Evening Brief, Saturday 31 October

Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska suspended Constitutional Tribunal president Bogdan Święczkowski and his deputy, Bartłomiej Sochański, for one month, and a notice appeared on the court website around 18:00 on Friday. Warsaw police entered the tribunal grounds after the judge warned of possible threats to judges and staff and a risk of disorder, then kept dozens of officers at the building into Saturday morning.

Karol Nawrocki cut short a state visit to Senegal, flew back overnight and entered the tribunal after meeting Święczkowski and first president Zbigniew Kapiński. Nawrocki, a member of the opposition Law and Justice party, called urgent crisis talks with party representatives and described the dispute as a threat to internal security in a statement read outside the court.

Supporters of Law and Justice accused Prime Minister Donald Tusk's government of trying to seize control of the court, whose judges were appointed under the PiS government that ruled from 2015 to 2023. Police reported objects thrown at officers and detained three people who jumped the fence, while US ambassador Tom Rose urged restraint.

Ukraine's human rights commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets, said residents of Oleshky had crossed into Ukraine after a humanitarian operation combining a ceasefire, aid delivery and evacuation. The town remains under Russian control, and Lubinets called the US-mediated pause the longest ceasefire observed by both sides since 2022.

A convoy of 25 buses, plus ambulances, trucks and other vehicles, reached Oleshky early on Friday after mines were cleared from roads into and out of the town. Residents could go to Ukrainian-controlled territory, go to Russian-controlled territory or stay with fresh food and medicine, and Ukrainian officials said those heading for Ukraine travelled through Anapa in southern Russia and then Belarus.

Moscow and Kyiv have not said how many people left, though Donald Trump posted that the convoy could safely evacuate more than 750 people. The UN human rights monitoring mission said no emergency supplies had reached Oleshky since 26 May, and Kherson governor Oleksandr Prokudin had earlier said Russian forces were keeping about 2,000 people there as hostages, almost 50 of them children.

Moscow accused Ukrainian forces of hitting a civilian car with a drone during the truce, injuring a man and a woman, while a Ukrainian military spokesman said Ukrainian forces were strictly observing the ceasefire and accused Russia of provocations. Lubinets said he hoped the Oleshky operation could become a mechanism for future humanitarian crises.

The US State Department approved a possible sale of 500 PAC-3 MSE interceptors for Ukraine's Patriot air-defence systems, a package most reports value at $2.1bn. The proposal covers missiles, parts and support, names Lockheed Martin as the main contractor and still needs congressional review.

The money will come from partners and allies, not from the US budget, using donations from Canada, Germany and Norway and funds backed by the European Union's Ukraine Support Loan. The catch is time: the missiles have not yet been built, and reports say deliveries may not start until 2030 or even a few years into the 2030s.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed the approval but pressed Washington and European partners to bridge the gap with missiles from their own stocks now. He said Kyiv had waited nearly a month for the green light and that the need was immediate after Russian strikes on electricity, heating and water infrastructure in October.

Lockheed Martin now makes about 500 PAC-3 missiles a year and plans to reach 3,000 a year by 2030. Ukraine had asked Washington for a winter package of 100 Patriot interceptors a month, while Zelenskyy said on 28 October that Ukraine expected only twelve Patriot missiles a month on average in 2026.

Binance said it had covered about 90% of the funds stolen in a $6.3bn hack, up from about 80% in its previous update. The exchange said major assets including Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT, BNB, SOL, USDC and XRP were fully covered, and that users would not bear the losses.

The remaining 10% consists of less liquid tokens, which Binance says it will keep buying through the market and over-the-counter channels until every token is covered. The company had halted all deposits and withdrawals around 01:30 Swiss time on Friday after staff detected unusual outflows the previous afternoon and executives formed a large internal war room.

Tether's Paolo Ardoino said more than $1.5bn had been blocked, and Circle's Jeremy Allaire said $800m in its stablecoins had been frozen. Binance said about $3bn had been frozen on blockchain networks, leaving $3.3bn with the hackers, while Bitcoin fell more than 4% after the incident.

The cause is still disputed. Binance first pointed to a compromised DevOps laptop, while co-chief executive Richard Teng later said the breach involved a more complex process, and blockchain analysts raised North Korea as a possible culprit. Binance says withdrawals remain on track to reopen on Sunday, 1 November 2026.

Spain's government faced fresh pressure after the collision of two high-speed trains near Urda in Toledo, which left a provisional toll of 69 dead and more than 200 injured. The two trains had both left Madrid for Seville and carried 538 people in total.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez joined a coordination meeting with emergency services at the CENEM in Madrid on Saturday, according to Moncloa. Among those reported dead were former employment minister Fátima Báñez and Carlos Ortiz, director of CEU schools.

The political pressure now centres on Transport minister Óscar Puente. Ada Colau called for his resignation on Friday, and Emilio Delgado of Frente Amplio repeated the demand in Barcelona on Saturday, turning the crash into a direct test for the ministry's management of Spain's rail network.

Delgado also pointed to staffing strain at Adif, Spain's rail infrastructure manager. He said staff monitoring the rail network had gone from overseeing about 15 simultaneous trains to as many as 40 in six years.

Iran's supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei met senior commanders on 31 October and ordered the armed forces to prepare an immediate response to any threat, with no geographic limits. His office also ordered an updated target list covering American and Israeli infrastructure and assets within reach of Iranian forces.

Foreign minister Abbas Araghchi separately said Tehran sees no need to meet American officials now, and that no meeting is planned. He said direct or indirect talks would require Washington first to accept Iranian conditions, including a halt to hostilities across the Middle East, the release of frozen assets and the lifting of sanctions and the US naval blockade.

Araghchi called a letter from US Vice President JD Vance to Mohsen Rezaei a positive step toward dialogue, though Iran has not disclosed its contents. Qatari mediators visited Tehran on Friday for the second time in a week, and an Iranian aide remains in Qatar for consultations on proposals covering the nuclear programme and Tehran's conditions.

The sources report no new Iranian strike following Khamenei's order and give no timetable for any response. For now, the concrete change is the instruction to widen target planning without geographic limits.