Germany's far right takes 44% of an eastern state, and no other party will work with it

The rest of the day

36 more stories on this beat.

Each with its own sources. None of these is a link to the story above.

1. 02

   US envoys leave Kyiv without a deal

   Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the two men Donald Trump sends to negotiate, met Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Sunday. [6] It was their first visit to Ukraine's capital since Russia's full invasion in 2022, and they travelled by train because flying is not safe. [7] They had spent more than three hours with Vladimir Putin in Moscow the day before, and Putin's foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov called those talks highly useful while giving no sign of a breakthrough. [5][9] Russia and Ukraine both paused strikes for three days to let the visit happen. [10]

   Why it matters — Putin told the envoys Russia is making gains on the battlefield. Ukrainian officials told them Ukraine took more ground than it lost in August, so the two sides are giving the same American ear opposite accounts. [7] Putin still wants Ukraine to give up land, drop its bid to join NATO and shrink its army; Zelenskyy wants what he calls strong and clear security guarantees. [7]

2. 03

   Iran plans a banned zone outside Hormuz

   Mohsen Rezaei, who runs Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said on Sunday that Iran will declare a prohibited zone outside the Strait of Hormuz within days. [11] The strait is the narrow sea gate at the mouth of the Gulf that used to carry about a fifth of the world's oil. [11] Any ship that enters the new zone meaning to pass through will be added to Iran's own sanctions list. [11] The zone would start at the line of the American naval blockade, and neither government has said publicly where that line runs. [11]

   Why it matters — It mirrors the American blockade, which has redirected 92 commercial ships and disabled three: each side is now telling merchant captains that using the other's route will cost them. [11] Traffic has already fallen to about ten commodity ships a day, the lowest since May. [12]

3. 04

   Iran promises a heavier answer

   Iran's parliament speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, said on Sunday that any further attack on Iran will get a faster, heavier and more painful response. [13] He spoke a day after American forces destroyed three Iranian oil tankers, one of them off Kharg Island, Iran's main export terminal. [12] Iran's Revolutionary Guard says it fired at three tankers and three American vessels in return. [12] Iranian state media then said the navy hit an unmanned American boat entering the strait, and a US Central Command spokesman, Captain Tim Hawkins, called that a total lie. [14][15]

   Why it matters — The war began with US and Israeli attacks on Iran on 28 February and is now six months old. [15] Both sides have moved from bombing each other's territory to burning each other's ships. [19] Two accounts of Sunday's attack are in circulation and they cannot both be true. [14]

4. 05

   Iran's grip on the strait is weakening

   Three senior Iranian officials told Reuters that the American squeeze is becoming hard to bear. [16] A naval blockade and tighter sanctions have cut oil sales, restricted access to foreign currency and made imports harder. [16] Iran's bet was that closing Hormuz would shock the world economy hard enough to force the American government back to the table, and the Iranian analyst Arash Azizi says that simply has not happened, because other suppliers filled the gap. [16] Iran's economy minister, Ali Madanizadeh, said the answer is reform at home, not concessions abroad. [13]

   Why it matters — Iran's strongest card was the fear of a global oil shock, and that fear is fading while the damage to its own economy is not. [16] Iranian leaders worry that rising prices and unemployment could restart the street protests that have repeatedly shaken the country. [16]

5. 06

   Oil rises and a European rate rise looks certain

   Brent crude, the main world oil benchmark, rose 52 cents to $96.80 a barrel on Monday morning, and American crude reached $92.14. [12] Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has averaged ten commodity ships a day over the past ten days, the lowest since May, according to the tracking firm Kpler. [12] OPEC+, the group of large oil exporters, met on Sunday and left its October output unchanged. [12] Analysts at ANZ expect exports from the region to stay constrained until late this year. [12]

   Why it matters — Costlier oil feeds into prices everywhere, and the European Central Bank is now seen as certain to raise interest rates to 2.75% on Thursday, with a further rise to 3.0% priced as likely by December. [17]

