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Cargo Ship Reaches Drifting Solomon Islands Ferry MV Awka as Australian and French Aircraft Drop Water and Life Rafts to Stranded Passengers: October 11, 2026

HONIARA, Solomon Islands — A cargo ship reached the Solomon Islands ferry MV Awka early Sunday and began handing over food and water to dozens of people who have been adrift aboard since its engine failed on Friday in remote Temotu Province, ABC News (Australia) and the Solomon Star reported.

The ferry, which serves the far eastern islands under the government’s franchise shipping service, lost its main engine on Friday morning while sailing from Anuta to Vanikoro, about 100 nautical miles from its destination. The Solomon Islands Maritime Authority told ABC there were 74 passengers and 16 crew on board; the Solomon Star put the number of passengers and crew at 73.

“The urgent need was water. We’ve run out of water onboard … the ship’s water supply was used to cool the engine down when it was heating up,” passenger John Tua, a provincial government nurse, told ABC News. “We have lots of brown coconuts on board to drink, but our water is finished.” Passengers have kept in touch with relatives through the ferry’s Starlink connection.

A French aircraft from New Caledonia was first on the scene on Saturday, dropping life rafts and desalination equipment, and a Cairns-based Australian Maritime Safety Authority jet made several drops of food, water, medical supplies and communications gear. The Panama-registered bulk carrier Sunnine 3, which diverted from its route, arrived around 2 a.m. Sunday and dropped relief supplies after daybreak, the Solomon Star said. The Temotu provincial government said those aboard now had access to drinking water, food and medical provisions.

A landing craft sent from Vanikoro turned back on Saturday because of high swells, and the patrol boat Gizo was due to reach the ferry late Sunday, the Solomon Star reported. The drama comes four weeks after the inter-island ferry MV Matui sank in rough seas in neighboring Vanuatu with more than 50 people aboard; two have been confirmed dead and 39 remain missing, ABC said.

Sources: ABC News (Australia), Solomon Star

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World Brief, Evening: October 10, 2026

A Houthi strike on Riyadh’s main airport killed 12 people and hurt more than 300; President Donald Trump said Ukraine should “get a new president” as the toll from Russia’s glide bombs on Zaporizhzhia rose to 20; and Hurricane Simon is closing on Mexico’s Pacific coast as a Category 4. Ten stories as of Saturday evening, October 10.

1. Riyadh / Saudi Arabia. The blast at King Khalid International Airport this morning turned out to be the deadliest attack in any Gulf Arab country since the Iran war began. At least 12 people were killed and 309 injured, some critically, Saudi Arabia’s civil aviation authority said; the dead were four Saudis, two Bangladeshis and one person each from the U.S., Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Sudan and the Palestinian territories, Al Jazeera reported. A missile hit the complex housing domestic terminals 3 and 4, and airport operations were suspended. The Saudi-led coalition blamed Yemen’s Houthis, called it a “full-fledged war crime” and vowed to respond; a projectile also fell near King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, BBC News reported. Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed an American was among the dead, and asked whether the U.S. would join Saudi strikes on the Houthis, President Trump said: “We may. We’re going to look at it,” the Associated Press reported via NPR. It was the third attack on the airport this week. Across the Red Sea, Yemen’s Saudi-backed government forces claim to be retaking ground around the Bab al-Mandab strait, though accounts vary, according to The Guardian.

2. Zaporizhzhia / Ukraine and Washington. The death toll from Russia’s five glide bombs on residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia rose to at least 20, including four children, with 32 injured and more people believed to be under the rubble, local officials said, BBC News reported. “The ground floor was hit, and the floors above just collapsed,” acting Mayor Regina Harchenko said. Then the row with Washington got sharper. Responding to Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s criticism of his Russian diesel deal, President Trump told reporters outside the White House that “it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president,” and said of Ukraine’s strikes on Russian refineries: “He’d better damn well stop,” BBC News reported. Ukraine has been under martial law since 2022, so elections are suspended. Putin envoy Kirill Dmitriev called Trump’s remarks “iconic and historic.” In Europe, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said “this is not the time to ease pressure on Russia, and Europe won’t,” and U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham offered Zelenskyy his “complete solidarity,” The Guardian reported.

3. West-central Mexico and the U.S. Gulf Coast / Mexico and United States. Hurricane Simon was a Category 4 with 150 mph winds about 85 miles south-southwest of Manzanillo at 6 p.m. CST, drifting north at 3 mph, and is still expected to reach west-central Mexico as a major hurricane on Sunday, the National Hurricane Center said; a hurricane warning runs from Punta San Telmo to El Roblito and the Islas Marías. Businesses in Puerto Vallarta boarded up windows, and Jalisco suspended classes in 22 coastal municipalities and began evacuations, Al Jazeera reported. Farther north, Tropical Storm Rachel (65 mph) was racing north-northeast at 30 mph about 365 miles south of San Diego, with a tropical storm warning for Baja California and a watch for the Southern California coast (NHC). On the Gulf side, post-tropical Isaias is now blamed for four deaths, two in Florida and two in Alabama, and about 500,000 people were still without power on Saturday evening, BBC News reported. One Escambia County death came from a generator running in a closed garage; “Don’t run any generators inside your home,” Gov. Ron DeSantis warned, per The Guardian.

4. Erie, Pennsylvania / United States. A gunman killed eight people, including a five-year-old, a one-year-old and a woman who was eight months pregnant, at a home in Erie on Friday afternoon before apparently taking his own life, police said, BBC News reported. Two women, a relative by marriage and a family friend, were shot outside after trying to get help from neighbours; all but one of the dead were related. Police Chief Rick Lorah said a motive hasn’t been established but that “mental health is at play here.” “Some scenes stay with you long after you leave them. This is one of those scenes,” he said. The suspect had a history with law enforcement, though its nature is unclear, The Guardian reported.

5. New Delhi / India. By evening, police had detained hundreds of “Cockroach” protesters, along with journalists and lawyers, as a lockdown closed at least 45 metro stations and cancelled more than 240 trains into the capital, ABC News (Australia) reported. The UN human rights office said it was “concerned by reports of mass detentions” and called for those “arbitrarily detained” to be released immediately. The protesters, angry over a voter-roll revision that dropped about 130 million names, are demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, and some say they’re coming back. “We will come again tomorrow,” one detained protester told the ABC. Founder Abhijeet Dipke and two senior leaders were detained when their flight from Mumbai landed.

