on a tyrant. Radomir Sajčić told RTS that Serbia had taken its destiny into its own hands after nearly two years of struggle.

Moscow moved quickly to protect its stake. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov congratulated Aleksandar Vučić, praised his contribution to Serbian-Russian ties and said he hoped the new political forces would act constructively toward Russia. Jovo Bakić, a Student List representative, said the new government would not impose sanctions on Russia and dismissed Vučić's claim that sanctions were imminent. Serbia wants EU membership, depends on Russian gas and has not joined Western sanctions over Ukraine, though it condemned the violation of Ukraine's territorial integrity.

France's interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, said police stopped 1,435 people during Saturday's demonstrations across the country. More than 100 were held for carrying objects that could be used as improvised weapons, including knives, pétanque balls, glass marbles, slingshots and pyrotechnic mortars. The Interior Ministry counted 267 injured police officers and gendarmes, while about 150 demonstrators were hurt. Three demonstrators were in rather serious condition in Toulouse, Reims and Clermont-Ferrand, and the IGPN police oversight body has opened investigations.

The crowds were large and angry. Estimates put participation between 410,000 and 800,000 people, with demands centred on purchasing power and public services. NewsORF reported that 70,000 police officers deployed nationwide. In Reims, where demonstrations had been banned, a man in his twenties was seriously wounded in the thigh by a tear gas grenade, according to the prosecutor. In Toulouse, a young man suffered a serious hand injury during clashes after a march that the prefecture put at 26,500 people.

Laurent Nuñez also singled out organised far-right groups, saying they targeted ultra-left activists in cities including Nice and Montpellier. Prosecutors in Nice said eleven far-right people had been arrested for acts of violence, including one minor. The ten adult suspects are due in court on Tuesday to answer for forming a criminal association and carrying weapons. Emmanuel Macron said in Marseille that strong measures would be taken to calm the protests, while also asking the government to respond to the movement's legitimate demands. New demonstrations have been called for Saturday, 31 October.