6. 07

   North Korea commissions a second destroyer

   Kim Jong Un commissioned a warship called the Kang Kon at the eastern port of Wonsan on Sunday, with his teenage daughter beside him. [20] It is North Korea's second 5,000-tonne destroyer this year, after the Choe Hyon in June, and both carry missiles that can take nuclear warheads. [20] Kim said the two ships let North Korea use its nuclear deterrent in more ways than before. [20] On Monday the United States, South Korea and Japan began a five-day exercise called Freedom Edge in the waters off Jeju island. [20]

   Why it matters — Trump ended a joint drill with South Korea six days early in August as a gesture to Kim, and North Korea answered with about ten short-range missiles and now a second nuclear-capable ship. [20]

7. 08

   China patrols the far side of Taiwan

   China has sent an average of two coast guard cutters a month into the waters east of Taiwan since June, the first such patrols in tracking data going back to January 2025. [21] They covered 27,100 square nautical miles, more than twice the area of Taiwan, and stayed 30 nautical miles offshore, outside waters Taiwan claims. [21] China's coast guard calls them routine law-enforcement patrols. [21] Ships carrying oil, gas, iron ore and grain made 527 crossings east of Taiwan in June, more than the 420 through the busier Taiwan Strait. [21]

   Why it matters — The eastern side is where the United States and its allies would bring supplies to Taiwan in a war, and it is the side China had not previously contested. [21] The patrols began after Japan and the Philippines announced plans to define their overlapping sea border in the same region. [21]

8. 09

   AI safety joins the Trump-Xi agenda

   The United States plans to raise artificial intelligence safety with China when the two leaders meet later this month, according to people familiar with the preparations. [22] Xi Jinping is due to visit Washington. [22] The two governments are separately arguing over which tariffs are non-sensitive enough to cut before the meeting. [22] Both governments restrict what the other can buy in advanced computing, and people close to the preparations describe the safety discussion as an opening despite that rivalry. [22]

   Why it matters — Nothing binds either government to anything yet, but a shared conversation about safety is the one part of the technology fight both say they want. [22]

9. 10

   Poland's anger at Ukrainians turns violent

   Polish police recorded 180 ethnically motivated crimes against Ukrainians in the first half of 2026, thirty percent more than a year earlier. [23] In July two men were arrested after a 20-year-old Ukrainian woman and her partner were beaten outside a shop in Wroclaw; in August a Ukrainian man was attacked on a tram in Poznan. [23] Poland has hosted a large Ukrainian population since Russia's invasion in 2022 and has been Ukraine's strongest supporter. [23] In a state pollster's survey, sympathy towards Ukrainians fell from 51% in 2023 to 29% in January 2026. [23]

   Why it matters — Poland votes in autumn 2027, and Prime Minister Donald Tusk says attackers have grown bolder because they believe they have political cover. [23] Poland's government has tightened Ukrainians' access to welfare, while nationalist parties outside it demand more. [23] It also set up 50 specialist prosecution teams for hate crimes this year, and prosecutors sent 283 cases to court between February and June. [23]

10. 11

    Sweden's front-runner says Russia is in the campaign

    Magdalena Andersson, leader of Sweden's centre-left Social Democrats, said Russia has entered the country's election campaign. [24] Sweden votes on 13 September. [24] A 3 September report by the anti-racism group Expo alleges that an official of the far-right Sweden Democrats, Polina Malaberg, promoted pro-Kremlin lines for a decade and brought Russian relatives onto the grounds of Sweden's parliament. [24] Malaberg still works for the party, and Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said she should be sacked if the claims are true. [24]

    Why it matters — The Sweden Democrats support Kristersson's government from outside it, with a coordination office inside government run by a party member, and have never held a ministry. [24] Kristersson has said that if he wins he will take them into government for the first time. [24]

11. 12

    Jamaica takes a slavery case to King Charles

    Jamaica's government will hand a petition to King Charles on Monday, its culture minister Olivia Grange said. [25] The King is Jamaica's head of state. [25] The petition asks him to send three questions to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which is Jamaica's highest court. [25] Was the enslavement of Africans in Jamaica legal under English law? Did it break international law? Does Britain now have a legal duty to provide redress? [25] It does not ask for money. [25]

