🇪🇹⚔️🇪🇷 Ethiopia officially accuses Eritrea of sending troops into Ethiopian territory and demands their withdrawal.

“All foreign military forces operating within our sovereign territory must withdraw immediately,” Enatalem Melese, Minister of the Government Communication Service, told Bloomberg. “In particular, Eritrean forces operating in Tigray must leave Ethiopian territory without delay.”

Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel didn’t respond to questions about Ethiopia’s allegation. Instead, he accused Ethiopia of laying the groundwork for a war aimed at seizing the strategic Red Sea port of Assab, saying Addis Ababa is seeking to portray its long-standing ambition for sea access as an act of self-defense.

“The Ethiopian regime’s overarching strategy in the past months has revolved around re-packaging its three-year old agenda of war and aggression against Eritrea in ‘self-defense’ terms,” he said. “The final destination is Assab. This is the backdrop of all the accusations.”

🔗 https://unwall.app/www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-07/ethiopia-accuses-eritrea-of-incursion-demands-troop-withdrawal?srnd=homepage-europe

🇨🇩🇰🇪🦠 The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has spread to Kenya

Kenya has confirmed its first case of Ebola virus disease, involving a Kenyan citizen who had been living in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Health officials are now tracing contacts as well as passengers and crew members who were on the same flight.

🔗 BBC News Africa (@BBCAfrica)

🛢🚢 The cost of hiring an oil tanker on the benchmark trade route has soared to $1.33 million per day, the most expensive in history

🔗 Barchart

🇻🇪🛢 Venezuela's Cardón refinery in Punto Fijo, Falcón state, processing 310,000 barrels/day caught fire and exploded yesterday.

The blaze was extinguished within an hour after explosions and an evacuation. No injuries were reported.

📝: Oil refineries across the Americas have been running at full capacity nonstop for the past 4-5 months to make up for the loss of Middle Eastern refineries and have pushed back scheduled maintenance to parts of the facilities.

Operating this long at full capacity simultaneously risks creating a scenario where multiple oil refineries suffer fires or explosions at the same time or in quick succession leading to a huge sudden loss of fuel output potentially causing fuel shortages but most certainly leading to higher gas & diesel prices.

@CIG_telegram

🇯🇵 The Bank of Japan keeps shrinking its balance sheet, adding to bond market pressure:

Bank of Japan total assets fell another ¥15.5 trillion (-$98 billion) in Q3, bringing the year-over-year decline to ¥70.8 trillion (-$445 billion).

Total assets on its balance sheet are now down to ¥625 trillion ($3.95 trillion), the lowest level since March 2020.

Since the Q1 2024 peak, the BOJ has shed ¥131 trillion, or -17.4% of its total assets, equivalent to ~$825 billion.

Japanese Government Bond holdings fell by ¥14.3 trillion in Q3 alone, the largest quarterly decline since QT began, down to ¥504 trillion, their lowest since 2020.

At the same time, the BOJ has raised its rates by 1.25% after its first hike in March 2024, suggesting QT has become a much more important tightening tool.

The impact is increasingly visible in long-term yields, with the 10-year JGB yield at 3.10%, its highest since 1996, and the 30-year yield at 4.21%, near the highest on record.

The BOJ continues pulling liquidity from the system.

🔗 Global Markets Investor

🇺🇸 Deeply Distressed US Loans Rise to Highest Level Since Pandemic, JPMorgan Says

The deeply distressed tail of the leveraged loan universe has grown to levels not seen since the beginning of the pandemic, with technology the single biggest sector under pressure.

That’s according to strategists at JPMorgan Chase & Co., who on Tuesday wrote that the value of loans trading below 60 cents on the dollar, or deeply distressed levels, rose to $65 billion from $40 billion a year ago, to the highest since March 2020.

Distressed leveraged loans, or those trading at or below 80 cents on the dollar, are also on the rise, totaling $139.8 billion, a nearly 90% jump over the past 12 months and just $4 billion shy of a high in May 2020, strategists including Nelson Jantzen wrote in a report.

There are now about 141 leveraged loan issuers trading below 80 cents on the dollar, 35 more than a year earlier, with names including software providers CDK Global, QLIK Technologies Inc., and Quest Software among the biggest contributors.

The biggest concentration of distressed loans is in the technology sector at 39%, with a total of $54.4 billion, according to the report.

Software companies are facing an increasingly challenging refinancing environment as a wall of more than $100 billion of maturing debt is approaching. The sector came under pressure this year with concerns mounting that advances in artificial intelligence would disrupt businesses offering software services.

In the riskiest part of the leveraged loan market, returns on CCC loans, the lowest tier of junk, are down 1.97% year-to-date, compared with gains in every other junk-rated category, according to JPMorgan.

On the high-yield bond side of distress, spreads on debt rated CCC have jumped above 1,000 basis points, the highest since the 2023 regional banking crisis when investors dumped risky debt. Yields on CCC bonds have climbed to 15.58%, the highest since November 2022.

🔗 https://unwall.app/www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-06/deeply-distressed-us-loans-rise-to-highest-level-since-pandemic

🇸🇾🇮🇶⚡️ — Syria is preparing to provide Iraq with an overland route for crude exports, allowing Iraqi oil to bypass the Strait of Hormuz by truck to a Mediterranean port, Bloomberg reports.

Syrian Petroleum Co. CEO Yousef Qiblawy said the deal is nearly finalized, with the first convoy expected by mid-October.

The two countries are also discussing the rehabilitation of the long-defunct Haditha-Baniyas pipeline, with work potentially beginning early next year.

📢 🇨🇦 🇨🇦 Quebec’s premier-elect is moving to ban the King’s representative from his government's swearing in ceremony - refuses to take oath to the King.

Paul St-Pierre Plamondon said he is seeking legal advice so the lieutenant-governor does not take part in the swearing-in of MNAs.

He refuses the oath to the King, calling it a lie as his first act in the legislature.

“There is something abnormal about a foreign king coming to tell us what to do,” he said.

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20261006-quebec-s-incoming-separatist-leader-wants-to-block-crown-from-swearing-in

📎 Tablesalt

📊 🇸🇪 🚷 Sweden’s Institute for Remigration (IFR) has developed a rather striking mathematical model projecting where and when migrants could outnumber native populations across Europe.

If current trends continue, Switzerland would be the first country on the list, followed by Belgium, Germany and Austria. Between 2050 and 2060, France, Spain, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Ireland could also lose their native majorities.

The project’s authors stress that this is only a forecast — although, in their view, it is based on fairly substantial grounds.

https://demography-dashboard.eu/en/intro

📎 NEXTA

📊 🇸🇪 🚷 Sweden is only 63% Swedish.

Sweden dropped from 96.5% Swedish in 1950 to 63.8% Swedish in 2026.

In 20 years Swedes will be minority.

📎 swenstone

🇾🇪❌🇸🇦 — NEW: Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation says Abha International Airport and King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh were struck in separate Houthi (Ansarallah) attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday.

At Abha Airport, two women of Moroccan and Algerian nationality were killed and 28 people were injured, including Saudi citizens and Bangladeshi and Filipino residents.

At King Khalid Airport, a Sudanese resident was killed, and eight others were injured, including five Saudis, two Egyptians, and one Pakistani.

GACA said both attacks caused "some property damage." Authorities are assessing the damage and safety of the airport facilities.