OSINTSUM: 13 November 2026

From Fortitude Intelligence

Which country suffered a volcanic disaster on this day in 1985 that prompted the US to set up the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program to help other countries monitor dangerous volcanoes? Find out at the bottom of today’s edition.

COP31: Turkey urged governments to back a pledge to raise electricity’s share of global final energy use from about 23% to 35% by 2035. Closing the 12 percentage-point gap would require electrification to progress roughly four times as fast as it has since 2010, with faster uptake of electric vehicles and heating as well as investment in power grids.
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Global markets: Shares were mostly lower across Europe and Asia as investors assessed the fallout from Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang’s resignation. Nvidia fell 3% in after-hours trading, and its South Korean customer Naver fell 2.75%, though shares in Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC rose 0.4%.
Read more · Nvidia and Naver figures

International education: A Studyportals survey found that visa barriers and changing government policies were pushing prospective international students away from the United States and United Kingdom towards destinations in Asia and continental Europe. A sustained shift would redirect tuition revenue as well as giving universities in those destinations a larger role in training and recruiting internationally mobile graduates.
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Microsoft outage: A Microsoft 365 outage disrupted Outlook, Teams, and other services worldwide, with nearly 130,000 reports of Outlook problems on Downdetector. The outage took Singapore’s government email offline, disrupted email responses at the Philippines’ Supreme Court, and prompted Japanese authorities to arrange alternatives such as telephone communications.
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Oil: Brent traded around $95 a barrel and was on course for a second consecutive weekly decline after Washington signalled it would maintain its blockade of Iran. Traders took that as a sign the US would keep squeezing Iran’s oil exports and hold off on renewed large-scale strikes for now, easing fears of wider disruption to Gulf oil supplies.
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Democratic Republic of Congo: The UN reported progress in the Ebola response but identified insecurity as its biggest obstacle, as Africa CDC warned that attacks on health workers and facilities were hindering containment in eastern Congo. Attacks can cut off access to communities where responders need to find cases and trace contacts, prolonging the risk of infections reaching neighbouring countries.
Read more · WHO briefing

Mozambique and United States: US security company Sincerus will help Mozambican police counter insurgent threats along roads into Cabo Delgado under a two-year US State Department programme worth up to $4.9m. The contract adds US security support in the same province where Washington approved up to $4.7bn in export financing for a TotalEnergies-led gas project and ExxonMobil is weighing a separate LNG investment.
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Sudan: The World Food Programme said funding cuts had forced it to stop providing food assistance to an estimated 900,000 people in recent months, and that it needed $520m to reach 5.4 million people through April 2027. The funding gap limits how far aid agencies can expand food deliveries even if Sudan’s warring parties allow them into more areas at risk of famine.
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Sudan, Libya, Pakistan, and Turkey: Sudan’s Sovereign Council chair Abdel Fattah al-Burhan held separate talks with the leaders of Libya, Pakistan, and Turkey on the sidelines of COP31. The meetings give Sudan’s army leadership direct channels to three governments as it seeks diplomatic backing over the war with the Rapid Support Forces.
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Brazil: Flávio Bolsonaro rejected accusations that he was a fugitive and said he could run for Brazil’s presidency again during a visit to Washington, after leaving Brazil following the election. Any public backing of Bolsonaro from US officials is likely to further strain relations with Brasília by reviving accusations that Washington is interfering in Brazilian politics.
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Colombia and Venezuela: Colombia and Venezuela said they were prepared to coordinate security along their 2,219km border after two kidnappings involving a Colombian army officer and the wife of Uribia’s mayor. Colombia saw a 45% reduction in kidnapping victims nationwide, from 434 from January to August 2025 to 238 in the same period in 2026, but the two cases prompted Bogotá to seek Venezuela’s help with searches near the border.
Read more · Colombian kidnapping figures

Haiti and El Salvador: Haitian security forces retook the 10,000-seat Sylvio Cator Stadium in Port-au-Prince after two years of gang control and handed security at the site to Salvadoran troops. The handover gives El Salvador a continuing security role in the capital that extends beyond the search for four Salvadoran soldiers who went missing after an October ambush.
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Mexico and United States: Donald Trump threatened to double tariffs on Mexican goods unless Mexico stopped migrants travelling towards the US border, and President Claudia Sheinbaum said no migrant caravan had reached the border since he returned to office in January 2025. Mexico sends about 80% of its exports to the US, giving Washington substantial leverage over Mexican migration policy, although Trump did not specify which duties he would double.
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United States: Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang resigned after reports about his relationship with a Chinese businesswoman suspected of gathering intelligence for Beijing raised US national security concerns. His departure removes one of the most prominent industry advocates for easing US restrictions on chip sales to China as Washington scrutinises the final destination of its chip exports.
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Venezuela and United States: An audit found that almost 99% of the $12.26bn collected through September from Venezuelan oil and other commodity sales had been released to Venezuela, with $168.6m still in a US Treasury-managed account. Caracas still needs Washington’s approval to draw on the proceeds for infrastructure and humanitarian spending, giving the US a say in which projects Venezuela can fund with its own oil revenues.
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ASEAN and Myanmar: ASEAN faces a decision over how to deal with Myanmar at its Manila summit as some members pursue closer ties with its military-backed government. If individual ASEAN members restore high-level ties with Myanmar, its government has less reason to meet the bloc’s demands to halt the fighting and open talks with the opposition in exchange for a return to ASEAN leaders’ meetings.
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Australia and European Union: Australia signed an agreement to join Horizon Europe, the EU’s €95.5bn research and innovation programme. The agreement gives Australian researchers and companies access to joint projects with European partners, widening Australia’s research ties beyond its established partners in the Indo-Pacific and United States.
Read more · Programme details

