Journal Of Occurrences

World News

Daily Occurrences both Foreign and Domestic
You are here: Home / Archives for World News

World News

Lula Accepts Flávio Bolsonaro’s Terms to Open Bank, Tax and Phone Records Days Before Brazil’s Neck-and-Neck Run-Off: October 22, 2026

BRASÍLIA, Brazil — President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has agreed to expanded conditions set by his right-wing challenger, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, for both men to open their personal bank, tax and phone records ahead of Sunday’s presidential run-off, Al Jazeera reported, citing Reuters.

Lula offered on Tuesday to release his and his family’s records if Bolsonaro did the same. Bolsonaro’s campaign answered that it would comply only if Lula also disclosed records of his advisers and security staff and of companies held by his children. Senator Camilo Santana, speaking for Lula’s campaign, said the president had accepted and would file a formal response with the electoral court on Thursday, according to Al Jazeera.

The records fight comes as both campaigns navigate the fallout of a corruption scandal around banker Daniel Vorcaro. Bolsonaro is under investigation over an investment he allegedly sought from Vorcaro and denies wrongdoing. Lula’s sons are also under investigation in separate cases, which they deny.

Bolsonaro, son of former President Jair Bolsonaro — who is serving a sentence of more than 20 years for plotting a coup — narrowly beat Lula in the Oct. 4 first round, and polls show the two neck and neck, BBC News reported. A record 21% of eligible voters stayed home in the first round despite compulsory voting.

Lula, who turns 81 two days after the vote, has cast the race as a “battle for democracy” and is courting older voters, Reuters reported. Bolsonaro is campaigning on crime and closer ties with the Trump administration.

Sources: Al Jazeera, BBC News, Reuters

—

New Mexico Judge Orders Meta to Pay $25 Billion for Years of Misleading Facebook Users About Their Data: October 22, 2026

NEW MEXICO — A New Mexico judge has ordered Meta to pay the state $25 billion after a jury found the company spent years misleading the public about how it handled Facebook users’ data, the largest penalty ever imposed on the company, BBC News and Al Jazeera reported.

“Facebook’s wrongdoing — over the course of years and systematically broadcast to the public — goes to the heart of Facebook’s core business practices,” Judge Francis Mathew wrote, according to Al Jazeera. He found the violations were “willful” and spanned 2010 to 2021, and that communications among senior executives, including Mark Zuckerberg, were “designed to mislead the public.”

The judge said a penalty of more than $219 billion was warranted under state law but reduced it to $25 billion — roughly Meta’s quarterly profit, the BBC said. The state had sought up to $40 billion; Meta argued anything above $3.4 billion would be unconstitutional. A jury found Meta violated state law more than 40 million times.

The lawsuit, filed in 2021, grew out of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which a British political consultancy harvested data from as many as 87 million Facebook users. The state also accused Meta of misleading the public about its handling of hate speech.

“No corporation is too powerful to be held accountable,” Attorney General Raúl Torrez said. Meta’s chief legal officer, CJ Mahoney, said the ruling made it “all but impossible to do business in the state of New Mexico” and that the company expects to win on appeal.

Earlier this year New Mexico won $942 million from Meta in two trials over child safety on Instagram and Facebook.

Sources: BBC News, Al Jazeera

—

Bukele Launches Military Operation to Rescue Four Salvadorans Held Hostage by Haitian Gangs, Warning ‘Today’s Attack Is Nothing’: October 22, 2026

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele says gangs in Haiti are holding four Salvadoran members of the U.N.-backed Gang Suppression Force hostage, and that he has launched a military operation to bring them home, BBC News, AP and CBC News reported.

The four went missing Sunday after gangs ambushed their armored vehicle in the Croix-des-Bouquets area outside Port-au-Prince as they returned to base from buying food at a market. The vehicle caught fire after being hit by explosives, and the men fled. No gang has claimed responsibility.