6. Tigray / Ethiopia and Eritrea. Eritrea asked the UN Security Council to “forcefully condemn Ethiopia’s deplorable declaration of war” and take “deterrent measures” under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which allows anything from sanctions to military action, Al Jazeera reported. A day earlier, Ethiopia told the council that Eritrean troops had pushed up to 60 km into Tigray in an “all-out invasion,” and said it was exercising its right to self-defence. Ethiopia’s army has retaken the regional capital, Mekelle, from TPLF rebels and says it has launched drone strikes on Eritrean troops, DW reported. Eritrean Foreign Minister Osman Saleh warned of “huge devastation to the peoples of both countries.”

7. Okinawa / Japan. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Japanese Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu to offer “sincere condolences” and promise full cooperation with the investigation into the killing of 39-year-old Anna Yagi in a hotel in Naha, the State Department said, Al Jazeera reported. Devin Jacob Ballard, a Marine stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, was arrested on October 4 on suspicion of robbery and murder; he denies it. The case set off protests, and U.S. personnel on Okinawa are under a monthlong curfew and alcohol ban while they go through discipline training.

8. North Kivu / DR Congo and Kenya. The Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo has reached another health zone, Alimbongo in North Kivu, the World Health Organization said, Al Jazeera reported. The Bundibugyo-strain outbreak has now hit 64 health zones in seven provinces, with 8,728 confirmed cases and 4,205 confirmed deaths as of October 6, a case fatality rate of about 48%. Kenya’s first imported case, a Kenyan who travelled by road through Uganda and flew to Nairobi, died on October 5, and a suspected second case in Wajir County tested negative, though monitoring continues.

9. Curitiba / Brazil. Police shot dead a man who broke into a kindergarten in the São Braz neighbourhood of the southern city of Curitiba, held 13 children hostage, spread a flammable liquid around the classroom and held a lighter, officials said, Al Jazeera reported. All 13 children were rescued; at least one was wounded. “Our negotiating teams were in place but saw no alternative but to neutralise him,” a Paraná police spokesperson said. Police said the man, who also carried a knife and what turned out to be a fake gun, suffered from schizophrenia and kept a child on his lap throughout the negotiation.

10. Temotu Province / Solomon Islands. More than 70 passengers have been adrift since Friday after the ferry MV Awka’s engine failed about 100 nautical miles from its destination on a run between the remote islands of Anuta and Vanikoro, ABC News (Australia) reported. Aircraft from Australia and New Caledonia dropped supplies and equipment, including a life raft, and a Panama-registered bulk carrier reached the ferry on Sunday morning local time and began transferring food and water, a passenger said.

Coming Up

Confirmed dates on The Watch: October 12, the Nobel economics prize, the last of this year’s Nobels. October 12–18, the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings in Bangkok, with G20 finance ministers there October 15. October 15–16, the European Council in Brussels.

Sources: Al Jazeera; BBC News; The Guardian; Associated Press; NPR; U.S. National Hurricane Center; ABC News (Australia); DW.

World Brief: October 10, 2026

Russia answered Washington’s diesel deal with glide bombs on Zaporizhzhia; three storms are working over North America at once; and New Delhi locked itself down to keep a youth protest off its streets. Ten stories as of Saturday morning, October 10.

1. Zaporizhzhia / Ukraine. Russia dropped five glide bombs on residential buildings in the south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia on Saturday morning, killing at least 15 people, including three children, and injuring at least 16, with more people believed trapped under the rubble, officials said, BBC News reported. “Today, Russia expressed its thanks for the lifting of sanctions on diesel exports by dropping five glide bombs on residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, a jab at Donald Trump’s Friday deal to buy Russian diesel. Ukraine’s largest private energy provider reported “large-scale power outages” in Kyiv. Europe isn’t following Washington’s lead: “This is not the time to ease pressure on Russia, and Europe won’t,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said, adding that foreign ministers intend on Monday to approve the biggest set of sanctions listings since the war began, and Berlin said it “remains committed” to the sanctions, The Guardian reported.

2. U.S. Gulf Coast and Pacific Mexico / United States and Mexico. Isaias weakened to a post-tropical cyclone on Saturday after coming ashore near Destin, Florida, as a Category 2. Two people were killed by falling trees, one in Escambia County, Florida, and one in Birmingham, Alabama, and more than 868,000 customers were without power across Florida, Alabama and Georgia early Saturday, The Guardian reported. Flash flooding and tornadoes are still possible. On the Pacific side, Hurricane Simon is “a dangerous Category 4” with 150 mph winds, about 115 miles south-southwest of Manzanillo as of 9 a.m. CST, and is expected to be near or just inland of west-central Mexico on Sunday, with 10–20 inches of rain and up to 30 inches in parts of Michoacán, Colima and Jalisco, the National Hurricane Center said. Farther north, Tropical Storm Rachel (60 mph) is due to move onshore in northern Baja California tonight, and a tropical storm watch now covers the Southern California coast from the Mexican border to the San Diego–Orange County line (NHC). It’s one of three storm systems hitting North America this weekend, BBC News noted.

3. New Delhi / India. Police boarded the plane carrying Abhijeet Dipke, founder of the youth-led Cockroach Janta Party, as it landed in Delhi on Saturday and detained him and other leaders before their march against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, BBC News reported. The capital was in lockdown: the Jantar Mantar protest site was sealed, trains into New Delhi were cancelled, mobile internet was suspended, and metro stations and markets were shut, Al Jazeera reported. More than 6,000 people trying to reach the site were bused away, and former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal was among those detained, according to The Guardian. The anger is over a voter-roll revision that removed about 130 million names. The Election Commission and the BJP deny any bias, and BJP spokesman Sambit Patra called it a “flop show.”

4. Riyadh / Saudi Arabia. King Khalid International Airport was evacuated on Saturday after a loud blast, two international news agencies reported, and a Reuters eyewitness saw more than a dozen ambulances rushing to the airport, BBC News reported. Saudi authorities have not commented, and the airport told passengers to check with their airlines. There was no immediate Houthi statement, though the Iran-backed group claimed this week’s earlier strikes on the airport, which killed Saudis including a Saudia pilot. Etihad and Qatar Airways have cancelled Riyadh flights, some into Monday, DW reported. This one is still developing.

