It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Schools of Grey Reef Sharks (Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos) and Rainbow Runners (Elagatis bipinnulata), along with several Red Snappers (Lutjanus bohar), Blacktip Reef Sharks (Carcharhinus melanopterus), and Black Jacks (Caranx lugubris) at Baited Remote Underwater Video Station.
To receive the file in a higher resolution, please write to press@frontiersin.org.
Humans have left their mark on virtually every place on the planet, from the deep sea to the peaks of the highest mountains. But a few very remote atolls in the Pacific Ocean may be exceptions. A new Frontiers in Marine Science study has found two coral atolls, Bikar and Bokak, located on the territory of the Marshall Islands, to be some of the most intact ecosystems remaining in the region and perhaps the world.
“This study provides the first comprehensive ecological baseline of the newly created National Marine Sanctuaries of Bikar and Bokak atolls from the sky and land to the deep sea, and highlights some of the most intact ecosystems remaining in the region,” said first author Dr Alan Friedlander, a marine ecologist at the University of Hawai’i, who served as Pristine Seas’ chief scientists aboard the joint expedition. “Bikar and Bokak are not just treasures for the Marshall Islands but for the entire planet, a gift from the community of Utirik Atoll, which has traditionally and vigilantly safeguarded these fragile ecosystems for decades.”
Looking towards the future
Bikar and Bokak are the northernmost atolls in the Marshall Islands, lying approximately 116 and 385 kilometers from the nearest inhabited atoll, respectively. In 2023, the team conducted extensive monitoring of local land, sea, and sky ecosystems. They assessed sea- and shorebird populations, characterized vegetation, and carried out surveys of turtle nesting, coral reefs and fish assemblages using scuba, underwater video, deep-sea camera deployments, and a submarine.
“We set out to inform the creation of a highly protected area within the scope of the Marshall Islands’ Reimaanlok vision, which means ‘looking towards the future,’” said Friedlander. “It is a national, community-led conservation framework designed to protect marine and terrestrial resources while ensuring island life thrives for generations to come.”
Two years after the assessment, some 48,000 square kilometers around the atolls were declared the country’s first national marine sanctuary.
Teeming with life
“These atolls have extensive seabird colonies, mature native vegetation, active turtle nesting, high reef-fish biomass and large predators, coral-dominated reefs at Bokak, structurally complex mesophotic habitats, and surprisingly diverse and poorly known deep-sea communities,” said Friedlander.
Across both atolls, the researchers found 15 seabird colonies that were confirmed or likely to be breeding. They also found at least 266 groups of reef fish, 138 groups of fish living at greater depths, and 79 groups of deep-sea fishes. 15 groups of open-water predators including sharks, jacks, and wahoo, were recorded. 14 of the observed groups haven’t previously been recorded in the Marshall Islands, and two might be species new to science.
Despite sharing many characteristics and housing many of the same species, the atolls also differ from each other. Sea turtle nesting, for example, was almost exclusively concentrated at Bikar, with 132 green sea turtle nest pits recorded. The total biomass of reef fish was higher at Bokak which is characterized by coral-dominated reef communities. Bikar, on the other hand, supported more taxa of algae.
The study, which surveyed the atolls at one point in time, did not determine the environmental mechanisms causing differing ecological patterns. They could be attributed to difference in lagoon size, water exchange, sediment transport, habitat configuration, nutrient dynamics, or ecological history, among other things.
“There is also a bit of a lottery involved as to which species show up and persist at remote locations,” Friedlander added.
What we stand to lose
The extensive surveying of these ecosystems offers an unparalleled glimpse into how they function with only minimal human influence.
“They are among the best ecological reference systems we have to better understand what we have lost elsewhere and to provide fundamental insights needed for effective conservation and restoration efforts,” said Friedlander.
The important lesson, the researchers said, is that monitoring should not focus exclusively on shallow reefs but assess ecosystems in their full complexity, which provides a more complete foundation for conserving ecosystem integrity and tracking future climate-driven change. Future studies should also focus on examining nutrient transfer and ecological connectivity between habitats, which was not done here.
“The Marshall Island government should be applauded for their foresight in protecting these global biodiversity hotspots, where human activity is distant and habitats teem with life,” concluded Friedlander. “As human activities increasingly threaten biodiversity, areas devoid of intense human impacts serve as vital refugia. Large marine protected areas serve as globally important ecological reference systems for understanding the structure and future trajectories of tropical oceanic ecosystems in the Anthropocene.”
The study, published in BMJ Medicine, found that among the official public health definitions* used to identify and regulate food and drink products in the UK, each varied widely in what proportion of processed and ultra-processed products was classed as unhealthy, while systems such as traffic light labels failed to identify more than half of these unhealthy packaged foods.
