Morning Brief, Friday 30 October

Spain's AITAT accident authority opened its file on the Urda crash on 29 October and classified it as grave. A Renfe AVE train ran into the rear of a stopped Iryo train at the entrance signal of Urda station at 08:53 on 28 October, on the high-speed line between Madrid and Seville. The AVE struck at an estimated 160 to 200 km/h, while the exact speed awaits the on-board event recorder. Castilla-La Mancha's government gives a provisional toll of 69 dead and 107 injured, 18 of them critical.

The commission briefly listed 74 deaths online, then corrected the figure back to 69. Authorities moved 52 bodies to Toledo, where the city morgue could not hold them all, and the army set up tents and refrigerated containers. Twenty forensic experts are identifying victims while rescuers search the wreckage with sniffer dogs and thermal drones. Italy said one of three missing Italian women had been found alive, while two others remained unaccounted for.

Investigators say all causes remain possible. Drivers and traffic managers have not yet been interviewed because they were not fit to answer questions. ANSA reports that the government's first findings point to faults in the LZB automatic train-control system that ended in human error at Adif's control centre in Madrid, while Vox leader Santiago Abascal demanded resignations and rejected that explanation.

SPICA, the air-traffic controllers' union, condemned the release of driver-control recordings and called them partial and decontextualised. Blood donors queued at Toledo hospital and at the San Ildefonso centre after authorities asked for donations.

Israel's Central Elections Committee completed the count from the 27 October vote and left the political arithmetic almost unchanged. Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc, made up of Likud, Itamar Ben Gvir's party, Bezalel Smotrich's party, Shas and United Torah Judaism, holds 53 seats. Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar-led bloc holds 48. The Arab parties won 19 seats, their best result to date, and neither side reaches the 61 seats needed in the 120-seat Knesset.

Likud gained one seat from double-envelope ballots, which are cast mainly by soldiers, reservists, diplomats and some other voters, but the seat came at Shas's expense and did not change the bloc total. More than 430,000 such ballots were cast. Coalition talks are expected to take days or possibly weeks, and the Arab parties now sit at the centre of any route to a majority.

The Shin Bet security service is investigating alleged foreign interference in favour of Arab parties, with attention focused mainly on Qatar and on the list led by Mansur Abbas. The Central Elections Committee says the integrity of the election was not affected, and that the result will not change or trigger a rerun. Qatar's Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari rejected the accusations as ridiculous and dangerous, saying Doha should not become a scapegoat for Israeli politicians' failures.

The Joint List accused Likud of trying to undermine the result and damage the Arab parties' legitimacy. It alleged that a campaign financed by elements within Likud began months earlier, and that armed far-right activists were sent to polling stations to deter voters. Official results are due on 4 November, after a further integrity check.

US officials have asked several Middle East countries and regional partners to prepare for possible renewed military action against Iran after the 3 November midterm elections. Two diplomats briefed on the matter said partners were also warned that Iran might retaliate against them, including by targeting energy facilities and other critical infrastructure. Officials in the region expect Iran and allied militias to strike back if Washington acts.

Donald Trump has not made a final decision, according to the diplomats, but he has repeatedly said he is weighing action once the elections are over. He has also ruled out an attack before the vote, according to Handelsblatt, which says the administration launched an economic pressure campaign called Operation Economically Outcast in August. The same reporting points to worries over dwindling US munitions stocks before that campaign began.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Vice President JD Vance sent a letter to Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, to sketch a possible framework for renewed talks. Vance is testing whether there is enough common ground to persuade Trump to drop a possible short, intense attack in the coming weeks. Trump played down the letter and said it concerned medical and other aid. Tasnim, a semi-official Iranian news agency, said Tehran had received the letter but had not replied.

Iran says it still backs diplomacy and remains in contact with intermediaries. Tehran wants its own proposal from last month used as the basis for a return to a ceasefire, and says Washington must meet seven conditions if it wants the Strait of Hormuz reopened. Israel's close election has not removed the possibility of an attack, since Benjamin Netanyahu could remain in office while talks over a majority continue.

