The Resilience Brief — Week 7: Perspective

Wednesday morning in Spain. Two high-speed trains on the Madrid–Seville line, near Urda in Toledo province, south of Madrid.

At about 8:30 a.m., a computer failure in the LZB safety system — the system that controls speed and spacing — automatically stopped six trains over a 69-kilometer stretch. That is the system doing its job. Stop everything. Sort it out.

Then the control center at Madrid’s Atocha station authorized the Renfe AVE train to resume. Despite an active red signal. Despite a stationary Iryo train ahead on the same track. Transport Minister Óscar Puente called the decision inexplicable and said it broke protocol — a restart like that should have been at low speed, not normal speed.

The Renfe train ran about 25 kilometers and hit the stopped train. The investigation authority’s preliminary report puts the speed at 160 to 200 km/h. 544 people were on the two trains combined. The toll stands at 69 dead — a figure of 74 flashed briefly on Thursday and was corrected back to 69. More than 100 were injured, 15 of them critical at the last regional count. Carriages derailed and went down an embankment.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez declared three days of national mourning, which run through tonight, and promised a full investigation: “If there was negligence, we will find out.” The investigators’ own word, so far, is patience: the preliminary report lays out the sequence, and says it is too early to name a definitive cause.

Context that makes it worse: this is Spain’s second deadly high-speed crash this year. In January, near Adamuz, 46 people died. Before this year, nobody had died on Spain’s high-speed lines since they opened in 1992.

Wisdom: Wisdom here is not complicated. The signal said stop. The wise move was to believe it and step back. Somebody stepped forward instead — resumed, at speed, on a maybe. Most disasters I have seen were not caused by a lack of information. The information was right there, in red. They were caused by reacting — or restarting — before stepping back.

Continuing the story this space has tracked for four weeks now.

October is now, by every count, the worst month of the war for attacks on shipping. The Washington Institute recorded 28 confirmed and reported attacks in and around the Strait of Hormuz in October, 113 since the war began Feb. 28. UKMTO’s running count is higher — more than 30 attacks in October, 145 incidents since February. Each of those big tankers carries about 2 million barrels.

Why are they still sailing into it? The reporting says it plain: freight rates over $1 million a day, and steep discounts from producers. Money is pulling ships back into the Gulf. Risk is still there when they arrive.

It did not stop for the diplomacy. On Thursday, a small boat attached two limpet mines to a tanker northeast of Khasab, Oman — the engine room caught fire, the ship was briefly disabled, the crew was unharmed. On Friday, UKMTO reported another tanker struck by a projectile while leaving the strait — fire on board, crew safe. Sort the claim from the record again: Iran’s IRGC now says four tankers hit mines on an unauthorized southern route on Friday. No vessels named. The AP could not confirm it. Both sides cannot be fully right. What is not in dispute is that ships were burning.

The diplomatic move: Vice President JD Vance sent a letter to Iran’s security chief Mohsen Rezaei, at President Trump’s direction, trying to revive negotiations. Iran acknowledged receiving it on Thursday. It has not responded, and Tehran says it will not drop its core conditions — lifting the blockade, easing sanctions, releasing frozen assets. Qatari mediators then sat in Tehran for more than 12 hours on Friday, and the talks continue in Doha today. One diplomatic source calls it “positive progress.” A US official says the resumption of talks has stalled over nuclear concessions. Both of those can be true at once.

The other track is still drawn up. US and Israeli officials say a renewed bombing offensive looks likely shortly after the Nov. 3 midterms if no last-minute deal lands — the same plans reported here last week. On Thursday, CENTCOM’s commander briefed the president on the options and on the blockade.

Courage: Courage is still the crews. That has not changed in four weeks and it is not getting less true. But add this week’s version: sending the letter while the strike plans sit on the table. Talking when you have the option to just hit is its own kind of nerve. Whether it works is a different question. Ships are still burning while they try.

Wednesday, the Fed did what last week’s poll said it would do. It held rates at 3.75%–4.00%.

But it was not unanimous this time, and that is the story. The vote was 10–2. Governor Lisa Cook and Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack dissented — both wanted a hike of another quarter point, right now. In September the hike was unanimous, 12–0. Now the committee is split about whether waiting is discipline or falling behind.

Chair Kevin Warsh did not hide it. He called the debate “fairly heated,” with “serious and careful exchanges,” and vowed price stability “no ifs, ands or buts.” Inflation is still too high, and the Fed has not brought it under control. The statement said activity is expanding strongly and inflation remains elevated, and that the Fed needs more information before deciding the stance that gets inflation back to 2%. Inflation is still 3.7%.

Thursday’s data backed the hawks’ side of the argument: third-quarter GDP grew 3.4% annualized, and September core PCE — the inflation read the Fed watches closest — came in at 3.1%. Even so, the market eased off December a little: hike odds for the Dec. 8–9 meeting, which jumped to about 85% right after the decision, sat closer to 75% by Friday. Still likely. No longer a lock.

Temperance: Last week I wrote temperance isn’t doing nothing, it’s refusing to let a hot number rush you. This week tests that line. Two smart people inside the room said waiting IS the wrong move. Temperance is not consensus. It is holding the plan when half the pressure — including pressure from your own side — says move now. December will tell whether the wait was discipline or delay.

Tuesday, Israel held its first election since the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks. People showed up like they meant it.

And they delivered a deadlock. The final count, published Friday by the Central Elections Committee, confirms it: turnout 77.9%, the highest since 1999. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc won 53 seats. Opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot’s bloc won 48. Arab-led parties won a record 19 — the Joint List 11, Ra’am 8, roughly double what they had, driven by record Arab turnout and anger over violent crime in Arab communities that went unanswered. Nobody reaches 61, the number needed for a majority in the 120-seat Knesset.

Likud stays the single largest party, with 27 seats — but largest is not a government. The results go to President Isaac Herzog on Nov. 4, after final checks. The new Knesset is sworn in Nov. 10. Then the weeks of wrangling start.

Two more elections worth naming, because the job was the same in all three countries. Brazil voted Sunday: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won the presidential runoff with 51.8% of the vote — a fourth term, after finishing second in the first round, the first time that has happened since Brazil returned to democracy. Flávio Bolsonaro refused the result on the night and said he would ask for it to be annulled; by Monday, his own party had recognized it. And America votes Tuesday: all 435 House seats and 35 Senate seats, plus 36 governorships, with Republicans holding Congress by a whisker going in — 218–214 in the House, 53–47 in the Senate. A handful of seats decides who runs Congress for the next two years.

Justice: Justice in an election is boring on purpose. Count every vote. Report what the count actually says, even when it says “nobody won.” A record number of people did their part Tuesday. The system now has to do its part — honour a result that gives nobody what they wanted, instead of rerunning it until it does. Brazil’s count said the man who was behind three weeks ago. Tuesday, ours gets its turn.