When the Eatwell Guide — a set of government recommendations for nutrient, food and drink intake — was used to define unhealthy food, it classified over 98% of ultra-processed products and 95% of processed products sold in the UK as unhealthy.
By contrast, the voluntary green, amber and red traffic light labelling on the front of packaging identified fewer than half (48.2%) of those foods as unhealthy.
The high fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) definition used by the Food Standards Agency Nutrient Profiling Model (FSA-NPM) to restrict the advertising and promotion of unhealthy foods identified just over half (57.6%) of the same foods as unhealthy.
As a result, the researchers suggest that inconsistencies in labelling and regulation may lead consumers to buy food and drink products which have high levels of saturated fat, salt and sugar without realising they are unhealthy.
The authors conducted a cross-sectional analysis of a representative database of 262 processed and 1,636 ultra-processed food and drink items available across the UK.
They then compared the proportions of processed and ultra-processed products identified as unhealthy by FSA-NPM, the traffic light system and new Nutrient Profiling Models aligned with the Eatwell Guide.
Professor Chris van Tulleken (UCL Infection, Immunity and Transplantation), the study’s senior author, said: “This study shows that the UK food environment is saturated with products that make it hard for consumers to eat a diet in line with UK government advice. The reason such products are so dominant may be because existing labelling and regulation systems fail to identify them as unhealthy.
“If these products make up the majority of a person’s diet, as they do in the UK, there is a significant risk of consuming more sugar, salt and saturated fat than the Eatwell Guide recommends, even if someone fastidiously avoids red traffic lights, and HFSS products.
“This itself would be difficult as traffic lights are voluntary and the HFSS definition is hidden from consumers.”
Lead author Sam Dicken (UCL Epidemiology and Health Care) said: “Our analysis shows that tools for regulating healthy and unhealthy foods in the UK are inconsistent.
“For example, traffic light labelling showed that 48% of ultra-processed products surveyed are unhealthy, and the FSA-NPM showed that 57% of ultra-processed products surveyed are unhealthy. But nutrient profiling models based on UK government guidance, the Eatwell Guide, indicated that between 91% and 98% of ultra-processed products surveyed are unhealthy.
“Current food and drink regulatory tools do not capture products with an excess content of harmful nutrients, but UK dietary guidance does.”
Some of the food products which would be classified as having high levels of fat, salt and sugar under the Eatwell Guide include canned pasta in tomato sauce, macaroni cheese made from packet mix, and fat-free probiotic yoghurts. These products are not identified as being unhealthy under traffic light labels or the HFSS definition.
Conversely, foods such as nuts or whole fruit may be flagged as being high in sugars or fats by traffic light labelling, despite being encouraged as part of a healthy diet by the Eatwell Guide.
Co-author Dr Dolly van Tulleken, Visiting Researcher from the University of Cambridge, said: “This study reveals how confusing and incoherent the UK government’s definitions of unhealthy food are.
“Products classified as unhealthy by one system are healthy under another. A single, unified system for categorising food and drink products as unhealthy using existing UK dietary guidance, is much needed, both for consumers and regulation.
“This must be developed independently of food and drink industry influence. This would help to close regulatory loopholes and address the inconsistency of front-of-pack ‘traffic light’ labels and FSA-NPM.”
Co-author Dr Adrian Brown (UCL Division of Medicine) said: “This study highlights the need for clearer, more consistent food classification systems that better align with the UK dietary guidelines to help consumers make informed choices about food and drink.”
Study limitations
The authors note that while their study identifies a representative selection of processed items to compare the performance of different models, it does not suggest this would be an exact list of foods which would be subject to regulation, nor the specific regulatory approaches that should be used. These approaches should be developed independently of food industry influence.
Additionally, as the analysis focuses on processed and ultra-processed products it does not test minimally processed foods. There may therefore be additional scope for future studies around this food area.
*For this study, researchers evaluated the Eatwell Guide, the Food Standards Agency Nutrient Profiling Model, the front-of-pack multiple traffic light system, and used the Nova classification of food processing to identify processed and ultra-processed food in the UK.
How much processed and ultra-processed food is energy dense and high in fat, sugar and salt? An evaluation of existing and novel nutrient profiling models in identifying unhealthy food and drink
Article Publication Date
10-Nov-2026
Monday, November 09, 2026
Two Egyptian army officers killed in gold-mining crackdown on southern border, military says
Egypt’s Eastern desert by the Red Sea. (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)
Two Egyptian army officers, including a high-ranking border guard officer, were killed during a military crackdown on illegal gold mining along Egypt’s southern border with Sudan, a military spokesperson said on Thursday.