    Why it matters — It converts a political argument into a legal one, and the court being asked to rule sits in London. [25] Grange will also meet British Museum officials about returning objects taken during the colonial period. [25]

12. 13

    Five die as a cargo plane crashes in Miami

    A Boeing 767-300 freighter flying for Amazon overran a runway at Miami International Airport just before 2pm on Sunday and caught fire. [26] It had flown from San Juan in Puerto Rico, and it struck several vehicles on the ground. [26] Miami-Dade's mayor, Daniella Levine Cava, said five people were killed and five injured, three of them critically. [26] More than 200 firefighters attended, all flights were grounded, and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate. [26]

    Why it matters — It happened over a holiday weekend, one of the busiest travel periods of the American year, and several of the injured had to be cut out from under vehicles on the ground. [26]

13. 14

    UN says foreign networks are arming Sudan's war

    A United Nations fact-finding mission reported this week that a cross-border network supplied Sudan's Rapid Support Forces with weapons, training, logistics and foreign fighters. [27] It named companies, intermediaries and individuals operating in or through the United Arab Emirates, Colombia, Chad, Libya and Somalia; the UAE denies it. [27] More than 1,000 civilians were killed in drone attacks between January and May 2026. [27] In one case in December 2025, successive RSF drone strikes on a kindergarten and hospital in Kalogi killed 114 people, about 60 of them children. [27]

    Why it matters — The mission's chair, Mohamed Chande Othman, said the outside support has brought civilians no protection at all. [27] Sudan's war has killed at least 59,000 people and displaced about 13 million since April 2023. [29]

14. 15

    Rebels kill 26 in Sudan's Nuba mountains

    Fighters of the SPLM-N, a rebel group led by Abdel Aziz al-Hilu, killed at least five people in South Kordofan, a doctors' network said, hours after reporting more than 21 killed in the villages of Debi and Luweri. [28] The dead were from the Otoro, a minority group in the Nuba mountains. [28] Al-Hilu has allied his fighters with the Rapid Support Forces and joined the parallel government they set up. [29] He never signed the ceasefire the RSF backed last month, and his forces attacked ten Otoro villages between 20 and 26 August. [29]

    Why it matters — This is a second war inside Sudan's war, fought between communities over land, and it is displacing people who had already fled the first one. [28] At least 158 people have been killed since the land disputes flared in March. [29]

15. 16

    Sudan's gold still leaves through the UAE

    Nearly all of Sudan's gold is sold through the United Arab Emirates, and gold is the main way the war is paid for. [30] The country's largest mining operation, run by Alliance Mining and Kush for Exploration, sits in territory held by the Sudanese army near the Red Sea and River Nile states. [30] It is owned by Emiral Resources, a company based in the UAE. [30] The Sudanese army publicly accuses the UAE of arming the Rapid Support Forces it is fighting. [30]

    Why it matters — The army's own gold revenue runs through the country it says is funding its enemy, which is one reason stopping the trade has proved so hard. [30]

16. 17

    Gaza buries 100 sets of remains

    Palestinian civil defence teams buried the remains of 100 people recovered from rubble in Gaza City, the service's deputy head Mohammed al-Aloul said. [31] Most were bone fragments rather than whole bodies. [31] The head of the civil defence, Raed al-Dahshan, said about 8,000 bodies are still believed to be under rubble and the work could be finished in roughly 90 days with proper excavators. [31] He offered to let that machinery stay under international control rather than his agency's. [31]

    Why it matters — Without the equipment the search runs for years instead of months, and families cannot bury people who have not been found. [31] Al-Aloul said Israeli forces destroyed and dug up cemeteries elsewhere in Gaza during the war, so a marked grave is not available to every family. [31]

17. 18

    An Israeli strike kills a father and daughter in Gaza

    An Israeli strike killed a man and his daughter in Gaza on Sunday, medics said, and the Israeli military did not comment. [32] A ceasefire backed by the United States has been in place since October 2025 but did not end Israeli strikes, which Israel says are aimed at Hamas and other armed groups. [32] More than 1,300 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in Gaza since that ceasefire began, according to the territory's health officials. [32] The Israeli military says four of its soldiers have been killed in the same period. [32]