China and Taiwan: Taiwanese officials said China conducted a large, unannounced military exercise in the Pacific that they described as an attempt to intimidate Taiwan. As unannounced drills become more frequent and broader in scope, it becomes increasingly difficult for Taipei to determine whether Chinese forces are merely exercising or preparing to take military action, leaving less warning time if they do act.
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China and United States: Reuters identified more than $3bn in Chinese computing projects built around Nvidia processors subject to US export controls. The projects give Washington a measure of how much Chinese investment still depends on access to restricted US chips, as well as a reason to scrutinise overseas distributors and data-centre operators.
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India and Pakistan: Delhi overtook Lahore in IQAir’s live ranking of the world’s most polluted major cities, recording a hazardous air quality index of 334 against an upper threshold of 50 for air rated “good”. Tackling the pollution crisis will require bilateral cooperation between India and Pakistan to tackle emissions across the shared Indo-Gangetic airshed, as the cross border nature of the pollution means city-level restrictions have limited effect.
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Malaysia: Malaysia’s trade ministry said it was working with customs to determine whether AI chips imported by SpeedMatrix, a unit of Nvidia customer Megaspeed, had been re-exported to China. If investigators find that restricted chips were diverted, Kuala Lumpur is likely to face greater US pressure to tighten checks on the data centres and intermediaries importing them.
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North Korea and United States: The FBI said North Korean state-backed hackers stole more than $400m in cryptocurrency in a series of operations, and separately announced the seizure of $1.2bn linked to the Binance theft. Cryptocurrency theft gives Pyongyang a source of funds outside the international banking system, where sanctions severely restrict its access, while the seizure prevents it from spending or converting part of the stolen Binance funds.
Read more · Binance seizure

South Korea and United States: South Korea said Google removed coordinate information from its maps to meet security conditions attached to an export permit for high-precision mapping data. Compliance clears a hurdle for Google to use more detailed South Korean mapping data overseas while preserving Seoul’s restrictions on the information it considers sensitive.
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Thailand and China: Chinese Premier Li Qiang began a three-day visit to Thailand, the first official visit by a Chinese premier in seven years, as the two governments worked on a new five-year trade and economic plan. The visit gives Beijing a chance to secure longer-term trade and investment commitments from Thailand ahead of next week’s ASEAN summit in Manila.
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Albania and NATO: Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said NATO allies had yet to agree on a date for the summit and that Tirana would host it if it went ahead in 2028. US opposition to the 2027 plan, alongside allied concerns about Albania’s low defence spending, suggests Washington is willing to use its influence over who hosts NATO summits as leverage to press allies to spend more on defence.
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European Union: EU leaders gathered in Dublin for their first dedicated discussion on AI strategy, with Mistral AI chief executive Arthur Mensch joining talks on how Europe can compete with the United States and China. The EU has launched a tender for up to seven large AI computing centres, aiming to attract more than €30bn in public and private investment, but disputes over the bloc’s 2028–34 budget are slowing a plan intended to give European developers more computing capacity at home.
Read more · EU funding plan

France and Israel: France criticised Israel’s decision to bar French politicians Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Mathilde Panot after French authorities denied entry to West Bank settler leader Yossi Dagan over his role in Israel’s settlement policy. The reciprocal entry bans add to the countries’ diplomatic friction as French lawmakers consider a bill to restrict imports from Israeli settlements.
Read more · French legislation

Germany: Germany’s parliamentary budget committee agreed a 2027 budget that includes more than €210bn in new borrowing, the second-highest amount since the Second World War, Reuters reported. Looser borrowing rules for defence give Berlin more room to fund a planned increase in defense spending of 29% from €108.2bn in 2026 to about €139.6bn in 2027 aimed at rebuilding its armed forces and fund military commitments to NATO.
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Spain: The European Public Prosecutor’s Office took investigative steps at Spain’s equality ministry and Court of Auditors over suspected fraud in the purchase of electronic tags used in gender-based violence cases. The inquiry adds to EU scrutiny of Spanish public spending after the same prosecutors opened a separate investigation into possible misuse of EU funds for safety upgrades on the Madrid–Seville rail line where a train crashed near Urda in October.
Read more · Rail funding investigation