The military launched the campaign to counter illegal gold mining in the Eastern Desert in June, with the first three phases complete. The military said the fourth phase was due to begin on Saturday, adding the campaign intended to strengthen state control over Egyptian territory and protect national resources.
It was not immediately clear when the two officers were killed, and the spokesperson did not specify the timing of their deaths.
The military spokesperson said authorities had detained 151 Egyptians and 540 foreigners during the campaign.
The campaign has drawn attention after the rights monitor Emergency Lawyers said in October that at least 72 artisanal miners had been killed in an airstrike in northern Sudan, close to the Egyptian border. The group blamed the Egyptian Air Force for the strike.
Egypt’s military did not refer to the reported strike or the deaths at the time. In a statement then, it said a phase of its campaign against illegal gold mining in southern Egypt was under way after it dropped warning leaflets on what it described as “criminal elements.”
Artisanal gold mining has risen in northern Sudan since Sudan’s civil war disrupted livelihoods. Gold has become a key revenue source during the conflict, while experts and industry participants say much of it is smuggled into Egypt through a porous and disputed border area that includes the mineral-rich Halayeb and Shalateen regions.
The Egyptian military spokesperson said there was coordination with Sudan, including recent meetings between Egyptian and Sudanese officials. He said the armed forces of both countries exchanged information on securing the Egypt-Sudan border.
(Reporting by Ali Khafagi, Nayera Abdallah, Hatem Maher, Enas Alashray and Yomna Ehab; Writing by Enas Alashray; Editing by Chris Reese and Rod Nickel)
Saturday, November 07, 2026
OPINION
Well Done, America
Newly-elected Georgia governor Keisha Lance Bottoms Photo by Paras Griffin/Getty Images
Well that was a night. The glad spectacle of a newly sentient America tottering back to its capacious ideals was dubbed Orange Crush, Bluenami, a political earthquake, a wily tweak to Hegseth’s coveted public execution and “one of the great acts of defiance in American history.” It was both landslide too big to rig or stop and “extinction-level” rout. Above all, it was a thunderous rejection of fear, greed, lies, cruelty, war-mongering, authoritarianism. Tell your kids, urged Abdul El-Sayed, “The bad guys lost.”
Who knew, pundits marveled: Turns out if you keep lying, stealing, abusing children, terrorizing, kidnapping, assaulting neighbors, shooting people in the street, making it impossible to get food, gas, health care or education while gloating about it and lining your fat pockets, everyone hates you. So it was that a “Trump Reckoning” and GOP “Armageddon” beyond even their worst doomsday scenarios arrived wherein Democrats swept “nearly every race that matters” as Americans en masse embraced all the shithole, lunatic, transgender, anti-Semitic, dog-eating, Medicare-wanting Muslim Brotherhood communists they’d been so helpfully warned about, alas, in vain.
This, of course, despite MAGA’s best/worst efforts to re-draw districts, shutter polling places, strong-arm election officials, browbeat brown and black voters, pre-litigate election results they couldn’t buy, and launch 1,000 DOJ “polling monitors” into all 50 states in hopes of targeting vulnerable minority districts. And yet, noted Garrett Graff, nothing untoward happened. Instead, voters “gave America another chance.” Millions stood up, showed up, voted early, refused to bend the knee or be silenced. Graff said a friend wrote from deep-red Mississippi, where Democrat Scott Colom still had a stunning, razor-thin lead. “My flabbers are gasted,” she wrote. “Be on the lookout for pigs in the sky.”
“So much history was made last night,” Graff added, much of it shaped by both the 250 years and then Trump’s dark reign of white supremacist politics. The startling result: The most diverse set of newly elected lawmakers the country has ever seen, with one historian writing Dems are winning races “they haven’t won since they were the white supremacist party.” An Atlanta Journal-Constitution story begins, “In 1860, an enslaved man named Sheppard Peek was listed among the possessions of William Peek, a white man in Crawfordville”; Sheppard’s value was placed at $1,400. In Georgia on Tuesday, his great-great-granddaughter, Keisha Lance Bottoms, was elected the first Black female governor in the country.
