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Trump Strikes Deal With Putin to Release Russian Diesel, Drawing Zelensky’s Fury as Ukraine Talks Continue in Miami: October 10, 2026

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to release Russian diesel to U.S. and global markets, a sharp reversal of years of Western pressure on Moscow that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned as a gift to the Kremlin, BBC News and The Guardian reported.

In a Truth Social post after a call with Putin, Trump said Russia would immediately supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel, followed by 500,000 tons in November, 1 million tons after that and a further 3 million tons “within a short period,” depending on the condition of Russian refineries that Ukraine has attacked. “Diesel prices for Americans and, indeed, the world, will be COMING DOWN, IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST!” he wrote. The U.S. Treasury issued a temporary license allowing Russian diesel onto world markets through April 2027, DW reported.

The Kremlin said Putin had confirmed Russia’s “willingness to supply oil and petroleum products to the US market and global markets at large,” and Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said additional volumes could begin flowing in October. Putin’s envoy Kirill Dmitriev said “Russia-US co-operation on diesel and energy will benefit the world.”

Zelensky called the deal “an investment in a war that must be ended, not prolonged” and said Russia would repay it with “further terror and perfidy.” He told Axios it “looks like a happy birthday present for Putin,” according to The Guardian. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and two other Democratic senators said “this is what failure looks like,” and Republican Rep. Don Bacon wrote that “propping up Putin’s war economy is morally wrong.” Britain said it would maintain “the toughest sanctions regime ever imposed by the UK.”

Trump has spent months grappling with soaring fuel prices driven by the war with Iran, which began in February; the average U.S. diesel price is $6.28 a gallon, down from a record $6.53 at the end of September, according to AAA figures cited by the BBC. Analysts questioned the impact: the first tranche equals about 2.25 million barrels, against U.S. consumption of around 3.8 million barrels a day, Tim Armitage of Quilter Cheviot told the BBC. The announcement came as U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Ukrainian and European officials in Miami for talks on ending the war, which Witkoff described as “constructive,” DW said.

Sources: BBC News, The Guardian, DW, NPR

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Magnitude 7.7 Earthquake Rocks Panama, Toppling Part of a Cathedral and Injuring at Least 27: October 10, 2026

PANAMA CITY — A shallow magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck south-central Panama on Friday afternoon, collapsing buildings and roads in the center of the country and injuring at least 27 people, though no deaths had been reported, Panamanian authorities said, according to AFP and BBC News.

The quake hit just before 3 p.m. local time at a depth of about 12 kilometers, with its epicenter about 10 kilometers from the remote community of Pitaloza Arriba, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, which estimated that about 4.6 million people felt moderate to severe shaking. A second powerful quake, of magnitude 6.6, followed amid a string of aftershocks, DW reported; Panama’s geosciences institute has recorded more than 80 aftershocks, AFP said.

One side of the cathedral in Penonomé collapsed along with one of its spires, and footage showed collapsed buildings in Penonomé and Soná, the BBC said. Local outlets reported that the colonial-era Church of San Atanasio in Los Santos province, a national heritage site since 1938, also collapsed, according to DW. The National Civil Protection System said the 27 injured all had minor injuries, and Health Minister Fernando Boyd said the hardest-hit areas were the provinces of Herrera, Coclé and Los Santos, AFP reported.

“We are facing a major disaster,” President José Raúl Mulino said, adding that some roads had “completely collapsed,” according to The Guardian. Mulino traveled to Penonomé to coordinate the response and urged calm, writing on X that what happened “should not be used to generate alarm and disorder.”

Tsunami alerts issued for Panama and neighboring countries were lifted after the U.S. Tsunami Warning System said there was no threat. The Panama Canal Authority said the waterway was operating normally, Tocumen International Airport reopened after briefly suspending flights, and electricity provider Naturgy reported outages in six provinces. The USGS estimated economic losses could reach 1 to 10 percent of Panama’s gross domestic product, The Guardian said. The quake struck days before Panama was due to hold a national earthquake evacuation drill on Monday.

