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Iran’s IRGC Says a Container Ship With More Than 2,500 Boxes Sank After Hitting a Mine South of Hormuz: October 14, 2026

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps navy said Wednesday that a container ship carrying more than 2,500 containers sank south of the Strait of Hormuz after striking a naval mine and catching fire, the Associated Press, Reuters via Al Arabiya, and Xinhua reported.

A Guard statement carried by Iranian state media said the vessel had tried to transit what it called an “unauthorized and dangerous” route and warned local craft and fishermen to take care. Few details were released, including the ship’s identity, flag or the fate of its crew. The AP said it was the first time Iran had reported a ship sinking after hitting a mine during the current Middle East war.

The narrow Strait of Hormuz is a chokepoint for global oil and container traffic. Shipping has faced heightened risk since the U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran tightened energy supplies and pushed crude prices higher — a factor cited in Wednesday’s hotter-than-expected U.S. inflation print.

The Associated Press said it could not independently verify the Guard’s account. Al Arabiya, citing Reuters, reported the IRGC navy statement as shared by state media on Wednesday morning local time. Xinhua summarized the same claim that a “violating” container ship sank after hitting a mine on an unauthorized route south of the waterway.

Sources: The Associated Press, Al Arabiya (Reuters), Xinhua

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Russia Arrests Japanese Journalist Yuki Imai on Espionage Charges in Sakhalin as Kuril Tensions Rise: October 14, 2026

MOSCOW — Russian authorities have arrested Japanese journalist Yuki Imai of the Hokkaido Shimbun on suspicion of espionage, accusing him of gathering defence-related information for Tokyo, BBC News and Al Jazeera reported Wednesday.

Imai was detained in the far-eastern Sakhalin region a day before he was due to leave Russia, flown to Moscow and ordered into pre-trial detention until Dec. 12, Russian agencies said. The FSB released video of masked officers handcuffing a man in a hotel room and later showing him in a Moscow courtroom cage. Espionage convictions in Russia can bring up to 20 years in prison.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Tokyo’s alleged use of accredited correspondents to undermine Russian security was “regrettable” and “not an isolated” case. Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said Tokyo learned of the arrest only when it was announced and had not yet contacted Imai. Hokkaido Shimbun said ensuring the reporter’s safety was its top priority, the BBC reported.

The arrest comes amid worsening ties after Vladimir Putin visited the disputed Kuril Islands in August — islands Japan calls the Northern Territories. Tokyo says the visit wounded Japanese feelings; Moscow dismissed the criticism. Japan has sanctioned Russia over the Ukraine war, and last week Moscow sought the extradition of ICC President Tomoko Akane, who is Japanese.

Russia previously detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich on espionage charges in 2023 before a 2024 prisoner swap, and in 2019 briefly held a Kyodo News journalist in Vladivostok before expelling him.

Sources: BBC News, Al Jazeera

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World Brief, Evening: October 13, 2026

Pope Leo XIV left the operating room with a lung-cancer diagnosis; Houthi fire reached an Aramco building in Dhahran after the Saudis hit a fuel depot in Sanaa; and Kyiv says it again got no allied warning before a ballistic missile slammed into the capital. Ten stories as of Tuesday evening, October 13.

1. Rome / Vatican City and Italy. Pope Leo XIV, 71, has been diagnosed with lung adenocarcinoma after a successful 90-minute operation at Rome’s Gemelli hospital that removed the whole lower lobe of his right lung, the Vatican said in a medical bulletin, BBC News reported. “The operation was successful and there were no complications,” the Holy See said; he awoke normally and returned to his room after a brief observation. Doctors first spotted the nodule in routine checks; Leo himself told the Angelus crowd on Sunday it was “contained” and found “at a very early stage.” He is expected to stay in hospital about a week, with audiences cancelled through October 20, and further tests are checking whether the cancer has spread, a Vatican source told AFP, per DW.

2. Riyadh, Dhahran and Sanaa / Saudi Arabia and Yemen. After the Saudi-led coalition struck the Yemen Petroleum Company’s al-Sabaha fuel facility near Houthi-held Sanaa on Tuesday, the Houthis answered with missiles and drones aimed at the kingdom; the coalition said it intercepted projectiles over Riyadh and other cities including Dammam, BBC News reported. Saudi Energy Ministry said an Aramco administration building in Dhahran took a hit that sparked a “limited fire,” with no casualties; a company source told Reuters a ballistic missile struck upper floors. Civil defence said debris from two intercepted missiles in Riyadh injured four people — two women, a man and a child — and damaged 15 homes, DW reported. The Saudi cabinet, chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, said the Iran-backed Houthis would “bear the consequences” of recent deadly airport strikes that killed 14 over the weekend.

3. Kyiv / Ukraine, and London / United Kingdom. A Russian ballistic missile hit Kyiv’s CHPP-4 power plant Tuesday evening with “once again, no early warning from our partners,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, adding a residential building was damaged and rescuers were fighting a fire; France 24, citing Reuters, put the toll at at least two dead and about 20 wounded. Zelenskyy later told Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney it was the second time this week Ukraine got no ballistic warning. On Wednesday he meets Prime Minister Andy Burnham at Downing Street, where the UK will accelerate delivery of Lightweight Multirole Missiles — more than 5,000 already committed, worth £1.6bn over four years — and push further Russia sanctions, including a maritime-services ban on Russian LNG that Chancellor John Healey is pressing at the IMF meetings, BBC News reported. Burnham: “We are with you for as long as it takes.”