Bottoms is just one of many historic firsts. Xavier Becerra, the son of Mexican immigrants, became California’s first elected Latino governor. Deb Haaland became New Mexico’s first Native governor. Wisconsin and Nevada elected their first Black governors. There are three other first women governors. New Hampshire’s Chris Pappas will become the first out gay man in the Senate. A trans woman won a House seat in...Alabama. Colorado elected its first Gen Z woman; she will be one of a record 100 women to serve simultaneously in the House. Democrats gained full control of a record six state governments, Southern voters swung 20 points to Dems, Jon Ossoff was easily re-elected on a platform, essentially, of “I don’t like Nazis.” Virginia ended Jim Crow after 124 years, and enshrined abortion in its constitution. Nancy LaCore, a former Navy admiral fired by Hegseth, flipped Nancy Mace’s seat in South Carolina. The GOP lost all four of its gerrymandered districts in Florida. Egyptian-born Adam Hamaway, 57, will be the first Muslim elected to the House from New Jersey. A Rutgers-educated doctor, he served 8 years as a combat surgeon in the US Army before starting private practice in Princeton; he also volunteered in Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, Sudan, Jordan.
Beating back a grotesquely Islamophobic campaign, Michigan’s Dr. Abdul El-Sayed will become the first Muslim in the Senate.In his victory speech, he thanked “everyone who sent a dollar, made a call, posted a story and most importantly gave us your stake in democracy. You took a chance on the unlikeliest of candidates.” Summoning “all the kids who watched and the parents who struggled to explain why the president openly mocked someone for their name or how they pray, let them (know) the bad guys lost...We deserve an America big enough for all our kids - let’s go build it.” He also cited the “delicious irony” that JD, whose “view of America is small, like him,” is constitutionally obligated to swear him in come January.
In another sweet spot and longtime pipe dream, Talarico took back Texas from the scandal-smeared Paxton in “not just a tsunami, but a bloodbath.” Adding to the schadenfreude was the upset win by Gina Hinojosa, the state’s first Latina governor-elect, over monstrous Greg Abbott. In a stunning twist, Dems also won every statewide office down to railroad commissioner, along with four Supreme Court seats; the wins prompted an explosion of noisy joy in Austin that “sounded like an Eastern European city that just overthrew a dictator.“ The cherry on top: Texas’ new Dem Attorney General, who campaigned on investigating Elon Musk after he moved his business there to escape California woke, can now prosecute him for state level crimes without any DOJ interference.
Musk, who spent half a billion dollars nationwide and lost every race he tried to buy, is among MAGA fat cats, tech bros and grifters who’ll likely be targeted by California’s (easily reelected) Robert Garcia, set to chair the House Oversight Committee. His blunt message: “Lawyer up.” Many others also feel “the only way we want Dems to reach across the aisle is with a subpoena.” With an “accountability bill” ready, Dean Blundell argues, “A LOT of people need to go to jail” - Hegseth, the Trump family crypto empire, the DOJ hacks who covered up Epstein crimes, the Rapist-In-Chief, the sadists of ICE once it’s been “torn down to the studs.” Scores of voters also demanded justice for their victims Renee Good, Alex Pretti and Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by putting “I Voted” stickers on their memorials: “They were on the ballot.”
Over at the presumably ketchup-encrusted White House, Trump remains in his own daft fantasy world, the “lamest of lame ducks.” He burbles he “looks forward to working with” the trans jihadists he says are destroying America, but he’ll veto everything. He’s awash in his “magnificent” ballroom. He insists if he was on the ballot “we’d have won IN A LANDSLIDE,” but of course he was and CNN‘s John King is happy to name all the places he told voters to pretend he was: “They did. They’d had enough.” Even his cultists - and ex-cultists - blame him: “The reason isn’t them, it’s you. You fucked us. We chose Hitler with Down Syndrome, and we lost.” Online, meanwhile, the White House posted a desperate “PSA: Trump Is Still Your President.” Like we could forget.
Still, the seismic shift tentatively feels like a new dawn, a path toward redemption, a sliver of hope, the long-ago thing with feathers we can barely remember. Candidates, volunteers, organizers, lawyers stepped up, and vast numbers of Americans showed up to support them. The mood was buoyant. Some said they wished Mitch McConnell was alive to see the Senate results. The Borowitz Report said Mike Johnson begged God to “rapture him up” immediately; tearfully, he said that as a loyal Republican he couldn’t bear to be in a “minority” because he hates ‘em all. Another report said a bitter Elon Musk put Ken Paxton on eBay; no buyers yet. Also, tragically, two sources say cracks and peeling have again emerged in the Reflecting Pool, but MAGA is on it. Said an Interior spokesperson, “The Reflecting Pool has never looked this beautiful, and it’s all thanks to President Donald J. Trump.”
Democrats, Please Take Note: Peace Is Good Politics
The message of voters is the same everywhere: diplomacy is safer, more effective, and trillions of dollars cheaper than war.