A localised ceasefire around Oleshky, in the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine's Kherson region, took effect at 03:00 Kyiv time on 27 October. Ukrainian ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said on 29 October that the truce had held for 54 hours, and his Russian counterpart Yana Lantratova confirmed it was holding. The arrangement is due to run until Sunday, 1 November. The White House says Melania Trump helped broker it, while Pope Leo XIV had pressed for a humanitarian pause.

Lubinets said designated routes had been demined and that a humanitarian convoy carrying food and medicine was ready to leave. David Arakhamia, who leads the ruling Servant of the People faction in parliament, said delegations from Ukraine, the United States and Russia had reached the delivery point, with media from all three countries present. Vladimir Putin said aid distribution would begin between Thursday and Friday, and Ukrainian officials expect delivery on 30 October.

The evacuation route adds a nasty complication. A document published by Lubinets's office says residents who leave would travel to Anapa in Russia, then fly on a Russian Defence Ministry aircraft to Homel in Belarus. The office says that route was chosen because the front-line approach is mined and there is no river crossing. Some residents fear searches, phone checks or being unable to return to Ukraine.

Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson regional military administration, says Russian forces are keeping about 2,000 people as hostages, almost 50 of them children, without food, electricity or water. The UN human rights monitoring mission says no food supplies have reached Oleshky since 26 May. Before Russia's full-scale invasion, about 24,000 people lived there.

Blockchain analysts saw large transfers leaving wallets tied to Binance from 21:24 Swiss time on 29 October. Blick reports that about 167,500 ether, $1.6bn in USDT and more than 60 other tokens moved from a wallet labelled Binance 14 to a new address, followed by $780m in USDC from a second Binance wallet. Xataka, citing The Information, puts assets leaving Binance-linked wallets at more than $2bn. Analysts and traders tracking the market estimate that between $1.7bn and $5.7bn was taken, though those figures remain unconfirmed.

Changpeng Zhao, Binance's former chief executive and still its largest shareholder according to TechCrunch, wrote on X that the exchange appeared to have been hacked. Binance told TechCrunch it was dealing with a security incident and had temporarily suspended withdrawals on multiple networks as a precaution. The company warned users to avoid scams and unofficial links.

Tether and Circle froze funds linked to the incident. Zhao credited Tether with freezing about $971m and Circle with about $823m, while the chief executives of the two firms put the amounts at $1.567bn and $800m, according to El País. Kevin March, co-founder of JPEG Trading, said Binance's balance sheet and insurance could cover potential losses, but wider effects on prices remain possible.

Bitcoin fell as much as 3.7% overnight, according to La Vanguardia, and Blick reported that it dropped below $80,000. Bets on rising prices worth more than $600m were liquidated within an hour, a reminder that even a contained exchange loss can shove leveraged crypto traders around quickly.

Twelve EU member states signed a declaration at the Energy Council in Luxembourg committing to release 42.6m barrels of oil from strategic reserves by the end of January 2027. About 20.5m barrels of that volume is diesel. The signatories are Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden. All belong to the International Energy Agency, which urged stock draws before winter.

The move is the European part of a G7 pledge made on 2 October to release up to 100m barrels over four months, coordinated by the IEA. Energy prices have climbed since the Iran war began in February, with Brent near $100 a barrel against about $70 before the escalation. Donald Trump has pressed for lower diesel prices before the US congressional elections and has reportedly threatened to limit US diesel exports to Europe unless European countries release some of their own stocks.

EU energy commissioner Dan Jorgensen said the bloc is trying to stabilise diesel markets before winter and expects no supply problem, though higher bills still hurt households. He met European refinery representatives on 28 October to discuss raising production. The declaration asks the European Commission to monitor the release through the oil coordination group, and signatories must report progress for review at the Energy Council on 10 December.

France's Roland Lescure said his country alone will release 10m barrels of diesel, entering the French market in the coming days. Diesel has topped €2.30 a litre at the pump in several EU countries. The declaration does not break down the 42.6m barrels by country, so the full national shares remain undisclosed.