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The World, Explained

22 May 2026 8 min 91 sources

World News — The World, Explained (22 May 2026)

The Iran war and everything it’s pulling with it

Today’s news flows through a single current: a US-Iran war — begun on 28 February, paused under ceasefire on 8 April — that has not ended, and whose unresolved status is now reshaping events from Kyiv to Taipei to the Pacific Islands.

Pakistan’s army chief arrived in Tehran Friday in what Bloomberg and the Guardian both read as a signal that peace talks have made enough progress to justify a high-profile visit [28,19,30]. Pakistan’s interior minister had already met Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi twice in two days. The sticking points are serious: Washington wants Iran to export its stockpile of highly enriched uranium; Iran wants control over the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow channel through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil passes — and is proposing a toll system under its Persian Gulf Strait Authority [19]. Five Gulf states (Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE) wrote to the International Maritime Organization urging ships to ignore the Iranian toll scheme [19]. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, at a NATO meeting in Sweden, called it “an attempt to control traffic through an international waterway” [19]. Saudi-owned Al Arabiya reported Friday that a draft interim ceasefire deal — covering an immediate halt to fighting but deliberately excluding the nuclear issue — is close to being agreed [45]. The UAE assessed the odds of a deal at “50-50” [52].

What is not in dispute: this war is expensive for everyone. The US fired roughly 300 THAAD interceptors — high-altitude missile defence systems — during active fighting, about half the Pentagon’s total stockpile, according to a Washington Post report cited by Haaretz [55]. That stockpile depletion is the direct reason why, at a Senate hearing Thursday, acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao confirmed the US has “paused” a $14 billion arms sale to Taiwan [17,21,59]. The package — which would be the largest single weapons transfer to Taiwan ever — needs only Trump’s signature. Trump has described it as “a very good negotiating chip” with Beijing, and discussed it in detail with Xi Jinping at their Beijing summit last week. Taiwan’s presidential office said Friday it had received no official notification of any change [47]. The practical effect is that Taiwan is now watching its security guarantor redirect munitions to a different theatre while publicly treating its defence as a bargaining card.

The economic bleed from the war is running wider. Oil and gas prices are expected to remain elevated in Europe through at least 2027 [9]. Nomura, the Japanese bank, now forecasts no Federal Reserve rate cuts this year because of war-driven inflation [62]. Traders are pricing in a rate rise under the Fed’s new chair Kevin Warsh by December [8,64]. The $50 trillion market for G7 government debt — bonds issued by the world’s richest countries, historically seen as safe — is being repriced as investors demand higher returns to compensate for persistent inflation [65].

Ukraine: deeper strikes, a disputed dormitory, and a European plan

Ukraine’s drone campaign against Russian energy infrastructure has continued methodically. On Thursday President Zelenskyy confirmed a strike on the Syzran refinery — owned by Rosneft, Russia’s state energy company, located more than 800 kilometres inside Russia — which caught fire [2,3]. The day before, drones hit a separate refinery. Zelenskyy said “our long-range plan for May is being carried out largely in full” [3]. This follows the pattern covered in prior reports [87,88]; what is new today is the scale of Russian retaliation signalled.

Putin vowed to retaliate Friday after accusing Ukraine of striking a student dormitory in Starobilsk, a town in Russian-occupied Luhansk. He said six people were killed and 39 injured in a three-wave drone attack using 16 drones [4]. Ukraine’s military acknowledged the strike but said it hit the headquarters of Russia’s Rubicon drone unit — an elite formation that Ukraine says regularly strikes Ukrainian civilians. The BBC could not independently verify what the building was used for. The dispute matters: Putin has ordered his military to prepare “proposals” for retaliation, and the framing of the target — dormitory vs military HQ — determines whether Russia can claim legal justification for whatever it does next [4].

On the battlefield, the Institute for the Study of War, a US-based conflict research group, assessed this week that Ukraine has made its most significant gains since 2024 and is “gradually regaining the initiative” [3,5]. Ukrainian defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov attributed part of this to Russia losing access to Starlink satellite navigation for drone guidance [3].

In parallel, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz proposed that Ukraine be given “associate membership” of the EU — attending meetings without voting rights — as a way to lock in progress while full membership negotiations proceed [3].