A group of National Guardsmen walk past the Win Without War Billboard Truck displaying the message “No War With Iran” in front of the U.S. Capitol on State Of The Union Day on February 24, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Win Without War)
Voters across the United States were loud and clear on Tuesday in their historic drubbing of Trumpism. The election was a decisive rejection of Trump’s war on Iran and its staggering costs at home. While savoring their victory and the historic opportunity to restore America’s constitutional order, the Democrats should take the anti-war message of the election to heart, because they suffered the same verdict two years ago, when voters rejected the Biden administration’s wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Last week Israeli voters rejected Netanyahu’s reckless wars, and European voters are also rejecting parties that prolong the Ukraine War. The message of voters is the same everywhere: diplomacy is safer, more effective, and trillions of dollars cheaper than war.
Voters everywhere are sending the same message: peace through diplomacy.
The first duty of the new Congress is to restore its constitutional authority over war and its power of the purse to ensure that US forces are not sent back into combat in Iran or anywhere else on the whim of a president and the behest of domestic or foreign lobbies. Trump must of course refrain from restarting the war, which was never remotely necessary or justified. Remember that on February 28, the day the US and Israel launched the war, Oman’s foreign minister, who was mediating the U.S.-Iran talks, had said that a deal was within reach.
The Democrats should not imagine that the anti-war lesson applies only to Republicans. Kamala Harris lost in 2024 because voters held the Biden administration responsible for the costs of its own wars. The energy shock that followed the escalation of the Ukraine war in 2022 drove up inflation, and gasoline topped $5 per gallon for the first time in June 2022. Biden twice rejected negotiations that could have ended the conflict: in December 2021, when his administration refused to negotiate on NATO enlargement in response to Russia’s draft security treaty, and in April 2022, when the Istanbul talks were abandoned at the behest of the US and UK.
A key upcoming key test for the Democrats will be Ukraine. They must stop their party’s typical Russia-bashing and instead support a diplomatic end to the war.
As a start, the Democrats should remember why the war started. In 1990 the United States assured Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not move “one inch eastward.” The Clinton administration broke that promise. In 2008 the Bush administration pushed through the Bucharest declaration that Ukraine and Georgia “will become members of NATO,” despite Ambassador William Burns’s warning that this was the brightest of all red lines for Russia. In 2014 the United States backed the coup against Ukraine’s elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, as the leaked Nuland-Pyatt call made clear. In April 2022, when negotiators in Istanbul came close to a peace agreement based on Ukrainian neutrality, the US and UK actually intervened to block the agreement. Today 75 percent of Ukrainians support negotiations with Russia to end the war.
The Democrats should not mistake their victory for a mandate to pursue their own wars.
In view of these causes of the war, I have recently set out a straightforward diplomatic framework for peace in Ukraine that would end the war. NATO would end its eastward expansion. Ukraine would adopt permanent neutrality on the model of Austria in 1955. An armistice line would be drawn, with both sides renouncing the use of force to change it. Ukraine would pursue membership in the European Union as a permanently neutral state. The Democrats should support such a diplomatic approach. It’s what can end the war, save Ukraine, and win the backing of both the Ukrainian and American people.
Most importantly, the Democrats should not mistake their victory for a mandate to pursue their own wars. The new Democratic majority should quickly reassert the constitutional authority of Congress over war and peace, champion a negotiated peace in Ukraine, end support for Israel’s wars, cut the military budget, and redirect the savings toward lowering the cost of living and repairing the public finances.
These positions are not only right but are good politics. For the Democrats to win the White House in 2028, they should become the party of peace. Better yet, both parties should become parties of peace and conduct the 2028 campaign on which party will best address America’s needs for decent jobs, affordability, healthcare, housing, a safe environment, and quality education.
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Jeffrey D. Sachs Jeffrey D. Sachs is a University Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he directed The Earth Institute from 2002 until 2016. He is also President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and a commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development. He has been advisor to three United Nations Secretaries-General, and currently serves as an SDG Advocate under Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Sachs is the author, most recently, of "A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism" (2020). Other books include: "Building the New American Economy: Smart, Fair, and Sustainable" (2017) and "The Age of Sustainable Development," (2015) with Ban Ki-moon. Full Bio >
With 74% of Voters Saying Iran War Was Big Factor in Midterms, Dems Urged to Become Peace Party
“Will Democrats finally get it?” asked one progressive expert. “Americans are tired of war. They want a new foreign policy.
People oppose US war on Iran and support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza during a June 22, 2025 protest in Los Angeles. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)
Nearly three-quarters of Americans who voted in Tuesday’s midterm elections said that President Donald Trump’s illegal war of choice on Iran was a significant factor in their vote, a figure that opponents of US militarism said underscored the need for the Democrats to become a true anti-war party.
