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World Brief, Evening: October 30, 2026

Europe won’t pose next to Russia’s foreign minister in Atlanta, so the G20 skips its group photo. Washington clears 500 Patriot interceptors for Kyiv while hundreds of people get out of occupied Oleshky. Oman pulls 25 sailors off a burning tanker in Hormuz. Riot police guard Poland’s top court, Congo’s Ebola toll passes 5,000, and Canada edges toward the EU. Plus Brazil versus Argentina over the Bolsonaro escape, a nature deal in Yerevan, sturdier ice in East Antarctica, and a historic night for Samoa. Ten stories as of Friday evening, October 30.

1. Atlanta / United States. The G20 foreign ministers’ meeting opened Friday without its usual “family photo.” European diplomats refused to stand next to Russia’s Sergei Lavrov, so the American hosts dropped the picture. A US official said it was cancelled “after it became clear some of the delegations were unwilling to participate in a joint photo,” the BBC reports. In the room, UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband told Lavrov: “We all know who the aggressor in this war is.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is hosting. He opened by asking members to work together on threats to trade, energy, food supplies and freedom of navigation. No joint statement is expected. Washington plans to issue a chair’s summary instead, Al Jazeera reports. Ukraine wasn’t invited, China sent Executive Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu instead of Wang Yi, and South Africa is shut out. The talks run through Saturday. G20 leaders meet next in Miami, December 14–15.

2. Washington / United States; Kyiv and Oleshky / Ukraine. The State Department approved the sale of 500 PAC-3 Patriot interceptors to Ukraine, worth $2.1bn. Canada, Germany and Norway are paying, along with EU loan money, and “no US funds are involved,” the BBC reports. The catch is time. Patriots are slow to build, only about 600 a year according to the Pentagon, and Zelensky warned deliveries could take “several years.” He says Ukraine needs them “right now,” after more than 30 Russian strikes on its power grid in two weeks.

Down south, the Kherson-front ceasefire held long enough for hundreds of people to leave Russian-occupied Oleshky. Russia’s rights ombudsman said “everything unfolded without any incidents.” Evacuees heading to Ukraine are taking the long way round, via Anapa in southern Russia and Gomel in Belarus. Several hundred residents chose to stay, with no gas, power or running water, according to the BBC.

3. Strait of Hormuz / Oman and Iran. Oman’s Maritime Security Centre says it rescued 25 crew from the RITI, a Panama-flagged crude tanker on fire in the strait. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, meanwhile, say tankers using “unauthorised routes” were brought to a halt after “incidents” or mines. One of them, they say, was a supertanker carrying more than two million barrels that “exploded and caught fire,” Al Jazeera reports. It isn’t clear whether the RITI is one of the ships Iran means.

The US disputes Iran’s mine claims. On Friday, CENTCOM chief Brad Cooper said the strait’s “internationally recognised primary transit routes” had been cleared of Iranian mines. Iran has kept the strait largely blocked since US-Israeli strikes began in late February, and all this lands while Qatari mediators are in Tehran trying to revive a ceasefire (AP).

4. Warsaw / Poland. Riot police were posted at Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal on Friday. Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek moved to strip the court’s president, Bogdan Święczkowski, and his deputy of immunity so they can be charged. A government-backed judge, Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, was put in temporary charge. The court called it “the crime of a coup d’etat,” the BBC reports. Prime Minister Donald Tusk says restoring the rule of law “requires decisive action.”

President Karol Nawrocki, who is backed by Law and Justice, turned his plane around mid-flight to Senegal and went into the court building. Crowds of Law and Justice supporters gathered at the gates, and police said three people were detained after projectiles were thrown (AP; Al Jazeera). Not all the criticism comes from the right. Law professor Marcin Matczak, no fan of the old Law and Justice reforms, said armed police at a court will cause “a powerful, anti-rule of law backlash for years to come.”

5. Democratic Republic of Congo. Government data show more than 5,000 people have now died in Congo’s Ebola outbreak. That makes it the second-largest Ebola outbreak on record, behind West Africa’s 2014–16 epidemic. More than 10,000 people have been infected since May. The strain is Bundibugyo, which has no approved vaccine or treatment, and eight of Congo’s 26 provinces are affected, according to Reuters (via Arab News). Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda have all reported cases too.

6. Montreal / Canada. Prime Minister Mark Carney hosted EU leaders Ursula von der Leyen and António Costa and launched an “Alliance for the Future.” The two sides signed a digital trade deal, agreed on European Investment Bank money for Canadian critical minerals, and opened talks on Erasmus+ student exchanges. Carney says the goal is to make Canada the EU’s “first associate member,” though that label has no legal basis and some EU states dispute it, Al Jazeera reports. Canada is also putting an initial €500m into the EU’s €90bn loan for Ukraine.

7. Brasília / Brazil; Buenos Aires / Argentina. Brazil’s Foreign Ministry called in Argentina’s chargé d’affaires over Flávio Bolsonaro’s exit. After losing Sunday’s runoff, he crossed into northern Argentina, then flew by charter via Ecuador to Miami, where he declared himself the “legitimate president-elect.” He had been ordered to surrender his passports and stay in the country during the Banco Master money-laundering probe. Argentina’s foreign minister denies getting any formal request for explanations. President Milei’s spokesperson called the trip a “rescue,” Al Jazeera reports (AP).

8. Yerevan / Armenia. After nearly two weeks of talks and some overtime, nearly 200 countries approved the key texts at the COP17 biodiversity summit. The aim is to get the faltering 2022 pledge to halt nature loss by 2030 back on track. “And that’s it. Perfect,” said summit president Hambardzum Matevosyan as he gavelled it through, France 24 reports. Money is still the sore spot. Just over $1bn was pledged, about half from philanthropists, against a gap the UN puts at about $700bn a year, the BBC says.

9. East Antarctica. Here’s some (qualified) good news from the ice. A modeling study in Nature Climate Change finds the East Antarctic Ice Sheet holds up far better than expected, even with 10°C or more of warming. The reason: wetter air brings more snow to the high interior, and extra cloud blocks the sun. When the researchers took those effects out, Antarctica lost about 70% of its ice volume under the strongest warming, compared with about 20% when they were left in, according to the IBS Center for Climate Physics in South Korea (EurekAlert). The bad news is unchanged. West Antarctica still breaks up once warming passes 2°C, and these are 100,000-year simulations, not forecasts for this century.

10. Wollongong / Australia; Samoa. Fetu Samoa beat England 24–6 on Friday night and reached their first Women’s Rugby League World Cup semi-final. That ended England’s run of two straight semi-finals. Eighteen-year-old winger Freedom Crichton Ropati scored three first-half tries, and Samoa now play New Zealand in the last four, RNZ reports. Captain Evania Isa’ako called it “pretty cool” and said the job isn’t done yet. A good way to end the week.

Coming Up

Oct 31: G20 foreign ministers wrap up in Atlanta, and the Youth Olympic Games open in Dakar, the first Olympic event held in Africa. Nov 1: Bulgaria’s presidential runoff (Iotova vs Gyurov). Nov 3: U.S. midterms. Nov 4: Israel’s certified results due. Nov 6: Pope Leo XIV begins his Uruguay–Argentina–Peru trip. Nov 7: New Zealand votes. Nov 9: COP31 opens in Antalya. The full board is on The Watch.

World Brief: October 30, 2026

Qatari mediators land in Tehran as a tanker is mined near Hormuz; Israel’s final count turns into a fight over legitimacy; analysts pin the record $6.3bn Binance hack on North Korea; Intel leads a chip rout as the Bank of Japan holds; buses leave occupied Oleshky under a short truce; and Machado calls for Venezuelan elections in 2027. Ten stories as of Friday morning, October 30.

1. Tehran / Iran. A Qatari delegation arrived in Tehran on Friday morning, coordinated with Washington and led by a senior adviser to Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman, Iran’s IRNA news agency said, according to Al Jazeera. The aim is to revive a ceasefire deal with the U.S., with talk of a meeting in Doha or Istanbul within a week. The sticking points haven’t moved: Washington wants the nuclear file on the table from the start, Tehran wants the port blockade and oil sanctions lifted first. At sea, the UK Maritime Trade Operations centre says a small boat attached two explosive devices to a tanker about 25 nautical miles northeast of Khasab, Oman, on Thursday, starting an engine-room fire; the crew is safe. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards claim several tankers hit mines on an “unauthorized” route, per Al Jazeera’s live coverage. President Trump, for his part, says the war is “going to get wrapped up soon,” Reuters reports.

