⚡️Hostages have been taken in a restaurant in the French city of Issy-les-Moulineaux, near Paris. Police are on their way to the scene, and the area has been cordoned off, according to media reports.

The hostages in the Paris suburb were taken by the restaurant owner, and they are reportedly several staff members of the establishment, media say.

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🚨Three or four employees are being held hostage at a restaurant in the Paris suburbs. No customers are inside, according to the Figaro newspaper.

UPD: Employees of a restaurant in a suburb of Paris were taken hostage by the owner's son, the newspaper says.

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☢️ Russia cuts uranium exports to US. What’s next?

The Russian government has imposed temporary restrictions on the export of enriched uranium to the United States. This was a tit-for-tat move after the Biden administration signed a law banning Russian uranium imports until 2040, with exceptions allowed until 2028, despite warnings that the move could backfire on the American economy.

What consequences could Russia’s ban have?

🔸 Russia is the world's largest supplier of enriched uranium. It accounts for about 44% of the global capacity to separate the uranium isotopes needed in nuclear reactors. Its share of the enriched uranium market boasts an estimated export value of $2.7 billion.

🔸 As Russia was America’s top foreign supplier of fuel for its commercial nuclear reactors in 2022, the current measure may generate potential supply risks.

🔸 Some reactor operators may struggle to find an alternative supplier, said Jonathan Hinze, president of nuclear fuel market information and analysis company UxC.

🔸 The US has its own deposits of uranium, but its domestic enrichment capacity has been in decline. Biden’s bill banning imports of Russian enriched uranium also provided some $2.7 billion in federal funding to build new enrichment capacity in America.

🔸 Currently, the US has just one commercial enrichment facility in New Mexico, owned by a British, Dutch and German consortium, Urenco Ltd. It supplies about one-third of the enriched uranium used in American reactors.

“We don’t have enough enriched uranium here… They should have been stockpiling enriched uranium in anticipation of this happening,” nuclear analyst Chris Gadomski told BloombergNEF.

What about prices?

🔹 Restrictions on uranium supplies may affect prices as this automatically increases demand from other sources, where the enriched fuel has not yet been produced in the required quantity, analysts warn.

🔹 Bids for November 2025 uranium delivery soared $4 to reach $84 a pound after the news, per UxC.

🔹 Shares of other uranium or uranium-related companies have surged. Shares of Canada’s Cameco Corp. jumped by 6%, and those of US’ Ur-Energy Inc. and Uranium Energy Corp. rose by 10% and 13%, respectively.

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🛥War games show UK’s beleaguered flagship aircraft carriers ‘get sunk’ every time
 
In most war games carried out by the UK military, its costly flagship aircraft carriers “get sunk", The Times cited a source as saying. HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, commissioned into the Royal Navy in 2017 and 2019, respectively, together cost £6.2 billion. ($7.8 billion) to build but are reportedly vulnerable to missiles.

A “whole load of scenarios” was run during war games to test the Royal Navy’s “ability to survive” against an “overwhelming force", a British military source was quoted as saying, adding:

“We stretch everything to the limit. At some point you will get to a scenario where it [the carrier] is sunk.”

The report comes amid an ongoing Strategic Defence Review commissioned by Britain’s Labor Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and overseen by the Defence Secretary John Healey. Both ministers and military chiefs have been pressured to implement cost-cutting measures due to financial constraints. Hence, large assets like the aircraft carriers are under heightened scrutiny to decide whether they are still a vital staple for modern warfare.

“There will be casualties,” a source hinted, indicating that the prospect of scrapping at least one of the carriers was raised.

Former Minister for Defence Procurement Lord Lee of Trafford told the outlet that the military was struggling to afford the requisite numbers of F-35 aircraft for the carriers, along with escort ships and support vessels.

Decades of defense cuts by successive British governments have left the country’s military understaffed and underequipped, resulting in delays in production and upgrades. The HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales have both been plagued by technical malfunctions, with humiliating breakdowns affecting Britain’s ability to participate in large-scale joint NATO drills.

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🇷🇺 Russian foreign ministry urges Germany to break with Nazi past as Baerbock calls to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has announced that “it's time finally find the strength to do what our partners are already doing” and send Taurus missiles to Ukraine. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova took to Telegram to ask the German foreign minister some uncomfortable questions about the Nazi past.

1️⃣“First, isn’t it time to abolish the status of honorary resident to Hitler and other criminals of the Third Reich?” Zakharova asked, referring to the fact that many cities in western Germany have yet to “shy away from a legal break with the Nazi past” and continue to commemorate Nazi leaders with honorary noscripts.

2️⃣“Second, isn’t it time to rename German military bases named after Wehrmacht soldiers and officers?” the spokeswoman inquired, pointing out the Bundeswehr has about 40 barracks bearing the names of Nazi military leaders, including Adolf Heusinger, a general who helped planned the invasion of the USSR, who went on to chair the NATO Military Committee.

3️⃣“Third, isn’t it time to stop spending federal and regional budget money maintaining Nazi graves?” Zakharova asked, pointing out that graves, including of SS and NSDAP members, and even the former concentration camp commandants, are cared for at public expense.

4️⃣“Fourth, is it not time to stop supporting SS veterans at the legislative level in Germany?” the spokesman wondered, noting that “tens of thousands of former SS members and their relatives receive social benefits in Germany as ‘victims of war’.”