    Why it matters — Hamas says Israel is breaking the ceasefire and blocking Trump's wider plan, which also requires Israeli withdrawals and the disarming of Hamas. [32]

18. 19

    Israeli strikes kill four in southern Lebanon

    Israeli strikes killed at least four people in southern Lebanon on Sunday, Lebanon's health ministry said. [18] Two died in the village of Arabsalim and two in the city of Nabatiyeh, near a hill Israel said on Thursday it now controls. [18] At least twenty more were wounded, among them three children and five women, and a hospital that was empty and out of use was levelled. [18] Israel's military said the strikes answered a Hezbollah drone attack on its troops earlier the same day. [18]

    Why it matters — A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect more than two months ago, and the fighting around that single hill has not stopped since. [18]

19. 20

    UN halves food aid in the West Bank

    The World Food Programme will cut the number of people it feeds in the West Bank from 400,000 to 200,000 this month. [33] In Gaza it already cut the value of cash payments by 40% for 375,000 people in July. [33] The agency says it needs another $386 million over six months to reach an estimated 2 million people who do not have enough food. [33] Its spokeswoman for the Palestinian territories, Claire Nevill, said the cuts come exactly when the need is rising. [33] The agency estimates 900,000 people in the West Bank do not have enough food. [34]

    Why it matters — This is a funding decision made in donor capitals, not a change on the ground, where an economic downturn, settler violence and lost access to farmland have all made food harder to get. [33][34]

20. 21

    Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey build out their pact

    Pakistan's deputy prime minister Ishaq Dar spoke by phone on Sunday with the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and Turkey, Prince Faisal bin Farhan and Hakan Fidan. [35] They were following up the first meeting of the Makkah Defence Alliance, held in Istanbul on 31 August. [35] The three countries signed the pact on 7 August, and it treats an attack on one of them as an attack on all. [35] Pakistan will run its secretariat for the first three years. [35]

    Why it matters — It is a new mutual-defence bloc stretching from South Asia to the Middle East, and Pakistan says it is open to any country in the region that accepts the terms. [35] Turkey has said Egypt could join, though Egypt has not confirmed it. [35]

21. 22

    Pakistan's cheap access to Europe is in doubt

    Pakistan is fighting to keep GSP+, a European Union scheme that lets it export to Europe with little or no tariff in return for meeting conventions on human rights, labour, the environment and governance. [36] A European envoy told the newspaper Dawn there are serious doubts inside the European Commission about how well Pakistan has kept to them. [36] In 2024 the scheme saved Pakistani exporters about 732 million euros in tariffs on 7.1 billion euros of goods. [36] The European Union takes about 28% of Pakistan's exports, and clothing and textiles are most of that. [36]

    Why it matters — Sri Lanka lost the same preferences outright once and Bolivia had them partly withdrawn, so the threat has precedent. [36] Textiles are between 70% and 76% of what Pakistan sells to Europe, so the jobs at stake are concentrated in one industry. [36]

22. 23

    Pakistan condemns a mosque demolition in India

    Pakistan's foreign ministry condemned the demolition of a mosque in Saharanpur, in India's Uttar Pradesh state, calling it part of a drive to erase Islamic heritage. [37] A mosque staff member, Tanveer Ahmed, told the Indian Express that the order had been for eviction rather than demolition, and that the land was recorded in their names. [37] The Hyderabad lawmaker Asaduddin Owaisi asked whether India's constitutional guarantee of religious freedom applies to Muslims. [37] A mosque more than 600 years old was razed without notice in Delhi in 2024. [37]

    Why it matters — India and Pakistan each use the other's treatment of religious minorities as an argument, so a local demolition becomes a diplomatic exchange within a day. [37]

23. 24

    New US sanctions target Cuba's power grid

    The United States sanctioned Cuba's oil equipment importer, Abapet, and Fidel Ernesto Castro, a grandson of the former president Raul Castro. [38] Abapet buys the spare parts that keep Cuba's ageing power stations running. [38] Daily blackouts on the island now pass 24 hours, and island-wide failures have become common since Trump threatened tariffs in January on any country selling oil to Cuba. [38] Talks between the two governments stopped earlier this year. [38]

