World, in brief

The United States and Venezuela signed a deal on Friday over 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil. That is about a fifth of the oil Venezuela can prove is in its ground. [1][3]

The deal runs for 25 years and covers 17 named oil fields. The first target is 1.5 million barrels a day. [2]

Venezuela keeps the ownership papers. US companies bring the money, the crews and the buyers. [2]

Nineteen dollars from every barrel sold to the United States goes to Venezuela. A barrel of Brent crude, the grade the world oil price is quoted on, sells for about 88 dollars. [2][4]

Venezuela's interim president Delcy Rodriguez says the country keeps ownership of its resources and the right to decide about them. [2]

Rodriguez took over in January, after US special forces seized President Nicolas Maduro and flew him to the United States. He has pleaded not guilty to drug and weapons charges and is still in US custody. [1][3]

Trump called it the biggest oil deal in world history and said it will lower petrol prices for Americans. [1][3]

US petrol costs more than four dollars a gallon, and the US motoring club AAA expects the most expensive August on record. The US government's emergency oil store fell below 300 million barrels in early August. US voters choose a new Congress in November. [1][3]

The oil market researcher Rory Johnston said the 65 billion barrel figure is a distraction, because the real terms of any deal are still almost entirely unknown. [1]

Venezuela's government says the deal could draw 100 billion dollars of investment and yield more than 209 billion dollars a year in taxes. No published contract shows how. [1][2][3]

Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz when the war began on 28 February. Nearly a fifth of the world's oil and gas passed through that narrow sea lane before the war. Brent crude has since risen 22 percent, from 72 to 88 dollars. [1][4]

Papers granting drilling and production rights are due to be signed next week. Chevron, one of the biggest US oil companies, is among the firms. [2]

Why it matters. Watch what the papers signed next week say about who decides how much is pumped and what it sells for. That, not the 65 billion figure, is the deal.

A Russian drone hit a warehouse in Myla, near Bucha, late on Friday. The munitions stored there blew up, killing at least 37 people and damaging 50 buildings. One of the dead was Taras Didych, head of the Dmytrivka community, who was rescuing people. [5][6]

Why it matters. Ukraine has opened negligence cases against its own side, because ammunition was being kept beside homes for the second time since July.

The Zaporizhzhia plant has had no outside power for over a week and is on emergency generators with ten days of fuel, the UN's nuclear watchdog said. [10][11]

Why it matters. Its six shut reactors still need power to stay cool, and the repair crews cannot reach the lines without a local ceasefire.

Russia said it had taken three villages in the Donetsk and Sumy regions; Reuters could not verify it. Ukraine says its intelligence points to a possible new push toward the cities of Kyiv and Chernihiv. [13][12]

Why it matters. A northern push would reopen a front Ukraine closed in 2022.

Gunfire ran from 1am to daybreak in Niamey on Saturday. Mutineers took comrades hostage at Base 101 and were pushed back from the presidential palace by the guard. [14][15][16]

Why it matters. It is the third bout of unrest at the airport base this year, in a country whose military government is losing ground to armed groups.

Dozens of Israeli settlers attacked the West Bank village of Qusra and followed residents into a house. Soldiers fired tear gas into the home and detained the residents, not the settlers, witnesses said. [17][18][19]

Why it matters. Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the violence for the first time, blaming a handful of rioters; rights groups dispute that description.

The combined toll from the glacier-collapse floods reached 750 dead and more than 3,000 missing. Nepal issued fresh flood warnings after China reported rising water upstream. [20][21]

Why it matters. Survivors say the constant alarms are exhausting: people are carrying elderly parents to high ground night after night.

Iran's government marked six months of the war by promising both talks and rearmament. The Strait of Hormuz stays largely closed to commercial traffic, with only a temporary route agreed with Oman. [22][4]

Why it matters. That closure is why petrol costs what it does, and why the Venezuela deal was announced this week.

The US Treasury moved to cut the Egyptian bank Banque Misr's branches in the United Arab Emirates off from dollar payments over their dealings with Iran. The UAE's central bank opened an urgent examination of those branches. [23]

Why it matters. The pressure campaign is now landing on banks in friendly countries, not only on Iranian ones.

