A look ahead at the key events leading the news agenda next week, from the team at Foresight News. Delivered to your inbox on Fridays.
Leading the week
After watching his sons and co-defendants Don Jr. and Eric testify this week, Donald Trump is expected to appear on the witness stand in his fraud trial on Monday (November 6) ahead of planned testimony from his daughter Ivanka, who is not named in the case, on Wednesday (November 8). Since the case is civil, unlike the four ongoing criminal prosecutions he is currently fighting, Trump faces no risk of jail time. But with New York Attorney General Letitia James seeking at least $250 million in damages as well as banishing Trump companies from doing business in the Empire State, the stakes in the case, which is expected to conclude in late December, remain high.
Trump is due is then due in Florida on Tuesday (November 7), though not for the third Republican presidential debate taking place in downtown Miami that night. Instead, the former president is once again skipping the debate to hold his own campaign event, this time in the form of a rally in the Miami suburb of Hialeah. Back at the debate, Nikki Haley will be hoping for another strong performance as she continues to challenge Ron DeSantis’s early position as the strongest Trump alternative candidate.
Tuesday also sees a host of off-year elections take place across America, including gubernatorial contests in Kentucky and Mississippi, mayoral races in Philadelphia and Houston, closely-watched legislative elections in Virginia, and a key ballot measure in Ohio to enshrine abortion rights in the Buckeye State’s constitution.
Looking Abroad
With no indication that Israel plans to halt its operations against Hamas in Gaza any time soon, growing outrage in the Arab world at the rising civilian toll will be front and center when Arab League leaders gather for an emergency summit in Riyadh on Saturday (November 11). The meeting, held at the request of Palestine and hosts Saudi Arabia, follows US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s latest trip to the region, which started in Israel today ahead of a stop in Jordan and then, reportedly, Turkey this Sunday (November 5). The visit would be Blinken’s first travel to Ankara since the crisis broke out amid suggestions the US is recalibrating its position as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza continues to escalate.
In what is shaping up to be an extremely busy week for America’s top diplomat, Blinken is then headed to Japan to take part in a G7 ministerial meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday (November 7-8) before heading on to Seoul and then New Delhi where he’ll join Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for joint talks with their Indian counterparts on Friday (November 10).
At the G7, while ministers will certainly discuss the crisis in the Middle East (with Japan’s foreign minister Yoko Kamikawa also in the region this weekend), other issues such as Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and Indo-Pacific cooperation are also on the agenda. Blinken will also hold meetings with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and then South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol in Seoul ahead of the highly anticipated summit between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping in San Francisco on the margins of the APEC summit the following week.