According to NBC News exit polling, 74% of voters called the ongoing US-Israeli war on Iran a “crucial” or “major” factor in their vote, with Democrats winning 63% of people who responded that way. Meanwhile, 63% of voters said the Trump administration made the wrong decision in taking military action against Iran, compared with 37% who said it was the right decision.
“There will be a lot of infighting and arguing over what happened and why that is,” Vice President JD Vancesaid Tuesday in a lengthy social media post. “One of the pollsters I really respect told me that our economic messaging wasn’t sharp enough down the stretch. I’m sure that’s true.”
“But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone,” the vice president continued. “The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night.”
Indeed, Trump acknowledged that the war harmed Republicans, telling Fox News, “I think a part of it was Iran,” but nevertheless defended the 35-week military campaign, insisting that “people understood the importance of what I’ve done with Iran.”
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Trump was similarly unapologetic, declaring: “I did the right thing. I would have done it again.”
Numerous observers contended that Tuesday’s results offered an opportunity for Democrats to do more than simply capitalize on Republican mistakes.
“Among other things, this is an absolute rebuke of the war in Iran. Democrats would be wise to heed that lesson and truly become the anti-war party,” said commentator Ben Rhodes—who, while serving as a senior national security adviser to then-President Barack Obama, supported US intervention in countries including Iraq, Libya, and Syria, as well as Obama’s wider drone war campaign.
Geopolitics scholar Van Jackson opined on social media that “if Democrats remain the party of the national security state, they will lose everything in 2028. If they become the anti-war party, they’ll consolidate this wave with the presidency.”
A Wednesday analysis on the libertarian site Reason by Matthew Petti argued that Democrats now have an opportunity to exercise Congress’ constitutional power over the war, including by withholding military funding.
Petti noted that Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) told Fox News last week, “The House and the Senate should stop the funding for any further actions in the Iran War,” just like “we did to stop the Vietnam War.”
However, Petti cautioned that Democratic electoral victories usually don’t lead to anti-war foreign policy.
“Party leadership that is willing to attack Republicans’ execution of the war may not share a principled anti-war commitment,” he wrote, recalling how Democrats who swept the 2006 midterms over public anger with the Iraq War but then struggled to use their control of both chambers of Congress to end it.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) wants his party to cut off funding for Trump’s war and said Democrats can do so by demanding explicit restrictions on war spending as a condition of supporting the fiscal year 2027 government funding bill that expires next month.
“Right now, the continuing resolution goes through December 11,” Van Hollen told The Lever on Tuesday. “And my view is that Democrats should not advance spending to continue to fund this war.”
“The Vietnam War ended only when Congress defunded it,” he added. “This is an illegal war, and we need to make sure that taxpayer monies are not used to continue an illegal war.”
Institute for Middle East Understanding executive director Margaret DeReus pleaded on social media, “For the love of all that is good, Democrats, do not squander this.”
“The voters have given you a mandate. Use it. Be the party of working people. Be the anti-war party. Be the anti-corruption party,” she added. “We cannot go back to business as usual.”
Matt Duss, a former top aide to US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) who serves as executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, noted that “Trump ran and won as an anti-war candidate in 2024 because Democrats left that lane wide open for him.”
“Voters have just brutally punished him and the GOP for breaking that promise. Will Democrats finally get it?” Duss added. “Americans are tired of war. They want a new foreign policy.”
Thursday, November 05, 2026
$712 billion wiped off world’s biggest mining companies since start of Iran war
After a record-breaking start, world’s 50 most valuable mining stocks trade near one-year lows after losing 26% since the February peak.
October took $226 billion off the MINING.COM TOP 50, a 10% decline on top of September’s $264 billion loss. Two months have erased nearly half a trillion dollars and the fifty are now worth $108 billion less than at the end of 2025, the first time this year the ranking has been in the red. From the $2.75 trillion record set at the end of February the fall is $712 billion, or 26%, and the ranking is the smallest it has been since November last year.
Gold’s worst October since 2008, silver back below $50
Gold ended the month at $3,884 an ounce, down 6.6% and the first month-end close below $4,000 since September last year. Bullion slid under $4,000 a week before the close and then fell to a one-year low on the last trading day, with gold and silver producers down as much as 8% in a single session. The metal is now 10% lower in 2026, its worst October since 2008.
