1. Flávio Bolsonaro rejects Lula's win as Brazil's markets crash

Brazil woke up to a double shock: a defeated candidate who will not concede, and markets that had bet on him. On Sunday night, Flávio Bolsonaro said it was impossible to recognise the result and that his lawyers would ask for the election to be annulled, citing a Supreme Court justice's two-hour extension of voting. Lula won 51.79% of valid votes. On Monday 26 October, the Ibovespa fell as much as 17.3%, to 169,516 points from more than 205,000 on Friday, and the B3 exchange halted trading for 30 minutes once the drop passed 10%. It closed down 13.4%, InfoMoney reported. The dollar jumped about 12% to a peak of R$5.6055 and ended 8% higher, at R$5.40. The Treasury cancelled this week's fixed-rate and inflation-linked bond auctions and bought back about R$7.1 billion of fixed-rate bonds. Analysts pointed mainly to spending: Goldman Sachs wrote that "fiscal sustainability remains the primary pricing anchor" for Brazil's sovereign risk.

2. Israel votes, and the final polls give nobody a majority

Israel's election on Tuesday 27 October is less a race for first place than a hunt for 61 seats, and the final polls hand that number to nobody. In surveys published on 23 October by Kan 11, Channel 12 and Channel 13, the last allowed before the vote, Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar led with 22 to 23 seats, ahead of Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud on 19 to 21. Netanyahu's bloc stood at 50 in all three, 11 short of a majority. By Le Détroit's count, the opposition peaks at 56 even with the Reservists list, which hovers around the 3.25% threshold, so no poll gives it 61 without the Arab parties and their 14 to 16 seats. About 7.3 million Israelis can choose among 36 lists. Official results are due by 4 November; if no coalition emerges, Netanyahu stays on as caretaker, with the war against Iran unresolved.

3. Riyadh strikes Sanaa and sends its defence minister to Tehran

Saudi Arabia is fighting the Houthis and talking to Tehran at once, because the pipeline that lets its oil avoid Hormuz is now a target. On Monday 26 October, the Saudi-led coalition said it destroyed two Houthi ballistic-missile launchers in Sanaa, one used overnight to fire a missile at Riyadh that was intercepted. "Operations continue to dismantle the terrorist Houthi militia's ballistic missile network," said its spokesman, Turki al-Maliki. The Houthis said they hit the East-West pipeline's pumping stations and Riyadh airport; the kingdom did not confirm. The 1,200 km line is a key export route while Hormuz is effectively closed, and was briefly shut in September after a drone attack. The same day, Defence Minister Khalid bin Salman met President Masoud Pezeshkian in Tehran, alongside Pakistan's army chief Asim Munir and Turkey's intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin, on a visit a Saudi official said aimed at de-escalation; Tehran said the sides agreed to keep talking.

4. Britain sanctions commanders on both sides of Sudan's war

Britain's new Sudan sanctions refuse to treat either side as the lesser evil: they list army commanders alongside those of the Rapid Support Forces, a year after the RSF took El Fasher. On Monday 26 October, London froze the assets of 15 commanders, militia leaders and officials accused of sexual violence, torture and attacks on civilians, and banned them from travel. By Le Détroit's reading of the UK notice, nine are current or former RSF commanders, among them Hussein Abu Jalak, linked to atrocities in the siege of El Fasher, and two have since joined the army; the other six are on the army's side. UK-funded research by the Centre for Information Resilience found both sides used starvation and sexual violence against civilians. The foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, said "rape and starvation are still being weaponised against the people of Sudan", as Britain pledged £15m in aid. Sanctions are not convictions, and no response from either side had been reported.

5. Ebola's trail runs through one airport in Uganda

Africa's Ebola outbreak is now travelling by plane, and investigators keep finding the same transit point: Entebbe. Nigeria's first case since 2014, confirmed in Abuja on 20 October, is a 42-year-old woman who flew home from a holiday in Kampala on 3 October. "As of now, we have 53 primary contacts," Jide Idris, head of Nigeria's Centre for Disease Control, said on Sunday 25 October; none had tested positive. Her virus closely matches that of Kenya's first imported case, a traveller from Congo who died in Nairobi, and Africa CDC is investigating because both passed through Entebbe airport on 3 October. Health Minister Muhammad Pate says the match does not prove she was infected in Kenya. Kenya has nine confirmed cases, all in one cluster. The Bundibugyo strain, for which there is no licensed vaccine, has infected more than 9,000 people and killed more than 4,300 since May, AP reports.

6. Musk and Kyiv clash over the satellite link that steers Ukraine's drones

Ukraine's drone war runs on a network that one company operates, and the past fortnight showed how quickly that link can falter. Overnight on 13 to 14 October, Starshield connections for Ukrainian drones and vehicles in motion dropped without warning, and several missions failed, said Serhii Beskrestnov, a presidential adviser. Elon Musk wrote on X that Starshield is "owned and controlled by the US government", with limits decided "by the US military and ultimately POTUS"; US officials told Axios they had ordered nothing, and the Wall Street Journal later reported that Musk ordered the slowdown, which Reuters could not verify. On Saturday 24 October, Musk accused Ukraine's military of using Starlink for offensive drone strikes, against its terms of use, The Independent reported; Beskrestnov replied that the restrictions would have made such strikes physically impossible. Kyiv says high-speed access was restored over the weekend. Trilateral talks with Russia and Washington are due in November.

Today and the week ahead