4. Hamburg / Germany. Four years after the Baltic Sea blasts that wrecked three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, Ukrainian national Serhii K goes on trial Wednesday in Hamburg as the first suspect in the case, BBC News reported. German prosecutors say he plotted with other Ukrainian military personnel to cut Russia’s gas revenue and allege the saboteurs acted “by order of Ukrainian state agencies”; he denies the charges, as does a second suspect fighting extradition from Croatia. Investigators focused on divers who rented the yacht Andromeda in Rostock, where traces of subsea explosives were later found. Zelenskyy has long said Ukraine had “nothing to do” with the attacks. The trial is delicate for Berlin, one of Kyiv’s closest European backers.

5. Peshawar and Bara / Pakistan. Pakistan has put Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — the stronghold of imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s PTI party — under emergency rule and suspended the provincial government, citing a terror threat, BBC News reported. Schools closed and internet service was partly cut, then largely restored by Tuesday; PTI leaders have gone into hiding, and supporters clashed with police in Bara, Khyber district, with tear gas reported. Information Minister Attah Tarrar claimed the PTI provincial government was “hand in glove with the terrorists” without producing evidence on the day. Opponents say the crackdown risks more instability ahead of any path back for Khan.

6. Kingston / Jamaica. Jamaica took its first flight of third-country deportees from the United States on Tuesday: 22 people landed at Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston and were bused to an undisclosed location, Al Jazeera reported, citing the AP. Jamaica signed a June memorandum to receive such transfers — part of a Trump administration network that advocacy group Third Country Deportation Watch puts at about 35 countries — and says it will not take deportees with criminal records, moving people on to their home countries with International Organization for Migration support. Opposition figures have asked why the deal was not made public; the National Security and Foreign Affairs ministries called it a “transit arrangement.”

7. Bogotá / Colombia. Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace charged 10 former FARC members on Tuesday with war crimes and crimes against humanity against five Indigenous groups in the southeast between 1996 and 2016, including torture, murder and forced displacement, Al Jazeera reported. Magistrate Catalina Diaz said FARC commanders ordered landmines on Indigenous land and wrecked ecosystems the communities needed to survive: “Today we are delivering justice to the most forgotten peoples of a segregated Colombia.” The Truth Commission previously counted 450,664 conflict deaths from 1985 to 2018.

8. Cabo Corrientes, Ensenada and Acapulco / Mexico. Hurricane Simon re-strengthened Tuesday evening to about 110 mph — nearly a major hurricane again — roughly 120 miles west of Cabo Corrientes and drifting west at 2 mph, the National Hurricane Center said at 6:50 p.m. MST. Farther south, newborn Tropical Storm Trudy was at 40 mph about 490 miles south-southeast of Acapulco and forecast to become a major hurricane by Friday, the NHC said. The death toll from Simon and the remnants of Tropical Storm Rachel rose to six, the AP reported: one in Guerrero from Simon, and five in Ensenada, Baja California, from Rachel’s floods — among them a 13-year-old girl, two women, a 4-year-old boy and an unidentified person — with five still missing and a helicopter rescue of 32 people, including 13 minors, from an orphan camp near Ensenada.

9. San Francisco / United States. Federal prosecutors charged OpenAI engineer Abdulrahman Alfozan, a Saudi national, with planting a covert recording device in an executive conference room at the company’s San Francisco offices, BBC News reported. The encrypted gadget was found wrapped in toilet paper in a TV USB port; OpenAI said it used its own AI models to identify the employee, who has been fired, and that it has no indication source code, model weights or customer data were taken. FBI Director Kash Patel said the alleged aim was to capture information about the company’s AI products. Alfozan had worked at OpenAI since July 2025; the device was discovered September 30, two days after prosecutors say it was installed.

10. Port Moresby / Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea police seized a cache of high-powered semi-automatic rifles, parts, magazines and 3D-printing gear at a Gerehu residence after intelligence from international partners, Commissioner David Manning said, RNZ reported. An adult male remains in custody pending charges; Manning called him a key coordinator who hid dismantled parts in ostensibly legitimate imports moved by courier. “These guns fuel violence, undermine community safety, and pose a grave national security risk,” he said.

Coming Up

Confirmed dates on The Watch and beyond: Through October 18, the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings in Bangkok, with G20 finance ministers there October 15. October 15–16, the European Council in Brussels. October 17, the earliest King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh is expected to reopen. October 19, Alberta’s referendum on whether to move toward a binding independence vote. Pope Leo’s audiences remain cancelled through October 20 while he recovers at Gemelli.

Sources: BBC News; Vatican / DW; Al Jazeera; AP; Reuters (via DW/France 24); U.S. National Hurricane Center; RNZ; DOJ/FBI statements via BBC.

