What We’re Watching: US apparently drafts covert plan to end Ukraine war, World’s most valuable firm set for earnings call, Sectarian violence trials begin in Syria

Is the US drafting secret peace plans with the Russians?

The US has apparently been secretly drafting plans with Russia to end the war in Ukraine, per Axios, raising questions of whether Ukraine would accept a deal made without its input. It comes as Russia’s two biggest oil companies – Lukoil and Rusneft – are about to have US sanctions enforced against them on November 21, upping the Kremlin’s incentives to make a deal Meanwhile, Russia is inching forward on the battlefield and just carried out a deadly attack in Western Ukraine, while Zelensky is in Turkey trying to revive peace talks on his own terms.

Markets on edge as world’s most valuable firm set to announce earnings

The AI chip design firm Nvidia, valued at roughly $4.6 trillion, will reveal its third-quarter earnings when markets close at 4 pm ET time, amid growing concerns that there is an AI bubble. Fears over potential overvaluation of AI firms are contributing to a selloff this month, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq index dropping 5%. The share price of Nvidia itself has dropped 4% this week. Analysts have set the bar high for Nvidia’s earnings, with some market participants anticipating profit growth above 50% – less could spur a drop in stock value.

Syria prosecutes suspects in sectarian clashes

Fourteen men were put on trial at an Aleppo court yesterday on charges they stoked sectarian clashes that left more than 1,000 people dead earlier this year. Half the defendants are members of the government security services and half are Alawites, the sect to which ousted dictator Bashar al-Assad belonged. Hundreds more from both sides await trial. Since ousting Assad last year, President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former jihadist who has reinvented himself as a globetrotting statesman, has struggled to contain sectarian violence, including bloodshed driven by his own men. Critics have questioned the independence of the courts, but the trials are seen as a big test of accountability, something unimaginable under the Assads.