Sources: AFP, BBC News, The Guardian, DW

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Isaias Slams the Florida Panhandle as a Category 2 Hurricane, Knocking Out Power to Hundreds of Thousands Before Weakening Over Alabama: October 10, 2026

PENSACOLA, Fla. — Hurricane Isaias made landfall near Destin on the western Florida Panhandle on Friday night with maximum sustained winds near 105 mph, then weakened to a post-tropical cyclone over southern Alabama early Saturday, leaving hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses without power across the Southeast, the National Hurricane Center and news reports said.

At 4 a.m. CDT Saturday, the center of Isaias was about 25 miles south-southwest of Montgomery, Alabama, moving north at 14 mph with maximum sustained winds near 35 mph, the hurricane center said in its 15th advisory. All storm surge and tropical storm warnings have been discontinued, and Isaias is forecast to move across Alabama into the Tennessee Valley and dissipate on Sunday.

Forecasters warned that the flood threat was not over. The center expects 4 to 8 inches of rain across southern Alabama, the Florida Panhandle and Big Bend, and southwest Georgia through the weekend, with local totals up to 15 inches, and said considerable flash flooding and landslides are possible in the Southern Appalachians. A tornado risk persisted Saturday across parts of the eastern Florida Panhandle, Georgia and the Carolinas.

More than 400,000 customers were without power in Florida, just over 300,000 in Alabama and more than 100,000 in Georgia on Saturday morning, according to PowerOutage.us figures cited by BBC News. Roads flooded in Destin, police in Pensacola warned residents to stay off debris-strewn streets, and Florida’s National Guard deployed about 5,000 soldiers and airmen, Al Jazeera reported. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the state had received no requests for search and rescue, calling that “cautiously, a good sign,” and said no fatalities had been reported so far, according to The Guardian.

Isaias peaked as a Category 3 storm before landfall. It is the first hurricane of the 2026 Atlantic season and, according to the BBC, the first time in more than 30 years that no hurricane formed before October. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said emergency declarations had been approved for Florida and Alabama. On the Pacific side, Hurricane Simon strengthened into a Category 4 storm with 140 mph winds as it headed for Mexico’s coast, and Tropical Storm Rachel brought high tides and street flooding to Southern California, Al Jazeera and the BBC reported.

Sources: National Hurricane Center, BBC News, Al Jazeera, The Guardian

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World Brief, Evening: October 9, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Coming Up

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

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

World Brief: October 9, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Coming Up

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sources: BBC News, The Guardian

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ICC Judges Rule Rodrigo Duterte Fit to Stand Trial, Clearing the Way for His November Crimes Against Humanity Case: October 9, 2026

THE HAGUE — Judges at the International Criminal Court have ruled that former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is fit to stand trial on charges of crimes against humanity, removing a major obstacle before his trial opens on Nov. 30, the court said.

Trial Chamber III on Thursday made public its decision, dated Sept. 28, which relied on an independent panel of experts that unanimously found Duterte able to understand the charges and the evidence, follow the proceedings and instruct his lawyers. “The Chamber was satisfied that the Accused is able to effectively exercise his fair trial rights in the proceedings,” the ICC said. The judges rejected a defense request for further medical examinations.

Duterte’s lawyer Peter Haynes had argued that the former president suffers from “significant memory impairment that prevents him from retaining recent information and reliably accessing memories,” GMA News reported. The chamber said it was mindful of the experts’ findings of cognitive impairment, but described it as “mild,” “incipient” or “pre-clinical,” Rappler reported. The judges said sitting hours would be set case by case and ordered that his health be continuously monitored by the medical officer at the court’s detention center.

Duterte faces three counts of crimes against humanity over killings linked to his “war on drugs” and the so-called Davao Death Squad; human rights groups say the crackdown killed nearly 30,000 people, according to Rappler. He was arrested and surrendered to the court in March 2025, and judges confirmed all charges in April.

Sources: International Criminal Court, GMA News, Rappler

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Malaysia Shuts Schools for About Two Million Students as Haze From Indonesian Fires Smothers the Region: October 9, 2026

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysia closed schools on Friday in its capital and several states as smoke from forest fires in Indonesia pushed air pollution to unhealthy levels across the region, Al Jazeera and DW reported.

Schools were ordered shut in Kuala Lumpur, the administrative capital Putrajaya and the states of Johor, Malacca, Negeri Sembilan, Pahang and Selangor, affecting roughly two million students, as Kuala Lumpur recorded an Air Pollutant Index reading of about 170. King Sultan Ibrahim said schools should close whenever the index reaches 150; under Malaysian guidelines, readings above 100 are unhealthy and above 200 very unhealthy. “Going forward, we will ensure that any decision to close schools is communicated in advance so that parents have enough time to prepare,” Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek said, according to DW.