World Brief: October 13, 2026

Russia left Ukraine’s power plants alone overnight for the first time since President Trump’s “energy ceasefire,” but hit its cities anyway; the Houthis told civilians to clear out of Saudi oil sites; and a second ship in a week went down off Bulgaria’s coast. Ten stories as of Tuesday morning, October 13.

1. Kyiv, Kharkiv and Warsaw / Ukraine and Russia. Russia hit no Ukrainian energy targets overnight into Tuesday, the first time that has happened since Trump announced his “energy ceasefire” at the weekend, while it hammered transport and logistics sites with ballistic missiles and drones, France 24 reported, citing Reuters. Four people were killed in a residential building in Kharkiv, and one missile came down just over a kilometre from a plant that heats much of Lviv. The Kremlin would only say that “contacts” were ongoing. Ukraine’s air force said it had no advance surveillance warning before Russia fired six ballistic missiles at Kyiv late Monday. Volodymyr Zelenskyy called that strike “particularly vile” and said partners gave no early warning, The Guardian reported: “This is precisely what helps prevent people from being killed – when there is an early warning about ballistic missiles.” That comes after U.S. officials threatened over the weekend to halt intelligence sharing, though Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said cooperation continues. Zelenskyy said Ukraine hasn’t hit a Russian refinery in two days. In Moscow, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said Russia could supply 3.5 million tonnes of diesel a month to world markets by year’s end, Al Jazeera reported.

2. Riyadh, Dammam and Sanaa / Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The Saudi-led coalition told civilians to leave the Yemeni Oil Company’s al-Sabah central station in Houthi-held Sanaa ahead of a planned operation, and Al Jazeera’s team then heard explosions in the capital, Al Jazeera reported. Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree hit back with his own evacuation alert, calling Saudi oil facilities “a legitimate target.” He named Aramco’s headquarters in Dammam, Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport and an Aramco refinery in Riyadh, and promised a “harsh and painful” response to any strikes on Sanaa. The coalition said it shot down three drones north of Riyadh on Tuesday. France’s embassy told its citizens to stay away from the airports in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam, France 24 reported. On the ground, Saudi-backed government forces say they’re pushing into Marib province, and in besieged Taiz a rights group counted five civilians killed and 17 wounded by Houthi shelling in 24 hours, Al Jazeera reported.

3. Strait of Hormuz / Iran, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. At least 12 tankers have been attacked in and around the Strait of Hormuz in the past week, going by the U.K. Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) warnings, The National reported. Delayed UKMTO reports cover six ships hit on Sunday alone: five tankers and a container ship, five in the strait and one hit by a drone near Oman’s Sohar anchorage. The U.S. Navy-led Joint Maritime Information Center rates the threat to shipping in the strait “severe” in its latest advisory, published by UKMTO, and says the attacks show Iran’s “intent to assert [its] presence along key transit lanes.” “The Strait of Hormuz is closed,” an adviser to the Revolutionary Guards’ commander, Mohammadreza Naqdi, was quoted as saying. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week it is open, with “almost as much oil flowing out now as there was before this conflict began.”

4. Krapets and Byala / Bulgaria. Prime Minister Rumen Radev summoned Russia’s ambassador after drones hit two merchant ships off Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast on Tuesday and one of them sank, BBC News reported. Six crew from the Guinea-Bissau-flagged HS Dignity were rescued and 10 are missing after it went down 17 nautical miles east of Krapets, the defence minister said. All 15 aboard the Ukrainian-owned Chelsea-3, hit off Byala, were rescued. There’s no conclusive evidence against “either side,” Radev said, but “the logic suggests that the outcome benefits the Russian Federation.” His defence minister was blunter: “We assume the drones are Russian.” The ambassador, Eleonora Mitrofanova, said she had no information from Russia’s defence ministry and suggested a third-party provocation. Both ships were just outside Bulgarian territorial waters. At least 45 merchant ships have been hit by drones in the Black Sea in the past year, DW reported.

5. Rome / Vatican City and Italy. Pope Leo XIV, 71, checked into Rome’s Gemelli hospital on Tuesday for an afternoon operation to remove a small nodule from his lung, The Guardian reported. The surgery is considered low risk and will show whether the growth is malignant. A thoracic team led by Prof. Stefano Margaritora is doing the operation, and the pope is expected to stay in hospital for about a week, Vatican News said. His audiences are cancelled through October 20, and Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle will lead Wednesday’s general audience. Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said the news came “like a bolt out of the blue.” There was no word on how the surgery went as of this brief.

6. Budapest / Hungary. Hungary’s parliament voted on Tuesday to scrap the parts of Viktor Orbán’s 2021 child protection law that banned the “portrayal or promotion of homosexuality or transgenderism,” BBC News reported. Minutes later, the government said the EU had agreed to release €4.2bn in funds frozen in the final years of Orbán’s rule. Prime Minister Péter Magyar’s Tisza party, which ousted Orbán in April, now holds the same two-thirds majority Fidesz once had. Fidesz and the Christian Democrats voted no. “We’ve been fighting this so-called child protection law for five years,” said Tamás Dombos of the Háttér Society. Activists still want same-sex marriage and adoption rights.