2. Jerusalem / Israel. The count is finished: Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc 53 seats, Gadi Eisenkot’s bloc 48, and Arab-led lists a record 19, the BBC reports. Likud says the election was “stolen” and voters “bribed,” and the Shin Bet is looking into claims of Qatari and Turkish funding. Qatar calls those claims “ridiculous and dangerous.” Dean Livne, acting director general of the Central Elections Committee, says there is “no basis for allegations of systematic violations of election integrity.” Eisenkot calls it an “orchestrated and organized campaign to delegitimize the election results,” and Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh says “the losing side is constructing a racist blood libel.” Under the rules, the leader the president taps gets up to 42 days to form a government. If that fails, a second nominee gets 28 days and a third gets 14, and after that come new elections.

3. Pyongyang / North Korea (suspected). The blockchain firm TRM says with “high confidence” that North Korea’s TraderTraitor unit pulled about $6.36bn out of Binance wallets on ten blockchains, most of it in about 20 minutes, NPR reports. That would be the largest crypto theft on record. Chainalysis reached the same view. Binance says about $3bn has been frozen, it will cover all losses, and withdrawals should resume within about 45 hours, the BBC reports. The FBI and the U.S. Secret Service are working with the exchange, a source told Reuters. North Korea has always denied involvement in such attacks.

4. New York / United States; Tokyo / Japan. The AI selloff kept going on Friday. Intel fell as much as 30% after warning of a weaker PC market even as it spends more on AI, putting it on track to lose more than $130bn in value. The Nasdaq opened at its lowest in more than two months, and Alphabet slipped another 1% after Thursday’s $500bn wipeout, the BBC reports. “We see the PC slowdown continuing at least through the first half of next year,” said Intel finance chief David Zinsner. In Tokyo, the Bank of Japan held its rate at 1.25% on an 8–1 vote, with Hajime Takata wanting 1.5%. For the first time since its 2% target was set in 2013, the bank said underlying inflation is “generally consistent” with it.

5. Oleshky / Ukraine; Moscow / Russia. Twenty-five buses went into Russian-occupied Oleshky on Friday to carry out up to 750 people in a four-hour window, under a Kherson-front ceasefire brokered by Melania Trump that runs until the end of Sunday, the BBC reports. Several hundred residents are choosing to stay. Ukraine’s ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets travelled with his Russian counterpart, the first Ukrainian official to enter occupied territory since the war began. The Kremlin says the truce shouldn’t be read as willingness to extend it. In Moscow, Novaya Gazeta, the independent paper of the murdered Anna Politkovskaya, says it is shutting down after an eviction order and the loss of its reader-donation system. “They’ve killed us,” it wrote, per the BBC.

6. Madrid / Spain. Transport Minister Óscar Puente says he won’t resign over Wednesday’s high-speed collision near Urda, which has killed at least 69 people. “My duty right now is not to talk about whether I should remain in my position, but to resolve the problem,” he said, according to the BBC. A preliminary report says the Renfe train was doing between 160 and 200 km/h when it hit the stationary Iryo train. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez says public trust in high-speed rail has been broken, calling it “unacceptable” to have two such disasters in a year. Puente says he is “not going to use any worker as a shield.”

7. Caracas / Venezuela. Back from exile, Nobel laureate María Corina Machado says Venezuelans will vote in 2027 and that the move to democracy is “irreversible,” though she gave no exact date, the BBC reports. She thanked the Trump administration for opening the “floodgate to freedom.” Interim President Delcy Rodríguez also promised elections, without a date, and said her government should oversee the transition, which Machado called illogical. Rodríguez struck a softer tone too, saying she had told security agencies that no one should be detained without a judicial order.

8. Sudan / United Nations. Sudanese exiles and rights groups are lining up against the UAE’s candidate for UN secretary-general, Lana Nusseibeh, the Guardian reports. They point to her denials that the Emirates arm the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. Former Human Rights Watch chief Kenneth Roth says she “blatantly denies it without regard to the facts.” Nusseibeh says she would back UN accountability work on Sudan and calls the RSF’s crimes “atrocious.” Meanwhile senior RSF commander Siddiq Ander says he has defected from Hemedti’s forces, in a video obtained by Al Jazeera.

9. Agrihan / Northern Mariana Islands. Super Typhoon In-fa, a Category 4 storm with winds near 150 mph, was forecast to pass near or over Agrihan in the remote Northern Islands on Friday, with typhoon warnings for Agrihan, Pagan and Alamagan, RNZ reports. It’s the fifth super typhoon to threaten the Marianas this year. Guam, Rota, Tinian and Saipan are spared the worst but face high surf of up to 18 feet. The National Weather Service in Guam tracks it as it moves northwest.

10. Hobart / Antarctica. The annual meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources closed Friday with countries again failing to agree on tighter rules for krill fishing or new marine protected areas, WWF-Australia said. The group says nine vessels have signalled plans to fish in East Antarctica. Going in, oceanographer Sylvia Earle had called for an end to the krill catch near Antarctica, AP reported. Krill are the base of the food chain for whales, penguins and seals.

Coming Up

Oct 30–31: G20 foreign ministers meet in Atlanta, hosted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Nov 1: Bulgaria’s presidential runoff (Iotova vs Gyurov); the Kherson-front truce is due to end. Nov 3: U.S. midterms. Nov 4: Israel’s certified results due. Nov 6: Pope Leo XIV begins his Uruguay–Argentina–Peru trip. Nov 7: New Zealand votes. The full board is on The Watch.

World Brief, Evening: October 29, 2026

Israel’s count is done and nobody has a majority, so the fight has moved to who gets to call the result legitimate. A drone kills 14 on a Dnipro rail platform while Ukraine quietly parks its refinery strikes. The Gulf hears of mined tankers and Houthi missiles. Google sheds half a trillion dollars, Binance freezes billions, and Egypt hikes rates. Plus Brazil, Erin Patterson, sick penguins and a farewell to Patrick Stewart. Ten stories as of Thursday evening, October 29.

1. Jerusalem / Israel. Counting is finished, and nobody won outright. Netanyahu’s bloc has 53 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, Gadi Eisenkot’s opposition bloc has 48, and the two Arab-led lists have a record 19, Al Jazeera reports. Results are certified by Wednesday.

Now the argument is about legitimacy. Likud has accused the Arab-led parties of “stealing” the election and says voters were “bribed.” The Shin Bet is looking into claims of illegal funding from Qatar and Turkey, which Qatar calls “ridiculous and dangerous,” the BBC says. The acting elections director said there was “no basis for allegations of systematic violations.” Eisenkot accuses Netanyahu of “an orchestrated and organized campaign to delegitimize the election results.”

2. Dnipro and Kyiv / Ukraine; the Black Sea off Bulgaria. A Russian drone hit a busy railway platform in Dnipro on Thursday, killing at least 14 people and injuring 14 more. Strikes elsewhere killed at least 20, and ballistic missiles later hit warehouses in Kyiv, The Guardian reports. The local truce in occupied Oleshky held for a third day, and both sides said an aid operation there was ready to begin.

The Wall Street Journal also reports that Ukraine has paused its long-range strikes on Russian oil refineries after pressure from President Trump. The pause is expected to last until after the U.S. midterms. Putin, meanwhile, said that if anyone wants a war with Europe, “let them prepare,” and warned there would be “no winners.” At sea, the Greek-managed container ship Contship Jet sank off Bulgaria after three maritime drones struck it. All 18 crew were rescued. It was the fifth drone attack in Bulgaria’s economic zone this month, AP reports.

3. Strait of Hormuz and Saudi Arabia. The naval arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards says three tankers caught fire after hitting mines in the Strait of Hormuz, and a fourth vessel struck mines farther east, according to Al Jazeera. Yemen’s Houthis claim six attacks across Saudi Arabia, including the Ras Tanura and Rabigh refineries and airports in Riyadh and Dammam. Nobody has independently confirmed those. Saudi Arabia says it shot down two ballistic missiles fired at the capital, and falling shrapnel wounded one person in Riyadh (Al Jazeera).

In Washington, Trump said JD Vance’s letter to Tehran is about medical supplies, not restarting peace talks. Iran says it has the letter but hasn’t answered, and that its conditions stand, Reuters reports.

4. New York / United States. Alphabet lost just over $500bn in market value on Thursday. Its stock fell almost 13% after Google said AI summaries in search were cutting into ad sales, the BBC reports. Amazon dropped 6% after hours on a negative $42bn cash-flow figure.

Crypto had its own bad day. Binance, the world’s largest exchange, suspended deposits and withdrawals and froze about $3bn in assets over a suspected hack. Tether and Circle froze another $2.4bn or so. Analysts at Chainalysis put the theft above $5.9bn, roughly four times the 2025 Bybit record, according to the BBC. Binance says it will cover all losses. Bitcoin fell about 5%, to below $77,000 (Al Jazeera).