Sweden: Sweden’s rival political blocs sought the Centre Party’s support to break the deadlock over forming a government. The Centre Party has asked both blocs for concrete measures to cut emissions and separately wants Sweden to spend 1% of GDP annually on support for Ukraine.
Read more · Climate demands · Ukraine funding proposal

European Union, Russia, and Ukraine: The European Commission said it would present a new package of sanctions against Russia and proposals for financing Ukraine by year-end. The funding proposals will determine how much financial support Kyiv can count on in 2027 as European governments seek a greater role in US-led peace talks.
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Finland, Russia, and Ukraine: Finland’s armed forces said they detected a strike on a Russian warship in the Gulf of Finland, and Ukraine claimed responsibility for the attack. The strike extends the direct effects of the war into a Baltic shipping area bordered by NATO members, increasing the chance that further attacks could disrupt traffic or require a response from neighbouring states.
Read more · Ukraine’s claim

Russia and Ukraine: Volgograd’s regional governor said a Ukrainian drone strike killed four people and injured two in the city’s industrial zone, where local reporting identified Lukoil’s oil refinery as the facility hit. The refinery, roughly 470km from the front line, had already halted processing after an October strike, and repeated attacks can keep Russian fuel production offline for longer by interrupting repairs and restarts.
Read more · Refinery damage

Ukraine, Russia, and United States: US envoy Jared Kushner said Washington was working towards the largest prisoner exchange of Russia’s war in Ukraine, following talks in Moscow and Dublin where US and Ukrainian officials said Europe would join the next round. European participation would give governments expected to help enforce any security guarantees a direct say in negotiating them, although they have yet to agree who will speak for them.
Read more · Dublin talks · European representation

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Bahrain, Iran, and United States: Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said it destroyed a US early-warning radar in Bahrain, although the claim has yet to be independently verified. If confirmed, the loss would reduce the time US and allied forces in the Gulf have to detect and respond to incoming missiles.
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Gaza and Israel: Britain, Jordan, and Qatar led a coalition of more than 50 countries and organisations calling on Israel to admit critical shelter, fuel, water, sanitation, and medical supplies into Gaza. The coalition is pressing Israel to clear specific supplies it restricts as dual-use, including items aid agencies need to restore services and prepare shelters for winter.
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Iran: The International Atomic Energy Agency warned it had yet to inspect Iran’s declared enrichment plant at Isfahan and could not verify whether it held nuclear material. The agency last estimated in June 2025 that Iran had 440.9kg of uranium enriched up to 60% nationwide, and without access inspectors cannot verify how much remains or where it is held.
Read more · IAEA stockpile estimate

Iran and United States: Donald Trump told Vice President JD Vance to focus on domestic corruption and crime and said Washington did not need a deal with Iran. The order makes a near-term return to negotiations less likely, with Washington continuing to pressure Tehran through its blockade and keeping the option of further strikes open.
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Iran and United States: Iran’s foreign ministry warned that it would treat countries providing naval forces, personnel, or logistical support to US operations against Iran as taking part in the conflict. Iran has already struck US military facilities in Bahrain in retaliation for US strikes, giving governments considering whether to help protect shipping in Hormuz a concrete example of the risks of supporting US forces.
Read more · Earlier strikes in Bahrain

Israel and United States: US House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries called for major changes in the Middle East and reiterated his support for a two-state solution. When Democrats take control of Congress in January, they will be able to use hearings and spending legislation to scrutinise US military assistance to Israel and seek conditions on its use.
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Lebanon: The UN agency for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon said it was $70m–$80m short of its 2026 funding needs in Lebanon and had cut service hours by 20% since February. Many schools have cut the school week from five days to four, and families facing restrictions on access to professions such as law and engineering have fewer ways to pay for services the agency has scaled back.
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Saudi Arabia and China: Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan met China’s Middle East envoy Zhai Jun in Riyadh to discuss Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and the security of regional shipping routes. The talks give Riyadh a channel to seek Chinese diplomatic pressure over attacks that threaten routes China relies on for Gulf oil imports.
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Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and European Union: Saudi Arabia pressed the EU to designate Yemen’s Houthis as a terrorist organisation following attacks on the kingdom. An EU listing would freeze any assets the group holds in the bloc and bar EU operators from making funds available to it, expanding the financial pressure on the Houthis beyond existing US measures.
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Colombia. On this day in 1985, the Nevado del Ruiz volcano erupted, melting part of its ice cap and sending mudflows into nearby communities, including Armero. More than 23,000 people died, and the disaster prompted the US to establish the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program to help countries monitor volcanoes and warn communities at risk.
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