November 7 worldwide: mandates handed out, clocks started

On Saturday, November 7, several sides received mandates: the Russian delegation for the talks in Abu Dhabi, Israeli opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot for forming a government, and the successor of the departing finance chief for the Binance exchange. Each mandate has a deadline, and the deadlines show what is expected of it.

Abu Dhabi: a delegation for two days

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov named the composition of the Russian delegation for the three-way talks with the US and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi, to be held on Tuesday and Wednesday, November 10 and 11. It will be led by presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky. The delegation includes Deputy Foreign Ministers Sergei Ryabkov and Mikhail Galuzin and two representatives of the General Staff, Main Directorate chief Igor Kostyukov and Yuri Zhigarlovsky, deputy head of the Main Operations Directorate, Russian outlets reported. Our review of November 6 also wrote about preparations for the talks.

In January, when the sides first met in Abu Dhabi, Russia, according to Peskov, was represented only by military officers; now diplomats and a presidential aide have been added. Presidential aide Yuri Ushakov, who attended Vladimir Putin’s meeting with the permanent members of the Security Council, will not take part and will oversee the talks, Peskov said. European countries are not in the format. These will be the first such talks since February, Ukrainian media recall. The composition of the Ukrainian and American delegations is not named in Russian reports.

Jerusalem: twenty-eight days and fourteen in reserve

Israeli President Isaac Herzog chose who will try first to form a government: after consultations with the factions he announced he would entrust it to Yashar! party chairman Gadi Eisenkot, a former chief of the General Staff. Factions with 67 Knesset members recommended him, according to a statement from the president’s office; the Knesset has 120 seats, and a majority needs 61. Herzog planned to hand over the formal mandate on Sunday at 17:00, his office said.

The election was held on October 27, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition lost its majority, agencies recall. A candidate with a mandate has 28 days to form a government and another 14 if extended, the AFP agency writes; if the mandate is handed over on November 8, the deadline is December 6, and with the extension December 20. For comparison: after the November 2022 election Netanyahu needed 58 days, and between 2019 and 2022 Israel held five elections because of deadlocks. The recommendations of 67 members do not mean a coalition has been assembled: the first test will be its negotiations.

Kraków: mourning and questions for the investigation

The same day a man shot at people from a car on Kraków’s Main Square. Six people were killed and 15–16 wounded, among them two police officers; the attacker was detained, and the bodies of three more people were found at his home, Polish authorities said; we set out the details in our material on the first reports. Polish President Karol Nawrocki began the procedure to declare national mourning for November 8 and 9, and in Kraków it lasts until November 11.

Investigators are establishing the attacker’s motives. Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński named ultra-nationalist views as likely, and Prime Minister Donald Tusk asked politicians of all parties not to exploit the tragedy. Among the questions still unanswered are how a man with a firearms permit came to have such an arsenal and in what circumstances people died at his home.

Money and sea: Binance and the US blockade

The chief financial officer of the largest crypto exchange, Binance, Kaiser Ng, is leaving the company after more than five years, and Justin Yek will succeed him. Binance co-CEO Yi He said the handover plan had been in place for the past half-year, according to the company’s statement. The departure was announced a week after a hack in which, according to Reuters, about 6.3 billion dollars was stolen from the exchange; the FBI attributed the theft to the DPRK, and Pyongyang denies it. The company does not name a link between the two events: the transition, in its words, was prepared for half a year.

At the other end of the map, US Central Command created the “Iron Gate” task force to stop Iran from moving modern weapons and sanctioned materials by land and across the Caspian Sea, the command said. The naval blockade of Iranian ports has been in force since July, and the same day a US aircraft disabled a merchant ship that, according to Central Command, tried to break the blockade, Reuters reports. The Caspian is a sea on whose shore Kazakhstan also lies; the command has not yet said what measures the group will apply on the Caspian.

Whose clock runs first

By Monday it will be clear how the mourning went, by Tuesday what the delegations bring to Abu Dhabi, and whether Eisenkot can assemble a majority will not be settled before December. Each event has its own clock, and on Saturday none of them had yet shown a result.