5. Urda / Spain. The victims of Wednesday’s high-speed crash in central Spain are being named. The toll stands at 69, with more than 100 hurt. They include Julieta Gallego, a 24-year-old long jumper with Madrid’s AD Sprint, and Fátima Báñez, 59, a former employment minister who chaired the CEOE business federation, the BBC reports. Families have been giving DNA samples at the forensics institute in Toledo. It is Spain’s second rail disaster this year and its worst since 2013.

6. Cairo / Egypt. Egypt’s central bank raised rates for the first time since March 2024. The deposit rate rises one point to 20% and the lending rate to 21%, Reuters reports. The bank cited an “unfavorable external environment.” The pound has lost about 9% against the dollar since late September, says Forbes Middle East, and Egypt’s IMF programme expires in December.

7. Brasília / Brazil. Trump says he didn’t “take sides” in Brazil’s election but called it a “disgrace” and “a great embarrassment to the people of Brazil.” His comments came a day after Flávio Bolsonaro and his family landed in Miami. The New York Times reports the U.S. government helped them leave and would likely give them permanent residency, Al Jazeera notes. Brazil’s Supreme Court had ordered Bolsonaro to hand over his passports. He lost Sunday’s runoff to Lula by more than four million votes.

8. Melbourne / Australia. Erin Patterson, the mushroom murderer, lost her appeal, and the court made her sentence tougher. Victoria’s Court of Appeal threw out her challenge to three murder convictions and one attempted murder conviction, then scrapped her 33-year non-parole period, so she will never be released, the BBC reports. The judges called the crimes “extraordinarily cold and calculated” (ABC).

9. Danger Islands / Antarctica. Scientists have worked out what killed more than 537 Adélie penguins found on a single landing ramp off the Antarctic Peninsula in 2024. Everyone suspected bird flu, but the culprit was avian cholera, a bacterial disease, NPR reports on a study in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Thousands more birds probably died across the islands. Researchers say die-offs like this may happen regularly without anyone checking.

10. Los Angeles / United States. Patrick Stewart has died at 86. The stage actor became Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Professor X. He died Wednesday at his Los Angeles home after “a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia,” his spokesperson said, according to The Guardian. Tributes are pouring in, led by his longtime friend Ian McKellen (AP). Make it so, one last time.

Coming Up

Oct 30: Bank of Japan decision and Outlook Report, Tokyo. Nov 1: Bulgaria’s presidential runoff (Iotova vs Gyurov). Nov 3: U.S. midterms. Nov 4: Israel’s certified results due. Nov 6: Pope Leo XIV begins his Uruguay–Argentina–Peru trip. Nov 7: New Zealand votes. The full board is on The Watch.

World Brief: October 29, 2026

Leaked audio puts Spain’s train disaster on a control-room order; Israel starts counting soldiers’ ballots; Washington tells Gulf allies to brace while Vance writes to Tehran; a drone hits a crowded platform in Dnipro; the ECB holds as Lagarde names her exit date; and Typhoon In-fa bears down on the northern Marianas. Ten stories as of Thursday morning, October 29.

1. Mora and Orgaz / Spain. The death toll from Wednesday’s high-speed collision south of Madrid has risen to at least 69. Now audio published by El País and RTVE suggests why it happened, the BBC reports. After a computer failure halted six trains, a control-centre operator cleared the Renfe driver to carry on “at normal speed with normal operation.” The driver asked, “At normal speed?” The answer was “Yes.” A stationary Iryo train was sitting on the line ahead. Transport Minister Óscar Puente has already said the trains were let go without speed limits “under inexplicable circumstances.” Spain began three days of national mourning on Thursday, and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has promised a full investigation, says DW. The opposition’s Alberto Núñez Feijóo says Spaniards “are asking tough questions that demand answers,” a month before the November 29 election.

2. Jerusalem / Israel. With 97% of votes counted, Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc has 53 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, Gadi Eisenkot’s bloc has 48, and Arab-led parties are on course for an unprecedented 19, the BBC reports. Nobody is near 61. Counting began Thursday on up to 480,000 absentee ballots, mostly from soldiers, and President Isaac Herzog expects official results next week. Meanwhile Likud figures are calling the vote “stolen” and pointing to reports of foreign-funded turnout. The Central Elections Committee chair has asked for an investigation, while police sources call the claims baseless, ABC News reports. Qatar, named in Israeli media reports, called the accusations “ridiculous and dangerous.”

3. Washington, Tehran and the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. has told Middle East allies to prepare for possible renewed military action against Iran after next Tuesday’s midterms, and for Iranian retaliation against energy sites, two diplomats told AP. President Trump has not made a final decision. At the same time, Vice President JD Vance sent a letter through Qatari mediators to Mohsen Rezaei, head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. According to U.S. media reports summarised by Al Jazeera, it proposes direct talks with the nuclear programme on the table from the start. In the strait, a ship was reported on fire 9 nautical miles north of Khasab, Oman. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards say three tankers hit sea mines in 24 hours and claim another U.S. drone was shot down, per DW. The Pentagon puts the war’s cost so far at $47.1 billion.

4. Dnipro / Ukraine. A Russian jet-powered drone hit a crowded platform at Dnipro’s main railway station on Thursday, killing at least 14 people and wounding at least 14 more, including an 11-year-old boy, the BBC reports. A passenger train bound for Zaporizhzhia was standing at the platform. Railway chief Oleksandr Pertsovsky said an elevated threat level had been announced, “but unfortunately there were still a large number of people on the platform.” In Chernihiv, a missile strike killed two 15-year-old girls. President Zelensky called for more U.S., European and G7 sanctions. Further south, the local truce around Oleshky was holding into a third day, and Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman says he is travelling there via Belarus and Russia, per DW.

5. Frankfurt / Eurozone. The European Central Bank kept its deposit rate at 2.5% on Thursday. It warned that rising energy prices pose “upside risks to the inflation outlook and downside risks to the growth outlook,” and it did not commit to any rate path, according to the ECB statement. Eurozone inflation is running at 3.8%, close to double the target. Hours earlier, Christine Lagarde said she will step down on February 7, 2027, about nine months before her term ends. That lets EU leaders choose her successor before France’s presidential election, AP notes. Spain’s Pablo Hernández de Cos and the Netherlands’ Klaas Knot are seen as frontrunners, says Euronews.

6. Montreal / Canada. The two-day EU–Canada summit opened Thursday. Ursula von der Leyen said the “associate membership” she has floated for Canada would be a partnership that “comes close to membership,” the BBC reports. The member states aren’t all on board. Germany’s Friedrich Merz and other leaders had the term struck from the draft declaration, which now calls for “closer ties” without membership and is expected to be published Friday, DW reports. Prime Minister Mark Carney has said Canada and Europe are “stronger together” in an age of “geopolitical rupture.”

7. Florida / Brazil. From the United States, Flávio Bolsonaro has posted a letter calling himself “leader of Brazil.” A deleted earlier version said “rightful president.” He says, without evidence, that he was the victim of “electoral fraud” and that he will lead the opposition from abroad, the BBC reports. His complaint is about Sunday’s extension of polling hours, which both campaigns requested. A BBC Brazil and BBC Verify analysis found only about 34,000 people voted in the extra time, against Lula’s winning margin of 4.4 million. Bolsonaro left Brazil after ignoring an order to surrender his passports.

8. Addis Ababa and Moscow / Ethiopia. Ethiopia has received 12 Russian Su-35 fighter jets and plans to acquire four S-400 air-defence systems, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced at the Russia–Africa Summit in Moscow, the BBC reports. The deal comes as fighting intensifies in Tigray, on the border with Eritrea. Abiy called it a “milestone” and said, “If we fail to build this capability, surviving as a country in our region will become difficult.” Analysts say it strengthens Moscow’s foothold in the Horn of Africa, per Al Jazeera.

9. Seoul / South Korea. At an appeal hearing in the Seoul High Court on Thursday, special prosecutors again asked for the death penalty for former President Yoon Suk-yeol, Al Jazeera reports. Yoon was sentenced to life in February for leading an insurrection with his December 2024 martial-law declaration. A prosecutor said there was “no reason to hesitate.” South Korea still has the death penalty but hasn’t carried out an execution since 1997. Yoon’s lawyers say he meant to warn an opposition-controlled parliament, not to set up authoritarian rule.

10. Northern Mariana Islands and Antarctica. Typhoon In-fa is a Category 4 storm with 140 mph winds, heading west-northwest toward the far northern Marianas. A typhoon warning is in effect for Alamagan, Pagan and Agrihan, and the center is forecast to pass close to Agrihan Friday afternoon or evening local time, according to the National Weather Service in Guam. Governor David Apatang has raised the three islands to Typhoon Condition II, per the NMI News Service. Far to the south, oceanographer Sylvia Earle is calling for an end to krill fishing near Antarctica. The U.S., China, Russia and 24 other governments are negotiating a possible deal that would dramatically expand the catch, AP reports. The Antarctic fisheries commission (CCAMLR) wraps up its annual meeting in Hobart on Friday.