Bukele addressed the gang leaders directly on X in a post in Haitian Creole, saying the men are aviation technicians, not combatants, and that El Salvador’s mission “consists only of pilots and technical personnel, whose primary job is to carry out medical evacuations and save lives, not to wage war”:

“Today’s attack is nothing compared to what is coming if they do not release the four hostages alive. And do not take our words as empty threats,” he wrote, according to AP via NPR. If the men are returned unharmed, he said, “everything will go back to the way it was before the kidnapping.”

Haiti’s government called the abduction an “absolute priority” and said “all necessary resources are being mobilized.” The Gang Suppression Force said it had engaged gang members with helicopter support and that early reports indicated several gang members were killed, BBC News reported.

The force, which includes troops from Chad, Jamaica, Guatemala and other countries, has more than 2,000 personnel on the ground, according to AP.

Sources: BBC News, AP via NPR, CBC News

—

Foreign Man Beaten to Death by Mob of About 50 During March in Durban as South Africa’s Anti-Immigrant Tensions Flare: October 22, 2026

DURBAN, South Africa — A foreign citizen was beaten to death by a group of about 50 people during a protest march through central Durban, police said Thursday, as anti-immigrant tensions continue to flare in South Africa, The Associated Press reported.

Police said the group approached the man, who was standing at the side of a road during the march, and assaulted him. They did not immediately give his nationality or say what the march was about. The victim was in his 30s or early 40s, and police were still trying to identify suspects, AP reported.

South Africa has endured months of anti-immigration marches calling for action against migrants in the country illegally, some of which have turned violent. Nigeria, Mozambique, Malawi and other countries say some of their citizens have been killed; South African authorities have disputed some of those claims.

Durban, the country’s third-largest city, has become a hotspot. In June, thousands of mainly Malawian migrants gathered in a city park seeking repatriation after a protest group demanded undocumented migrants leave by June 30. This month, cars were torched and shops looted in Soweto after a court ruling made it easier for foreigners to claim asylum.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has denounced the violence while acknowledging years of border-control failures. Official figures show about 2.4 million foreign nationals among South Africa’s 62 million people.

Sources: AP

—

Nigeria’s First Ebola Patient Is a Diplomat’s Wife Who Holidayed in Uganda, Africa CDC Chief Says, as 46 Contacts Are Barred From Flying: October 22, 2026

ABUJA, Nigeria — Nigeria’s first confirmed Ebola case in the current outbreak is the wife of a diplomat who had spent a holiday in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, the head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention told BBC News.

Health Minister Muhammad Ali Pate told the BBC that the 42-year-old, originally from Uganda but based in Abuja, spent two and a half weeks in Kampala and made a two-hour stopover in Ethiopia’s capital before returning home on Oct. 3. “She’s stable, she’s improving,” he said.

Africa CDC chief Jean Kaseya said the woman first fell ill on Oct. 6 and went to two private hospitals “thinking that she had malaria” before being admitted on Oct. 11. Public health authorities were alerted on Oct. 19 and the diagnosis was confirmed the next day. She has the Bundibugyo species of Ebola behind the outbreak in Congo, for which there is no approved vaccine or treatment.

Officials have identified 44 contacts, none known to have developed symptoms. Aviation Minister Festus Keyamo said 46 people, including two who worked in her home, have been barred from boarding flights, and screening has been stepped up at Nigeria’s international airports.

Uganda’s health ministry disputed the account, describing the woman as a Nigerian national who went to eastern Congo on business and only transited through Uganda, and insisting it has no active cases, BBC News reported. Kaseya urged countries to share information and asked Western nations not to impose travel restrictions.

The Congo outbreak has claimed at least 4,600 lives, with more than 9,500 cases recorded, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

Sources: BBC News, The Guardian

—

Kim Yo Jong Says North Korea’s Propaganda Loudspeakers Will Be Ready Along the Entire Border Within Days: October 22, 2026

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea’s propaganda loudspeakers aimed at South Korea will be ready to restart along the entire border within days, Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un, said in a statement carried Thursday by the state news agency KCNA, The Guardian and Reuters reported.

If the broadcasts resume, it would be the first loudspeaker exchange across the border in 16 months. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung halted the South’s broadcasts days into his presidency in June 2025 to ease tensions, and the military dismantled its speakers that August.

