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Labour Holds Starmer’s Old London Seat, Beating Green Leader Zack Polanski in a Boost for Prime Minister Andy Burnham: October 9, 2026

LONDON — Britain’s Labour Party held the Holborn and St Pancras seat vacated by former Prime Minister Keir Starmer, fending off a challenge from Green Party leader Zack Polanski in a by-election seen as a test of Prime Minister Andy Burnham, The Guardian and Al Jazeera reported.

Labour’s Sagal Abdi-Wali, leader of the local council, won 12,292 votes, or 45 percent, to Polanski’s 8,928, or 33 percent. Turnout was 38.7 percent, the lowest for any by-election in England during this parliament, The Guardian said. Labour has held the central London seat since it was created in 1983, and Starmer won it with 49 percent of the vote in 2024.

Abdi-Wali, who came to Britain from Somalia as a child refugee, used her victory speech to hit out at “those who seek to divide us.” “I hope this moment says something about who gets to belong,” she said. “This is Camden and this is Britain.” Polanski, who is not an MP, said he would stay on as leader: “Of course I can carry on as leader of the Green party,” he told the BBC, according to The Guardian. “I’ve taken a loss tonight but our movement is so much bigger than one election or one motion and we’re going to grow.”

The defeat capped a bruising week for the Greens, whose members voted at their conference on Sunday to adopt a motion declaring Zionism a form of racism and calling for a single Palestinian state, despite opposition from four of the party’s five MPs. Polanski did not vote on the motion. Burnham was recently installed by Labour lawmakers who feared Starmer’s unpopularity was opening the way for Reform UK at the next general election, Al Jazeera said.

Sources: The Guardian, Al Jazeera

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U.S. Prosecutors Add Torture Charges Against Venezuela’s Ousted Leader Nicolás Maduro and His Wife: October 9, 2026

NEW YORK — Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have charged Venezuela’s former president Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, with conspiracy to commit torture, in a superseding indictment unsealed Thursday that accuses them of presiding over a system of repression that targeted opponents and U.S. citizens, BBC News and the Associated Press reported.

The indictment alleges torture including “electric shock, asphyxiation, rape, forced nudity, prolonged isolation, starvation, punishment cells, and psychological torture,” the BBC said. According to the AP, it claims Maduro signed off on torture methods, received updates on specific victims, watched a video of a forced confession and personally threatened to kill a prisoner’s child. Three of the victims described are U.S. citizens. Flores, prosecutors allege, helped build the system and ordered that some people be tortured to protect family members’ illegal activities.

The indictment “alleges conduct that is truly unthinkable,” U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald said outside the courthouse. “This is the epitome of corruption,” he said, according to NPR. Maduro’s attorney, Barry Pollack, said his client denies the charges and looks forward to his day in court. Prosecutors also added Flores to an existing narco-terrorism charge, and U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein on Thursday denied her request to be released to house arrest.

Maduro, 63, and Flores, 69, have been held in a Brooklyn detention center since U.S. forces seized them in a raid on Caracas in January. They have pleaded not guilty to the earlier drug-trafficking and weapons charges, and their trial is set to begin in June 2027, the BBC said. Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s former vice president, now leads Venezuela as interim president; the prisoners’ rights group Foro Penal says more than 300 political prisoners remain behind bars.

Sources: BBC News, Associated Press (via NPR), The Guardian

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Brazil’s Supreme Court Orders the Arrest of Eduardo Bolsonaro Weeks Before His Brother’s Presidential Runoff: October 9, 2026

SÃO PAULO — Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes issued an arrest warrant Thursday for Eduardo Bolsonaro, a son of former President Jair Bolsonaro and brother of presidential front-runner Flávio Bolsonaro, and ordered him to begin serving his prison sentence immediately, the Associated Press reported.

Eduardo Bolsonaro, 42, a former congressman who lives in Texas and holds a U.S. green card, was convicted in June of coercion for lobbying the Trump administration to sanction Brazilian officials and impose higher tariffs on Brazil’s exports during his father’s coup trial. Moraes declared the case closed to further appeals, ordered him to serve a sentence of four years and two months, initially under a semi-open regime, and canceled his Brazilian passports, Agência Brasil reported. The warrant was entered in the national arrest database, and federal police were told to detain him if he returns.

“The defendant cannot benefit from his own wrongdoing by fleeing the national territory to an unknown location for the purpose of thwarting the application of criminal law,” Moraes said in his ruling, according to the AP report published by Al Jazeera. Agência Brasil said he is unlikely to serve the sentence while abroad; the AP noted that the U.S. and Brazil have had an extradition agreement since 1961 but that it was unclear whether its terms would apply.

