Morning Brief, Sunday 1 November

Donald Tusk’s government suspended Bogdan Święczkowski, president of the Constitutional Tribunal, and police stayed at the tribunal building in Warsaw through 31 October. Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, whom the executive designated as the court’s new president, issued her first directives. She recommended that judges work outside the court’s seat, suspended staff duties while guaranteeing pay, and said she would contact judges outside the building to arrange access.

Karol Nawrocki cut short a state visit to Senegal and held consultations with parliamentary groups, saying the talks were needed to defuse a threat to internal security. He does not recognise Anna Korwin-Piotrowska’s authority, so the standoff now involves the presidency, the cabinet, court staff and the police. Right-wing parties signalled that they would seek a no-confidence vote, and Mateusz Morawiecki’s Sviluppo Più group proposed a technical government led by Marek Jurek until elections.

Donald Tusk used an evening address to frame the move against the court as part of what he called the dismantling of the rule of law by Law and Justice. The diplomatic cost also began to show. Jakub Kumoch, Poland’s ambassador to China, resigned over events at home, and local media reported that other diplomats could follow in protest.

Gen Z regelt called demonstrations in more than 30 German cities on 31 October, demanding more school funding, addiction treatment, psychotherapy, stronger climate action and opposition to compulsory military service. Organisers claimed more than 100,000 people joined nationwide, but authorities in Frankfurt, Munich and Berlin counted up to 18,000 protesters, about half the number posted on the movement’s website for those cities.

Frankfurt saw the worst violence after nightfall. Police said as many as 8,000 people joined the procession at times, before rioters smashed shop windows, including those of a gun shop, threw Molotov cocktails at officers and looted a clothing and sneaker store. Police arrested one suspect, seized two weapons, temporarily detained more than 30 people and used water cannon, armoured vehicles, a helicopter and drones to seal off much of the main shopping street.

Berlin, Cologne and Hamburg also saw clashes. In Berlin, a demonstration of about 3,500 people, many from left-radical groups, turned violent as protesters threw bottles and eggs at officers, and police detained 56 people. Cologne police banned a march after legal violations, while Hamburg protesters set barricades alight. Hesse interior minister Roman Poseck blamed about 100 clearly identified left-wing extremists for infiltrating the Frankfurt protest, and Gen Z regelt distanced itself from violence on Instagram.

The FBI said North Korea was responsible for the theft of more than $6bn in virtual assets from Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. It named TraderTraitor as the actor behind the hack, dated by the bureau to on or about 29 October, and said the group had been converting stolen funds mainly into ether. The FBI asked exchanges, blockchain analytics firms and other private entities to block transactions linked to the addresses used by the hackers.

Binance said it had covered 90% of the missing assets with funds held in the same digital currencies that were stolen and promised full reimbursement for customers. The company set aside about $6.34bn of its own money, drawing partly on its $1bn Secure Asset Fund for Users. The remaining 10% consists of smaller, less liquid tokens that may take longer to buy.

Donald Trump questioned the FBI’s finding when reporters asked him at Mar-a-Lago on 1 November. He said the United States was still looking into the matter and did not know whether North Korea was involved, adding that Washington would discuss it with Pyongyang if the link were confirmed. North Korea has consistently denied involvement in such cyberattacks, while two analysis firms told the BBC they had strong intelligence linking Lazarus Group, another name for TraderTraitor, to the Binance theft.

Spain’s transport minister, Óscar Puente, stayed in office after the collision between Renfe and Iryo high-speed trains near Urda in Toledo province. The provisional toll reached 69 dead and more than 200 injured, and the disaster became the second fatal high-speed crash on the Madrid to Seville line in under a year. Pedro Sánchez and Óscar Puente both acknowledged that two accidents of such severity in one year were unacceptable.

Puente faced reporters for nearly two hours and answered 52 questions, including seven about why he had not resigned. He initially blamed human error by an operator at Adif’s Atocha traffic control centre, who ordered traffic to resume after the LZB signalling system failed and trains were left stopped. Unions, drivers and experts have asked investigators to examine the controller’s screens, workload, pressure and training before assigning blame.

The signalling problem deepened pressure on the ministry. Ramiro Aurín, an infrastructure engineer, called the primary failure systemic, and Puente acknowledged that the LZB system had failed 170 times this year on the same stretch. Thirteen months earlier, Puente had told a congressional transport commission that the system needed urgent modernisation and was in the final phase of replacement, but it had not been replaced by the day of the crash.

Urda held a packed funeral Mass on 31 October, where Archbishop Francisco Cerro Chaves urged society to care more for life. Opposition parties and left-wing candidates demanded responsibility, with Vox promising to pursue political and possible criminal accountability and Frente Amplio candidates Ada Colau and Emilio Delgado calling for Puente to resign.

Marco Rubio said Washington was not directly involved in Flávio Bolsonaro’s departure from Brazil. Speaking at the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in Atlanta, the US secretary of state said the government took part in none of Bolsonaro’s arrangements and that Bolsonaro already had a visa when he arrived. Rubio described his admission to the United States as Donald Trump’s personal decision.

The route remains politically explosive in Brasília. Justice Alexandre de Moraes had ordered Bolsonaro’s passports seized and barred him from leaving Brazil as part of a money-laundering investigation involving his lawyer Willer Tomaz. Argentina’s migration office said Bolsonaro, his wife Fernanda Bolsonaro and their daughters Carolina and Luiza entered Argentina at Puerto Iguazú on 27 October, before a private jet took them through Guayaquil to Opa-locka airport near Miami the next morning.

Donald Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago that Bolsonaro can remain in the United States for as long as he likes and said he had no plan to meet him. Bolsonaro has been granted discretionary parole, a provisional permission issued case by case by the Department of Homeland Security, allowing a one-year stay. A US official and another person familiar with the matter told Reuters that Trump has no current plan to back Bolsonaro’s political ambitions.

Democratic members of Congress asked whether the State Department, the US embassy in Brazil or any other agency helped Bolsonaro travel or enter the United States. Rubio said he had spoken with Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira and would meet him again at a G7 foreign ministers’ summit in France, with another meeting planned before the G20 leaders summit in Miami in December.

IG Metall began warning strikes in Germany’s metal and electrical industry shortly after midnight on 1 November, when the peace obligation expired. The pay round covers about 3.7m workers nationwide, and the union plans to widen the stoppages across the country during the week of 2 November. Around 300 workers rallied at KSM Castings in Hildesheim, about 300 protested at Thyssenkrupp Rasselstein in Andernach, and an action began overnight at RF 360 Europe/Qualcomm in Munich.

The union wants 5% more pay over 12 months, job and site security, a social component for lower pay groups and a profit share at successful companies. Employers offered a one-off payment of 1% of average annual tariff gross pay in July 2027 and a permanent 1.3% rise from July 2028, with the contract running until the end of 2028. IG Metall called the proposal a real-wage cut, while employers pointed to weak industry conditions and high costs in Germany.

Lower Saxony remains a separate bargaining arena. Thorsten Gröger, IG Metall’s district leader there, said production lines would stop wherever necessary from the first day of action, and accused employers of offering tiny percentages. The Hannover district office covers two bargaining areas with about 120,000 workers, namely Lower Saxony and Osnabrück-Emsland-Grafschaft Bentheim. Volkswagen staff negotiate separately, so the strikes do not settle that pay track.