1. A November timetable for Iran
The Pentagon is sending a third aircraft carrier strike group and additional Marine Corps ships to the Middle East, adding 9,000 to 10,000 troops to the region, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing US officials. The forces are due to arrive by the end of November, the month in which, according to the Journal, Donald Trump recently told aides he expects to resume bombing Iran. Last Friday, the paper had reported that Trump expected to restart strikes after the 3 November midterm elections, while remaining reluctant to resume major combat operations, partly to preserve dwindling munitions; the scale of any strikes is undecided. Diplomacy is fraying: according to Axios, Secretary of State Marco Rubio asked Iran's delegation to leave the United States before its scheduled departure.
https://x.com/deitaone/status/2105718028650586549?s=61
2. Blasts in Addis Ababa as Ethiopia's war widens
Explosions were heard in Ethiopia's capital overnight on Wednesday, hours after the national intelligence service banned drone flights over Addis Ababa and surrounding areas. An intelligence official confirmed three blasts in three locations to AP; diplomats told Bloomberg one was near the defence forces headquarters. AP said it was unclear whether they were attacks or exercises, but a source linked to the rebel Ethiopian Peoples' Forces Alliance for Survival told Reuters it had carried out drone strikes, including on the military headquarters. In the north, Tigrayan forces have taken several towns and the region's main airport, and on Thursday Ethiopia said it would close its embassy in Eritrea.
3. Poland warns of a Russian provocation
Russia is preparing "something big" this year, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, citing information from "many" sources he declined to name. "I believe that Putin needs a pretext for mobilization, so they could carry out a false-flag attack," he said, warning that Baltic states with Russian-speaking minorities could be exposed. On Monday, he added that Russia "doesn't have the forces for a major attack on NATO" and could instead try something smaller, designed to divide allies over whether to invoke Article 5. He did not name specific places.
4. Anthropic targets a pre-Thanksgiving IPO
Anthropic, the maker of the Claude AI models, is seeking to go public as soon as mid-November, after pushing back earlier plans, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. Formal marketing could begin as soon as the week of 9 November, putting the company on track to start trading before Thanksgiving on 26 November, when dealmaking usually slows. Earlier reports put the targeted valuation at up to $2 trillion, which would make it one of the largest listings ever.
5. Citi turns bullish on bitcoin again
Citigroup raised its 12-month bitcoin target to $113,000 from $82,000, and its ether target to $3,028 from $2,240, citing renewed ETF inflows and a more supportive macro backdrop. The bank expects "slower but stickier" inflows of about $5 billion over the next year, as advisers and brokerages gradually raise allocations. Bitcoin traded near $84,000, implying about 35% upside; it has gained nearly 40% in three months. Citi had cut its target twice this year, from $143,000 to $112,000, then to $82,000.