The sixteen gold miners in the ranking gave up $55 billion, or 9.9%, and are worth $500 billion between them. Newmont lost 8.2% despite beating profit estimates for the third quarter and putting a $4.8 billion price on taking Red Chris underground, and is now fractionally lower for the year. Agnico Eagle fell 9.9% and Barrick 9.1%, so the three largest gold miners are now all in the red for 2026, a year that began with gold on its way to $5,400. Kinross, down 17.3%, and AngloGold Ashanti, down 15.8%, fared worst among the majors, Kinross also reporting two contractor deaths at Bald Mountain in Nevada.
Silver had its worst month of the year. The metal fell 18.2% to $49.39, below $50 for the first time since October 2025 and 58% beneath the $116.58 it reached in late January.
Deutsche Bank had warned at the start of the month that rising inventories and softer industrial demand could flip last year’s shortage into a surplus by 2027. Coeur Mining, down 25.6%, was the worst performer in the fifty, with Fresnillo losing 17.2% and Pan American Silver 16.6%. Platinum fell 16% and palladium 19%, and Valterra Platinum dropped 17.6%.
October winners on a technicality
Russia’s miners went against the tide in October, but the rouble flattered both. Polyus is still down 57% for the year after its July decision to suspend dividends until 2030 sent the stock down 26% in a single session, and Norilsk Nickel, which skipped full-year payouts from 2022 to 2025 and only resumed with a token interim dividend in August, is 25% lower in 2026 while palladium, its main metal, fell 19% in October alone.
Northern Star, up 3.3%, was the only company in the ranking to add value in its own currency, but that is courtesy of Gold Fields’ A$38.7 billion ($27 billion) approach for the Perth miner, rejected as highly opportunistic in late September.
The South African company’s bid still hangs over the stock with activist Elliott Investment Management building a 6.2% stake to press the board into talks. Gold Fields chief executive Mike Fraser played down a higher offer in mid-October, saying Northern Star must first show it is open to a deal. Gold Fields fell 8.8% in the month and is 26% lower for the year, one rank above its target, which is one of only three gold miners in the fifty still ahead for 2026.
Equinox Gold also had a little help from M&A, and returns at number 50 despite a 12.6% fall, helped by a 34% jump in third-quarter output after the Orla merger, and because MMG, the company it displaces, lost a fifth of its value with the rest of the Chinese copper mid-tier.
Copper stocks fall without the metal
The copper price itself barely moved in October at $6.47 a pound, 1.4% below where it started but still up 15% for the year. Rising LME inventories took it to a five-week low mid-month, yet Chinese import premiums held near a 13-year high and the World Bank lifted its 2027 forecast by 18% to $13,000 a tonne on the same grid and data centre demand that has carried the metal all year.
That was not enough to keep sentiment for producers of the bellwether metal strong. The eleven in the ranking lost $69 billion, a 13.3% fall and the largest of any sector in dollars.
Southern Copper lost 12.4% and $21 billion in a month when its only news was a $680 million expansion study at Cuajone. Freeport-McMoRan fell 10.8% to $89.7 billion and out of the $100 billion club despite beating third-quarter profit estimates as Grasberg recovers from last year’s mud rush.
Teck, down 8%, had a fivefold jump in quarterly profit on record copper prices and still could not hold its ground. Further down the mid-tier was hit harder: Jiangxi Copper fell 23.6%, Amman Mineral 20.2%, CMOC 18.5%, KGHM 16.5% and First Quantum 13.1%. Copper equities are now priced for a metal well below where it trades, a gap the ranking has been tracking since the summer.
Iron ore in retreat, lithium slump cuts ranks to one
Lithium carbonate fell another 24% to 93,600 yuan ($14,050) a tonne, hitting a ten-month low early in the month on a China-EU deal to curb hybrid exports. SQM, the ranking’s only lithium producer, lost 15.8% and Albemarle sits 53rd at $10.7 billion. Rio Tinto chose the moment to commit a further $1.4 billion to lithium in Argentina. Uranium was the only metal to rise, up 3.5% to $92.55 a pound, but Cameco still fell 11.1%.
Not rushing for the exits
Shares in the fifty worth $243 billion changed hands in October, the lowest monthly turnover since November last year and barely half the $454 billion traded in January, when the ranking was setting records. Chinese markets were shut for the first week of the month, which trimmed trading in the six Chinese companies, but the picture is the same everywhere else.
Measured against the value of the companies, 12% of the ranking turned over in October against 18% in January and 19% in March, when the first leg down came on heavy selling. The $490 billion lost over the past two months has come with buyers standing aside rather than holders selling in size, which is a different kind of correction from the one in March. For scale, Nvidia alone traded $501 billion in October, twice the fifty combined.
