BLACKWATER USA | DAILY BRIEF - Blackwater Worldwide

Posted by BW Actual on Oct 9th 2025

Gaza

Pres. Trump announced that Israel and Hamas have formally agreed to the hostage-prisoner swap envisaged as the first phase of Trump's 20-point Gaza peace plan, marking a momentous step towards ending the two-year war.
Israelis and Gazans overwhelmingly welcomed the news and celebrated what seems to be the beginning of the end of the war.
Under the terms of the agreed swap, Hamas's ~20 living hostages could be freed as soon as Saturday, and Trump may travel to the region to be present for their homecoming.
The deal also calls for Israel to release 1,700 Gazan wartime detainees and 250 Palestinians serving life sentences in Israeli jails. In addition, it requires Israeli troops to pull back (but not withdraw from Gaza completely) and allow unrestrained humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Israel's government still needs to ratify the deal, but it seems to have Prime Minister Netanyahu's full-throated support this time, and Trump and other interlocutors - wary of Netanyahu's history of backtracking and equivocating - will be pressuring him to secure his side's signoff.

Myanmar

Local reports claimed that Myanmar's junta used a paraglider to bomb a Buddhist-festival-slash-peaceful-protest in the rebel-heavy Sagaing region, killing at least 24.
Critics accuse the junta of deliberately targeting civilians, and say there was no ongoing fighting between soldiers and rebels in the area at the time.
The use of a paraglider instead of a jet is notable: BBC Burmese observed that the junta is increasingly resorting to motorized gliders like the one apparently used in this incident because sanctions have severed the army's access to better aircraft and jet fuel.

Afghanistan

After hastily retreating from an ill-conceived full internet ban, Afghanistan's Taliban government is now reportedly implementing more limited restrictions on social media use.
Access to platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat is now blocked or severely slowed on most smartphones within the country, but WhatsApp and X seem to be functioning normally. In addition, tech-savvy Afghans are already one step ahead of Taliban Luddites and easily able to skirt the ban using VPNs.

France

Pres. Macron's short-lived seventh prime minister, Sebastian Lecornu, met with parties across France's political spectrum this week, and emerged from those meetings surprisingly optimistic that a budget agreement is possible.
With that positive indication, Macron ruled out the idea of calling early elections. Instead, he will appoint a new prime minister within two days - and hope that his new candidate fares better in France's polarized climate than his previous seven picks did.

Steel

The European Union (EU) proposed measures to insulate its overproducing steelmakers from foreign competition - especially from China. The amount of steel that can be imported into the EU before tariffs kick in will drop by about half, and tariffs on imports above that threshold will double to 50%.
The shift won't hurt China much - just 4% of China's steel exports go to the EU - but it will be a shock to UK steel exports, 80% of which go to the EU.
Some analysts called the EU's move a domino effect of U.S. protectionism: new U.S. tariffs have likely pushed cheap steel into other markets, including the EU, which has forced those other markets to adopt antidumping measures of their own.

Chemistry

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to three scientists who contributed to breakthroughs in metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), which are porous structures with properties that suit diverse applications from water remediation to CO2 capture.
The chair of the committee awarding the prize explained MOFs in terms I could understand: "A small amount of such material can be almost like Hermione’s handbag in Harry Potter. It can store huge amounts of gas in a tiny volume."