“The haze issue is indeed at a worrying level,” Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said, adding that Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto had agreed to take “the necessary steps,” without giving details, Al Jazeera reported. Anwar said he had asked his foreign minister to push for an urgent meeting of ASEAN environment ministers and that Malaysia was stepping up cloud seeding to trigger rain.

Indonesia is having its worst fire season in more than a decade, with at least 200,000 hectares burned across six provinces and more than 170,000 respiratory infections recorded by its Health Ministry, Al Jazeera said. Air quality in Singapore fell into the “very unhealthy” range, according to IQAir, which ranked Kuala Lumpur the world’s second most polluted city behind Singapore. Organizers of this weekend’s Singapore Formula One Grand Prix said the race would go ahead with masks and extra medics on hand.

Sources: Al Jazeera, DW

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South Africa Pulls Asylum Directive After Anti-Migrant Riots Torch Cars in Durban and Soweto: October 9, 2026

JOHANNESBURG — South Africa’s government has withdrawn a directive on processing asylum applications after anti-immigrant protests turned violent in Durban and Johannesburg’s Soweto township, where at least 24 vehicles were set ablaze and foreign-owned shops were looted, police said, BBC News and DW reported.

Police said 14 vehicles were torched in Durban and 10 in Soweto, where gunshots were reported during confrontations between residents and foreign shopkeepers. In Durban, protesters gathered outside a government refugee reception center demanding that it stop accepting asylum applications, and police fired rubber bullets to disperse crowds. The violence followed allegations that a foreign national had assaulted a protester; three foreign nationals were arrested. “At the present moment, I can confirm that no injuries have been reported,” police spokesman Xolani Fihla told the public broadcaster SABC.

The Department of Home Affairs said its staff had been “overwhelmed” under the current policy and that “serious threats to public safety and order had emerged,” but that its new approach would still comply with the Constitutional Court, the BBC reported. In July the court struck down restrictions that barred some people from seeking asylum because of how they entered the country or because they missed deadlines, prompting long queues at reception centers. Government spokesman William Baloyi told Reuters that false claims had spread that undocumented migrants would automatically be granted legal status.

South Africa has seen repeated outbreaks of xenophobic violence, often aimed at migrants from neighboring countries. Anti-immigrant groups this year demanded that undocumented foreigners leave by June 30, and tens of thousands of people have fled the country, DW said. Acting national police commissioner Lt. Gen. Puleng Dimpane condemned the destruction, and authorities promised to pursue those responsible.

Sources: BBC News, DW

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South African Jurist Navi Pillay Wins the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize for Championing International Law: October 9, 2026

OSLO — The Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday awarded the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize to South African jurist Navanethem “Navi” Pillay “for her efforts to promote peace and international law,” saying she had “been instrumental in ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are prosecuted,” according to the official announcement.

Born into a family of Indian Tamil origin under apartheid in Durban, Pillay defended Nelson Mandela and other anti-apartheid activists before serving as a judge on South Africa’s High Court, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court. She was U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, chaired the U.N. commission of inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territory until recently, and now sits as a judge at the International Court of Justice in the case in which Myanmar is accused of genocide. The committee credited her influence on the Rwanda tribunal’s landmark finding that rape and sexual violence could constitute genocide.

The committee said it could not reach Pillay, 85, before the announcement; she was at a meeting of human rights lawyers in Nuremberg, Germany, The Guardian reported. “The question is: is it true? Being a lawyer and a judge, I still want to verify it,” she said. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the award celebrated her contributions to “strengthen peace, uphold human dignity and bring hope.” Israel’s Foreign Ministry condemned the choice as “the grotesque weaponization of an award to legitimize anti-Israel hatred and prejudice”; the commission Pillay chaired concluded last year that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza, a finding Israel rejected.

The prize is worth 12 million Swedish kronor, about $1.2 million, and will be presented in Oslo on Dec. 10. The committee received nominations for 287 candidates this year, Al Jazeera reported. The Nobel memorial prize in economic sciences will be announced Monday.

Sources: NobelPrize.org, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, NPR

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