Crypto News: Putin’s battle to divide Europe

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It's an important week for Kremlin efforts to restore Russia's influence over its former Soviet backyard.

In Moldova, a referendum on its ambition to join the European Union passed by the slimmest of margins after a Russia-backed campaign attacking the vote. The pro-EU authorities said Kremlin meddling extended to millions of euros in payoffs to voters.

After winning the first round yesterday, President Maia Sandu will face a pro-Russia opponent in a runoff election next month that promises to be a showdown between Moscow and the West over Moldova's future.

Georgia faces similarly momentous parliamentary elections on Saturday. As Alberto Nardelli and Ryan Gallagher report, Russian spies waged a comprehensive hacking campaign for years on the Caucasus nation that aspires to join the EU and NATO.

Those goals are in jeopardy amid worsening friction between the ruling Georgian Dream party and the US and EU over policies that Georgia's opposition and president say are drawing the country closer to Russia again.

Georgian Dream has accused a "global war party" in the West of seeking to overthrow it and ignite conflict with Russia. President Salome Zourabichvili, who's trying to unite pro-Western support, calls the election "a turning point" for Georgia.

With Russian forces advancing in eastern Ukraine, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin arrived in Kyiv today to discuss military assistance. All sides know the outcome of November's US presidential election may be pivotal in determining whether Ukraine can count on continued support against Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion.

From Belarus in the north through Ukraine and Moldova to Georgia in the south, Russia is waging a relentless battle to weaken US and European influence.

For the Kremlin, it's all one fight to restore control along Russia's western periphery, effectively creating a buffer with the West and a new division of Europe. — Anthony Halpin

A sign on an EU-financed road in Moldova. Photographer: Andrei Pungovschi/Bloomberg

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is holding meetings with his top security aides to discuss the next attack on Iran, two days after a Hezbollah drone strike on his coastal home north of Tel Aviv. The planning for such an assault has been underway for three weeks, since Tehran fired some 200 ballistic missiles at Israel following Israeli assassinations of leaders of Hezbollah and other Iran-sponsored militias.

Muslim worshippers pray near buildings destroyed by Israeli strikes in Khan Yunis, Gaza, on Friday. Photographer: Bashar Taleb/AFP/Getty Images

Against a backdrop of a strengthening world economy but a worsening global political outlook, finance ministers and central bank chiefs gather in Washington this week for the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, coinciding with the summit of BRICS nations in Russia. Hanging over the outlook is a sharply polarized US presidential election coupled with soaring government debt, escalating conflict in the Middle East, the grinding war between Russia and Ukraine, and tensions in the Taiwan Strait.

Mozambican police fired teargas in the capital, Maputo, to scatter protesters demonstrating over claims of fraud in the Oct. 9 elections and the weekend slaying of a lawyer of opposition presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane and an official of his party. The fiery preacher and former lawmaker urged his supporters to paralyze the southeast African nation by joining a nationwide strike against the vote in which the latest count shows he's trailing the ruling party's candidate, Daniel Chapo.

As they scrap for undecided voters, US Vice President Kamala Harris and her Republican rival, Donald Trump, are taking fundamentally different approaches to the last 15 days of their presidential race. While Harris focuses on the swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, Trump is engaging in a frenetic blitz of splashy events and unconventional media appearances.

Indonesia's new president, Prabowo Subianto, endeared himself to voters as a kindly grandfather vowing to give free meals to schoolchildren. Now to get things rolling in Southeast Asia's largest economy, the former general is signaling his strongman approach, using his maiden speech yesterday to rail against corruption and poverty.

The Chinese military criticized the US and Canada for "undermining peace and stability" by sending warships through the Taiwan Strait, just days after Beijing conducted major drills around the island.

Pakistan's ruling coalition approved a set of constitutional changes in a show of strength in parliament by cutting the powers of the Supreme Court to choose the chief justice.

As its world-class chip industry devours electricity, Taiwan is open to using nuclear technology to meet surging demand, Premier Cho Jung-tai said in an interview, in a sign that Taipei is rethinking its opposition to reactors.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva canceled a trip to Russia for an annual BRICS summit after cutting his head in an accident at his residence in Brasilia.

Harris spent much of her 60th birthday yesterday campaigning in Georgia, again criticizing Trump for his profane remarks at rallies.

In an interview with the Reverend Al Sharpton on MSNBC, she said the former president and Republican Party nominee lacked the propriety to re-occupy the Oval Office. Sharpton asked her about "street talk" he made at a rally in Pennsylvania the day before, including calling her a "s— vice president."

American presidents "walk into rooms around the world with the earned and self-appointed authority to talk about democracy and the rule of law" and must practice decorum as well as rules and norms, Harris said.

She has questioned not only his language and temperament but his physical and mental fitness for office. Her campaign persistently points out that he has refused to release his medical records. Trump has dismissed the need to provide additional medical information.

One thing to watch today: The start of the annual meetings of the World Bank and IMF.

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The fast money on Wall Street is betting against key sectors in the green economy. The $5 trillion hedge fund industry's investment wager against clean energy may be more damaging to the battle to stem global warming than political pushback. Deep-pocketed institutions are concluding that many climate investments won't pay off as quickly or as lucratively as they'd hoped.

Vancouver has long been among the world's most relaxed cities about drugs, but its progressive policies have triggered a recent backlash among citizens as the death toll from North America's fentanyl crisis mounts. A planned three-year experiment in decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of opiods, cocaine, meth or ecstasy that was intended to remove the stigma of seeking help and cut the risk of fatal overdoses has been abandoned before the half-way mark. While researchers are still debating whether the policy made the drug crisis worse, the experiment ran into rising public anger over housing pressures and crime, and looks to have helped the opposition conservatives surge in British Columbia's provincial elections this weekend.

A Naloxone kit in Vancouver. Photographer: Jennifer Gauthier/Bloomberg

Thanks to the 53 people who answered the Friday quiz and congratulations to Jason M. Brady, who was the first to name Jupiter as the planet whose moon NASA sent a mission to last week to see if the conditions to host life are present.

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