U.S.
Port Strike
The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), a dockworker’s union, began a strike along the East and Gulf coasts on October 1st. The strike threatened to cause major economic damage just weeks before the election. According to the National Association of Manufacturers, more than 68% of containerized exports and 58% of containerized imports go through ports on the East and Gulf coasts. However, the strike ended on October 3rd with the ILA releasing a statement claiming they had “reached a tentative agreement on wages” and are looking to “negotiate all other outstanding issues”.
NASA’s Mission to Jupiter
NASA launched the spacecraft Europa Clipper on October 14th with the goal of studying Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, which has a massive ocean below its surface that may be suitable for life. The spacecraft is expected to begin orbiting Jupiter in April of 2023, where it will fly past Europa 49 times. The spacecraft was launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.
The Middle East
Iran Strikes
Iran launched more than 180 missiles at Israel in retaliation for the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, and Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political leader. Most of the missiles were intercepted with the help of the U.S, which has announced that it will send a missile battery along with the operating personnel in order to “bolster Israel’s missile defense capabilities”. The New York Times reported that Israel promised the U.S. that it would not strike oil or nuclear-related sites in retaliation.
Hamas Leader Dead
The leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, was killed on October 17th by Israeli forces in Gaza. According to The New York Times, Mr. Sinwar was found and killed by accident when a unit of Israeli soldiers encountered a small group of armed militants and engaged in a firefight, killing three of the militants. One of those militants was later identified as Yahya Sinwar. The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a statement that “while this is not the end of the war in Gaza, it’s the beginning of the end”.
Europe
Nobel Prizes
The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton for using physics to train AI. They “have used tools from physics to develop methods that are the foundation of today’s powerful machine learning”, according to the The Nobel Foundation.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to David Baker, Demis Hassabis, and John Jumper for their work with proteins. David Baker was able to build entirely new proteins while Demis Hassabis and John Jumper used AI to predict the structure of proteins.
The Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to Victor Ambrose and Gary Ruvkun for their discovery of microRNA and its role in gene regulation.
The Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the South Korean author Han Kang “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”.
The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the organization Nihon Hidankyo, a movement made up of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki (known as Hibakusha) that seeks to “achieve a world free of nuclear weapons” and show “that nuclear weapons must never be used again”.
The Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson for their research into the gap between rich and poor countries, demonstrating “the importance of societal institutions for a country’s prosperity”.
Russian “Shadow Fleet”
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Western nations announced sanctions against Russia, such as an oil price cap designed to restrict the revenue the country can make off of its oil industry. However, a new report from the Kyiv School of Economics Institute says many of these restrictions are being evaded by a “shadow fleet” of oil tankers. According to the report, Russia has invested almost $10 billion in developing the fleet, which transports close to 70% of Russia’s seaborne oil exports. The report also mentions the potential environmental damage the shadow tankers could cause, noting that the ships are usually “insufficiently maintained, and likely inadequately insured”.
The Americas
Canada Expels Indian Diplomats
On October 14th, Canada announced it would expel six Indian diplomats, who were claimed to be a part of a “targeted campaign against Canadian citizens”. The Sikh cleric Hardeep Singh Nijjar was killed on Canadian soil last year, and the six diplomats were identified “as persons of interest in the Nijjar case” according to Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly. India rejects these allegations and has responded by expelling six Canadian diplomats.
Brazil and Elon Musk
This month Justice Alexandre de Moraes of Brazil’s Supreme Court removed a national ban on the social media platform X, ending a power struggle between Justice Moraes and Elon Musk. In 2019, the Supreme Court granted itself the power to carry out criminal investigations into anyone who the court considered to be a threat to democracy , calling it the Fake News Inquiry. Since then, Justice Moraes has ordered social media networks, including X, to remove accounts. However, Elon Musk, the owner of X, refused to comply with many of these orders. As a result, Justice Moraes banned X in Brazil until October 8th.
Asia
China’s War Games
China carried out large-scale military drills around Taiwan on October 14th. Taiwan, an island off the coast of China, functions as an independent nation, but China claims it as its own. The drills were apparently a warning after Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, made a speech last week supporting independence. Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that it “strongly condemns China and urges it to pull back and immediately cease its military provocations”.