5. Blue Nile / Sudan. A drone strike by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on a camp for displaced people in the Abu Shandi area near the Ethiopian border killed 41 people on Friday, the rights group Emergency Lawyers said, BBC News reported; eight children are said to be among the dead. The UN humanitarian office said it was “appalled by horrifying reports” and that most casualties appeared to be women and children, in an area that has been “under sustained attack in recent weeks.” The war between the army and the RSF has displaced more than 14 million people since 2023.

6. Ramallah and Gaza / Palestinian territories. President Mahmoud Abbas postponed what would have been the first Palestinian elections in nearly 20 years. A decree folds the legislative vote that had been set for November 28 into a joint presidential and parliamentary election on September 11, 2027, the official Wafa agency said, Al Jazeera reported. The PLO Executive Committee said Israel hadn’t allowed election materials or international observers into Gaza, while Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar accused Abbas of “fooling the international community.” On the first anniversary of the U.S.-backed ceasefire, at least seven people, including an eight-year-old girl, were killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza, and the Health Ministry says 1,481 Palestinians have been killed since the truce took effect, Al Jazeera reported.

7. Taipei / Taiwan. “Our aim in increasing investment in national defence is not to provoke, but to deter war,” President Lai Ching-te said in his National Day address outside the Presidential Office. His government has budgeted a record NT$1.1 trillion (about $34.5 billion) for defence in 2027, more than 3% of GDP, DW reported. Lai welcomed U.S.-China talks but said Beijing must respect “the right of the people of Taiwan to exist,” and he accused China of using military and grey-zone pressure to change the status quo, Focus Taiwan (CNA) reported. A senior U.S. official said “a routine speech is no justification for aggressive or coercive actions.” Saturday marked 115 years since the 1911 revolution.

8. Vatican City / Holy See and United States. On the World Day Against the Death Penalty, Pope Leo XIV posted that capital punishment “is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,” Vatican News reported. The American pope didn’t name the case, but the post came hours after Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, called the Pentagon’s plan to livestream the December 3 firing-squad execution of Fort Hood gunman Nidal Hasan “unacceptable,” saying “it is certainly unacceptable to turn death into a spectacle.” Back in Washington, Vice President JD Vance said “I don’t know that that’s actually going to happen,” while President Trump said he “absolutely” approved of the plan, BBC News reported.

9. Santiago / Chile. Las Condes, the eastern Santiago district hit by mudslides, has been declared a disaster zone, and more than 1,000 residents have been evacuated, Al Jazeera reported. Thursday’s torrents swept cars through the streets and injured at least six people, including a one-year-old, and President José Antonio Kast declared a state of emergency for the district. Mayor Catalina San Martín said 14.4 cm (5.7 inches) of rain had fallen in recent days, about nine times the October average, and the Mapocho River overflowed, the Associated Press reported via NBC News. The World Meteorological Organization says this El Niño could be among the most intense since 1950.

10. Suva / Fiji. Fiji’s government has told Washington to show its evidence after the U.S. State Department accused Zhao Fugang, director of the Overseas Chinese Service Center in Suva, of “significant corruption,” saying he paid bribes to advance Chinese government, business and criminal interests. Zhao, a prominent local businessman, denied it. “Allegations do not constitute proof of wrongdoing,” the government said on Facebook, insisting any case be handled through Fijian law enforcement, AFP reported via The Manila Times. A 2024 investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project had described Zhao as a key point man for Beijing’s interests in Fiji.

Coming Up

Confirmed dates on The Watch: October 12, the Nobel economics prize, the last of this year’s Nobels. October 12–18, the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings in Bangkok, with G20 finance ministers there October 15. October 15–16, the European Council in Brussels.

Sources: BBC News; The Guardian; Al Jazeera; DW; U.S. National Hurricane Center; Focus Taiwan (CNA); Vatican News; Associated Press; AFP.

Mexican Court Convicts Three Men of Murdering Australian Surfers Jake and Callum Robinson and American Carter Rhoad: October 10, 2026

ENSENADA, Mexico — A Mexican court on Friday found three men guilty of murdering Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Carter Rhoad, who were shot dead during a surfing trip in Baja California in 2024, BBC News, The Guardian and DW reported.

The defendants, identified for legal reasons only by their first names — Jesús Gerardo, known as “El Kekas,” who was accused of leading the attack, Irineo Francisco and Ángel Jesús — were convicted in the coastal city of Ensenada. The judge ruled that they had acted with premeditation. Prosecutors asked for 210 years in prison for each, although the maximum sentence in Baja California is 60 years, and sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 16, The Guardian said.

Jake, 30, Callum, 33, and Rhoad, 30, were camping in a remote beach area in April 2024 when they were attacked in an apparent botched robbery of their truck. Their bodies were found days later in a well, with gunshot wounds to their heads. In November 2025, Ary Gisell Silva, then the girlfriend of the main defendant, was sentenced to 20 years in prison after admitting she instigated the robbery.

Debra Robinson, the brothers’ mother, burst into tears as the verdict was read. “They took our sons from our lives forever,” she had told the court. “What hurts us most is that, in their final hours, they were treated with such cruelty.” Their father, Martin Robinson, said outside court: “No outcome can ever undo this tragedy, but we hope today marks an important step towards justice,” according to The Guardian. Rhoad’s fiancée, Natalie Weirtz, who joined by video link from the United States, said the accused “must be punished so that no other family suffers the same pain.”

The killings drew outrage in Australia and the United States. Baja California is one of Mexico’s most violent states, though cartel activity does not usually affect tourists, DW said. The family has set up the Callum and Jake Robinson Foundation to carry on their sons’ legacy.

Sources: BBC News, The Guardian, DW

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World Brief, Evening: October 9, 2026

Hurricane Isaias came ashore near Destin, Florida; a magnitude 7.7 earthquake shook Panama; and President Donald Trump struck a diesel deal with Vladimir Putin that Ukraine’s president called a gift to the Kremlin. Ten stories as of Friday evening, October 9.

