We were bluffing in Syria

The United States and Britain on Sunday acknowledged the Western world's weak support for any military action against Syria's government as they sought ways to pressure President Bashar Assad and his chief backer, Russia, to halt a deadly offensive in Aleppo. They tried to present it as a possibility, nevertheless.
After a meeting of 11 governments opposing Assad's rule, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson each insisted all options were on the table. But their stark explanations about the danger of resorting to military force appeared to rule out such a move.
The result was a somewhat schizophrenic threat that was unlikely to scare Assad's government or Russia as they move to crush the last rebel-held areas of Aleppo, Syria's largest city.

Apocalypse delayed

Turkish-backed rebels have captured the symbolically important Syrian town of Dabiq from the Islamic State group, rebel commanders and monitors say.
Dabiq was under "full control" of Turkish-backed Syrian rebels, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said.
The small northern town holds great value for IS because of a prophecy of an apocalyptic battle, and features heavily in its propaganda.

Who's in charge in Libya?

Tensions reached a boiling point in the Libyan capital Monday, as rival militia groups waged a low-level turf war in a political battle between the U.N.-backed "national unity" government of Fayez al-Sarraj and the unrecognized, Islamist-supported government of Khalifa Ghweil.
The "unity" government continued to hold one of the seats of power at the Rixos Hotel, which the country's former legislative body, the General National Council, also considers to be its headquarters. Militia forces loyal to Ghweil, who call themselves the Presidential Guard, seized other government buildings over the weekend.
Libyan TV broadcast a statement by members of the guard, saying they support Ghweil and the GNC and asserting the unity government is an attempt to place Libya under a new military dictatorship.
Ghweil, who is supported by the hardline Islamist mufti of Tripoli, seized control of the old governmental palace, called the "guest palace," and several other government ministries, but insisted that "he did not want to spill any Libyan blood."
Ghweil told Arab media that he had not retaken the government buildings by force, but by "popular will." He also claimed that he had contacted rival Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni in Tobruk in order to form a new government "together."

Oh, and we are bombing Libya

The U.S. military has ramped up airstrikes against the Islamic State in Libya--doubling the number of strikes there in less than a month--according to the latest statistics provided by the U.S. military's Africa Command, which leads the operation.
As of Monday, there have been 324 airstrikes in Libya, a majority from drones and others from U.S. Marine Corps jets and attack helicopters stationed aboard a US Navy warship off the Libyan coast.

Gulf of Tonkin 2.0?

The Pentagon declined to say on Monday whether the USS Mason destroyer was targeted by multiple inbound missiles fired from Yemen on Saturday, as initially thought, saying a review was under way to determine what happened.
Any determination that the USS Mason guided-missile destroyer was targeted on Saturday could have military repercussions, since the United States has threatened to retaliate again should its ships come under fire from territory in Yemen controlled by Iran-aligned Houthi fighters.
The United States carried out cruise missile strikes against radar sites in Yemen on Thursday after two confirmed attempts last week to hit the USS Mason with coastal cruise missiles.
"We are still assessing the situation. There are still some aspects to this that we are trying to clarify for ourselves given the threat - the potential threat - to our people," Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told a news briefing.

Italexit?

Will Italy follow the U.K.'s example and leave the European Union? Far-fetched as it may seem, capital flows suggest that some people aren’t waiting to find out.
To keep the euro area's accounts in balance, Europe's central banks track flows of money among the members of the currency union. If, for example, a depositor moves 100 euros from Italy to Germany, the Bank of Italy records a liability to the Eurosystem and the Bundesbank records a credit. If a central bank starts building up liabilities rapidly, that tends to be a sign of capital flight.
Lately, Italy's central bank has been building up a lot of liabilities to the Eurosystem. As of the end of September, they stood at about 354 billion euros, up 118 billion from a year earlier -- and up 78 billion since the end of May, before the U.K. voted to leave the EU. The outflow isn't quite as large as during the sovereign-debt crisis of 2012, but it's still significant.