Coming Up

Oct 30: Bank of Japan decision, Tokyo; EU–Canada declaration, Montreal. Nov 1: Bulgaria’s presidential runoff (Iotova vs Gyurov). Nov 3: U.S. midterms. Nov 4: Israel’s final official results due. Nov 6: Pope Leo XIV begins his Uruguay–Argentina–Peru trip. Nov 7: New Zealand votes. The full board is on The Watch.

World Brief, Evening: October 28, 2026

Spain’s train crash toll climbs and the anger turns on the government, Israel’s count stalls without a winner, Flávio Bolsonaro surfaces in Miami in a bulletproof vest, and the Fed holds. Ten stories as of Wednesday evening, October 28.

1. Toledo province / Spain. At least 68 people are now dead after a Renfe Madrid–Seville train carrying 397 passengers ran into a stationary Iryo train with 147 aboard between Mora and Orgaz, about 140 km south of Madrid, BBC News reports. Transport Minister Óscar Puente blamed a computer failure, followed by what he called an “inexplicable” decision by the control centre to restart trains without speed limits. Spanish media say the controller has been questioned. Pedro Sánchez declared three days of mourning and called two crashes in a year “unacceptable.” The first was Adamuz in January, which killed 46. The CSIF union wants Puente out, riot police were deployed in Madrid as protests broke out over the crash, per Al Jazeera, and Andalusia’s president, Juanma Moreno, said the AVE “is no longer a safe means of transport.” The Guardian looks at the doubts now hanging over Spain’s high-speed network, a month before the November 29 snap election.

2. Jerusalem / Israel. With nearly 90% of votes counted (88.62%, more than 5 million ballots, per the Central Elections Committee), there’s still no winner. Netanyahu’s bloc is on 53 seats, Gadi Eisenkot’s on 48, and Arab parties a record 19, with the Joint List on at least 12 and Ra’am on 7, Al Jazeera reports. It takes 61 to govern. Hundreds of thousands of double-envelope ballots, mostly soldiers’, are still to be counted, and final results could come Thursday evening. Likud claimed, without evidence, that Arab parties “stole” the election. President Isaac Herzog praised the 77.7% turnout and will start consultations next week, saying he wants to avoid another election, per BBC News.

3. Miami / United States and Brazil. Flávio Bolsonaro, beaten by Lula in Sunday’s runoff, landed at Miami-Opa Locka at 9:24am wearing a bulletproof vest. He’d crossed into Argentina by land and flown a Gulfstream from Puerto Iguazú by way of Guayaquil, BBC News reports. A letter released in his name called him Brazil’s “true president.” It was deleted and reissued calling him “the leader of Brazil.” “I did not flee Brazil; I left for the sake of Brazil,” he said, repeating unsubstantiated fraud claims, even though his own party has accepted the result. Donald Trump: “We gave him a pass to come into the country,” but “I won’t get involved.” Lula’s reply: “those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear,” per The Guardian.

4. Washington / United States. The Fed, under Chair Kevin Warsh, left its benchmark rate at 3.75% to 4% on a 10–2 vote. Lisa Cook and Beth Hammack dissented, wanting another quarter-point hike after September’s, according to the Federal Reserve. “Inflation remains elevated,” the statement says. September CPI ran at 3.7%, the PCE inflation figures come out Thursday, and the next meeting is December 8–9, Al Jazeera reports. Also in Washington, the names, work addresses and phone numbers of more than 41,000 Homeland Security staff, including nearly 6,600 ICE agents and more than 21,000 at CBP, were posted online. DHS says it’s “aware of a potential breach,” per BBC News.

5. Tehran / Iran and Aden / Yemen. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says Iran is in “close and ongoing contact” with mediators over its seven-day plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Trump denied directing JD Vance to start peace talks, saying the contact was about Iran needing “help with medical supplies,” per Al Jazeera. Envoys from the new Mecca pact (Pakistan’s Asim Munir, Saudi Defence Minister Khalid bin Salman and Turkey’s Ibrahim Kalin) have been to Tehran, with fears of fresh US and Israeli strikes after November 3, DW reports. In Yemen, the Houthis hit Aden airport after telling people to evacuate it. Government forces reported civilian injuries, and air traffic was halted, per Reuters via Al-Monitor.

6. The Hague / Netherlands and Ukraine. On a visit to the Netherlands, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said three-way US–Russia–Ukraine talks will run November 6–10 in the UAE. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov says Europeans won’t be at the table, and Finland’s Alexander Stubb says they will, Al Jazeera reports. Dutch PM Rob Jetten pledged €500m in military aid, and Britain’s Andy Burnham announced a £10bn package that includes £500m for air defence. Zelenskyy warned against a “Yalta 2, 3, 4” at any US–Russia–China summit, and said Ukraine gets 12 Patriot missiles a month against 150 Russian ballistic missiles, per DW. The Oleshky truce is holding for now.

7. London / United Kingdom. In his first Budget, Chancellor John Healey gave millions of households in council tax bands A to D a one-off £100 toward energy bills, paid for by doubling the tax on big banks’ profits from 3% to 6%. He also extended the 5p fuel duty cut to July and raised the minimum wage by 3.9% from April, BBC News reports. Gas standing charges are to be scrapped during 2027, and income tax thresholds stay frozen. The Office for Budget Responsibility cut next year’s growth forecast to 1%. Its chief, David Miles, called household living standards “pretty grim.” Kemi Badenoch said the plans were “not bold enough.”

8. New York / United Nations and Cuba. The UN General Assembly again condemned the US embargo on Cuba, 130 to 17, with 25 abstentions. Germany and Italy were among the countries that switched to abstaining, Al Jazeera reports. US Ambassador Mike Waltz called the shift a win for American diplomacy and said a Cuban diplomat would be expelled for “assaulting an American diplomat” after Tuesday’s shoving match in the chamber. Cuba’s Bruno Rodríguez said the US was “once again isolated.” In Central America, Costa Rica’s $35m mega-prison outside San José, built with El Salvador’s help and able to hold 5,100 inmates, took in its first 123 prisoners, per Al Jazeera.

9. Mtwara / Tanzania and Moscow. Tanzania announced its first natural gas discovery in a decade, an estimated 223 billion cubic feet at the Kasa-1X well in the Mnazi Bay area. The well is owned by state-run TPDC and France’s Maurel & Prom and is due to start production early next month for domestic supply, BBC News reports. Gas makes nearly 80% of the country’s electricity. In Moscow, Vladimir Putin told the third Russia–Africa Summit, with delegations from 48 African countries, 22 of them led by heads of state, that Russian business does not engage in “neo-colonial exploitation.” He said Russia shipped 13 million tonnes of farm products to Africa in the first nine months of the year, per Al Jazeera.

10. Canberra / Australia and the Southern Ocean. A long-secret military inquiry into Australia’s SAS in Afghanistan found an “inversion of authority” in the regiment and an “abandonment of curiosity” among senior commanders, who overlooked warning signs like the rising number of enemy dead, ABC News reports. According to The Guardian, the newly posted executive summary says some officers knew about “throwdowns,” weapons planted on dead Afghans to make them look like combatants, and did nothing. Around Antarctica, a study in Nature Climate Change finds that the sea-ice crash since 2016 has made Antarctic Intermediate Water, a layer 2,300 to 4,000 feet down, abruptly saltier, reversing decades of freshening, Inside Climate News reports. “Since we have records in oceanography, we have never seen this water alter,” lead author Bishakhdatta Gayen said, per Matangi Tonga.

Coming Up

Confirmed dates on The Watch: November 1, Bulgaria’s presidential runoff (Iotova vs Gyurov) and the Oleshky truce’s scheduled end. November 3, U.S. midterms. November 4, deadline for Israel’s final official results. November 6, Pope Leo XIV leaves for Uruguay, Argentina and Peru. November 7, New Zealand votes. Full board at the link.

World Brief: October 28, 2026

Two high-speed trains collide south of Madrid and at least 68 are dead; Israel’s count leaves Netanyahu just short; Flávio Bolsonaro lands in Miami; the Oleshky truce spreads across Kherson; a drone strike on a Darfur market kills more than 100; and the Fed decides on rates today. Ten stories as of Wednesday morning, October 28.

1. Mora and Orgaz / Spain. A Renfe high-speed train rear-ended a stationary Iryo train just after 9 a.m. local time between Mora and Orgaz, about 140 km (100 miles) south of Madrid, sending at least two carriages down an embankment. At least 68 people are confirmed dead, with 80 treated for injuries, 15 of them critical, the BBC reports; more than 500 people were on the two trains. Transport Minister Óscar Puente said a computer failure first halted six trains, and the control centre then let them move again without speed restrictions “under inexplicable circumstances.” Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said he was “shocked,” and politicians cancelled campaigning for next month’s election. It is Spain’s second high-speed rail tragedy this year, after a January derailment killed 46.