5️⃣“Fifth, isn’t it time for Germany to pay compensation to the survivors of the Leningrad Siege, no matter their nationality?” Zakharova asked, pointing out that while Berlin has agreed to pay the Siege’s Jewish victims, it continues to ignore “the suffering of the remaining residents of Leningrad,” and refuses to recognize the Siege as genocide, “even though historians estimate that more civilians died from the blockade than in the hell of Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.”

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Biden arrived at the second day of the APEC Summit in Peru with a two-hour delay

During his absence, the seat bearing his nameplate was occupied by Daleep Singh, the US Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economics, who is often referred to by the media as the "architect of sanctions against Russia."

The US delegation to the summit includes 600 military personnel, including US Marine Corps troops wearing bulletproof vests as they escort delegation members around the event. The US also brought helicopters and aircraft to Peru ahead of the summit.

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Russia halts gas deliveries to Austria

Russian gas giant Gazprom shut off deliveries of natural gas heading to Austria starting November 16, Austrian energy company OMV stated.

The move came after Austrian energy company OMV announced that it would stop paying for deliveries of Russian energy after winning an arbitration award from the International Chamber of Commerce related to a contractual dispute with the Russian gas giant.

🔸 Austria had relied on affordable and dependable pipeline-delivered Russian gas since the 1960s, with deliveries helping to ensure the Central European nation’s energy security, and fueling an ‘economic miracle’ which made Austria one of the wealthiest countries in the EU by per capita GDP.

🔸 As recently as July 2024, Austria was buying over 80% of its natural gas from Russia.

🔸 Vienna is now expected to buy gas from Germany, presumably paying a premium for the privilege, since Berlin itself now relies on imports of liquefied natural gas – which is more expensive owing to the need to transport it by ship, compress and decompress it.

🔸 Austria’s economy slipped into recession in 2023, with 3 in 4 local companies fearing deindustrialization, according to a recent Deloitte survey. Industry accounts for about 22% of Austria’s GDP. A prolonged shutoff of Russian gas would likely exacerbate the country’s economic woes, with European gas prices hitting their 2024 high late last month amid tight supply as winter approaches.

🔸 Although Chancellor Karl Nehammer said that Vienna had been “preparing” for Gazprom’s decision in a televised address to the nation Friday, his coalition government earlier announced plans to end Russian gas imports only by 2027.

🔸 The government suffered a dramatic defeat in elections in September, with the opposition Freedom Party of Austria winning 28.8% of the vote and a plurality of seats. Nehammer has vowed not to form a coalition with the opposition party, which has urged Vienna to keep Russian gas a part of Austria’s energy mix.

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🔸 Trump team to write off ‘Project Ukraine’ as sunk cost

🔸 Russia cuts uranium exports to US. What’s next?

🔸 Russia halts gas deliveries to Austria

🔸 Pentagon loses battle with auditors, fails seventh financial review in a row

🔸 What could Trump 2.0 mean for US healthcare?

🔸 War games show UK’s beleaguered flagship aircraft carriers ‘get sunk’ every time

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Who is Boris Epshteyn, Russian-born Trump lawyer reportedly floated as Ukraine peace negotiator?

Republican strategist, lawyer and long-time Donald Trump ally Boris Epshteyn had floated his name for the tough job of brokering peace between Russia and Ukraine, the NYT has reported citing sources.

🔸 A Russian-American, Epshteyn was born in Moscow in 1982 and lived there as a child, a fact seized upon by Western and Ukrainian media concerned over his possible appointment to the peacemaker job, which Trump has reportedly heard out but has yet to agree to.

🔸 Epshteyn served as a senior advisor to the Trump campaign in 2016, and briefly, as an assistant communications director for the Trump White House until March 2017.

🔸 He’s also been one of Trump’s top legal advisors, helping to build the case against the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory in 2020, and coordinating Trump’s legal defense strategy in the criminal “witch-hunt” cases brought forward from 2023 on aimed at blocking the business mogul’s return to the White House.

🔸 Among the purported obstacles to Epshteyn's appointment are his lack of diplomatic experience and the case opened against him in Arizona over the 2020 election interference. Epshteyn has also been under the Russiagate probes swirling around Trump after 2016, coming up clean in investigations by the House Intelligence Committee and the Justice Department.

🔸 Epshteyn had reportedly previously expressed hopes to remain an outside advisor to Trump, but has now become a “significant gatekeeper” in his transition team, reportedly helping to finalize GOP lawyer William McGinley’s return to the White House as Trump’s counsel, and advocating for Congressman Matt Gaetz’s nomination for attorney general.

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🔥🛢️ Ending the second day of occupying government buildings, the Abkhazian opposition lights fires in courtyards to keep warm at night.

The protesters have no intention of leaving, Sputnik reported from the scene.

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Trump nominates Chris Wright for Energy Secretary

Chris Wright, CEO of Liberty Energy, is known for his opposition to climate policies and his alignment with Trump's agenda to increase oil and gas production. Here's what Chris had to say about climate change in October of this year.

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Biden is shown his real place at the APEC summit

At the APEC family photo event in Peru, the 'leader of the free world' was placed in the back corner. Meanwhile, China's Xi takes center stage.

🔎 Can you even spot the old man?

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Xi Jinping: China is ready to work with Trump

Chinese President said at a meeting with Joe Biden at the APEC summit that China is ready to work with the new administration of President Donald Trump.

"China is ready to work with the new US administration to maintain communication, expand cooperation and manage differences, so as to strive for a steady transition of the China-US relationship for the benefit of the two peoples," he said.

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