A South Korean defense ministry spokesperson said that if the North went ahead, “naturally there would have to be a proportional measure,” but that no decision had been made, according to The Guardian. The Joint Chiefs of Staff said routine maintenance of the North’s loudspeakers had been observed beforehand.

Kim Yo Jong inspected border fortifications on Wednesday and said the frontier had been “turned into a fortress more thoroughly,” adding that her brother had told her it “should be a permanent line never to be crossed.”

Tensions have risen since September, when a landmine blast south of the military demarcation line injured three South Korean soldiers. Seoul and the U.N. Command concluded it was a North Korean mine; Pyongyang called the incident a “self-staged farce.”

Sources: The Guardian, Reuters

—

U.S. Orders Diplomats’ Departure From Saudi Arabia as Attack on Dammam Airport Kills Two: October 22, 2026

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — The U.S. State Department has ordered non-emergency government employees and their families to leave Saudi Arabia as attacks on the kingdom escalate, BBC News and The Guardian reported.

Saudi Arabia’s civil aviation authority said Thursday that two people were killed and eight injured in an overnight attack on King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, on the Gulf coast. Separately, the energy ministry said falling debris from a drone intercepted near an oil facility in the country’s southeast killed two more people, according to The Guardian. Neither attack was immediately claimed.

“Iranian-supported Houthis have increasingly engaged in hostilities against Saudi Arabia, including attacks on civilian airports and other critical infrastructure resulting in civilian casualties and severe travel disruptions,” the State Department said, warning that “the hostilities have the potential to escalate rapidly,” according to BBC News.

Spokesperson Tommy Pigott called reports of similar withdrawals from the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain “inaccurate,” saying the order covered only the embassy in Riyadh and its consulates.

Yemen’s Houthis have fired missiles and drones at Saudi airports, oil facilities and tankers since July, when a four-year informal ceasefire unravelled. Their “maritime embargo” in the Bab al-Mandab Strait has helped push up oil prices, since Saudi Arabia has relied on Red Sea exports since the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz.

The drawdown comes as The New York Times reported that the U.S. and Israel have drawn up plans for a possible new operation against Iran after the Nov. 3 midterm elections, The Guardian said. Trump has publicly said he does not intend to restart the war before the vote.

Sources: BBC News, The Guardian, Reuters

—

Storm Adam Floods Kill at Least Four in Southern France as Water Rises to ‘Unprecedented Levels’ Near Marseille: October 22, 2026

MARSEILLE, France — At least four people have died and one has been injured in flooding unleashed by Storm Adam across southern France, BBC News and Reuters reported.

Two women, aged 86 and 26, were found drowned in a cellar in the Bouches-du-Rhône department around Marseille. On the island of Corsica, a 4×4 was swept away by floodwaters; one occupant escaped through a window, but another man was found dead. Authorities have not released details of the fourth death.

“The water has risen to unprecedented levels,” Jacques Witkowski, the prefect of Bouches-du-Rhône, said, according to BBC News. “We are mobilised at an exceptional level to resolve several issues.”

Dozens of residents of Mouriès and Saint-Martin-de-Crau, between Montpellier and Marseille, were put up in emergency shelters, and road and rail lines in the region were disrupted, Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot said.

More bad weather is on the way. Météo-France issued an orange wind warning for five western departments — Côtes-d’Armor, Finistère, Morbihan, Ille-et-Vilaine and Manche — from Thursday evening into Friday as Storm Austen moves in from the Atlantic.

Storm Adam had already caused severe flooding in eastern Spain, where at least three people were killed and helicopters plucked people from rooftops. The Valencian government approved a €23.5 million aid package for those affected.

Sources: BBC News, Reuters

—

Russia Pounds Kyiv With Ballistic Missiles Hours After Agreeing ‘in Principle’ to Resume Peace Talks: October 22, 2026

KYIV, Ukraine — Russia bombarded Kyiv with ballistic missiles overnight into Thursday, just hours after the Kremlin said it had agreed “in principle” to resume three-way peace talks with Ukraine and the United States, The Guardian and Al Jazeera reported.