2. Jerusalem / Israel. With results still coming in, Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud is the largest single party and his bloc sits just short of a 61-seat majority in the 120-seat Knesset, the BBC reports. Analysts caution the early count leaned toward right-wing areas, and absentee ballots, mostly soldiers’, mean a clear picture could take another day or two. Turnout topped 77%, and Arab-led parties matched or beat their previous record seat count, which could make them kingmakers. Netanyahu told supporters the right has “a clear, decisive majority among the Zionist public” but stopped short of declaring victory; Gadi Eisenkot said “the public has chosen change.” Israeli stocks fell and the shekel weakened as Netanyahu’s bloc beat forecasts, says Reuters. Final official results are due by November 4.

3. Miami / United States and Brazil. Flávio Bolsonaro, who lost Sunday’s runoff to Lula, landed at Miami-Opa Locka airport with his wife and two daughters and left under police escort without speaking to reporters, The Guardian reports. He crossed into Argentina by land on Tuesday night, then flew a Gulfstream via Guayaquil, Ecuador. A State Department official said the family will get U.S. visas, and Donald Trump said, “They’re fine people. The election was very strange.” Lula called the flight “shameful.” Bolsonaro is under investigation in at least two criminal cases, including an alleged money-laundering scheme involving betting companies, and had ignored a Supreme Court order to hand over his passports; he denies wrongdoing, says DW.

4. Kherson / Ukraine. The truce that began Tuesday to get food and medicine into Russian-occupied Oleshky has been extended across the wider Kherson region, and no breaches have been reported, the BBC reports. U.S. First Lady Melania Trump, who helped broker it with Pope Leo XIV, said the area was expanded to give humanitarian convoys “safe passage.” The Kremlin says things are going “according to plan.” Ukrainian MP David Arakhamia says it runs until 22:59 Kyiv time on Sunday, November 1, calling it the “largest de-escalation since 2022.” Aid could roll in Thursday, with evacuations planned for Friday for the roughly 1,700 to 2,000 people left in the town.

5. Nyala / Sudan. More than 100 people were killed and 113 injured when a Sudanese military drone struck a busy market in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, on Monday evening, according to the rights group Emergency Lawyers, which called for an independent investigation, AP reports. Many of the victims were women and children. Doctors Without Borders says its hospital received 36 bodies and more than 150 wounded, and a second strike hit a civilian neighbourhood. Nyala is held by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. On October 16, a drone strike on the city’s Al Mawashi market killed at least four people.

6. Democratic Republic of Congo and across Africa. The Ebola outbreak has passed 10,000 cases: 10,091 in total, 10,060 of them in DR Congo, where 4,887 have died, with two deaths each in Uganda and Kenya and a case in Abuja, Nigeria, The Guardian reports. Africa CDC chief Jean Kaseya compared its spread to Covid and warned, “We want all countries to know that they are not safe if they don’t take appropriate measures.” He meets African health ministers today. The Bundibugyo strain behind it has no approved treatment. About a third of the dead are children, and roughly three in four infected under-5s have died, per NPR.

7. Moscow / Russia. Vladimir Putin opened the third Russia–Africa Summit (October 28–29), co-chaired with African Union chair Évariste Ndayishimiye of Burundi. Delegations from 48 African countries are attending, including 22 heads of state by the Kremlin’s count, up from 17 in 2023, Al Jazeera reports. Putin is scheduled to meet Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Ethiopia’s Abiy Ahmed, and Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan is expected. Putin told the leaders Russia was their best partner and accused a West “accustomed to thinking in terms of their colonial past” of using debt to hold Africa back, Reuters reports.

8. Andhra Pradesh / India. Cyclone Arnab killed at least three people in Andhra Pradesh after making landfall and is weakening as it moves inland. It has been downgraded to a severe cyclonic storm and should become a deep depression by evening, DW reports. Northern Andhra Pradesh and southern Odisha were hit hardest, with trees uprooted and 31 houses damaged, and nearly 40 disaster-response teams are deployed along the east coast. More than 180,000 people were evacuated, per France 24.

9. Washington / United States. The Federal Reserve announces its rate decision this afternoon. It is expected to hold its benchmark at 3.75% to 4% after September’s hike, its first increase in three years, USA Today reports. Futures put the chance of another hike today under 10%, so the focus is on what Chair Kevin Warsh says about December, according to CNBC. Meanwhile, the Federal Election Commission suspended its web-facing services after “a bad actor trying to breach FEC systems,” which blocks last-minute campaign spending reports days before the November 3 midterms. Commissioner Dara Lindenbaum stressed it has “NOTHING to do with voter files,” per Al Jazeera.

10. Northern Mariana Islands and Antarctica. Governor David Apatang has declared Typhoon Condition III for Agrihan, Pagan and Alamagan as Typhoon In-fa approaches. At 1 p.m. Wednesday local time it was a Category 4 storm with 140 mph winds, about 905 miles east of Saipan, and it could become a super typhoon tonight, RNZ reports. It is forecast to pass between Pagan and Agrihan around 7 p.m. Friday; Saipan, Tinian and Rota have no typhoon condition but should expect heavy showers and big surf. Down south, a UC Irvine and NASA JPL model projects that Thwaites Glacier, the “Doomsday Glacier,” could add up to 30 mm to global sea levels by 2100. That is about double earlier estimates, even without further warming, according to NASA.

Coming Up

Oct 28: Fed rate decision, Washington. Nov 1: Bulgaria’s presidential runoff (Iotova vs Gyurov). Nov 3: U.S. midterms. Nov 4: Israel’s final official results due. Nov 6: Pope Leo XIV begins his Uruguay–Argentina–Peru trip. Nov 7: New Zealand votes. The full board is on The Watch.

World Brief, Evening: October 27, 2026

Israel’s exit polls point to a hung Knesset, Flávio Bolsonaro turns up missing and the U.S. says it will give him a visa, and the little Oleshky truce gets bigger. Ten stories as of Tuesday evening, October 27.

1. Jerusalem / Israel. Polls are closed, and nobody won outright. TV exit polls show neither Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc nor former army chief Gadi Eisenkot’s getting anywhere near the 61 seats needed to govern. Al Jazeera’s tally has them tied at 51 each, with Arab parties projected to win 18, per Al Jazeera. The Guardian has Eisenkot’s bloc slightly ahead, with Likud still the largest single party, on the highest turnout in 50 years. Eisenkot called it a vote of “no-confidence in Netanyahu.” Yair Lapid called it “a total collapse.” Eisenkot ruled out governing with the Arab parties before the vote, which makes them kingmakers without a seat at the table, and it points to long coalition talks, with Netanyahu able to stay on as caretaker while they drag on. Final official results are due by November 4.

2. Brasília / Brazil. This morning Flávio Bolsonaro was grounded. By tonight he’s apparently gone. He missed a Tuesday 11 a.m. deadline to hand his passports to federal police, and CNN Brasil reports he left for the U.S. with his wife and two daughters in the early hours, The Guardian reports. Folha de S.Paulo says allies were told he went to Argentina first, and Argentina’s Todo Noticias says he crossed the border on foot. A senior U.S. official says the State Department will issue visas to Bolsonaro and his family. His whereabouts haven’t been independently confirmed, NPR notes. Lula, celebrating his 81st birthday in Brasília, said “the act of leaving Brazil is shameful.” Lawmakers from Lula’s Workers’ Party have asked the Supreme Court to order Bolsonaro’s arrest and put his name on Interpol’s Red Notice list. In Washington, Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro wants the administration to tell Congress whether it had any role in his exit, per Al Jazeera.

3. Kherson / Ukraine. Day one of the Oleshky truce went quietly, and the truce has now been widened. Melania Trump, who helped broker it with Pope Leo XIV, said on X that it now covers more of the Kherson region to give humanitarian convoys “safe passage.” Kherson’s deputy head said Russian shelling had stopped both in Kherson city and in the wider region, BBC News reports. No breaches have been reported. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says it’s going “according to plan.” Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, says it could “pave the way for other steps in the peace process.” David Arakhamia, a senior figure in Zelenskyy’s party, says the truce runs until 22:59 Ukrainian time on November 1 and called it the “largest de-escalation since 2022.” Roads are being cleared of mines so supplies can get in, possibly Thursday, and an evacuation is planned for Friday. An estimated 1,700 to 2,000 people are still in Oleshky.