7. Washington and Athens / United States and Greece. “We have asked Ambassador Guilfoyle to resign,” new White House press secretary Katie Zacharia said on Tuesday, adding “we wish her well,” Al Jazeera reported. Kimberly Guilfoyle, the U.S. ambassador to Greece, has faced weeks of misconduct reports. The Wall Street Journal reported she asked a Trump donor to cover a $100,000 credit card bill shortly before her confirmation hearing, promising access to administration officials. Her lawyers deny wrongdoing and say the money was owed for past speaking engagements. Trump said Monday, “We’re not happy.” Top House and Senate Democrats want investigations, DW reported.

8. Ceuta / Spain and Morocco. King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia began the first Spanish royal visit to Ceuta in nearly two decades on Tuesday, as the North African exclave still deals with July’s surge of about 70,000 people from Morocco, BBC News reported. Aid groups estimate at least 141 people died in the crossings. Ceuta’s president Juan Jesús Vivas puts the number still in the city at 15,000; Madrid says it has 7,400 shelter places. The royals will attend an interfaith ceremony at the cemetery where many of the dead are buried, then head to Melilla on Wednesday. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez recently confirmed that Moroccan military vessels entered Spanish waters off Ceuta during the crossing but played it down. Spain votes on November 29.

9. New Delhi / India. Police detained Cockroach Janta Party leaders Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das early on Tuesday after they climbed barricades into Jantar Mantar, Delhi’s traditional protest site, and chanted for Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to resign, BBC News reported. A day earlier the home ministry had said Jantar Mantar would no longer be a designated protest venue. “You cannot denotify the resistance,” founder Abhijeet Dipke wrote on X. The movement and opposition parties say a revision of voter rolls that removed tens of millions of names favors Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party; the party and the Election Commission reject that. Congress has asked the Supreme Court to step in.

10. Puerto Iguazú / Argentina, and the Pacific. Argentina briefly shut tourist access to Iguazu Falls on Monday when the Iguazu River topped 12,000 cubic metres per second, more than six times its average flow, after heavy rain fuelled by a supersized El Niño, The Guardian reported. “It just keeps raining,” said park director José María Hervás. Officials planned to reopen on Tuesday as the flow eased. Out in the Pacific, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology says weekly sea-surface temperatures in the central Pacific have hit their highest level on record, weeks before the event’s expected December peak, BBC Weather reported. “We are currently witnessing an El Niño event that is unprecedented in the historical record,” said Berkeley Earth’s Zeke Hausfather.

Coming Up

Confirmed dates on The Watch: Through October 18, the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings in Bangkok, with G20 finance ministers there October 15. October 15–16, the European Council in Brussels, where von der Leyen says Ukraine’s funding will be “front and centre.” October 19, Alberta’s referendum on whether to move toward a binding independence vote.

Sources: France 24; Reuters; The Guardian; Al Jazeera; The National; UKMTO; BBC News; DW; Vatican News; BBC Weather.

El Niño-Fueled Fire Razes Nearly 300 Homes in Indonesia as Haze Makes Singapore and Kuala Lumpur the World’s Most Polluted Cities: October 13, 2026

JAKARTA, Indonesia — A peatland fire fueled by El Niño has destroyed nearly 300 homes in Indonesia’s Bangka Belitung province and forced about 1,000 people to flee, an official said Tuesday, as smoke from the country’s worst fires in years made Singapore and Kuala Lumpur the two most polluted cities on Earth, The Guardian and Al Jazeera reported.

Residents tried to put out the blaze with portable pumps after spotting it approaching their village on Saturday, said Riza Herdavid, head of South Bangka regency. “They thought it was taken care of. But it’s peatland, and there was still a fire smouldering underneath,” he said. “When they assumed it was over, the wind shifted and quickly drove the fire toward the settlement.” He said the village had been built on former peatland in a protected area. “My house is gone,” said Leni, 55, who was staying at a shelter with her family. “There’s nothing left.”

President Prabowo Subianto on Monday ordered maximum efforts to extinguish fires that have burned for three months in some places, and the cabinet secretary said more than 60,000 personnel were deployed, The Guardian said. Thick smoke has grounded 34 firefighting aircraft, including planes and helicopters, Malaysia’s foreign minister said, according to Al Jazeera. The fires, mostly on Sumatra and Borneo, are the country’s most intense in 11 years.

IQAir ranked Singapore and Kuala Lumpur the world’s two most polluted cities on Tuesday, with Air Quality Index readings of 199 and 183, Al Jazeera reported. Malaysian low-cost carrier Firefly extended its suspension of flights between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore through Wednesday, Singapore reintroduced subsidized care for haze-related illnesses for the first time since 2015, and schools remained closed in three Malaysian states and one federal territory.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan said he would press for stronger regional mechanisms at next month’s ASEAN foreign ministers’ meeting. “We already have an ASEAN mechanism for natural disasters, but haze is not included or classified as a natural disaster,” he said. The Philippines, which chairs the bloc this year, confirmed the issue is on the agenda.