1. Destin, Florida / United States. Isaias made landfall near Destin on the western Florida Panhandle at 8:30 p.m. CDT with maximum winds near 105 mph, a high-end Category 2 after peaking as a Category 3 earlier in the day, the National Hurricane Center said. By 9 p.m. CDT it was about 50 miles east of Pensacola with 100 mph winds, moving north at 19 mph toward Alabama and the Tennessee Valley. Forecasters warned of life-threatening storm surge of 6–9 feet between the Alabama-Florida line and Grayton Beach, and 4–8 inches of rain, locally up to 15. A gust of 102 mph was recorded at Pensacola City Hall, The Guardian reported, and Gov. Ron DeSantis told residents: “The storm is here. Buckle down at this point.” Even before landfall more than 350,000 customers in Florida and 170,000 in Alabama had lost power, BBC News reported. Isaias is the Atlantic’s first hurricane of the season, and two Pacific storms, Hurricane Simon and Tropical Storm Rachel, are also heading for Mexico and the U.S.-Mexico border this weekend.

2. Herrera province / Panama. A shallow magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck south-central Panama just before 3 p.m. local time, centred about 10 km from the remote community of Pitaloza Arriba, and about 4.6 million people felt moderate to severe shaking, BBC News reported, citing the U.S. Geological Survey. A second quake of magnitude 6.6 followed. “We are facing a major disaster,” President José Raúl Mulino said, adding that some roads had “completely collapsed.” Part of the cathedral in Penonomé collapsed, and civil protection officials reported several injuries and damage concentrated in Veraguas, Herrera and Los Santos provinces, DW reported. No deaths had been reported by Friday evening. Tsunami warnings went out across Central and South America, from Guatemala to Chile, Al Jazeera reported, before being lifted later Friday. The Panama Canal kept operating and Tocumen airport reopened after a brief halt, according to The Guardian.

3. Washington and Moscow / United States and Russia. After a 90-minute call with Putin, Trump announced that Russia would immediately supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel “to the American and Global Marketplace,” followed by 500,000 tons in November and a million tons after that, and the U.S. Treasury issued a temporary licence letting Russian diesel into the market, BBC News reported. U.S. diesel averages about $6.28 a gallon. President Volodymyr Zelensky called the deal “an investment in a war that must be ended, not prolonged,” said it “looks like a happy birthday present for Putin,” and said Ukraine’s negotiators, meeting Trump’s envoys in Miami, had been “used as a smokescreen,” The Guardian reported. Senate Democrats and Republican Rep. Don Bacon criticised the move. On the same call, Putin said trilateral peace talks were unlikely to resume right away, citing Ukrainian drone attacks on Moscow during last month’s elections, the Kremlin said, according to Al Jazeera.

4. The Hague / Netherlands. Washington’s allies pushed back on this morning’s U.S. sanctions against the International Criminal Court. Britain, Canada, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and the Netherlands said they “regret and strongly disagree with” the measures and reaffirmed their “continued and unwavering support” for the court, BBC News reported. UN Secretary-General António Guterres called it “a serious blow to our collective pursuit of international criminal justice,” and UN rights chief Volker Türk called the sanctions “unacceptable,” Al Jazeera reported. A six-month grace period lets member states keep paying for the court’s work in the meantime. At a rally in Syracuse, New York, Trump said the U.S. should have won the Nobel Peace Prize that went to Navi Pillay and warned, “We will not forget, Norway,” according to The Guardian.

5. Abu Dhabi / United Arab Emirates. The flydubai co-pilot who tried to seize a Dubai–Tel Aviv flight on September 30 planned a suicide attack on the passenger terminal at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport, inspired by the 9/11 attacks, UAE Attorney General Hamad Saif al-Shamsi said, Al Jazeera reported. Prosecutors said the 29-year-old used two earlier flights to Tel Aviv to learn the route and the airport, admitted acting alone, and showed the first signs of drifting toward extremism in 2017 while studying in Australia. Reuters and the AP have identified him as Omani national Hammam al-Hammami. He attacked the Indian captain, who still managed to open the cockpit door so passengers could overpower him, and an off-duty pilot landed the plane safely in Saudi Arabia, The Guardian reported. Australia and New Zealand are investigating his time in their countries.

6. Gaza / Palestinian territories. A year after the U.S.-brokered ceasefire, more than 100 aid and rights groups, including Amnesty International, Save the Children, Oxfam and the Norwegian Refugee Council, said it “exists in name only,” with Israeli forces still killing Palestinians daily and restrictions on aid and building materials blocking recovery, Al Jazeera reported. The groups said Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, including at least 327 children, since the truce took effect. “It is utterly shameful that a full year after the ceasefire was signed, so little has improved,” NRC chief Jan Egeland said. Gaza’s health ministry says more than 18,500 patients need medical evacuation. The ceasefire anniversary falls on Saturday.

7. Rumbek / South Sudan. About 71 people, including four soldiers, were killed in intercommunal clashes in Rumbek, the capital of Lakes State, South Sudan’s caretaker government said, adding that the toll has not been verified, Al Jazeera reported. Witnesses told AFP that a group from outside the town briefly took control before police and army reinforcements arrived. The government says the town is back under its control and urged communities to avoid retaliation. It comes weeks after President Salva Kiir dissolved the transitional government ahead of the country’s first national elections since independence in 2011.

8. Nairobi / Kenya. Africa CDC has pieced together how Kenya’s first Ebola patient, a 40-year-old businessman, travelled for weeks while ill through DR Congo, including hard-hit North Kivu, then through Uganda and on to Nairobi without being flagged, BBC News reported. He was first treated for a skin infection, passed temperature screening at Entebbe airport, and was only diagnosed with the Bundibugyo strain after arriving gravely ill at Nairobi Hospital. He died on October 5. Kenya has identified 66 possible contacts, and the WHO expects that number to rise. More than 4,000 people have died of Ebola in DR Congo this year, the second deadliest outbreak on record.

9. Brasília / Brazil. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government scrapped federal taxes on gasoline imports and sales for 30 days and added a new 1.40-real-per-litre subsidy for diesel importers on top of the existing one, just over two weeks before the October 25 runoff against Flávio Bolsonaro, the Associated Press reported via Yahoo Finance. The government said refining margins have more than doubled since the Iran war began and that oil revenues will cover the cost. Bolsonaro finished about 2 million votes ahead of Lula in Sunday’s first round, and diesel prices matter to Brazil’s truckers, whose 2018 strike emptied shelves and filling stations.