The ruling came less than three weeks before the Oct. 25 runoff between President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Flávio Bolsonaro, who won the most votes in Sunday’s first round. Eduardo Bolsonaro has been a key link between his brother and the Trump administration and took him to meet Trump at the White House on May 26. His long absence in the U.S. cost him his seat in Congress and his job with the federal police. Moraes also led the investigation that resulted in Jair Bolsonaro was sentenced last year to 27 years in prison for plotting a coup.

Sources: Associated Press (via Al Jazeera), Associated Press (via ABC News), Agência Brasil

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Pentagon Says the Firing-Squad Execution of Fort Hood Gunman Nidal Hasan Will Be Livestreamed: October 9, 2026

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military’s planned firing-squad execution of Nidal Hasan, the former Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, will be livestreamed, a Defense Department official said, in what would be the first public execution in the United States in almost a century, BBC News reported.

The execution is scheduled for Dec. 3 at Fort Hood, Texas. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Hasan would get “a firing squad of soldiers, as it should be, and we’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public,” DW reported. “People need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things,” he said. Hegseth also said that holding the execution at Fort Hood on a Thursday at 1 p.m. — the approximate time, day of the week and place of the shooting — was a “no brainer,” RNZ reported. The Pentagon official gave no further details.

It would be the first execution carried out by the U.S. military since 1961 and the first by firing squad since World War II. A Pentagon spokesperson said this week that President Donald Trump had approved Hegseth’s recommendation. Hasan, who also wounded 32 people, was sentenced to death by a military court in 2013; at his trial he said he had acted to protect Taliban members in Afghanistan from U.S. troops.

The U.N. human rights office told AFP that livestreaming would be “tantamount to a public execution and would breach the absolute prohibition of torture.” Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy called the plan “disgusting,” and Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said public executions were what “oppressive dictators” did. John Mills, a lawyer who works with death-row inmates, said Hasan’s appeals were not exhausted and that he would be surprised if the execution went ahead. Alonzo Lunsford, a former Army sergeant shot seven times in the attack, told the BBC that he supports the firing squad but that the livestream is “not something you should view for entertainment purposes.”

Sources: BBC News, DW, RNZ

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Isaias Strengthens Into a Major Category 3 Hurricane as It Bears Down on the Northern Gulf Coast: October 9, 2026

MIAMI — Hurricane Isaias strengthened into a major Category 3 hurricane early Friday as it closed in on the northern Gulf Coast, where it is expected to make landfall between Mississippi and the Florida Panhandle on Friday night or early Saturday, the National Hurricane Center said.

Data from an Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft showed maximum sustained winds had climbed to 120 mph, with a minimum central pressure of 959 millibars, the center said in a 7:20 a.m. CDT update. Isaias was about 240 miles south of Pensacola, Florida, and 170 miles south-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River, moving north-northeast at 15 mph. Hurricane-force winds extended up to 30 miles from the center and tropical-storm-force winds up to 185 miles.

A hurricane warning remains in effect from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, to the Bay/Gulf County line in Florida, and a storm surge warning runs from the mouth of the Mississippi River to the Suwannee River. The center warned of 6 to 9 feet of surge from the Alabama-Florida border to Grayton Beach, Florida, and 4 to 8 inches of rain across southern Alabama, the Florida Panhandle and Big Bend and southwest Georgia, with local totals up to 15 inches. Forecasters expect increasing wind shear to cause some weakening before landfall, with a high-end Category 2 storm their best forecast, but their forecast discussion cautioned that “it would only take about a 6h delay in the onset of the shear to bring a stronger hurricane than expected onshore.”

Governors of Florida, Georgia and Alabama have declared states of emergency, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s declaration covers 25 counties, BBC News reported. About 63 percent of oil production in the Gulf of Mexico — nearly 1.3 million barrels a day — had been temporarily shut in as platforms were evacuated, DW reported. The Federal Emergency Management Agency said its incident management teams were deploying to Alabama and Florida and that it was prepositioning supplies at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, The Guardian reported, as experts warned the storm could be the agency’s biggest test since the Trump administration’s staffing cuts.

Sources: National Hurricane Center, BBC Weather, DW, The Guardian

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World Brief, Evening: October 8, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Coming Up

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sources: RNZ Pacific, AFP

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Japan Raids Asahi, Kirin, Sapporo and Suntory Over Suspected Beer Price-Fixing Cartel: October 8, 2026

TOKYO — Japan’s antitrust regulator has raided the country’s four biggest brewers over suspicions they colluded to raise the price of beer and other drinks, BBC News and The Guardian reported.

