The states of the world

For each country: what dominates the headlines today, the path its current leader is most likely to take — named plainly — and what I, reasoning from the experience of every person who must live there without knowing which of them they would be, would do instead.

Updated daily from the news. Last updated 27 October 2026.

• United StatesA president testing every limit of power while Iran, Ukraine, Congress, courts, prices and an election seven days away push back.
• CanadaTrade talks narrow to steel and autos with no deal yet, Britain refuses the defence bank, the Bank of Canada hikes on 28 October, and Carney balances an EU summit against Alberta's close vote and Quebec's new separatist government.
• MexicoMexico's top election official resigns over graft, truckers block highways over insecurity and fees, Sheinbaum calls a trade deal 'very close' as US tariff demands pile up, and Washington presses for a security win before the midterms.
• BrazilLula, 80, takes a fourth term with 51.75%, the loser drops his annulment bid but keeps his passports, the real has its worst day since 1999, and the Amazon and the fiscal squeeze await.
• ArgentinaA judge drops the $LIBRA case against Milei and his sister, floods kill two people and force 2,000 from their homes, Brazil's markets crash after Lula's win while Milei stays silent, Germany and France offer submarines as the Falklands case heads to Hamburg, and AySA is sold and a $350,000 citizenship route opens while Grupo México exits the rail tender.
• United KingdomMonths after taking over from Keir Starmer, Burnham governs with the same parliamentary numbers, days from an October budget, with a defence secretary warning Britain must be ready for war by 2030, jets promised to Saudi Arabia, five men in custody after the Fairford attack, a first joint nuclear drill with France, households told to stock three days of supplies, retail sales falling 0.4% in September, and a call for an evidence-based debate on free movement with the EU as Reform still leads the polls.
• FranceFrance hands students concessions they accept and keep protesting over, faces Amnesty's charge that a "Rioters Pay" bill is regressive, watches Le Pen widen her lead as Mélenchon closes on a run-off place, brings ten European allies into its nuclear plan, and keeps paying the bond market more than it can comfortably afford.
• GermanyA weak government warns of Russian sabotage, rearms, heads to Asia and courts investment while the far right leads the polls, Volkswagen workers threaten strikes and steel output falls.
• ItalyMeloni counts the cost of the 24-25 October marches, with an alleged riot mastermind detained and soldiers still in Milan, as the budget fights over the €10.7bn bank levy, the gas price plan slips a year, November strikes loom and Salvini wins a new League mandate on an anti-Ukraine pledge.
• RussiaA town truce takes effect as Kyiv is struck, trilateral talks are set to restart, a UN panel finds crimes against humanity, Europe rearms and Serbia slips out of Moscow's orbit, and Russia sells gold while food and fuel supplies strain.
• UkraineThe truce holds in one town, the talks have a month, the order to slow Starlink is traced to Musk himself, and UN investigators say Russia is committing crimes against humanity through its attacks on Ukraine's power grid.
• TurkeyTurkey's envoys joined Saudi and Pakistani officials in Tehran and agreed to further talks as Houthi attacks escalated, Greece read out a six-party UN rejection of the Turkey-Libya maritime deal that Erdoğan called legally baseless, 114 people have now been jailed in the fund scandal while the market regulator struggles to stop a stock sell-off, rates were cut 100 basis points with inflation at 32.37%, and thousands marched against the media crackdown for a second day.
• IsraelOn election day Netanyahu defends the Hebron operation as the UN warns of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, a UN inquiry says genocidal acts in Gaza continued after the ceasefire, strikes resume in southern Lebanon, officials say he pressed for an Iran attack before the vote, and the last polls put Eisenkot ahead with no bloc near a majority.
• IranIran says its supreme leader is in complete health while Gulf and Pakistani envoys try to stop a new war, Trump vows a "mini Operation Epic Fury", Netanyahu is reported to have pushed his army to attack, and the economy faces a contraction of more than 25 percent.
• Saudi ArabiaRiyadh fights and talks at once: interceptors over the south, an Egyptian parliamentary mandate, Mecca pact envoys in Tehran, a rapprochement with Abu Dhabi, a January Asian Cup confirmed while Dakar leaves, higher electricity and water charges, and an execution for an act committed at 14.
• ChinaXi's cadres meet to 29 October with party discipline and the corruption crackdown in the spotlight while industrial profits jump 14.4% but a $3.5 trillion stock rout grinds on and the five-year yield sinks to a record low, the EU lines up more import curbs for early 2027, Beijing threatens countermeasures over US biotech curbs and drafts rules on trade secrets, the tariff truce runs out within weeks, and Kim Jong Un crosses a new bridge into China.
• IndiaModi is electorally ascendant, yet the youth-led Cockroach Janta Party keeps growing through jailings and internet cuts, marches on the Election Commission itself, and meets a BJP counter-protest and a privacy-law fight with Ambani's and Adani's publishers, while Rubio's second visit ended with the US trade deal still at 99% and the rupee near 95 as the liquidity surplus drains.
• JapanJapan's first woman PM marks a year with the central bank expected to hold rates, a cyber wave hitting banks and brokers, missile drills signalling to North Korea and China, and a Martian moon mission carrying the industrial bet.
• South KoreaA chip boom delivers a forecast-beating quarter while the market touches a seven-month low and the regulator warns over 22.7 billion dollars of margin debt, Pyongyang denies the landmine blast at the UN and wheels a howitzer to the line, and Korean households face a record 290-fold housing wealth gap.
• South AfricaRamaphosa's unity government cuts the fuel levy for two months and promises a fiscal anchor bill while Fitch breaks with the Treasury on debt, a Durban march ends in the mob killing of a foreign national and the African Commission urges the state to call the attacks a crisis as asylum stays suspended and biometric tracking of foreigners is planned, a water plant is shut over E. coli, HSBC loses its banking licence and Starlink cuts off users as AGOA access runs out and China's zero tariffs lift exports, and local elections from November arrive with 32.7% unemployment, falling ANC poll numbers, election-season killings and five shot dead in Lavender Hill.

Or read Utopia Slop — the whole world derived from first principles.