10. Nuku’alofa / Tonga. The Tonga Meteorological Service declared drought across the kingdom’s major islands, including Tongatapu, Ha’apai, ’Eua and Niuatoputapu, with remote Niuafo’ou on a drought warning and Vava’u on alert, RNZ Pacific reported. Chief climate officer Seluvaia Ilolahia said El Niño is “still very strong” and likely to peak around November to December, and the impacts may outlast it. Warnings will stay in place for the next three months as the National Disaster Office works with the Red Cross and other groups to get water to communities.

Coming Up

Confirmed dates on The Watch: October 12 — the Nobel economics prize, the last of this year’s Nobels. October 12–18 — IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings in Bangkok, with G20 finance ministers there October 15. October 15–16 — European Council in Brussels.

Sources: U.S. National Hurricane Center; BBC News; The Guardian; Al Jazeera; DW; Associated Press; RNZ Pacific.

World Brief: October 9, 2026

Hurricane Isaias became a major Category 3 storm hours before landfall; South African jurist Navi Pillay won the Nobel Peace Prize; and within hours Washington sanctioned the international court she once sat on. Ten stories as of Friday morning, October 9.

1. Northern Gulf Coast / United States. Isaias strengthened into a major hurricane early Friday after an Air Force Reserve hurricane hunter found maximum sustained winds of 120 mph, and as of 10 a.m. CDT it was about 195 miles south of Pensacola, moving north-northeast at 16 mph, the National Hurricane Center said. The center is expected to reach the western Florida Panhandle coast this evening at or near major-hurricane strength. A hurricane warning runs from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, to the Bay/Gulf County line in Florida, and a storm surge warning from the mouth of the Mississippi River to the Suwannee River; the NHC forecasts 6–9 feet of surge from the Alabama-Florida border to Grayton Beach. Alabama and Florida have declared states of emergency, as have several south Mississippi cities and counties; Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey ordered non-residents off Dauphin Island, Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, and about 63% of Gulf oil output had been shut in as of Thursday, The Guardian reported. “Preparations should be rushed to completion as the weather will go downhill quickly today,” forecasters said, Al Jazeera reported.

2. Oslo / South Africa. Former UN human rights chief and International Court of Justice judge Navi Pillay, 85, won the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize “for her efforts to promote peace and international law,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said, BBC News reported. She is South Africa’s fifth peace laureate, after Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu among others. The committee couldn’t reach her in advance; she heard the news at a meeting of jurists in Nuremberg’s Palace of Justice and said “it must be a joke.” Pillay chaired the UN commission of inquiry that concluded last year that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza, and Israel’s Foreign Ministry called the award a “grotesque weaponization” of the prize, The Guardian reported. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and UN rights chief Volker Türk praised the choice.

3. Washington and The Hague / United States. Hours after the Nobel announcement, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States is sanctioning the International Criminal Court itself, not just its judges and prosecutors. “We will ban transactions with this rogue court, cutting off their resources and crippling their ability to operate against us,” Rubio said in a video, adding: “Either the ICC will end its threats, or we will end the ICC,” The Guardian reported. The court called it “an assault on the rule of law,” and deputy prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan said its work would continue, Al Jazeera reported. ICC President Tomoko Akane, already under U.S. sanctions, said the court would keep working “for the sake of the countless victims of grave crimes,” according to DW. Pillay was an ICC judge from 2003 to 2012.

4. Tigray / Ethiopia. Ethiopia told the UN Security Council that Eritrea has launched an “all-out invasion” of its northern Tigray region, with troops advancing up to 60 km, calling it “a blatant act of aggression that engages Ethiopia’s inherent right to self-defence,” BBC News reported. Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel answered that his country faces “an unprovoked war of aggression” and accused Addis Ababa of eyeing the Eritrean port of Assab, Al Jazeera reported. Conflict monitor ACLED said Eritrean troops and ammunition in Adigrat were hit by multiple drone strikes overnight, and witnesses told AFP the Eritrean forces appeared to be pulling back north. No casualties have been verified. The two countries cut diplomatic ties last week.

5. Riyadh / Saudi Arabia. Three Saudi nationals were killed, including a Saudia pilot, Capt. Hamoud Ali Alkalthami, in two Houthi-claimed attacks on King Khalid International Airport on Thursday, one on airport facilities and one on a Saudia aircraft on the ground, Saudi authorities said, BBC News and The Guardian reported. It was the deadliest attack inside the kingdom since Saudi Arabia and its Yemeni allies launched a new offensive against the Houthis last weekend. The coalition said it destroyed three rocket launch platforms and vowed a “firm response.” Lufthansa Group suspended Riyadh flights through October 16 and Europe’s aviation safety agency widened its airspace warning, DW reported.

6. Kaluga / Russia and Ukraine. Ukrainian drones partly knocked out a Yandex AI data centre in Russia’s Kaluga region on Friday, a day after a strike shut a major company data hub in Sasovo, Ryazan region, where two of its three AI supercomputers are housed, Al Jazeera reported. “We always respond in mirror-like fashion,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said, pointing to Russian strikes on Ukrainian data centres. Kyiv’s General Staff also said it hit missile-production sites in the Tver and Nizhny Novgorod regions, while overnight Russian strikes killed one person in Zaporizhzhia. In Kyiv, a September Gradus survey found 40% of Ukrainians would consider relocating if conditions keep worsening, and some families are already leaving before winter, BBC News reported.

7. Beijing / China and the European Union. China agreed to curb hybrid car exports to the EU in what Brussels called a first-of-its-kind deal that “opens the prospect of cutting China’s export [of hybrids] by more than a half,” EU trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič told reporters in Beijing, The Guardian reported. He said the reduction amounts to “several millions” of plug-in and other hybrid cars over four years, and called it “a crucial first step, but only a first step.” China’s commerce ministry said it would keep facilitating export licences for rare earths and magnets bound for the EU. Šefčovič briefs EU diplomats Sunday ahead of next week’s leaders’ summit.

8. Brasília / Brazil. Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes issued an arrest warrant for Eduardo Bolsonaro, brother of presidential front-runner Flávio Bolsonaro, and ordered him to start serving his four-year sentence for lobbying the U.S. to interfere in their father’s coup trial, the Associated Press reported via Al Jazeera. Eduardo, 42, lives in Texas on a green card; Moraes also cancelled his Brazilian passport. “The defendant cannot benefit from his own wrongdoing by fleeing the national territory,” Moraes wrote. The ruling lands just over two weeks before the October 25 runoff between Flávio Bolsonaro and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

9. New Delhi / India. India’s capital has been turned into a fortress, with train and metro cancellations, barricades and heavy policing ahead of Saturday’s planned march by the youth-led Cockroach Janta Party against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, DW reported. A CJP spokesperson said “at least 10,000” activists and opposition supporters have been detained nationwide; police did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment, The Guardian reported. The anger centres on a voter-roll revision that has removed more than 130 million names. The Election Commission says it is clearing duplicate and ineligible entries.