4. Corpus Christi, Texas / United States. One week from the midterms, Trump pointed to a tanker off the Texas coast that he said held “one million barrels of oil” from Venezuela and called it “the greatest oil victory in history,” The Guardian reports. He also floated Venezuela becoming “a prosperous 51st state.” The point of the rally was Ken Paxton’s Senate race. Democrat James Talarico leads him by 1.7 points in the RealClearPolitics average, which is inside the margin of error, Al Jazeera notes.

5. Eastern Pacific. U.S. Southern Command says a strike on an alleged drug boat in the eastern Pacific on Tuesday killed five people. Using the WOLA tracker’s count of 238 earlier deaths, that brings the reported toll of the boat-strike campaign to 243 since September 2025, Al Jazeera reports. Legal scholars and rights groups call the strikes extrajudicial killings. Here’s SOUTHCOM’s own announcement:

6. Nassau / The Bahamas. King Charles has started a nine-day Caribbean tour, his first visit to the region as monarch, taking in the Bahamas, Guyana, and Antigua and Barbuda. At a youth rally in Clifford Park, he said it is “only right” to “acknowledge the great suffering and injustices of the past,” BBC News reports. In line with the UK government’s position, Buckingham Palace says he won’t apologise for Britain’s role in the slave trade or offer reparations. Up in Canada, Olivia Chow was re-elected Toronto mayor, beating Brad Bradford 54% to 41% on record turnout, per The Guardian.

7. Cairo / Egypt. A New Cairo court ordered the closure of Mada Masr, one of Egypt’s last prominent independent news outlets. It fined editor-in-chief Lina Attalah 3 million Egyptian pounds (about $53,400), the maximum, for running a website without a licence, and ordered the outlet’s equipment confiscated, Al Jazeera reports. She was held for several hours and released once the fine was paid. Amnesty International called it “a crushing blow to press freedom,” BBC News reports. According to a media watchdog quoted by the BBC, Mada Masr had applied for a licence repeatedly since the 2018 media law, and its applications were rejected or went unanswered. During her release, Attalah also learned of a 2024 in-absentia sentence of one year in prison, and a retrial hearing is set for November 11.

8. Katsina / Nigeria and Nairobi / Kenya. Yahaya Masussuka, a controversial Islamic cleric, was shot dead outside his home in Dutsin-Ma by two gunmen on a motorcycle on Monday evening, and one of his guests was also killed, BBC News reports. It isn’t clear why he was targeted. The 47-year-old had received death threats on social media over teachings that questioned some of the hadiths, and he spoke out against violent extremism and for interfaith dialogue. In East Africa, Kenya has released the first 20 contacts of its first Ebola patient from quarantine. Confirmed cases stand at nine, with two deaths, and 98 people remain in quarantine, BBC News reports. The DR Congo outbreak driving it has topped 10,000 cases.

9. Shanghai / China. China’s AI boom is losing air. The STAR 50 tech index in Shanghai is down 40% since June, and about $2.4 trillion has been wiped off Chinese stocks since May, according to Bloomberg figures cited by The Guardian. Behind it are thin profits, reluctant consumers and the threat of more U.S. bans on Chinese technology. Meanwhile Kylian Mbappé apologised for an “ill-judged” remark about a meme of Mao Zedong, made over a meme on a French talk show, after several Chinese brands dropped him, BBC News reports.

10. Tarawa / Kiribati and Arrival Heights / Antarctica. Kiribati fishermen found 18-year-old Luka Rahan alone and badly dehydrated between Tarawa and Maiana, 41 days after he and his cousin left northern Bougainville in Papua New Guinea on a fishing trip and the boat’s engine gave out. The ABC understands that his cousin died at sea, ABC News reports. Rahan is recovering in hospital in Tarawa. Far to the south, Earth Sciences New Zealand has retired Dobson #17, the spectrophotometer that has measured ozone from Arrival Heights near Scott Base since 1988. It could even take readings by moonlight during the 24-hour darkness of the polar winter. Scientist Sylvia Nichol made both its first and its last measurements, Earth Sciences New Zealand says. The result is a 38-year record that helped track the ozone hole’s recovery.

Coming Up

Confirmed dates on The Watch: the Fed wraps its meeting in Washington on October 28. November 1, Bulgaria’s presidential runoff (Iotova vs Gyurov), and the Oleshky truce’s scheduled end. November 3, U.S. midterms. November 4, Israel’s final official results. November 6, Pope Leo XIV sets off for Uruguay, Argentina and Peru. November 7, New Zealand votes. Full board at the link.

World Brief: October 27, 2026

Israel is voting in record numbers and trading fraud claims before the polls even close; Russia opens a humanitarian window on the Dnipro while it pounds Kyiv’s bridges; two Nordic leaders pick up the phone to Putin; and Ebola in Congo passes 10,000 cases. Ten stories as of Tuesday morning, October 27.

1. Jerusalem / Israel. Turnout in Israel’s Knesset election reached 55.7% by 4 p.m., the highest ever at that hour and up from 47.5% at the same point in 2022, with just over four million ballots cast, The Times of Israel reports. It’s Benjamin Netanyahu against former army chief Gadi Eisenkot and his Yashar party, and polls suggest neither bloc reaches 61 seats. The day has been noisy: Netanyahu claimed “they are trying to steal the election,” Eisenkot’s camp accused him of laying the groundwork to contest the result, half a dozen parties reported irregularities, and the Central Elections Committee says there’s no evidence of systematic tampering. Police arrested three Ra’am activists on suspicion of bribing voters, and detained a man with a knife near Democrats chief Yair Golan in Tel Aviv, though they deny it was an attempted stabbing. Polls close at 10 p.m. local time (1 p.m. Pacific), with exit polls right after, BBC News reports. Final official results are due by November 4.

2. Oleshky and Kyiv / Ukraine. A Russian-declared truce around occupied Oleshky, on the left bank of the Dnipro in the Kherson region, began at 4 a.m. Moscow time and runs to 11:59 p.m. on November 1, with an evacuation planned for Friday. Up to 6,000 people remain in the area, including about 200 children, and some 1,700 in the town itself; the White House credits Melania Trump with brokering it, BBC News reports. Elsewhere it was business as usual. Overnight Russia fired 16 ballistic missiles and more than 280 drones at Ukraine, hitting Kyiv’s South Bridge, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it “a serious escalation in Russia’s campaign targeting our logistics,” Al Jazeera reports. There were also casualties in Kharkiv and Pavlohrad. Russian-installed officials in occupied Zaporizhzhia say a drone strike on a bus killed one and injured 30, and one person was killed in Russia’s Bryansk region.

3. Helsinki / Finland and Oslo / Norway. Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre spent about 90 minutes on the phone with Vladimir Putin, the first European leaders to call him since Emmanuel Macron in July 2025, BBC News reports. Støre said there were “big differences in views” and that both leaders stressed de-escalation. The Kremlin says Putin blamed “confrontational” EU and NATO policies. Not every neighbour was impressed: Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen said she was “very sceptical” and that the call wasn’t coordinated with her. US-mediated talks in Abu Dhabi are pencilled in for early November.

4. Gaza and the West Bank / Palestinian territories. The UN Commission of Inquiry says Israel’s genocide in Gaza continued after the ceasefire took hold, and found crimes against humanity in the occupied West Bank, including extermination, ABC News reports. The commission counts 254 Palestinians killed by Israeli airstrikes in the West Bank since October 7, 2023. Israel dismissed the report as a “propaganda document.” The findings land on election day, with an Israeli military operation around Hebron that has already displaced more than 3,000 people.

5. Kinshasa / DR Congo and Algiers / Algeria. Congo’s Ebola outbreak has passed 10,060 confirmed cases and 4,887 deaths, the fastest-growing and deadliest in the country’s history and the second largest on record after West Africa in 2014–16, Al Jazeera reports. It’s the Bundibugyo strain, which has no approved vaccine; the first vaccine trial began Friday. About 80% of new cases sit outside known transmission chains, across 66 health zones in eight provinces. A nurse was killed in Bafwasende, Uganda now requires a 21-day quarantine for returnees, Kenya has nine cases (two fatal), and a case diagnosed in Nigeria was evacuated to Switzerland. Up north, Algeria is sending troops to Niger, its first foreign deployment since 1973. The senate voted 148 of 174 in favour, according to AFP, and the lower house followed. The troops will guard energy facilities in northern Niger near the Libyan border. Numbers and timing weren’t announced. “We are not sending our soldiers to wage war in Niger,” Senator Belkacem Boulghiti said, BBC News reports.

6. Daraa / Syria and Karak / Jordan. Jordanian jets struck targets in southern Syria in retaliation for Friday’s attack on a funeral at a Greek Orthodox church in Karak that killed nine and injured 34. Syria says seven people were killed across Daraa and Sweida, including three children and a woman. Jordan’s communications minister, Mohammed al-Momani, said Amman “regrets” the civilian casualties and claimed more than 20 Islamic State fighters were killed, DW reports. Damascus says it wasn’t told in advance, called the strikes an “unacceptable violation,” and closed the Nassib border crossing. Jordan has arrested three Jordanian suspects in the church attack, two brothers and a brother-in-law, BBC News reports.