Sources: The Guardian, Al Jazeera

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IMF Nudges 2026 Global Growth Up to 3.1% but Warns Resilience Is ‘Reaching Its Limits’ as Gulf Economies Plunge and AI Risks Mount: October 13, 2026

BANGKOK, Thailand — The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday raised its forecast for global growth this year to 3.1% from 3% but warned that the world economy “could soon test the limits of resilience” as emergency oil stocks run low and government budgets are stretched thin, Reuters, via CNA, and The Guardian reported.

“The global economy has been resilient, but that resilience is reaching its limits, so we need to move from just coping to rebuilding,” IMF chief economist Silvana Tenreyro said as the World Economic Outlook was released at the IMF and World Bank annual meetings in Bangkok. The fund kept its 2027 forecast at 3.4%, below 2025 growth of 3.5%. The slight upgrade rests largely on heavy investment in artificial intelligence, which is offsetting the energy shock from the war in the Middle East.

Gulf states took the hardest hit. The IMF now expects Saudi Arabia’s economy to shrink 3.3% this year, compared with 1.7% growth forecast in July, and sees deep recessions in Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, with contractions of 7.6%, 16%, 16.7%, 15.6% and 3.9%, respectively, CNA reported. U.S. growth is forecast at 2.3% in 2026 and 2027, China at 4.5% this year, and India at 7%, still the fastest among major economies. Just 32 countries now account for 95% of global growth, down from 54 in April.

The forecasts assume the Strait of Hormuz reopens in March 2027 and oil averages $96 a barrel this year. “Inventories in energy markets are dwindling and additional geopolitical shocks could still transmit rapidly through prices and supply disruptions,” the report said, according to The Guardian. Under an adverse scenario with oil at $130 through early 2027, growth next year would be 0.5 percentage point lower.

In a separate Global Financial Stability Report, the IMF warned that a correction in richly valued AI stocks “could be global,” listing it with rising government borrowing costs and a major cyberattack as “plausible near-term catalysts” for market turmoil. “The exposure of the rest of the world to US assets, particularly AI, is the highest it has ever been,” said Athanasios Vamvakidis, deputy director of the IMF’s monetary and capital markets department, The Guardian reported.

Sources: CNA (Reuters), The Guardian, The Guardian (financial stability)

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World Brief, Evening: October 12, 2026

Riyadh took Houthi fire for a third straight night while Saudi officials try to work out how the missiles got through; Kyiv says Moscow has answered President Trump’s “energy ceasefire” with more strikes; and Britain pinned last month’s RAF Fairford scare on Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Ten stories as of Monday evening, October 12.

1. Riyadh / Saudi Arabia. Explosions shook the Saudi capital again Monday night, and the Saudi-led coalition said it intercepted a ballistic missile fired at Riyadh and two more aimed at Khamis Mushait in the southwest; the Houthis said their target was King Khalid International Airport, Al Jazeera reported. The airport, closed since Saturday’s strike that killed 13, is expected to stay shut until this Saturday. Saudi authorities have opened an investigation into why the kingdom’s air defences failed; an initial inquiry found the Houthis sent drones first to clear a path for a mix of cruise and ballistic missiles that flew more than 1,000 km, two regional officials told the AP. Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told an energy congress in Riyadh, “Our response must be equally serious,” and Qatar Airways suspended flights to Riyadh and Dammam, BBC News reported. Asked what he’d do, President Trump said, “The Houthis are misbehaving very badly. No good,” without signalling U.S. action; a Houthi official warned of a “swift and painful response” against U.S. interests if Washington joins in.

2. Kyiv / Ukraine and Russia. Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russia has hit six Ukrainian energy facilities since Trump announced the energy truce Sunday, injuring 33 people, and calls it proof Moscow is “unwilling to accept an energy ceasefire,” BBC News reported. Ukrenergo reported new power cuts in Kharkiv, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Ukraine doesn’t deserve the “respite” a ceasefire would bring. The Kremlin’s only official word was Dmitry Peskov’s “Contacts are continuing,” while pro-Kremlin media called the truce “a one-way deal that benefits us,” BBC News reported. Trump said both sides agreed “because I said you agree.” Monday evening a Shahed drone hit a high-rise in Kyiv; Zelenskyy said two people were killed and nine hurt, after Mayor Vitali Klitschko had first reported one dead and 11 injured.

3. London / United Kingdom and Iran. Prime Minister Andy Burnham told MPs the suspected plot at RAF Fairford, the U.S.-used base in Gloucestershire, was “almost certainly directed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard,” and Britain sanctioned two Iranians: Ruhollah Bazghandi, head of IRGC counterespionage, and Shahram Ali Reza Tamarzadeh Jakki, described as a facilitator for the Zindashti criminal network, Al Jazeera reported. Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband summoned Iran’s ambassador, who said Tehran wasn’t involved and would cooperate. Seven men have been arrested and bailed over the September 27 incident and none has been charged; the UK and 28 other countries, including the U.S., issued a joint statement condemning Iranian “lethal plotting, arson, sabotage,” BBC News reported.