10. Nadi / Fiji. The Pacific pre-COP meeting in Fiji wrapped up with COP31 president-designate Murat Kurum, Türkiye’s climate minister, saying wealthy countries should spend “much more” on climate than the 5% of GDP NATO members have pledged for defence, because “the climate issue is the security issue,” The Guardian reported. Kurum hedged on repeating the pledge to “transition away from fossil fuels” at the Antalya summit next month. Australia’s climate minister Chris Bowen said only 0.2% of global climate finance goes to helping small island states adapt. Only 13 national leaders joined Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Nadi, most of them from the Pacific.

Coming Up

Confirmed dates on The Watch: October 12 — the Nobel economics prize, the last of this year’s Nobels (peace went to Navi Pillay today). October 12–18 — IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings in Bangkok, with G20 finance ministers there October 15. October 15–16 — European Council in Brussels.

Sources: U.S. National Hurricane Center; BBC News; The Guardian; Al Jazeera; DW; Associated Press.

Nvidia-Backed Firmus Scraps What Would Have Been Australia’s Biggest Share Listing Since Telstra: October 9, 2026

SYDNEY — Firmus Technologies, an Nvidia-backed builder of artificial intelligence data centers, has scrapped plans for what was set to be Australia’s biggest stock market listing in decades, citing “recent market volatility and prevailing market conditions,” BBC News and The Guardian reported.

“Firmus will now pursue capital from the private markets and consider alternative public and private market options,” the company said Friday. Its bankers had aimed to raise A$7 billion at A$11 a share ahead of a listing on the Australian Securities Exchange on Oct. 23, Guardian Australia reported, with an anticipated valuation of A$44 billion — more than US$30 billion, according to the BBC. It would have been the largest ASX debut since Telstra in 1997.

Firmus builds liquid-cooled data centers it calls “AI factories” for clients including OpenAI and Meta, and is backed by Nvidia, Blackstone and Jane Street. But investors balked at its valuation for a startup with just two small operating sites, The Guardian said. “We think that Firmus indeed has a compelling story. It just doesn’t have a compelling valuation,” John Pearce, chief investment officer of the pension fund UniSuper, which declined to take part, told the BBC.

The retreat has rattled other parts of the market: shares in Firmus investor Maas Group plunged more than 20 percent on Thursday, and data center operator CDC this week ended a deal with Firmus known as Project Southgate. The decision comes as investors question the hundreds of billions of dollars being poured into AI. “It’s more like a bet on a dream,” said Phillip Wool of Rayliant Investment Research.

Sources: BBC News, The Guardian

—

World Brief, Evening: October 8, 2026

A Russian glide bomb tore through passenger buses in Kramatorsk; Hurricane Isaias hit 100 mph as the Gulf Coast raced to finish preparations; and Canadian poet Anne Carson took the Nobel Prize in Literature. Ten stories as of Thursday evening, October 8.

1. Kramatorsk / Ukraine. At least 30 people were killed and 18 wounded when a Russian glide bomb struck two civilian buses in the eastern front-line city of Kramatorsk, rescue officials said, BBC News reported. Donetsk regional head Vadym Filashkin said three more people were killed in the village of Bilenke, part of the same community, and ordered all public transport stopped so authorities would not “risk the lives of passengers and drivers.” President Volodymyr Zelensky said the strike “will not go without our response,” calling on the world to react “harshly.” The attack followed Wednesday’s missile strike on a five-storey apartment block in Pryluky, east of Kyiv, that killed 22 people, including five children — three of them one-year-olds. Visiting the Pryluky site with Zelensky, UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced further sanctions on Russia’s war machine, shadow fleet, oil companies and crypto financing.

2. Northern Gulf Coast / United States. Hurricane Isaias, the Atlantic season’s first hurricane, had maximum sustained winds of 100 mph as of 7 p.m. CDT Thursday, about 290 miles south of the mouth of the Mississippi River, the National Hurricane Center said. Hurricane hunters earlier found the same intensity at 4 p.m., and forecasters expect additional strengthening overnight before landfall on the northern Gulf Coast late Friday or early Saturday. A hurricane warning runs from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, to the Bay/Gulf County line in Florida; a storm surge warning from the mouth of the Mississippi River to the Suwannee River; and a tropical storm warning on either flank. The NHC warns of 5–7 feet of surge from Ocean Springs to Indian Pass, including Mobile Bay, and 4–8 inches of rain across southern Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, with local totals up to 15 inches.

3. Stockholm / Canada. The Swedish Academy awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature to Canadian poet, essayist and translator Anne Carson, 76, “for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature,” the Nobel Foundation said. Born in Toronto, Carson lives in Michigan and has held Icelandic citizenship since 2022; she joked to Icelandic broadcaster RÚV that the judges were “crazy” for honouring her, BBC News reported. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called it “an extraordinary achievement and a proud moment for Canada.”

4. Talagante / Chile. Police helicopters plucked 17 people — four children and 13 adults — from an islet in the Mapocho River after it burst its banks and flooded riverside neighbourhoods in Talagante, about 35 km southwest of Santiago, BBC News and 24 Horas reported. About 200 homes were inundated and roughly 100 people were evacuated from a riverside camp; one person was found dead in a flooded underpass in San Bernardo, though the cause of death was not yet confirmed. Santiago has had 74 mm of rain in the first seven days of October — the rainiest October start in 76 years — with meteorologists tying the downpours to a strong El Niño.

5. Rome / Italy. Italy’s parliament voted 227 to 164 for Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s contested electoral overhaul, shifting to a fully proportional system and awarding a bonus of up to 105 seats — 70 in the Chamber and 35 in the Senate — to any party or coalition that clears 42% in both houses, BBC News and Al Jazeera reported. Meloni, whose government is Italy’s longest-running since World War II, framed the change as a path to stable majorities; opposition parties called it a “scam” designed to lock in her right-wing coalition before elections due next year. She had warned she could resign if the bill failed.