7. Moscow / Russia and Tehran / Iran. Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, met Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on the sidelines of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum in Moscow, Al Jazeera reports. Iranian state TV says they talked energy and bilateral ties, with no mention of the war that has seen Iranian missiles and drones hit targets across the region, Qatar included. Doha was blunter at home: a foreign ministry spokesman called on Iran to stop threatening Gulf states so diplomacy can work, and said a Qatari delegation had visited Tehran to support mediation with the United States.

8. Brasília / Brazil and Buenos Aires / Argentina. Two days after losing to Lula, Flávio Bolsonaro is grounded. Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes cancelled his regular and diplomatic passports, citing a money-laundering probe linked to lawyer Willer Tomaz, The Guardian reports. After a report that he’d slipped into Argentina, President Javier Milei’s press secretary denied he had entered the country, Buenos Aires Times reports. His own Liberal Party has recognised the result, but he still hasn’t conceded and is preparing a case to disqualify Lula’s ticket. In Washington, President Trump said “it looked like another rigged election,” offering no evidence, NPR reports.

9. New York / United States. A federal judge ruled the Justice Department illegally fired former prosecutor Maurene Comey. Judge Jesse Furman said the dismissal violated the Constitution and her right to due process, and ordered her reinstated with back pay from July to December 2025, BBC News reports. The department says it disagrees and “will appeal in due course.” The ruling came the same day her father, former FBI director James Comey, was charged with leaking national defence information, his third federal case. He denies wrongdoing.

10. Saipan / Northern Mariana Islands, Geneva / Switzerland, and Antarctica. Typhoon In-fa is a Category 3 storm with 125 mph winds and could become a super typhoon by Thursday. Forecasters expect it near or over Pagan late Friday, on a track between Anatahan and Agrihan; Saipan sits just outside the cone, and there are no watches or warnings yet, RNZ reports. In Geneva, the World Meteorological Organization’s Greenhouse Gas Bulletin says all three main gases hit records in 2025: carbon dioxide at 426.8 ppm (153% of pre-industrial levels), methane at 1,948 ppb and nitrous oxide at 339.1 ppb. “Another year, another new record,” said Deputy Secretary-General Ko Barrett, warning that this year’s strong El Niño could set up another surge, according to the WMO. COP31 opens in Antalya on November 9. And down south, the British Antarctic Survey’s 2026/27 season is under way, with plans for its largest-ever penguin census across about 200 colonies, first-ever drone monitoring of humpback whales, and the Autosub “Boaty McBoatface” headed for the Amundsen Sea, says the British Antarctic Survey.

Coming Up

Oct 27: Israel exit polls at 10 p.m. local. Oct 27–28: Fed meeting. Oct 29: China’s Fifth Plenum wraps. Oct 30: planned Oleshky evacuation. Oct 31: more French protests planned. Nov 1: Bulgaria’s presidential runoff; Oleshky truce ends. Nov 3: U.S. midterms. Nov 4: Israel’s final results due. Nov 6: Pope Leo XIV begins a South America trip. The full board is on The Watch.

World Brief, Evening: October 26, 2026

Flávio Bolsonaro has to hand in his passports, Jordan hits back inside Syria, and Netanyahu goes into Israel’s election with a mushroom cloud on his feed. A small truce has also started in Oleshky, even as missiles fall on Kyiv. Ten stories as of Monday evening, October 26.

1. Brasília and São Paulo / Brazil. Hours after he lost the runoff, Flávio Bolsonaro was banned from leaving Brazil. Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered him to surrender all his passports, including his diplomatic one, within 24 hours, The Guardian reported. The ruling refers only to a federal police money-laundering investigation. Bolsonaro still hasn’t conceded. His Liberal Party has, though: “We recognise the presidential election results,” party leader Valdemar Costa Neto said, while adding that “the issues raised need to be properly clarified.” In Washington, Trump told reporters it “looked like another rigged election, frankly,” but said he “did not take sides,” per Al Jazeera. Markets hated the result. The real fell about 12% against the dollar in spot trading and the exchange briefly halted trading, Al Jazeera reported. The Bovespa closed down roughly 14%, per AP. Elsewhere in South America, the Vatican says Pope Leo is fit to go ahead with next month’s trip to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru after his lung-cancer surgery, BBC News reported.

2. Jerusalem and Hebron / Israel and the West Bank. Israel votes Tuesday, and Benjamin Netanyahu is campaigning on fear. He posted an AI-generated image of a nuclear mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv and told voters to have “a trembling hand” before backing the opposition, The Guardian reported. CNN reported that he had tried to talk Trump into renewing the Iran war, and that Trump ruled it out until after the U.S. midterms. Netanyahu and the defence ministry both deny any plan to strike. In Hebron, UN rights chief Volker Türk said threats to “empty and erase entire neighbourhoods” raise “serious concerns of ethnic cleansing,” DW reported. A 23-member international delegation, including British MPs Clive Lewis and Lara Bird, was held for nine hours at the Allenby crossing and then turned away, per The Guardian.

3. Daraa / Syria and Karak / Jordan. Jordan’s air force struck what it called “terrorist groups” in southern Syria in retaliation for Friday’s attack on a Greek Orthodox church in Karak, which killed nine people. Syrian authorities say at least seven people died in Daraa and Suweida, including three children and a woman, Al Jazeera reported. Jordan says the raids were coordinated with Damascus. Syria says they weren’t, has opened an investigation, and has closed the Nassib crossing, Jordan’s only passenger and commercial link with Syria, The Guardian reported. Earlier Monday, Jordanian police arrested three wounded suspects after a dawn shootout.

4. Tehran / Iran and Cambridge / UK. Defence and intelligence chiefs from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan were in Tehran on Monday trying to head off another round of U.S.–Iran fighting. Saudi Defence Minister Khalid bin Salman was among them, only weeks after Iran struck Saudi infrastructure. Speaking in Cambridge the same day, Oman’s foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, called for a non-aggression pact between the six Gulf states, Iran and Iraq, with the U.S. no longer the main security provider, The Guardian reported. He’s the first Gulf official to break ranks that explicitly.

5. Oleshky and Kyiv / Ukraine, and Brașov / Romania. A local ceasefire took effect at 3 a.m. Tuesday around Russian-occupied Oleshky, ahead of an aid mission led by U.S. first lady Melania Trump. Up to 2,000 people there are stranded and short of food and medicine, AP reported. Russian and Ukrainian negotiators both confirmed the truce, which is due to last through Saturday. Kyiv was hit anyway. Late Monday, Russian ballistic missiles struck the grounds of a university, and the strikes killed one person and wounded eight. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said medical facilities were damaged too, The Guardian reported. More ballistic missile explosions shook the capital minutes after the truce began, AP reported. In Romania, investigators say a network “coordinated” by Russia started a September fire near a state arms factory in Brașov, Al Jazeera reported.

6. Belgrade / Serbia, Paris and London. The day after Vučić’s defeat, Serbia’s Student List is getting ready for coalition talks, and nobody yet knows who its prime minister will be. Projections give it 53% of the vote and 141 of 250 seats, against 39% and 103 seats for the Serbian Progressive Party, The Guardian reported. The movement is deliberately leaderless. In France, the government offered class-size caps and a €4 billion loan for school repairs, but student leaders told pupils to keep their barricades up, per The Guardian. And at a ceremony in London, Harry Kane won the Ballon d’Or, the first Englishman to do so since Michael Owen in 2001, while Alexia Putellas took the women’s award for a third time, Al Jazeera reported.

7. Oromia / Ethiopia, Algiers / Algeria, and DR Congo. According to Ethiopia’s Orthodox Church, more than 60 people were killed in attacks on Christians in the Shirka district of Oromia, and witnesses said five of them were children, BBC News reported. A local official blamed a new rebel coalition that includes the Oromo Liberation Army, which has denied carrying out past attacks. Algeria’s parliament has approved sending troops to Niger to guard energy sites near the Libyan border, its first foreign deployment since 1973, per BBC News. In north-eastern DR Congo, local youths killed a nurse responding to an Ebola alert after accusing health workers of spreading the virus. Nigeria’s Ebola patient was flown to Switzerland on Monday, BBC News reported.

8. Washington and California / United States. For the third time in little more than a year, the Justice Department is trying to charge James Comey. Newly unsealed filings show prosecutors used a “criminal information” over an alleged leak from a decade ago, a step that pauses the statute-of-limitations clock, AP via NPR reported. “Well, they’re back — again,” Comey said. “I’m still innocent.” Eight days before the midterms, the 9th Circuit refused, 2–1, to let the administration sequester roughly 20,000 California mail-in ballots it says went to “likely” non-citizens, Al Jazeera reported.