4. Warsaw / Poland and Germany. Two Turkish citizens have been detained in Germany over a fire last month at a Starlink station in Poland’s Masovia region, and Warsaw says they’ll face sabotage charges for acting on the orders of a foreign intelligence service, Al Jazeera reported. “We have no doubt that Russian services are behind this act of sabotage,” said Special Services Minister Tomasz Siemoniak; Poland pays for Ukraine’s Starlink service. At the Warsaw Security Forum the same day, NATO’s top commander, U.S. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, said any attack on an ally would prove “utterly futile” and NATO would hit “anything and everything” that supports an attacking force, per Al Jazeera.

5. Bangkok / Thailand, and Australia. The IMF’s World Economic Outlook, released at the Bangkok annual meetings, warns the global economy “could soon test the limits of resilience” as emergency oil stocks run low and budgets stretch thin, The Guardian reported. It nudged 2026 global growth up to 3.1% from 3.0%, left 2027 at 3.4%, and sees global inflation at 4.7% this year and 4.1% next. A downside scenario, with the war dragging through June 2027 and Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb largely shut, has oil at $130 a barrel; economists told Guardian Australia that could add about 30 cents a litre to Australian petrol.

6. Adwa / Ethiopia. Ethiopian federal troops and an allied militia entered the Tigray town of Adwa, about 40 km from the Eritrean border, on Sunday without a fight after TPLF fighters pulled out, residents said, Al Jazeera reported. It follows the capture of Adigrat and last week’s fall of Mekelle, where Ethiopian Airlines flights resumed Sunday for the first time since September 23. One resident told AFP government offices and Adwa Hospital were looted overnight. Eritrea, accused by Addis Ababa of backing the rebels, cut diplomatic ties last week.

7. Goma / DR Congo. Former President Joseph Kabila will lead a new political-military movement with the Rwanda-backed M23, which has held Goma since January 2025, the two sides announced at a joint news conference at his Goma residence, France 24 reported, citing AFP. Kabila, who ruled from 2001 to 2019, was sentenced to death in absentia a year ago for “complicity” with M23. The move lands as President Félix Tshisekedi’s camp floats constitutional changes ahead of the end of his final term in 2028.

8. Washington / United States. Homeland Security Investigations agents searched Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home in the Washington area under a court-approved warrant as part of “an ongoing federal criminal investigation,” the Justice Department said, BBC News reported. Omar called it political intimidation: “I will not be silenced.” Trump said he had “nothing to do” with it and called her “a terrible person.” Fox News reported the probe involves immigration paperwork her late father filed when she was a child. House Democratic leaders called the raid “deeply disturbing,” coming less than 30 days before the midterms, The Guardian reported.

9. Jalisco, Guerrero and Baja California / Mexico. Simon is down to 100 mph, a Category 2, about 80 miles west of Cabo Corrientes and 205 miles south of Mazatlán at 5 p.m. MST, creeping west-northwest at 3 mph and expected to turn northwest tonight, with flooding rains still hitting the coast, the National Hurricane Center said. At least two people are dead: a 71-year-old man killed by a collapsing wall near Chilpancingo, Guerrero, during Simon, and a young girl in Baja California from what was Hurricane Rachel, with 10 missing there, Al Jazeera reported. Forecasters say Simon could make landfall Thursday or Friday.

10. La Paz and Santa Cruz / Bolivia. Bolivia’s acting attorney general, José Armando Urioste, opened a preliminary investigation into former President Evo Morales and his vice president Álvaro García Linera over a 2009 police raid on a Santa Cruz hotel that killed three Europeans and left two others reporting torture, The Guardian reported. The alleged crimes include murder, torture and unlawful detention. Morales, who called the men “mercenaries” at the time, is already in hiding from two arrest warrants; neither he nor García Linera has commented.

Coming Up

Confirmed dates on The Watch and beyond: October 13, Pope Leo XIV checks into Rome’s Gemelli hospital for lung-nodule surgery, with audiences cancelled until October 20, Al Jazeera reported. Through October 18, the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings in Bangkok, with G20 finance ministers there October 15. October 15–16, the European Council in Brussels. October 17, the earliest Riyadh’s King Khalid airport is expected to reopen. October 19, Alberta’s referendum on whether to move toward a binding independence vote.

Sources: Al Jazeera; BBC News; AP; The Guardian; Guardian Australia; France 24; U.S. National Hurricane Center.

World Brief: October 12, 2026

Zelenskyy says it’s “increasingly clear” Moscow wants no part of Trump’s “energy ceasefire,” Riyadh’s main airport stays shut while the war on the ground in Yemen grinds on, and Iran says the oil shuttle out of Hormuz is now a target. Ten stories as of Monday morning, October 12.

1. Warsaw, Kyiv and Kharkiv / Ukraine and Russia. Speaking to the Warsaw Security Forum on Monday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia had bombed six energy facilities that day, injuring 33 people, and that “it is becoming increasingly clear that Russia does not want to agree to the energy ceasefire proposed by the US,” The Guardian reported. “If Russia does not agree to an energy ceasefire this winter, we will respond,” he said, adding of Trump’s announcement: “It’s clear that Putin does not read Truth Social.” Europe lined up behind Kyiv. “I have not noted, over the last 48 hours, any energy ceasefire coming from the Russian side,” France’s Emmanuel Macron said, per Al Jazeera, and the EU’s Kaja Kallas said the bloc welcomes the truce “when it holds.” In Ottawa, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s office said Trump’s Russian diesel deal “will provide additional revenue for Russia and help finance its illegal, unjustifiable war,” The Globe and Mail reported, even as Carney thanked Trump for pushing the ceasefire.