Ukraine’s national emergency service said at least one person was killed and 22 were injured in the capital, including four children, according to Al Jazeera. The Guardian put the toll at at least two dead. Targets included the Southern Bridge over the Dnipro River, homes, energy infrastructure, an ambulance station and a monastery, and 12 regions were hit across the country, including the port of Odesa.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy answered with a jab at U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, who had called Vladimir Putin “a humanitarian” during their talks in St Petersburg on Wednesday:

“Almost immediately after another round of talks, Russia launched a pointed attack. This means there has been no real change in its attitude,” Zelenskyy said, according to The Guardian. Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote that “appeasement, servility, and flattery will not stop this war. Only strength will.”

Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said a new round of talks could be held around Nov. 10 in Abu Dhabi, a week after the U.S. midterm elections, BBC News reported. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday the world was “maybe now the closest we’ve been” to ending the war.

Russia, meanwhile, said it shot down hundreds of Ukrainian drones overnight. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said two people were wounded as Ukraine sent a barrage of drones toward the Moscow region, Al Jazeera reported.

Sources: The Guardian, BBC News, Al Jazeera

—

World Brief, Evening: October 21, 2026

The U.S. is pulling non-emergency staff out of Saudi Arabia as attacks there kill three more people; Russian missiles hit Kyiv hours after the Kremlin said it’s ready to talk again; and Pope Leo needs no further cancer treatment. Ten stories as of Wednesday evening, October 21.

1. Riyadh and Dammam / Saudi Arabia. The State Department ordered non-emergency U.S. government employees and their families to leave Saudi Arabia, citing Houthi attacks on “civilian airports and other critical infrastructure” and warning that “the hostilities have the potential to escalate rapidly,” BBC News reported. By evening, a strike on King Fahd International Airport in Dammam killed one person and injured eight, the kingdom’s civil aviation authority said, per Al Jazeera. Earlier, debris from a drone shot down near Saudi Aramco’s Shaybah oilfield killed two people, a Filipino and a Nepali national, according to DW. Neither attack was immediately claimed. Spokesperson Tommy Pigott called reports of a wider Gulf drawdown “inaccurate,” though Reuters and AFP cited sources saying families would leave other Gulf posts too, and the New York Times reported the U.S. and Israel have drawn up plans for a “short but intensive operation” against Iran after the November 3 midterms, The Guardian reported. Saudi Arabia has also called off its “Davos in the Desert” investor meeting because of the strikes, per NPR. Pigott’s post:

2. Kyiv / Ukraine, and St Petersburg / Russia. Russian missiles hit Kyiv on Wednesday night, damaging several houses and injuring six people, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said, just hours after Moscow said it was “ready in principle” to resume peace talks, BBC News reported. Steve Witkoff spent about three hours with Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg; Putin aide Yuri Ushakov floated a new round around November 10 in Abu Dhabi. Donald Trump said peace is “maybe now the closest we’ve been,” and Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Fox News he’d accept freezing the war on the current front line: “Freeze and stop. And of course this is minimum what we need from Russia today.” Ushakov sounded cooler on what Witkoff brought from Oslo: “there wasn’t much there that was useful,” per BBC News, where Steve Rosenberg notes a possible Putin–Trump–Xi meeting on the edges of next month’s APEC summit in China.

3. Paris / France. Ahead of more protests on Thursday, Paris police banned gatherings around the Élysée Palace, Place de la Bastille, both houses of parliament and tourist spots including the Louvre and the Champs-Élysées, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., DW reported. Marine Le Pen hit back at Emmanuel Macron’s claim that AI fakes fed foreign leaders’ “stupid” comments: “The images we saw last Saturday are not generated by artificial intelligence: they show the sad reality of what France has become after 10 years of Macronist rule.” Nearly 150 people have been jailed and more than 800 brought before the courts since Saturday’s riots, and the Financial Times reports EU regulators are looking at pro-Russian and far-right accounts that spread violent videos, per BBC News.