One domestic development in Kyiv: protesters gathered to urge a presidential veto of a bill that would allow the state to declare missing soldiers legally dead after a set period, which families fear could be used to quietly close cases [6].

Ebola: the numbers tripled in a week

The WHO, the United Nations health agency, raised its risk assessment for the Democratic Republic of Congo — Africa’s second-largest country, long wracked by conflict in its eastern provinces — from “high” to “very high” on Friday [22,39,44]. Suspected cases have nearly tripled in a week: from 246 to almost 750. Suspected deaths stand at 177. Confirmed cases are 82, with 7 confirmed deaths — a gap that reflects the difficulty of testing in a conflict zone, not the true toll [22,44].

The outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, a rare variant that kills roughly a third of those infected and for which no approved vaccine exists. Oxford University scientists are working on one but say clinical trials are at least two to three months away [44]. The WHO is planning to test the antiviral drug obeldesivir, made by US company Gilead, though no timeline has been set [22].

On Thursday, a treatment centre at Rwampara General Hospital in Ituri province was set on fire by relatives of a patient who died and whose body health workers would not release for burial — standard infection-control protocol, but one that has inflamed community distrust [22,39]. The WHO’s country representative said the incident would “significantly jeopardise” operations in that area.

The outbreak’s reach has already crossed borders: India and the African Union cancelled next week’s India-Africa Forum Summit, a diplomatic gathering that had been planned for Delhi, citing the public health situation [34]. Two confirmed cases have been recorded in Uganda [44].

What we still don’t know: the true case count in conflict-affected areas of Ituri and North Kivu, where armed groups continue to obstruct health workers.

The flotilla fallout

Activists detained last week when Israeli naval forces intercepted 50 boats carrying aid toward Gaza began arriving in Europe and Turkey. At least 15 of the 430 detainees have reported sexual assaults, including rape, according to flotilla organisers [38,46,73]. Israeli prosecutors in Rome opened an investigation into kidnapping, torture and sexual assault. German officials said some of their nationals returned with injuries requiring medical checks [46].

Israel’s prison service denied the allegations entirely, saying all detainees were held “in accordance with the law” [46]. The BBC could not independently verify the claims. What is verified: a video by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir showing activists kneeling with hands bound, which prompted condemnation from Prime Minister Netanyahu and is now part of an EU discussion about sanctions on Ben-Gvir [46].

Nine Western countries — including the UK, France, Germany, and Italy — issued a joint call Friday for Israel to halt construction in the E1 area of the West Bank, a zone whose development would physically bisect remaining Palestinian territory. They urged contractors not to bid on projects expected to tender in early June [58,71].

Two weather emergencies, one continent apart

Twelve people have died in southern and central China after a slow-moving 1,000-kilometre band of heavy rain — fed by moisture from the Bay of Bengal, South China Sea, and Pacific — triggered flooding and landslides across Hunan, Anhui, and Hainan island. Parts of Hainan recorded 95mm of rainfall in 24 hours. Roads are submerged, schools and businesses closed [1].

Simultaneously, northern India is in the grip of a severe heat event that will continue at least into next week. Banda in Uttar Pradesh recorded 48.2°C. New Delhi hit 45.3°C on Thursday — more than 5°C above the seasonal average even at night [1]. Farmers in rural areas are shifting fieldwork to after dark to avoid daytime heat. The cause is straightforward: a drier monsoon season so far has removed the usual moderating effect of soil moisture.

The story nobody’s covering

Pacific islands are now rationing fuel because of the Iran war. The US-Israel conflict that began in February — “Epic Fury” in US military terminology — has driven a global oil shock whose hardest impact is falling on small island economies that most coverage ignores. Oil accounted for over 80% of the Pacific region’s energy supply in 2023; in Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Nauru, more than half of electricity generation runs on oil products [13]. In Fiji, parliament voted to cut legislators’ pay by 20% to offset the budget hit. A Fiji resident described paying $100 to fill a tank that normally costs $40 [13]. Australia has committed $30 million in emergency fuel security support for Fiji, including a regional storage hub. For countries where food imports already make up more than 20% of all imports — Samoa, Tonga, Kiribati — higher fuel costs compound into higher food prices with no domestic buffer [13]. This is a structural vulnerability that predates the current conflict and will outlast any ceasefire.

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