2. Riyadh and Taiz / Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Saudi Arabia extended the suspension of all flights at King Khalid International Airport on Monday while it verifies the airport’s safety, and its military said more missile and drone threats had been detected, The Guardian reported. Saturday’s toll is now 13 dead. Inside Yemen, Saudi jets carried out eight strikes around Taiz, the country’s third city, where as many as 60 fighters from both sides died on Sunday; the governor warned a medicine shortage means Taiz will soon run out of emergency surgical and intensive care. The UN Security Council is expected on Tuesday to debate a resolution calling the Houthis a terrorist organisation. Delta, meanwhile, pushed its new Atlanta–Riyadh nonstop back to March 2027, CNBC reported.

3. Strait of Hormuz / Iran and United Arab Emirates. Iran’s security chief Mohsen Rezaei said Sunday night that the U.S.-assisted shuttle moving Gulf crude past Iran’s grip on Hormuz is now an explicit target, Al Jazeera reported. He claimed U.S. Central Command and the UAE military are using smaller vessels to carry oil out to bigger tankers, and that Iran has been hitting five or six of those vessels nightly for weeks. “You are smuggling, but the strait is under Iran’s control, and we manage it,” he said. Rezaei also threatened U.S.-linked cables, data centers and AI facilities in the UAE, and accused Saudi Arabia of helping move the oil, though he stopped short of threatening Riyadh directly.

4. Peshawar / Pakistan. A day after President Asif Ali Zardari imposed emergency rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the government confirmed that suspended Chief Minister Sohail Afridi and some of his cabinet were taken into “preventive custody” at his house in Peshawar, minister Talal Chaudhry told Reuters, via The Guardian. Police told Dawn the assembly speaker was among eight Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leaders held, and hundreds of party politicians have been detained. Imran Khan’s party calls it a coup and says the emergency is meant to stop his supporters marching on Islamabad to demand his release. The government says the province failed to tackle Islamist militancy.

5. Berlin / Germany. Bärbel Bas resigned on Monday as Germany’s labor minister and as co-leader of the Social Democrats, citing the death of her stepdaughter and “open attacks” on her from inside Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s coalition, DW reported. “I am currently unable to muster the strength to fully carry out my government and party duties,” she said. Alexander Schweitzer, the former SPD premier of Rhineland-Palatinate, takes over the labor ministry; a new party co-chair will be picked at a conference expected early next year. Merz’s conservatives had accused Bas of stalling pension and labor-law changes.

6. Aubagne and Paris / France. A 14-year-old pupil walked into Lakanal middle school in Aubagne, east of Marseille, with a shotgun in a guitar case on Monday morning and shot the head teacher and another teacher before a staff member restrained him, BBC News reported. Their injuries aren’t life-threatening, no children were hurt, and prosecutors opened an attempted-murder investigation. Separately, hackers took over refrigeration software at hundreds of Coopérative U and Intermarché supermarkets, heating some fridges and freezers to 50C overnight and spoiling food worth millions of euros; Paris prosecutors are investigating, BBC News reported. And a pre-dawn fire “totally destroyed” the Marché des Enfants Rouges, Paris’s oldest covered market, dating to 1615, The Guardian reported.

7. Washington, Brussels and Canberra / United States, European Union and Australia. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin defended the plan to livestream the firing-squad execution of Fort Hood gunman Nidal Hasan: “I don’t see an elevated risk,” he said on Sunday, BBC News reported. Trump has signed off on the execution, but no final decision on the livestream has been made. The execution is scheduled for December 3. On Monday the European Commission warned platforms they must “enforce their own terms and conditions diligently” in Europe under the Digital Services Act, noting Meta bans livestreamed capital punishment, France 24 reported. In Australia, the Greens want eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant to keep the video off Australian screens, The Guardian reported.

8. Jalisco and Islas Marías / Mexico. Hurricane Simon is crawling northwest just off Mexico’s Pacific coast. At 8 a.m. MST it had 110 mph winds and sat 55 miles west-southwest of Cabo Corrientes, moving at 3 mph, the National Hurricane Center said. Mexico downgraded the mainland hurricane warnings to a watch and a tropical storm warning, but forecasters expect Simon to turn northeast and approach west-central Mexico again on Wednesday into Thursday, possibly re-strengthening first. A hurricane warning is up for the Islas Marías and a watch runs from north of Cabo Corrientes to Bahía Tempehuaya. Isolated storm totals of 30 inches of rain are possible in Michoacán, Colima and Jalisco, with “life-threatening flooding and mudslides.”