6. Adigrat / Ethiopia. Eritrean soldiers have entered the northern Tigray towns of Adigrat and Idaga Hamus, a commander allied with Ethiopia’s federal government told the Associated Press, as the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project said Eritrean troops crossed at Zelambesa on Wednesday and came under drone attack at Guada on their way toward Idaga Hamus — strikes ACLED attributed to Ethiopia’s military. Witnesses also reported suspected Ethiopian drone strikes on Eritrean positions. Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel said Asmara was “not in the business of refuting wild allegations,” without confirming or denying a border crossing. Ethiopia and Eritrea severed diplomatic relations last week as fighting between federal forces and a Tigrayan opposition alliance, including the TPLF, resumed.

7. Imo State / Nigeria. Nigerian police say they have rescued 20 young National Youth Service Corps graduates who were abducted on October 1 while travelling from Ibadan toward orientation camps in Abia and Akwa Ibom states, BBC News reported. Spokesman Ani Iniedu said the group was recovered at Amakohia Ubi in Imo State after an intelligence-led search and taken for medical evaluation; he did not say whether a ransom was paid or anyone was arrested. Before the rescue, the father of one abductee told the BBC kidnappers had demanded 50 million naira (about $37,700), which he could not afford. The episode has renewed alarm over highway kidnapping in the southeast.

8. Seoul / South Korea. South Korea said it will recall its ambassador to Ukraine in a diplomatic row over Kyiv’s public disclosure that two captured North Korean soldiers had been transferred to Seoul, BBC News reported. Seoul says Ukraine broke an understanding to keep the transfer secret; Zelensky’s office says there was no non-disclosure agreement. Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said a Ukrainian apology fell short of expectations. Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi replied that “diplomacy should prevail over emotions” and that Kyiv remains open to restoring dialogue.

9. Tokyo / Japan. Japan’s Fair Trade Commission raided the country’s biggest beer makers — Asahi, Kirin, Sapporo and Suntory Spirits — over suspicions they colluded to raise beverage prices, BBC News and The Guardian reported. Local reporting ties the probe to coordinated increases in October 2022 and April 2025. All four firms said they would fully cooperate; Asahi, Kirin and Sapporo shares fell on the news.

10. Suva / Fiji. The U.S. State Department designated prominent Fiji-based businessman Zhao Fugang for “significant corruption,” saying he paid bribes to advance “China-based government, business, and criminal interests,” RNZ Pacific reported. The designation bars Zhao and his immediate family from entering the United States. Zhao, owner of Suva’s Yue Lai Hotel and its Overseas Chinese Service Center, denied the allegations through his lawyers and said he had requested further particulars from the department.

Coming Up

Confirmed dates on The Watch: October 9 and 12 — Nobel Prizes in peace (Oslo) and economics (literature went to Anne Carson today). October 12–18 — IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings in Bangkok, with G20 finance ministers there October 15. October 15–16 — European Council in Brussels. October 25 — Brazil’s presidential runoff.

Sources: BBC News; U.S. National Hurricane Center; NobelPrize.org; 24 Horas (Chile); Al Jazeera; Associated Press; RNZ Pacific; The Guardian.

U.S. Accuses Prominent Fiji Businessman Zhao Fugang of Bribery to Advance China’s Interests: October 8, 2026

SUVA, Fiji — The United States on Wednesday designated Zhao Fugang, a prominent businessman in Fiji, for “significant corruption” on behalf of Chinese government, business and criminal interests, barring him and his immediate family from entering the U.S., RNZ Pacific and AFP reported.

“Zhao abused his public position by paying bribes to Fijian citizens to advance China-based government, business, and criminal interests,” State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said, according to AFP. “His actions constituted significant corruption and adversely affected US interests in Fiji.” Zhao is director of the Overseas Chinese Service Center in Suva and owns the Yue Lai Hotel, where the center is located.

Zhao denied the allegations. “They are unsubstantiated,” he said in a statement from his lawyers, according to AFP. “I have not been questioned by any Fijian authority about these matters, and no charge has been laid against me.” He said he had written to U.S. officials asking for details of the allegations. The U.S. Embassy in Suva said his actions had left Fiji open to “malign foreign influence” by Chinese government, business and criminal actors.

A 2024 investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project alleged that Zhao was a key point man for Beijing’s interests in Fiji and that Australian law enforcement suspected him of being a top player in a syndicate linked to human trafficking, money laundering and drug smuggling, AFP said. His lawyer called those claims “false and misleading.” China’s embassy in Suva did not respond to AFP. The U.S. also issued corruption designations this year against Palauan politicians Hokkons Baules and Anderson Jibas, RNZ reported.

Sources: RNZ Pacific, AFP

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World Brief, Evening: October 7, 2026

Rescuers in Pryluky pulled a fifth child from the rubble as Ukraine’s death toll from Russia’s birthday barrage climbed to 25; hurricane watches went up along the U.S. Gulf Coast for a fast-strengthening Isaias; and the WHO said it still doesn’t have “the full picture” from Moscow on the Siberian plague scare. Ten stories as of Wednesday evening, October 7.

1. Pryluky / Ukraine. The toll from a Russian missile strike on a five-storey apartment block in Pryluky, east of Kyiv, rose through the day to 19 dead, including five children — three of them one-year-olds — with 30 flats destroyed as families slept, BBC News reported. One boy, Sasha, died with his mother and grandmother; only his older sister survived. Nationwide, Wednesday’s death toll reached 25, with two killed each in Kyiv, Kremenchuk and Oleksandriya, and more than 430 homes damaged in Kremenchuk. Chernihiv regional head Vyacheslav Chaus said Pryluky was hit by five cruise missiles. Ukraine’s air force said it downed five ballistic and 39 cruise missiles and more than 100 drones, meaning as many as 26 missiles got through, and President Volodymyr Zelensky renewed his call for air defence. Moscow said its “massive strike” targeted military industries and did not mention Pryluky. Separately, NATO said its Military Committee — the military representatives of all 32 allies, led by Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone — visited Kyiv on Tuesday, its first official visit in eight years.