Asahi, Kirin, Sapporo and Suntory confirmed that the Japan Fair Trade Commission searched their premises and said they would cooperate fully. The four together control more than 90 percent of Japan’s domestic beer market, The Guardian said. Kirin Holdings said its brewing subsidiary was searched “on suspicion of a violation of the Antimonopoly Act” and that it takes the matter “very seriously.” Shares in Asahi, Kirin and Sapporo fell after news of the raids broke on Wednesday; Suntory’s beer business is not publicly listed.

“I do not deny that an investigation is being conducted today, but I’d like to refrain from commenting on the details as a preliminary review is underway,” JFTC Secretary General Hiroo Iwanari said, according to local media cited by the BBC. Japanese media quoted sources as saying sales executives were suspected of meeting secretly over a long period to coordinate the timing and size of price increases, and that the probe could lead to a criminal complaint.

The brewers all raised prices at the same time, most recently in April last year and also in October 2022 and October 2023, citing higher costs for raw materials and logistics. Japan’s alcohol sales reached ¥3.8 trillion ($24.3 billion) in 2024, with beer accounting for 30 percent, The Guardian reported. The raids follow a June investigation into alleged cartel activity among some of Japan’s biggest ice cream makers.

Sources: BBC News, The Guardian

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South Korea Recalls Its Ambassador to Ukraine in Row Over North Korean POWs: October 8, 2026

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea said Thursday it will recall its ambassador to Ukraine, escalating a diplomatic dispute over President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s public disclosure that Kyiv had transferred two captured North Korean soldiers to Seoul, the Associated Press and BBC News reported.

The Foreign Ministry did not say when Ambassador Park Hee-chang would return home, the AP said. In a statement, the ministry said it would “continue consultations with the Ukrainian side” and expected that “various outstanding issues” would be resolved smoothly. Seoul says Ukraine broke an agreement to keep the transfer secret; Zelenskyy’s office says no non-disclosure agreement existed.

Zelenskyy revealed the transfer in his U.N. General Assembly speech on Sept. 23. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung called it “greatly disappointing” and a “highly sensitive issue” affecting national security, and had threatened unspecified punitive steps if Ukraine did not apologize. Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said this week that he had received an apology from his Ukrainian counterpart that fell short of expectations, but Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi said Wednesday that Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha had not apologized, the BBC reported.

The two soldiers were among thousands of North Korean troops sent to support Russia’s war and were captured in early 2025; they had said they wanted to resettle in South Korea. Seoul says secrecy was meant partly to protect their families in the North. South Korea has given Ukraine $445 million in humanitarian aid since 2022 and pledged $100 million more in July, but refuses to supply lethal weapons.

Sources: Associated Press (via NPR), BBC News, DW

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Ethiopian Drones Strike Eritrean Troops Inside Tigray as Fears of a Regional War Grow: October 8, 2026

Ethiopian drones struck Eritrean forces who had crossed into northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region, a conflict monitor and witnesses said Thursday, raising fears that Ethiopia’s renewed internal war could become a conflict between the two neighbors, AFP and the Associated Press reported.

The conflict monitor ACLED said Eritrean troops crossed the border at Zelambesa on Wednesday and came under drone attack at Guada as they traveled toward Idaga Hamus, attributing the strikes to Ethiopia’s military. It also said “Eritrean troops and ammunition” in the Adigrat area were hit by “multiple drone strikes” overnight. “There were many, many drone strikes yesterday. Some Eritrean lorries have been destroyed. They are no longer in the streets,” one witness in Adigrat told AFP; another said Eritrean troops appeared to be retreating north. The AP said it could not independently verify the accounts.

Neither government responded to AFP’s questions about the fighting. Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel did not explicitly confirm or deny that troops had crossed, but accused Ethiopia of jeopardizing regional peace through its pursuit of “sovereign access to the sea,” the AP reported. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed reiterated Monday that his landlocked country must have access to the Red Sea.

Fighting resumed in recent weeks between Ethiopian federal forces and an opposition alliance that includes the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, undermining the 2022 peace deal. Government-allied fighters entered the regional capital, Mekelle, on Sunday after the TPLF withdrew, and residents of Shire told the AP that TPLF forces had pulled out of that town on Wednesday. Earlier this month Ethiopia expelled 10 Eritrean diplomats and closed its embassy in Asmara, and Eritrea said it was severing diplomatic ties. The two countries fought a border war from 1998 to 2000.

Sources: AFP (via Al Arabiya), Associated Press

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