Evening Brief, Thursday 5 November

Republicans moved quickly from denial to blame after Democrats won the US midterms. Many Republican lawmakers privately accused Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of persuading Donald Trump to attack Iran without an exit plan, and Republican Representative Thomas Massie said he intends to force an impeachment vote when Congress returns in the week of 9 November. Republican sources told CNN the motion could pass, an awkward sentence for a party that still controls the White House.

JD Vance made the split public. The vice-president wrote on X that the war was the clear reason Republicans lost, and said those who still judge it worthwhile must accept losing the Senate for six years as part of the price. Donald Trump largely agreed that the war, and the rise in petrol prices it helped cause, had cost votes, but he rejected a change in course.

The White House now faces three pressures at once: a hostile Congress, an oil market watching for new strikes and a party that has started to talk about 2028 before the smoke has cleared. Brent crude fell below $95 a barrel after the vote, and analysts described options ranging from holding the current blockade to hitting Pickaxe Mountain and then seeking a deal. Donald Trump denied he was weighing Hegseth's removal and said the defence secretary was doing an excellent job.

Santiago Peña resigned as president of Paraguay while the lower house was debating impeachment against him. His Colorado Party had turned on him, and Vice President Pedro Alliana will serve the rest of the term until 15 August 2028. Peña, a 47-year-old former International Monetary Fund economist, framed his exit as a step to protect stability and social peace.

The political break followed the collapse of Ueno Bank, a digital lender tied to Peña's earlier business interests. The central bank ordered a resolution or closure process on 3 November after Ueno's solvency ratio fell below half the required minimum. Its app, cards and transfers stopped, branches closed, and customers queued outside unable to withdraw savings. The bank said it held about $800 million in public-sector deposits as of October, roughly a quarter of total deposits.

Opposition legislators and ruling-party dissidents accused Peña of conflicts of interest, misuse of pension funds and cover-ups linked to Ueno. They cited two loans from Ueno to Peña and alleged preferential treatment for the bank, including through the Social Security Institute, which had $355 million there, about 9% of its investments. Peña signed emergency legislation to speed the return of withheld funds within at least 24 hours, approved payouts to depositors and named a new central bank chief. Ueno's accounts remained frozen in reports published on 5 November.

Bomb threats disrupted 18 European flights on 5 November, with six of the affected services involving Italian airports. The alarms forced diversions across the continent: three flights landed at Madrid, four in Prague, and an Aer Lingus service from Dublin to Rome made an emergency landing in Évreux, France. Ryanair, WizzAir, Finnair, Aegean Airlines and Lot Polish Airlines were among the carriers named in the reports.

Italian authorities received an email signed by Male State fighters, pointing to Muzhskoye Gosudarstvo, an ultranationalist and misogynistic Russian movement founded by Vladislav Pozdnyakov and banned in Russia. The message said an explosion would occur within 60 minutes and threatened that the sky would turn red. ANSA linked the email to earlier messages that announced bombs on other flights and inside about 280 schools. Sender addresses were either compromised or came from anonymising services such as Proton Mail, and international channels were activated to trace servers and IP addresses.

A separate alert hit a Ryanair flight from Pescara to Charleroi after the word bomb was found in a toilet at 13:13. Passengers left the aircraft gradually while explosive-detection dogs checked them and their baggage, and the searches ruled out danger. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency said trained staff kept the immediate safety risk from individual false alarms low, but added that diversions increase pressure on pilots, air-traffic controllers and airports.

The Bank of England lifted Bank Rate by a quarter point to 4%, its first increase since August 2023. Eight of the nine Monetary Policy Committee members backed the move, while Catherine Mann wanted a half-point rise to 4.25%. The Bank acted after energy-driven inflation reached 3.5% in September and warned that prices would keep climbing if the Middle East conflict continues.

Andrew Bailey tried to cool expectations that Threadneedle Street had started an automatic tightening cycle. Markets were less relaxed: traders put the chance of another quarter-point increase in December at 50%, up from about 20% before the announcement. The Bank said firms had so far absorbed higher energy costs through margins or hedges, but those buffers would fade if the shock lasted, pushing up food, drink and other prices.

Sterling rose to its strongest level against a basket of currencies since the Brexit referendum, reaching about $1.35 and €1.20 in the Handelsblatt account. Oil prices also fell this week as traders bet that Democrats' midterm win lowered the odds of renewed US strikes on Iran. Andy Burnham's budget, presented shortly before the rate decision, removes VAT from household electricity bills, a measure the Bank expects to lower inflation.

Drones attacked Russia's Ryazan region overnight into 5 November, and regional governor Pavel Malkov said more than 200 were involved. Falling debris started fires at several industrial sites and damaged power lines, leaving parts of Ryazan without electricity before power was restored. One person was injured, and Malkov later said the fires had been extinguished or contained, without naming the sites.

Ukrainian Telegram channels said drones reached the industrial zone of the Ryazan refinery, which belongs to Rosneft, and the independent Russian outlet Astra verified footage of a blaze at the plant. Malkov did not confirm refinery damage. Reports put the refinery's capacity at 17m-18m tonnes of crude a year and said it supplies aviation fuel and diesel to the Russian army. Astra also reported a fire at a Wildberries logistics centre near Tyushevo, though available information did not show whether the warehouse was damaged.

Ukraine had paused strikes on Russian refineries for two weeks at the end of October under pressure from Donald Trump, according to De Morgen, after he announced an energy truce and complained that the attacks had pushed up global fuel prices. Kyiv has since resumed them, with conflicting counts placing Ryazan as either the fifth or sixth Russian refinery strike in less than a week. Russia's Defence Ministry also said its forces hit Ukrainian targets near Kharkiv, in Dnipropetrovsk and in the Black Sea; Ukrainian officials had not immediately confirmed all those claims.

French unions staged a nationwide strike on 5 November, drawing 270,000 people to 180 gatherings, according to the Interior Ministry. The CGT counted more than 250,000 protesters by 13:00 and said actions took place in more than 70 cities. Students, high-school pupils, farmers and yellow-vest protesters backed the call, which grew from anger over living costs, public education and housing.

The government deployed 70,000 police officers and gendarmes, with drones, helicopters, mounted units, canine teams and 26 Centaure armoured vehicles. Paris was largely calm before some protesters clashed with police, who used tear gas. In Lyon, officers also used tear gas after authorities said about 500 black bloc members threw objects and attacked storefronts. Near Toulouse, unknown people set a school on fire with fireworks, forcing pupils to evacuate.

Schools, universities, transport and landmarks felt the strike. About a third of high schools were closed or unable to operate because of blockades or teachers walking out, and the SNES-FSU union said 52% of its secondary-school staff joined. The Eiffel Tower shut to visitors, and some rooms of the Louvre closed. Sébastien Lecornu will convene unions and employers on Monday, 9 November, for a social conference on purchasing power and wages, while Labour Minister Jean-Pierre Farandou must finish consultations by Sunday, 8 November.