2. Northern Gulf Coast / United States and Mexico. Tropical Storm Isaias was quickly intensifying over the southwestern Gulf on Wednesday evening, with 65mph winds about 200 miles west-northwest of Progreso, Mexico, and is forecast to become a hurricane by Thursday morning and make landfall on the U.S. northern Gulf Coast late Friday or early Saturday, the National Hurricane Center said. A hurricane watch now runs from Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, to Indian Pass, Florida, and a storm surge watch from the mouth of the Mississippi River to Yankeetown, Florida. Forecasters warned of 5–7 feet of surge from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, to Indian Pass, including Mobile Bay, and 3–7 inches of rain, locally up to 10, from far southeastern Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle. Isaias would be the Atlantic season’s first hurricane.

3. Irkutsk / Russia. “We don’t yet have the full picture of this event and we’re not able to conduct a full risk assessment,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday of the death of 28-year-old Darya Shipilova, a worker at Irkutsk’s anti-plague institute, The Guardian reported. The WHO has asked Moscow about media reports of a second employee with pneumonia of undetermined cause; Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said “the vast majority” of media reporting on the case was “false information,” Al Jazeera reported. Russia has not confirmed pneumonic plague and says there is no epidemic risk. President Donald Trump said he has a call set up with Vladimir Putin and doesn’t believe it is a bioweapon — “we’re going to find out soon enough, but we don’t think so,” he told reporters, per BBC News — though Peskov said no call had been scheduled. The CDC called the risk to the U.S. “extremely low.”

4. Strait of Hormuz / Iran. Attacks on tankers around the Strait of Hormuz hit their highest weekly count since the U.S.–Iran war began on February 28 — at least 12 on oil, LNG and LPG tankers in the week of September 28–October 5, according to maritime security sources cited by Reuters. Speaking in Athens, Secretary of State Marco Rubio nonetheless said Iran had “lost complete control” of the strait because “there’s almost as much oil flowing out now as there was before this conflict began,” CBS News reported, while Vice President JD Vance said Tehran must make a “meaningful” reduction in its enrichment capacity — a possible softening of the earlier demand for no enrichment at all, Al Jazeera said. Oil rose on the attack reports, then fell back after International Energy Agency members said they stand ready to release more reserves, prioritising diesel, and Wall Street closed lower, Al Jazeera reported.

5. Riyadh and Abha / Saudi Arabia. Houthi attacks on two Saudi airports on Tuesday and Wednesday killed three people and injured 36, Saudi Arabia’s civil aviation authority said, Al Jazeera reported. Two foreign residents were killed and 28 people hurt at Abha International Airport, and a Sudanese man was killed and eight injured at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh. In Yemen, Houthi forces appeared to be making slow advances toward the city of Taiz and fired at the airport in Aden, the government’s main hub, moments before a flight from Cairo was due to land, forcing it to divert to Jeddah, The Guardian reported.

6. Adigrat / Ethiopia. Eritrean troops have crossed into northern Ethiopia and are moving deep into Tigray, residents of the town of Adigrat told BBC News. “I saw about 40 trucks carrying soldiers. The convoy was moving south,” one resident said; others described convoys with Eritrean plates heading toward Edaga Hamus, between Adigrat and the regional capital Mekelle, which national army troops took over at the weekend after Tigrayan forces withdrew. The BBC said it has not independently verified the movements. Fighting broke out two weeks ago between the federal army and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, each blaming the other for breaking the 2022 peace deal, and Ethiopia and Eritrea severed diplomatic relations last week. Eritrean troops fought alongside Ethiopia’s army in the 2020–22 war and were accused of atrocities.

7. Madrid / Spain. Maricarmen Abascal, the 87-year-old whose eviction from her Madrid flat of more than 70 years sparked nationwide housing protests and helped trigger a snap election, has died, the Madrid Tenants’ Union said, BBC News reported. No cause of death was given. The firm that owned the flat, which had raised her rent from €500 to €2,650 a month, later offered to let her return at a lower rate, but she was in hospital. Mourners lit candles in Puerta del Sol, where an encampment is on its 12th night, and a few hundred marched toward Congress. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez wrote “Rest in peace,” and opposition leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo also offered condolences, The Guardian reported. Spain votes November 29.

8. Rio de Janeiro / Brazil. Thousands joined a student-led march in Rio on Wednesday against the prospect of a Flávio Bolsonaro presidency, three days after the far-right candidate topped the first round by about two million votes over President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, DW reported. Marchers carried signs reading “Brazil isn’t anyone’s backyard” and “Never again Bolsonaro.” “We’re fighting for Brazil, not for Lula,” 19-year-old student Talita Amaral told the Associated Press. Witnesses said the crowd was bigger and livelier than Lula’s own rally on the same street on Friday. Bolsonaro, son of jailed ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, is considered the favourite in the October 25 runoff.

9. Wellington / New Zealand. Greenhouse gases in New Zealand’s atmosphere are at record levels and the country faces more frequent and intense heatwaves and steep glacier loss, a government report released Wednesday found, The Guardian reported. Our Atmosphere and Climate 2026, from the environment ministry and Stats NZ, says the annual average temperature has risen 1.36C since records began in 1909, seven of the 10 warmest years came in the last decade, carbon dioxide is up 30% since monitoring began in 1972, and the country’s roughly 3,000 glaciers shrank from 56 to 30 cubic kilometres between 1997 and 2023. “The signal is just becoming clearer,” chief science adviser Dr Alison Collins said.

10. West Antarctic Peninsula / Antarctica. Penguin poop is fertilising green snow algae blooms along the Antarctic Peninsula and speeding up snowmelt, a study published Wednesday in the American Geophysical Union’s Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences found, AGU said. Researchers sampled red and green snow over five degrees of latitude and found far more phosphate — a key nutrient in guano — where algae were green. Red snow absorbs about 20% more energy from sunlight than clean snow; green snow about 40% more. “Without accounting for these biological darkening effects, we are likely underestimating how rapidly coastal snowpacks are melting,” said senior author Alia Khan of the University of Colorado Boulder.

Coming Up

Confirmed dates on The Watch: October 8, 9 and 12 — Nobel Prizes in literature, peace (Oslo) and economics. October 8 — New Zealand candidate nominations close at noon. October 12–18 — IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings in Bangkok, with G20 finance ministers there October 15. October 15–16 — European Council in Brussels.

Sources: BBC News; NATO; U.S. National Hurricane Center; The Guardian; Al Jazeera; Reuters (via The Straits Times); CBS News; Saudi General Authority of Civil Aviation (via Al Jazeera); DW; Associated Press (as cited by DW); Stats NZ / New Zealand environment ministry (via The Guardian); American Geophysical Union.