What happened
The US has deployed an aircraft carrier strike group to the Caribbean, placing its most advanced warship close to Venezuela. The arrival of the USS Gerald R Ford carrier group, which includes guided missile destroyers and support vessels, “has been interpreted as a show of military power and a possible threat to Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro regime”, said Sky News.

Who said what
US Southern Command said the deployment followed Donald Trump’s order to “dismantle transnational criminal organisations and counter narco-terrorism”. Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth described the new mission – Operation Southern Spear – as an effort to remove “narco-terrorists from our hemisphere”. President Maduro responded at a rally by singing John Lennon’s “Imagine”, telling supporters “to do everything for peace”.

What next?
Venezuela’s military is “unlikely to be able to match US aggression, but President Maduro has other options”, said Al Jazeera. Specifically, local armed forces may resist or “make the country ungovernable”, said Elias Ferrer, founder of Orinoco Research. “They can make it so costly that it’s not worth it; that’s how you win in asymmetric warfare.”

What happened
Iran has begun artificially triggering rainfall as authorities confront the country’s most severe dry spell in decades. State media said aircraft had released chemical particles over the Urmia lake basin on Saturday in an effort to produce rain. The lake, once Iran’s largest, has largely evaporated. Officials plan similar flights across East and West Azerbaijan as reservoirs run low and rainfall sits at a fraction of normal levels.

Who said what
Iran’s meteorological service has reported an 89% drop in rainfall compared with long-term averages, calling it “the driest autumn the country has experienced in 50 years”.

Rainfall is at “record lows and reservoirs are nearly empty”, said Ruth Comerford on the BBC. If there is not enough rainfall soon, “Tehran’s water supply could be rationed and people may be evacuated from the capital”.

What next?
The cloud seeding flights are expected to continue, alongside plans to penalise heavy water users. Water, and its absence, “has become Iran’s national obsession”, said Patrick Wintour in The Guardian. But as the “rainy season fails to bring relief”, people across the country have begun to “pray for a miracle”.

The sumo ring has always been a “sacred” arena where “only men may tread, bound by centuries of ritual and pride”, said The Japan Times. But now that Japan has elected its first female prime minister, the question arises: “If she can stand at the centre of power, why not in the centre of the ring?”

And it won’t be long before this thorny question faces a “real-world test”. On 23 November, PM Sanae Takaichi will have to decide whether to break with tradition and step into the sumo ring (dohyo) to present the trophy to the Grand Sumo champion in Fukuoka.

Sumo rings remain “off-limits” to women and girls, but the ban has sparked controversy for decades. In 1990, Mayumi Moriyama, Japan’s first female cabinet minister, asked the Japan Sumo Association (JSA) if she could present a trophy on behalf of the prime minister. Her request was rejected.

Yet Takaichi, a social conservative who opposes women having the right to keep their maiden name after marriage, looks unlikely to rock the boat. “The prime minister wishes to respect sumo tradition and culture,” said Minoru Kihara, the chief cabinet secretary. “The government has not yet made a decision on the matter.”
 
The JSA said it had formed a panel to look into the issue, but it has yet to reach its conclusion. “Sumo is still hiding behind vague words like ‘tradition’ and ‘custom’,” Tomoko Nakagawa, the former female mayor of Takarazuka, told The Japan Times. “That era is over. If we let this moment slip by, nothing will ever change.”