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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sources: BBC News, Al Jazeera

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Turkish Police Raid Opposition Channel Halk TV, Halt Live Broadcasts and Install a Government Trustee: October 14, 2026

ISTANBUL, Turkey — Turkish police raided the Istanbul headquarters of Halk TV, one of the country’s most-watched news channels, early Wednesday, cutting live broadcasts and paving the way for a government-appointed administrator to run the outlet, BBC News reported.

Financial crimes officers searched the building and took 11 people into custody in a probe linked to channel chairman Cafer Mahiroğlu, Turkish media said. Prosecutors issued arrest warrants for 17 people on allegations of bribery, tender-rigging and money laundering. Mahiroğlu, reportedly abroad during the raid, said seven relatives were among those detained and called it “a dark day for Turkey,” arguing the public’s right to information was being seized for political reasons.

Halk’s linear channel and YouTube livestreams were offline early Wednesday. Journalists were initially locked out, then allowed back under a heavy police presence, the BBC said. The channel is widely seen as close to the opposition Republican People’s Party and frequently criticizes President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s AK Party.

The Istanbul Bar Association condemned the raid, noting it came hours before imprisoned opposition figure Ekrem İmamoğlu was due to open his defence against corruption charges. Opposition leader Özgür Özel called the dawn raid and trustee appointment “something only dictators do.”

Turkey ranked 159th of 180 in Reporters Without Borders’ 2026 World Press Freedom Index, with RSF saying about 90% of national media is under government control. Authorities seized control of another critical channel, Tele1, in October 2025, stripping it of hard-news content.

Sources: BBC News

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Germany Opens Nord Stream Sabotage Trial in Hamburg as a Ukrainian Defendant Faces War-Crime Charges: October 14, 2026

HAMBURG, Germany — A Ukrainian citizen identified as Serhii K. went on trial Wednesday before Hamburg’s Higher Regional Court over the September 2022 explosions that wrecked three of four Nord Stream gas pipeline sections in the Baltic Sea, DW and Reuters reported.

Prosecutors accuse him of being an accomplice to a war crime by attacking civilian energy infrastructure, as well as disruption of public services, causing an explosion and destroying structures. He was arrested in Italy in August 2025 on a European warrant and extradited to Germany. Defence lawyers at the opening argued the bombing may not have been a crime under German law, Reuters said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly denied that Ukraine took part in the attack. “Ukraine has never officially taken part in any operation related to the blowing up of Nord Stream,” he told reporters again in August, DW noted. The case is politically sensitive in Germany, which continues to arm and fund Kyiv while hosting about 1.3 million Ukrainian refugees.

Critics of Ukraine aid, including the far-right AfD and the left-populist BSW, have already linked the defendant to Kyiv’s leadership and demanded explanations or compensation — claims that have not been proven in court. German naval commander Göran Swistek said in 2023 that the operation’s scale pointed to a state actor but argued Ukraine was an unlikely culprit because it would not want to jeopardize German support.

The blasts ended a mega-project that once carried Russian gas to Germany. Nord Stream 1 had already been curtailed by Moscow after the full-scale invasion; Nord Stream 2 never entered service. The trial’s outcome is expected to shape German debate over continued military and financial support for Ukraine.

Sources: DW, Reuters

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SpaceX Speed Limits on Starlink Disrupt Ukraine’s Front-Line Drone Missions as Russia Pounds Energy Sites Overnight: October 14, 2026

KYIV, Ukraine — Overnight speed limits on Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite network disrupted Ukrainian battlefield “missions,” an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Wednesday, as Russia’s latest missile and drone barrage left hundreds of thousands without power, BBC News, DW and CBC News reported.

Serhiy Beskrestnov said SpaceX had “implemented overnight a speed limit on Starlink terminals” at 100 mph (160 km/h) without informing Ukrainian troops, and that the change had already disrupted operations. A Ukrainian defence ministry source confirmed the restriction to the BBC, saying terminals lose connectivity once a vehicle or asset exceeds that speed — a problem for interceptor and mid-range strike drones as well as front-line logistics and reconnaissance. SpaceX has not publicly commented. Beskrestnov wrote that the move “cannot be a coincidence” and is tied to “the current political situation.”

Starlink remains a critical tool for guiding drones and defending Ukrainian airspace. The speed-limit dispute comes amid friction with Washington over strikes on Russian energy infrastructure and Trump’s claimed “energy ceasefire,” which Moscow has rejected.

Zelenskyy said Russia fired 39 ballistic and cruise missiles and more than 120 attack drones overnight at energy and critical infrastructure in Kyiv, the Kyiv region and Kharkiv, leaving at least 600,000 people without electricity. Local officials said three people were killed in Kyiv. Ukraine’s air force said four missiles and 115 drones were shot down. It was the second night in a row ballistic missiles struck the capital without early partner warnings, the BBC said. Zelenskyy was due to meet British Prime Minister Andy Burnham in London on Wednesday to press for more air defenses.

Sources: BBC News, DW, CBC News

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World Brief, Evening: October 13, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Coming Up

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

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

World Brief: October 13, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Coming Up

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

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

Eight Dead in Papua New Guinea’s Porgera Valley as Locals Blame Elite Kumul 23 Police and Commissioner Defends a Crackdown: October 13, 2026

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea — Details are emerging of violence that left at least eight people dead in Papua New Guinea’s Porgera Valley last month, with local officials blaming the country’s elite Kumul 23 tactical police unit — a claim police deny, RNZ Pacific and the Post-Courier reported Tuesday.

Porgera District Administrator Jerry Maku said eight people are known to have been killed and one critically injured in the Sept. 23 incident in Enga Province: six people suspected of being illegal miners shot near the Porgera gold mine, and two landowners killed in their homes. Among the dead was Richard Yope, a 16-year-old student who his family says was passing by. “Frightening things are happening, and we are failing, the government is failing its own people,” Maku told RNZ Pacific.

A letter from Pulumani tribe spokesperson Andreas Wabiria said officers in military fatigues and black masks ordered villagers to assemble, razed Kulapi villages 1 through 4, burned houses and “discharged firearms indiscriminately into the crowd.” “Many other persons remain missing and are presumed dead,” he wrote. RNZ said it had seen footage of bodies covered in blankets and flowers surrounded by mourners.

Police Commissioner David Manning denied that Kumul 23 was behind the killings, saying the unit was in the area to respond to tribal fighting after nine people were murdered by opposing clansmen. In a statement Tuesday he announced that “24 male criminals have been arrested and two armed men killed during a police operation targeting a violent criminal group in Porgera.” The Post-Courier reported that those arrested face charges carrying a minimum sentence of 50 years in prison.

Kumul 23 was created last year under new anti-terrorism laws that gave it “shoot to kill” powers. The mine’s owners, Barrick Niugini and the PNG state, have been trying to curb illegal mining at the site, while a long-promised relocation of landowners living on the Special Mining Lease remains unsettled. Former Deputy Prime Minister Don Polye, an Engan leader, said a teenager’s grieving father came to him in tears, saying “it was the police that shot my son.”

Sources: RNZ Pacific, Post-Courier

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sources: The Guardian, Al Jazeera

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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