4. Vatican City. Pope Leo XIV won’t need further treatment after surgery to remove a cancerous growth from his lung. Tests confirmed a lung adenocarcinoma that was localized, and “a subsequent oncological assessment has confirmed that no further treatment is necessary,” the Vatican said, BBC News reported. The 71-year-old had the lower lobe of his right lung removed on October 13 and was back in St Peter’s Square on Wednesday for his first general audience since leaving Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, per Al Jazeera. A Latin America trip is planned for early November.

5. Abuja / Nigeria. Nigeria’s first Ebola patient is a 42-year-old diplomat’s wife who spent two and a half weeks on holiday in Kampala, Uganda, Africa CDC chief Jean Kaseya and Health Minister Muhammad Ali Pate told BBC News, contradicting Uganda’s account that she only passed through. Pate says she’s “stable, she’s improving,” while an unnamed official told AFP her condition had deteriorated into multi-organ failure, per Al Jazeera. Nigeria’s CDC confirmed the Bundibugyo strain, which has no vaccine or specific treatment; 44 contacts, most of them health workers, are isolated. Kaseya says the outbreak is “no longer one country’s fight” and will convene Africa’s health ministers next week.

6. Nairobi / Kenya, and worldwide. The UN Environment Programme’s new Emissions Gap Report says that even if every country delivers its climate plan, warming would reach 2.6°C this century; current policies point to 2.8°C, UNEP said. Getting back to 1.5°C by 2100 would take emissions cuts of 18% by 2030, 45% by 2035 and 69% by 2040 from 2025 levels. UNEP says the outlook got worse partly because the U.S. left the Paris Agreement, and NPR noted the U.S. was the only major economy whose emissions rose last year, per NPR. “Overshoot is not surrender,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said, per UN News.

7. Chihuahua and Mexico City / Mexico. Federal prosecutors charged César Jáuregui Moreno, Chihuahua’s former attorney general, with treason for letting U.S. agents join an April raid on a suspected drug lab without proper authorization, BBC News reported. It came to light after two Americans said to have worked for the CIA died in an April 19 crash along with two Mexican officers. Jáuregui, of the opposition PAN party, denies it; a hearing is set for Saturday, per Al Jazeera. President Claudia Sheinbaum has insisted foreign agents need prior federal clearance to work in Mexico.

8. New Mexico / United States. A New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $25bn, the largest fine yet against the company, after a trial found it spent years misleading the public about how Facebook user data was handled, a case rooted in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, BBC News reported. Judge Francis Mathew called the violations “willful” and said they spanned more than 11 years. “No corporation is too powerful to be held accountable,” said state Attorney General Raúl Torrez. Meta’s chief lawyer, CJ Mahoney, said the company will appeal.

9. Bogotá and Cartagena / Colombia. Protesters gathered outside the National Museum in Bogotá as President Abelardo de la Espriella pushed a cultural “counterrevolution” against what he calls “atheist social communism,” pulling exhibits on feminist and LGBTQ+ activism and on Colombia’s political violence, Al Jazeera reported. Separately, authorities seized 7.6 tonnes of cocaine bound for the Netherlands at the Caribbean port of Cartagena, the country’s biggest haul in a decade, per Al Jazeera.

10. Wangaratta / Victoria, Australia. Independent MP Helen Haines has lost both legs after Monday’s alleged car attack outside her office; doctors amputated her right leg on Wednesday after trying to save it, her husband Phil said. “The good news in all this is that Helen is alive and she’s stable,” he told reporters, DW reported. MPs from all sides told federal police and ASIO in safety briefings that they fear for their homes and offices, and several say they’ve paid for their own security upgrades; the AFP logged 1,067 reports of threats and harassment against office holders last year, up from 951 the year before, per The Guardian.

Coming Up

Confirmed dates on The Watch: October 25, Brazil’s presidential runoff (Flávio Bolsonaro vs Lula) and Serbia’s snap parliamentary election. October 27, Israel’s election for the 26th Knesset, and the Fed’s two-day meeting opens in Washington (October 27–28). Full board at the link.