    Why it matters — A sanctions specialist, Brett Erickson, said the aim is to create enough hardship that Cubans remove their own government. [38] He expects Cuba to buy the parts anyway, through longer and costlier routes. [38]

24. 25

    The US asks its top court to restore mail-ballot limits

    The Trump administration asked the US Supreme Court on Sunday to lift a block on new restrictions for mail ballots. [39] Judge Indira Talwani had extended an order stopping the Postal Service from enforcing Trump's executive order for November's elections. [39] The solicitor general, John Sauer, argued that ballots are already going out and cannot be recalled: North Carolina has started, Alabama begins on 9 September, and at least five more states in the week of 13 September. [39]

    Why it matters — Whatever the court decides will arrive after millions of envelopes are already in the post, which is the argument each side is now making against the other. [39]

25. 26

    A man lunges at an Ohio candidate

    A man lunged at Amy Acton, the Democratic candidate for governor of the US state of Ohio, at the Canfield Fair on Sunday, and police intervened. [40] Acton, the state's former public health director, faces the Republican Vivek Ramaswamy in November. [40] Ramaswamy called the incident unacceptable and said candidates should be able to meet voters without threats. [40] American federal political committees spent more than $40 million on security in the 2023-24 election cycle. [40]

    Why it matters — It follows a decade of attacks on American politicians of both parties, including two attempts on Trump and the killing of a Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband last year. [40]

26. 27

    Trump suggests renaming New Mexico

    Donald Trump posted on Sunday that the US state of New Mexico could be renamed New America, calling it more prestigious and beautiful. [41] The US president's office reposted an image with Mexico crossed out and America written in. [41] Some American outlets reported that the idea began as an internet hoax. [41] The state's governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, said the name has been theirs since before the United States existed, and accused him of trying to distract from high fuel prices. [41]

    Why it matters — It follows renaming the Gulf of Mexico in 2025, an order renaming Lake Ontario during a trade fight with Canada, and a suggestion last week that the Strait of Hormuz become the Trump Strait. [41]

27. 28

    Nepal's flood survivors need $50m before winter

    The United Nations asked for $50 million to help more than 84,000 people in Nepal, warning that winter is close. [42] A glacier collapsed on the China-Nepal border on 26 August, and the floods that followed killed more than 1,300 people across both countries and left more than 5,600 missing. [42] The water destroyed roads, bridges and hydropower dams in mountain districts. [42] For those who survived, the UN office in Nepal said, the flood took almost everything that made daily life possible. [42]

    Why it matters — Roads and bridges are what relief travels on, so the damage is now slowing the response, and the cold arrives on a fixed date whether the money does or not. [42]

28. 29

    Drought threatens lives in southeastern Tigray

    Officials in Wajirat, a rural district in the southeastern zone of Ethiopia's Tigray region, warned that people and livestock will start dying without help. [43] Crops there have failed two or three times running and the rainy season is ending with no meaningful rain. [43] Elderly residents are showing severe weakness and disorientation, and animals are moving to neighbouring districts in search of water. [43] Six of the zone's eight districts are affected, the deputy zone administrator Haileselassie Gebreselassie said. [43]

    Why it matters — A district appealing to its own diaspora, to investors and to a local charity for livestock feed is a measure of how little formal help has arrived. [43] Communities have started helping each other, but officials say the scale is beyond them. [43]

29. 30

    African migrants are stranded in Yemen

    Between 100,000 and 200,000 migrants, most of them Ethiopian and Somali, reach Yemen every year hoping to cross on into Saudi Arabia. [44] The border is closed and police have tightened it, so many can go neither forward nor back. [44] They sleep outdoors and look for food on the streets. [44] The International Organization for Migration says migrants in Yemen face trafficking, kidnapping, detention and forced recruitment by local militias. [44]

    Why it matters — Yemen is more than a decade into its own war and half its population already needs aid, so the country holding these people has nothing to give them. [44]

