Monday, November 2, 2026
Every news article the Bureau published that day — 22 articles, newest first. Past days never disappear: the links below are the original, permanent URLs.
The $8 drop: oil plunges 7.6% as US–Iran talks hand the market a midterms-eve detente
Brent's biggest one-day fall since July came not from barrels but from words — a Vance letter, a two-day Hormuz plan, and a White House suddenly talking diplomacy ahead of Tuesday's midterms. The market believed. The veterans kept their notes.
WorldThe $11.9 billion midterms: how the 2026 campaign became the most expensive ever recorded
One day before Election Day, OpenSecrets projects a record $11.9 billion for the 2026 midterms — driven by super PACs, dark money at an all-time high, and one donor, Elon Musk, who has written $446 million in cheques.
EconomyTrump moves to end South Africa’s duty-free US access: AGOA exit set for January 1, 2027
The United States Trade Representative announced that South Africa and Rwanda will lose AGOA benefits after the annual eligibility review found practices “inconsistent” with the programme’s criteria. Pretoria says it is ready; economists call the 3.4-point tariff bump a bruise, not a ban.
WorldIsrael's hung Knesset meets its kingmakers: Herzog opens coalition talks as 19 Arab-led seats decide everything
The president breaks custom by receiving the smallest parties first; the Joint List and Ra'am are expected to recommend Gadi Eisenkot, while a Likud probe demand and the Gaza war clock complicate the 28-day mandate race.
WorldThe guns return to Kherson as the Ukraine war's longest truce expires without an extension
A six-day localized ceasefire that let nearly 800 civilians leave Russian-occupied Oleshky ended on Sunday night after Moscow refused to extend it. Within hours, Russian drones were striking Kherson again — and neither side reported a single violation of the truce it broke.
JusticeA Casablanca court jails cartoonist Yasser Mounbir for four years over caricatures of the King
The Aïn Sebaâ court imposed the legal maximum under Article 179 of the Penal Code for Instagram caricatures of His Majesty King Mohammed VI. The defence announced an appeal on Sunday. A verdict that tests Morocco's balance between the constitutional inviolability of the sovereign and the country's free-expression debate.
EconomyEl Niño threatens South Africa's crops, but a record maize harvest cushions the blow
The Crop Estimates Committee has put the 2025–26 maize crop at a record 17.7 million tonnes as farmers begin planting into what forecasters call one of the strongest El Niño events in living memory. The silos are full and prices are soft — the real test comes with the January rains.
Middle EastKing Abdullah vows to confront the Karak 'terrorists' as the throne speech turns to war and water
Opening parliament's new session, Jordan's king called the church attackers 'khawarej' who 'are not of us', asked lawmakers to stand for the nine dead — and warned that Israeli expansionism is the region's greatest threat.
AfricaThree years later, the sewer still fouling humanity's cradle — and voters get their say on Wednesday
A UNESCO World Heritage Site in South Africa is still being treated as a latrine. Two days before the municipal polls, Mogale City's collapsed waterworks have become the measure of local government failure.
WorldOne day before the midterms, four Michigan voters ask: can America still talk to itself?
On the eve of the November 3 elections, Al Jazeera's cameras turn to four Michiganders with opposing views — and the question they ask is bigger than any Senate race.
EconomyRyanair weighs staff pay freezes as a €2bn fuel shock threatens Europe's cheapest fares
Europe's biggest airline says it may freeze workers' pay, cut crewing ratios and lean on AI as the Middle East war doubles its unhedged fuel costs — and warns fares will rise sharply next year.
WorldSouth Africa's anti-foreigner movement squares up to the state, two days before the polls
With the 4 November local elections two days away, a court ban, a troop deployment and a spy-agency scandal have fused into one confrontation: March and March versus the South African state — and the digital conversation shows the movement is winning the week.
WorldKabul asks Washington to act responsibly as 150 Afghans face deportation
The Taliban foreign ministry offered to engage constructively with the United States over deportations routed through Pakistan, warning third countries not to use deportees as bargaining chips.
WorldTrump's Republicans scramble to stop a Democratic midterms wave
With 54 million early ballots already cast, final polls show Democrats leading in all seven battleground Senate races — and Republicans holding last-ditch rallies in states they once took for granted.
WorldShe watched a sniper kill her 16-year-old in Tehran. Now an Iranian mother is naming names.
Samira's only child, Sevda, was shot dead on 9 January as Iran's January protests turned into a massacre. Forced to bury her daughter under a state lie, hounded by the intelligence ministry and charged in absentia with a capital offence, she fled Iran on foot over the mountains — and from exile she is now publishing the names of the security men she holds responsible. Her testimony anchors a BBC Panorama documentary airing tonight.
PoliticsGuterres warns of escalation as MINURSO enters liquidation: the 35-year mission's final phase begins
In a six-paragraph statement from New York, the UN Secretary-General confirmed the end of the 35-year-old MINURSO mission, warned of escalation risk in the Moroccan Sahara, and announced that November 1 marks the start of its liquidation — an orderly dismantling that mirrors Rabat's own demands.
WorldHacked sirens: fake radiation and nuclear alerts hit Ukraine and Russia as the Kherson truce ends
On Sunday night, Ukraine’s air-raid app broadcast fake radiation, chemical and street-fighting warnings across the country; hours later, Russia’s emergency app suffered what Moscow called a “massive cyberattack”. Each side points at the other — and the heaviest casualty of the night may be the public’s trust in the warnings that keep civilians alive.
WorldAt least 19 dead as Venezuela bombs an ELN camp: Caracas turns its guns on its old guerrilla ally
The October 30 drone-and-helicopter strike on a National Liberation Army camp in Apure is the first time Caracas has bombed the ELN — a doctrine reversal that FundaRedes, an anonymous military source and regional outlets all trace to Washington's new grip on Venezuelan security policy.
PoliticsLula beat Bolsonaro from second place. Governing Brazil will be harder than winning it.
A week after the runoff, The Hindu's post-mortem lays bare the mechanics of a 4.4-million-vote turnaround — student marches, a 10.8-million-strong WhatsApp army, and a message rebuilt around kitchen-table promises. The challenge now: the most hostile Congress of Brazil's democratic era.
PoliticsThe polls promise Democrats a big Tuesday. The polls have failed them before.
Every major forecast gives Democrats the House and a genuine shot at the Senate in Tuesday's midterms — but after Wisconsin, Michigan and the ghosts of 2016 and 2020, the polling industry's own credibility is on the ballot too.
WorldA 'cataclysmic' nose-dive over Palm Beach County: nine dead in a Learjet 60 crash
A Bahamas-bound Learjet 60 carrying nine people nose-dived into a South Florida neighborhood on Sunday afternoon, erupting into a fireball that left all aboard dead. The NTSB has launched a full investigation; cockpit recordings point to ice and a rapid descent, but the cause remains unknown.
PoliticsTwo days before the midterms, a Democratic star goes down: what Chris Murphy's stroke means for the Senate's final sprint
Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, 53, suffered a stroke on Saturday and is hospitalized at Johns Hopkins, “awake and alert” and responding well, his chief of staff said on Sunday. He is not on Tuesday's ballot, but as one of the Democrats' most visible campaign surrogates and their loudest voice against a new Iran offensive, his absence reshapes the final 48 hours of the midterm campaign.