Price of admission falls to $11.3 billion
The fiftieth company is worth $11.33 billion, the lowest cut-off since August 2025 and $8 billion below the $19.5 billion it took to make the ranking in February. MMG missed the cut by $75 million.
Canada remains the most valuable mining address at $451 billion, having lost $51 billion in the month, ahead of Australia at $433 billion and the United States at $274 billion. China’s six companies lost 11.6% between them and are worth $210 billion. Mexico, home to Southern Copper and Fresnillo, lost 13.1%.
METHODOLOGY
Source: MINING.COM, stock exchange data, company reports. Share data from primary-listed exchange at the close of trading October 30, 2026, converted to US$ where applicable. Percentage change based on US$ market cap difference, not share price change in local currency.
As with any ranking, criteria for inclusion are contentious. We decided to exclude unlisted and state-owned enterprises at the outset due to a lack of information. That, of course, excludes giants like Chile's Codelco, Uzbekistan's Navoi Mining, which owns the world's largest gold mine and is in the process of readying an IPO, Eurochem, a major potash firm, and a number of entities in China and developing countries around the world.
Another consideration is diversified companies such as Anglo American with separately listed majority-owned subsidiaries. Anglo has interests in platinum (Valterra), and in the past diamonds (De Beers) and iron ore (Kumba), but the listed subsidiaries are excluded when consolidated on the parent's books. The same principle sees Hindustan Zinc enter the ranking in place of the slimmed-down Vedanta following the Indian group's demerger. Where mining arms are separately listed like Grupo Mexico's Southern Copper or Penoles' Fresnillo, those are added to the ranking and not the holding company.
Each company is assigned a single sector, and judgment calls abound. Vale appears under iron ore rather than diversified: the Brazilian company's fortunes remain overwhelmingly tied to the steelmaking ingredient, and its plans to separately list its base metals unit in Toronto (copper and nickel assets responsible for roughly a quarter of revenue) only sharpen the distinction. Rio Tinto, by contrast, stays diversified: iron ore may pay the bills, but the breadth of the portfolio, from aluminium and copper to lithium and titanium, is the company's defining feature. As a general rule we classify a company as diversified if no single commodity brings in more than 1.5 times the revenue of its next biggest earner, but as always there are exceptions.
Where the numbers are too close to call, history can settle it. Fresnillo now earns roughly as much from gold as from silver, but the Mexico City-based company is the world's largest primary silver producer and has been mining the metal at its namesake district in Zacatecas since the 1550s, so it stays under silver. Pan American Silver, where gold has come to dominate the revenue mix following the Yamana and MAG deals, keeps its silver classification on the same grounds. The company itself chose to keep the moniker after all.
Royalty and streaming companies Franco-Nevada, Royal Gold, Wheaton Precious Metals and Triple Flag are included on the basis of their deep involvement and funding role in the industry, but pure smelting and refining companies, as well as steelmakers with large mining assets, are excluded. Conglomerates and trading houses like Japan's sōgō shōsha are also excluded, which means well-known names like Marubeni, Mitsui, Sumitomo, Itochu and Mitsubishi, with their prominent stakes in mines and mining companies, do not qualify either.
Vedanta Aluminium, despite being India's largest producer of the metal, is excluded as a smelter without captive mining, and Sumitomo Metal Mining and JX Advanced Metals do not make the ranking on the same test, with smelting and refining the vast majority of their business despite attributable primary production in the hundreds of thousands of tonnes. On the flipside, rare earth miners are included. Rare earth specialists tend to aim for vertical integration (and companies like MP Materials are far along) and the refining, metalization and ultimately magnet making divisions are where the income and margins lie.
While earlier rankings included coal miners, the monthly series covers mined metals and minerals only. We exclude coal companies based on the fact that many derive most of their revenue from utilities, power generation and transport rather than mining, and, as with the steelmakers, their inclusion would crowd out the industry the ranking is meant to capture. That means no Coal India, despite the Kolkata company's standing as the world's largest coal producer. For comparability, previous rankings have been recalculated on the same basis.
Head office refers to a company's operational base where applicable (BHP and Rio Tinto both appear under Melbourne), but Antofagasta is the exception that proves the rule: we place the copper miner in London, where it has been listed since the late 1800s, rather than Chile where it mines.
Norilsk Nickel and Polyus, thanks to captive investors on the MCX, maintain their standing in the ranking despite sanctions and trading restrictions, and are valued on Moscow Exchange pricing converted to US dollars.
Please let us know of any errors, omissions, deletions or additions to the ranking, or suggest a different methodology: email Frik Els at fels@mining.com with Top 50 in the subject line.
