BLACKWATER USA | DAILY BRIEF - Blackwater Worldwide

Posted by BW Actual on Oct 7th 2025

Gaza

It sounds like the first day of indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas went well yesterday. Delegates are discussing details of Pres. Trump's 20-point peace proposal - which both sides have conceptually agreed to - and told reporters they felt "positive" about the first day's progress.
The U.S. is reportedly pressing both sides to prioritize a quick win-win by confirming a prompt prisoner exchange that will build positive momentum for resolving their differences over the remaining details.
Hamas hardliners will resent the idea of giving up their side's best bargaining chip - their hostages - at the outset and negotiating further details with significantly less leverage. So far, though, even the hardliners seem to see that the alternative to a deal is worse, and Hamas appears to be negotiating in earnest.
Israelis, too, want their government to agree to the tabled proposal. In the first public opinion poll on the U.S.-led plan, 72% of respondents said they supported it and only 8% were against it (20% were unsure how they felt).
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's far-right coalition partners remain stubbornly against a peace deal with Hamas and will probably walk away from his government if it signs a deal (though, as The Economist pointed out, they may only symbolically withdraw support but could still tacitly back Netanyahu to keep their parliamentary majority of convenience).
Talks continue today in Egypt.

Venezuela

Pres. Trump reportedly directed Richard Grenell - his envoy who had been leading on-off negotiations with Venezuela - to call off diplomatic efforts and cease all outreach with Caracas.
The NYT suggested that Trump is "frustrated" with Nicolas Maduro's refusal to make concessions and his continued insistence that his regime is not involved in drug trafficking (Trump insists it is; that's probably correct, but not at the superlative scale Trump claims).
Some reports suggest - and Maduro believes - that the U.S. is also preparing plans to escalate its anti-cartel operations from naval strikes in the region to operations attacking targets on Venezuelan land - and perhaps seeking to remove Maduro from power.
Having spoiled his direct line of communication with the White House, Maduro seems to be trying to win back its favor in an odd way. Yesterday, Maduro claimed that his forces identified a "false flag operation" in which "extremist sectors of the local Venezuelan right" sought to plant bombs at the U.S. Embassy in Caracas.
Thankfully, Maduro said, Venezuelan forces foiled the attack and reinforced security at the long-shuttered embassy, "despite all the differences we have had with the governments of the United States."

Syria

The local councils that appointed 140 of the 210 seats in Parliament in Syria's quasi-election on Sunday favored candidates from the Sunni majority, leaving female candidates and members of religious and ethnic minorities - like deposed Pres. Assad's Alawites - underrepresented.
Interim President Ahmed Al Sharaa - who also hails from the Sunni majority - will appoint the remaining 70 Parliament members. If his legislative picks follow his cabinet choices, Sharaa is likely to appoint mostly Sunnis with a handful of minority representatives as symbols of the inclusivity he repeatedly promises to promote.

Sudan

The International Criminal Court convicted Sudanese Janjaweed militia commander Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-al-Rahman on 27 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity that his militiamen committed over 20 years ago in Darfur.
That should give the military and militia commanders who the UN says are currently committing fresh war crimes in Darfur a precedent to worry about...in 20 years.

Libya

Italy's Eni restarted offshore exploration in northwest Libya's Block 16/4, after a five-year lull that started during the pandemic but outlasted lockdown measures.
Eni is also drilling onshore in Libya's Ghadames Basin in collaboration with the UK's bp.

France

Analysts and investors are worried about Pres. Macron's lack of good options for resolving France's political stalemate.
Few think he'll consider calling snap elections, which would likely further reduce his centrist Renaissance party's seats in the lower house - and could hand Marine Le Pen's hard-right National Rally party a near-majority.
Macron's other, more likely, option is to appoint an eighth prime minister - though any candidate palatable to the center is likely to face the same rejection from the extremes that quickly doomed Sébastien Lecornu's premiership.

Belt and Road Initiative

Guyana's Pres. Ali and China's Ambassador to Guyana presided over the inauguration of the Chinese-built Demerara River Bridge on Sunday.
The bridge is one of many infrastructure projects China has launched recently in Guyana, and part of its Belt and Road-adjacent efforts to solidify a "friendship" with the nascent oil producer.

Physics

This year's Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to three U.S.-based scientists - John Clarke, Michel Devoret and John Martinis - for their work on quantum tunneling: a phenomenon by which particles can probabilistically pass through potential energy barriers that classical physics predicts would block them.