Diverging trajectories dominate today's outlook: a genuine US-Iran-Oman diplomatic track is capping Middle East energy risk (Brent likely to stay below $90), while the Russia-West confrontation intensifies on every other axis — record-pace Ukrainian deep strikes, a 22nd EU sanctions package, European IRIS-T air defense filling the US Patriot gap, and Moscow's pre-election internet lockdown — against an unresolved post-New START arms-control vacuum.

Fact-check confirms the core evidence: the UN WFP warns a strengthening El Niño could push ~49 million more people into acute hunger, peaking Sep-Dec 2026 with harvest impacts through 2027. Crucially, the forecast's 30M bar is conservative — well below the UN's 49M central estimate — and the 2015-16 severe El Niño analog produced increases of roughly 30-60M, so 30M+ is the central/lower outcome conditional on the pattern materializing, not a tail. STRONG JUSTIFICATION for exiting the mid-range: the authoritative estimate exceeds the threshold by ~60%. BUT environment is my worst-calibrated sector (Brier 0.36, I over-predict by ~28pp) and the source climatologist is effectively disqualified (weight 0.04), so I deliberately hold well below the analyst-implied ~0.75, at 0.66, to correct my documented over-prediction. Residual downside: El Niño could weaken, and attribution/measurement by a mid-2027 cutoff is imperfect. What would make me wrong: (1) El Niño fizzles into a weak event; (2) aid mobilization blunts the increase; (3) data reporting lags past the resolution date.