30. 31

    Research maps where crop losses may bring fighting

    A new index built by the economist Hannes Mueller and colleagues maps how climate change is changing farm output country by country. [45] The heaviest losses are in tropical regions, and hundreds of millions of people already live where harvests are smaller than they were 30 years ago. [45] The researchers argue the danger is not shortage itself but whether societies can adapt to it peacefully. [45] A developing El Nino threatens to make next year worse. [45]

    Why it matters — The war in Ukraine has repeatedly shaken grain markets. [45] The fighting around the Strait of Hormuz has pushed up fuel and fertiliser prices, so the same farms are squeezed by the weather and by the shipping lanes at once. [45]

31. 32

    Jaguar Land Rover opens voluntary redundancies

    Jaguar Land Rover told staff it is opening a voluntary redundancy scheme for salaried and management employees, and did not rule out compulsory cuts. [46] Thousands of jobs are expected to go. [46] The carmaker employs about 30,000 people in the United Kingdom, most of them around Coventry in the West Midlands, and roughly 10,000 abroad. [46] A cyber attack in September 2025 shut every one of its factories for weeks. [46]

    Why it matters — Britain's business secretary meets the company's boss on Monday. [46] Sharon Graham, who leads the Unite union, said her union had been warning about a perfect storm over the car industry for some time. [46]

32. 33

    Northern Ireland's budget deadlock goes to London

    Northern Ireland's secretary of state, Chris Bryant, will meet the region's political parties on Monday to try to break a deadlock over the budget. [47] The power-sharing executive says it cannot agree one without more money from the UK government, and a deadline passed in August. [47] Officials now have legal power to spend up to 95% of last year's funding while no budget exists. [47] Sinn Fein, the largest party, wants to scrap the rule that lets the biggest unionist or nationalist party stop a government forming by refusing to nominate a first minister. [47]

    Why it matters — Under the current rule one party's refusal stops everyone, and the party that refuses carries none of the blame for what then goes unfunded. [47]

33. 34

    Canadians are still not visiting the US

    American tourism bodies have spent a year advertising for Canadian visitors to come back, with billboards, banners and travel deals. [48] The number of Canadians travelling to the United States fell sharply after Trump returned to office and talked about making Canada a 51st state. [48] A trade war between the two countries has continued since. [48] Josh Loewen, a marketing executive in Vancouver, said the appeals seemed to be everywhere he looked over the past year. [48]

    Why it matters — Border towns such as Windsor in Ontario and Buffalo in New York live on that crossing, so a quarrel between two governments lands first on people who had no part in it. [48]

34. 35

    An Israeli-funded operation aimed at AI answers

    Filings under America's Foreign Agents Registration Act, described in an Al Jazeera opinion piece, trace the funding of a purported American think tank called the Hanover Institute to LaPam, Israel's state advertising agency. [49] Investigations found the institute had no real offices, no identifiable scholars and no meaningful presence. [49] A New York advertising firm, Piro Inc, was working under a $900,000 digital communications order on the Israeli account. [49] The operation appears to have been aimed at shaping search results and the answers given by AI chatbots. [49]

    Why it matters — Governments have always tried to shape opinion, and what is new here is the target: the machines that millions of people now ask what is true. [49]

35. 36

    South Korea's leveraged funds become a political fight

    Single-stock leveraged funds launched in South Korea about three months ago have lost investors large sums. [50] A fund tracking the chipmaker SK Hynix has fallen to a third of its starting value since late May, and one tracking Samsung Electronics has lost half. [50] These funds magnify one share's daily move, so a fall costs the holder more than owning the share itself would. [50] The losses have become a political argument over whether the regulator should have allowed them. [50]

    Why it matters — South Korea's market has swung hard between euphoria and despair this year, and the product sold as a way to ride those swings is where ordinary savers took the damage. [50]

36. 37

    Britain's chancellor promises a northern fund

    John Healey, the UK chancellor, will announce a 150 million pound fund for companies in the north of England in a speech on Monday. [51] The plan is to use public money to attract private investment in transport and housing. [51] He delivers his first budget on 28 October, against rising government borrowing costs and inflation pushed up by the war with Iran. [51]

    Why it matters — He gives the speech in the Midlands on the day Jaguar Land Rover opens redundancies in Coventry, which is in the same region. [51][46]