9. New York and Redmond / United States. Wall Street rose on a jittery day. The S&P 500 gained 0.7% to 7,676.77, the Dow added 146 points, and the Nasdaq climbed 0.8%, AP reported. Nvidia led the way, while Meta swung after saying it would raise $35 billion by selling stock to fund AI. Anthropic’s 335-page IPO filing warns that advanced AI could “pose catastrophic or existential risks to humanity,” BBC News notes. Microsoft is offering voluntary buyouts to about 60,000 employees, roughly a quarter of its global workforce, as AI spending rises, according to Reuters and AP.

10. Kimbe / Papua New Guinea, Saipan / Northern Marianas, and Antarctica. In West New Britain, 12 armed men are dead after robbing a store, rolling their getaway car and then opening fire on police, Commissioner David Manning said, ABC News reported. Further north, Typhoon In-fa could become a super typhoon by Thursday and is on track to pass near Pagan Island on Friday, per RNZ. Washington has also suspended visa-free visits by Chinese nationals to the Northern Marianas on security grounds, RNZ reported. Down south, the 2026/27 Antarctic season is underway. The RRS Sir David Attenborough has sailed and BAS aircraft are landing at Rothera, with a plan for the largest-ever penguin count, the British Antarctic Survey says.

Coming Up

Confirmed dates on The Watch: October 27, Israel’s election for the 26th Knesset, as the Fed’s two-day meeting opens in Washington (October 27–28). November 1, Bulgaria’s presidential runoff (Iotova vs Gyurov). November 3, U.S. midterms. Full board at the link.

World Brief: October 26, 2026

Lula’s comeback rattles Brazil’s markets while his rival cries foul; Serbia starts life after Vučić; Israel votes tomorrow; and Egypt’s parliament just cleared the way to help defend Saudi Arabia. Ten stories as of Monday morning, October 26.

1. Brasília and São Paulo / Brazil. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won a fourth term with 51.79% (64.26 million votes) to Flávio Bolsonaro’s 48.21% (59.83 million) on 80.8% turnout, the first candidate since 1985 to win a runoff after finishing second in round one, Al Jazeera reports. “No one is required to like the president-elect, but he must govern for everyone,” Lula said. Bolsonaro won’t concede and wants the result annulled because Justice Cristiano Zanin extended voting by two hours, though both campaigns had asked for extensions. He’s getting little backing: the electoral court president, Kassio Nunes Marques (appointed by Bolsonaro’s father), and the heads of the supreme court, lower house and senate have all recognised the result, The Guardian says. Markets were less gracious. Citing Reuters and AFP, the paper reports the real fell 12.2% against the dollar in early trading, São Paulo’s exchange halted trading, and the Treasury cancelled bond auctions. Lula starts the new term on January 5 facing the most right-wing Congress of the democratic era, BBC News notes. He turns 81 tomorrow.

2. Belgrade / Serbia, and Sofia / Bulgaria. With 8,077 of 8,392 polling stations processed, the electoral commission has the Student List on 52.54% and Aleksandar Vučić’s United Serbia on 39.29%, on 68.78% turnout, the highest in more than 30 years, Al Jazeera reports. That projects to about 140 of 250 seats (126 is a majority). The likely prime minister is Novi Sad cardiologist Ilija Srdanović, who told supporters, “This will be a free state,” BBC News reported. Parliament has 30 days from final results to convene, and acting president Ana Brnabić must call a presidential election by December 27. In Bulgaria, incumbent Iliana Iotova (34.76%) and pro-Western reformist Andrey Gyurov (31.95%) go to a November 1 runoff, per BNT, after record-low turnout, AP says.

3. Cairo / Egypt. Egypt’s parliament voted on Monday to authorize President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to give Saudi Arabia military support against attacks by Yemen’s Houthis, AP reports. The two-thirds vote, held behind closed doors, doesn’t mean troops are leaving tomorrow: Sissi has said Egypt will act only if Riyadh asks, and no formal Saudi request has been announced, The National notes. Officials describe any mission as defensive. Egypt has its own stake, since Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping have already cut Suez Canal revenue.

4. Tehran / Iran, and Riyadh / Saudi Arabia. Saudi Defence Minister Khalid bin Salman, Pakistan’s army chief Asim Munir and Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalın, representing the three signatories of August’s Mecca defence pact, are in Tehran trying to head off renewed fighting between Iran and the US, Al Jazeera reports. A big item on the agenda is getting Iran to rein in the Houthis, The Guardian says. Meanwhile the Saudi-led coalition says it destroyed four ballistic missile launchers and five missile-storage tunnels in Yemen, and Saudi air defences intercepted a missile fired at Riyadh. Riyadh’s airport reopened on Sunday, and the Houthis call it a “military target.”

5. Jerusalem and Hebron / Israel and the West Bank. Israelis vote tomorrow in an election the final polls called nearly neck-and-neck, with Gadi Eisenkot’s centrist Yashar party often edging Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud for first place, BBC News reports. Half a million first-time voters are eligible, and about 70,000 Israelis are reportedly flying home to vote. In Hebron, the governor says 488 families, 3,171 people, have been displaced across the governorate since a crackdown began Friday, after two soldiers were shot dead near the city, Al Jazeera reports.

6. Paris / France, and Kyiv / Ukraine. Defence ministers from France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the UK are meeting in Paris on more support for Ukraine, Al Jazeera reports. Overnight, a Ukrainian drone attack on Voronezh killed two people and wounded 17, many of them on a commuter train hit by debris, and a Russian strike on Zaporizhzhia injured four. Zelenskyy says Kyiv will stop hitting Russian refineries, as Trump has demanded, only if Moscow stops hitting Ukraine’s power grid. US, Ukrainian and Russian negotiators are expected in Abu Dhabi in the first half of November. Russia also says it will open a humanitarian corridor to occupied Oleshky, where trapped residents have been eating weeds to survive, NPR reports.

7. Marseille / France. Speaking in Marseille, President Emmanuel Macron promised “strong measures” after weeks of violent protests, while conceding that students have “legitimate” grievances and that the state had “not anticipated at all” how big the unrest would get, DW reports. Marches planned for Saturday are “risky,” he said, and routes will stay out of city centres. Saturday’s protests saw 70,000 police deployed and 1,435 arrests. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez expects Halloween night to be “complicated again.”

8. Taraba / Nigeria, and Mtito Andei / Kenya. The death toll from Friday’s raid on the village of Binnari in north-eastern Nigeria has risen to at least 48, police told BBC News. Gunmen on motorcycles looted shops and torched homes, and some victims drowned as they fled. Amnesty International says it has confirmed 52 deaths. In Kenya, the toll from Sunday’s church bus crash near Mtito Andei on the Nairobi–Mombasa road has reached 24, with 24 injured. The bus, carrying 52 people, hit a cement truck, and road safety officials blame improper overtaking, AP reports. The government is promising a road safety crackdown, says Al Jazeera.

9. Beijing / China, and Okinawa / Japan. About 300 members of the Communist Party’s Central Committee opened a closed-door, four-day Fifth Plenum on Monday. State media say it will pave the way for a “tightening of discipline,” a year before the next Party Congress, BBC News reports. In Japan, US Marine Devin Jacob Ballard, 20, has been indicted on charges of murdering and robbing 39-year-old Anna Yagi at a hotel in Naha, Japanese media report. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has called the crime “brutal and heinous” and lodged a “strong” protest with Washington, BBC News reports.

10. Michigan and San Francisco / United States; Canberra / Australia; and Antarctica. With eight days to the midterms, President Trump called Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed a “jihadist” at a rally, The Guardian reports, citing AP. El-Sayed, who would be the first Muslim US senator, calls the attacks on his loyalty “shameful.” Anthropic’s IPO filing warns AI could pose “catastrophic or existential risks to humanity.” It reports a first-half loss of more than $80.7bn on $16.3bn in revenue, with $112.4bn in cash, ahead of a Nasdaq listing under the ticker ANT, BBC News reports. In Canberra, Parliament paid tribute to independent MP Helen Haines with an orange cardboard cockatoo in her seat, and Speaker Milton Dick urged MPs to find a better way to argue, ABC News reports. And down south, a new channel between Rothschild and Alexander islands, opened up when an ice bridge broke apart, is now called the Amos Channel, after longtime BBC science correspondent Jonathan Amos, BBC News reports.

Coming Up

Oct 27: Israel’s Knesset election. Oct 27–28: Fed meeting. Oct 29: China’s Fifth Plenum wraps. Oct 31: more French protests planned. Nov 1: Bulgaria’s presidential runoff. Nov 3: U.S. midterms. The full board is on The Watch.