9. Asunción and Belmopan / Paraguay and Belize. China sanctioned Paraguay’s communications minister, Gustavo Villate, and Belize’s foreign minister, Francis Fonseca, over their countries’ ties with Taiwan, freezing any assets in China, barring them from Hong Kong and Macau, and banning Chinese dealings with them, Al Jazeera and the AP reported. Beijing accused the pair of “egregious actions and statements” damaging its core interests. Villate had marked Taiwan’s National Day on social media, and Taiwan’s foreign minister visited Belize last month. Paraguay and Belize are two of the 12 countries that still formally recognize Taiwan.

10. South Africa. Lt Gen Shadrack Sibiya, South Africa’s deputy national police commissioner, resigned on Monday, three weeks after he was charged with sexual offences, BBC News reported. His lawyer handed in the letter at his disciplinary hearing, and police said his exit counts as a dishonourable discharge. The charges involve allegations that he groomed a 16-year-old girl and raped an 18-year-old woman, plus a trafficking charge; Sibiya denies them all and has been in custody since his bail was denied. The Madlanga Commission, probing police corruption, has also heard he was given 20 impalas by an alleged crime boss in exchange for a police contract.

Coming Up

Confirmed dates on The Watch and beyond: October 13, Pope Leo XIV goes into Rome’s Gemelli hospital for lung-nodule surgery, the Vatican says. Through October 18, the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings in Bangkok, with G20 finance ministers there October 15. October 15–16, the European Council in Brussels. October 19, Alberta’s referendum on whether to move toward a binding independence vote.

Sources: The Guardian; Al Jazeera; BBC News; DW; The Globe and Mail; CNBC; Dawn; France 24; AP; Vatican News; U.S. National Hurricane Center.

North Korea Fires a Volley of Ballistic Missiles, One Flying More Than 900 Kilometers, in What Seoul Calls a Show of Force After Its Hypersonic Test: October 12, 2026

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea fired multiple ballistic missiles toward the sea off its east coast on Monday, at least one of which flew more than 900 kilometers, in what South Korea’s military called a show of force after Seoul’s first successful test of a hypersonic missile, Yonhap News Agency and DW reported.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected the launches at about 9:20 a.m. local time from the Pyongyang area. “Initial analysis suggests (Monday’s launch) was seen as a protest against the successful launch of our hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) and a display of the North’s achievements under its five-year plan to bolster defense capabilities and a deliberate show of its missile capabilities,” JCS spokesperson Jang Do-young told a briefing, according to Yonhap.

Japan’s state minister of defense, Takashi Koyari, said at least two missiles were launched: one traveled about 220 kilometers at a maximum altitude of about 20 kilometers, and the other about 910 kilometers at an altitude of about 70 kilometers. Both fell outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, and Koyari said they “may have flown on irregular trajectories,” Jiji Press reported. Japan, the United States and South Korea are analyzing the flights.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung announced the test-firing of a domestically developed hypersonic missile last week. DW said Monday’s launch was North Korea’s fourth missile launch in October and that it has carried out tests on more than 10 occasions this year. Yonhap said Monday’s launch followed the firing of one ballistic missile from the Wonsan area on Oct. 3, which Pyongyang described as training for troops operating its “hypersonic strategic weapon system.”

Tensions on the peninsula have been rising since Sept. 21, when a mine blast on the southern side of the Demilitarized Zone injured three South Korean soldiers.

Sources: Yonhap News Agency, DW, Jiji Press

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India’s Opposition Marches on the Supreme Court to Demand the Election Chief Resign as Delhi Shuts Metro Stations and Floods Streets With Police: October 12, 2026

NEW DELHI, India — India’s opposition parties marched toward the Supreme Court in New Delhi on Monday to demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over alleged manipulation of voter rolls, as authorities closed metro stations and deployed thousands of security personnel for a third straight day, BBC News and Al Jazeera reported.

Opposition parties allege that voter-list revisions under Kumar favor Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. The Election Commission and the BJP reject the charge. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the opposition in the lower house, called on “all opposition parties, civil society groups [and] all those who believe in democracy” to join the march.

“Bring as much police as you want — 10 thousand, 20 thousand, 40 thousand, go ahead,” Gandhi wrote on X in a post aimed at Home Minister Amit Shah, according to Al Jazeera. “We are not the ones to get scared. We are not the ones to back down. This fight is not going to stop now!” The BBC reported that thousands of people lined Barakhamba Road as a bus carrying Gandhi and other leaders arrived, and that Gandhi climbed onto the roof of the bus at Mandi House to wave to crowds.

The opposition had sought to hand a memorandum to Chief Justice Surya Kant, but he declined the meeting, citing “certain reasons,” and asked them to file a petition, which they said they would do at the end of the march. “Every Indian citizen has the right to approach the court, and we will hear their concerns and grant whatever is due under the law,” he told reporters, the BBC reported.

The march follows a weekend in which police detained thousands of supporters of the youth-led Cockroach Janta Party movement who tried to reach the Jantar Mantar protest site. Reporters Without Borders said at least 16 journalists were detained, and Communist Party of India (Marxist) lawmaker John Brittas said he was “manhandled, dragged, assaulted” by police. BJP President Nitin Nabin accused the opposition and the movement of trying to destabilize India “at the behest of foreign forces,” without saying who they were.

Sources: BBC News, Al Jazeera

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