Germany's chancellor Friedrich Merz is set to name Russia over the attempted drone attack at Leipzig airport and announce extensive sanctions, three officials told Politico. [24][10]

Why it matters. Germany's government expects Russia to hit back, so the announcement is being timed with an EU foreign ministers' meeting.

Turkiye's government complained about drone attacks on Turkish commercial ships in the Black Sea, including one that seriously injured three crew this month. [25]

Why it matters. Turkiye sells weapons to Ukraine and refuses to sanction Russia; its ships are being hit by both wars at once.

Icelanders voted on Saturday on whether to resume membership negotiations frozen since 2013. A final poll gave yes 50.4 percent, inside the margin of error. [26]

Why it matters. Trump's interest in nearby Greenland has pushed a dormant question back onto the ballot.

The country voted on Sunday on a new constitution that would give Guinea-Bissau's president more power and cut parliament from 102 seats to 65. The opposition urged a boycott. [27]

Why it matters. The military government that seized power last November wrote it, and faces an election in December.

Colombian forces, working with the US Drug Enforcement Administration, captured Luis Saul Perez Nieto, described as a weapons and drugs coordinator for the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. [28]

Why it matters. Colombia's new president has made Medellin the hub of Trump's regional anti-cartel alliance, a sharp break from his predecessor.

Japan's prime minister Sanae Takaichi is under domestic pressure for calling US sanctions on the International Criminal Court's Japanese president merely regrettable. Japan is the court's largest funder. [29]

Why it matters. A Japanese government official put the bind plainly: we cannot be too tough on the United States.

South Africa submitted a dossier to the International Court of Justice alleging Israel has not complied with the protective orders issued while its genocide case proceeds. [30]

Why it matters. Written arguments in the main case run to 2029, so the interim orders are the only live protection.

The military has retaken Falam and three more towns in Chin State after 2,500 air strikes over six months, reversing a year of opposition control. [31]

Why it matters. One rebel commander's summary travels well beyond Myanmar: capturing a town and holding it are very different jobs.

Thirteen people kidnapped in the 23 August attack on Kenscoff were released. Forty-seven people were killed in that attack and about 2,647 were driven from their homes. [32]

Why it matters. Haiti's last presidential election was in 2016, and the next one has already been postponed several times.

Bangladesh confirmed a deal for Chinese J-10CE fighter jets, plus attack helicopters and drones, citing how the type performed against India's French-built Rafale jets in the May 2025 fighting. [33]

Why it matters. A combat result from one week is now reshaping arms buying across South Asia.

El Obeid, once home to half a million people, gained 800 new tents in one camp between 4 and 25 August. About 85 percent of arrivals are women and children. [34]

Why it matters. Men stay behind because this is the only farming window, and the area is already at risk of famine.

An Israeli drone struck a tent used to store medical supplies inside the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital compound in Deir el-Balah, injuring three. Two people were killed elsewhere in Gaza. [35]

Why it matters. Supplies destroyed inside a hospital compound cannot be replaced from within the strip.

A Guardian investigation traced the military and defence contracting interests of Christopher Harborne, who has given Nigel Farage's party Reform UK about 5 million pounds. [36]

Why it matters. No previous major British party donor has been this closely tied to the arms industry.

Konstantin Sokolov, who left Russia for the United States at 21, was appointed to head the US State Department fund financing a planned transport corridor through Armenia. [37]

Why it matters. The route links Azerbaijan to its exclave along the Iranian border, so who runs the fund is a foreign-policy question.

Mohan Bhagwat, who leads the Hindu nationalist organisation RSS in India, told a New York event that anyone who believes Muslims have no place in India ceases to be a Hindu. [39]

Why it matters. Faith, advocacy and caste groups protested the Madison Square Garden rally, calling it a goodwill tour for Hindu nationalism. [38]

Twenty-five Pakistani prisoners released from Indian jails walked home across the Wagah border crossing on Saturday. [41]

Why it matters. It is a small part of a long list: in July Pakistan asked India to return 97 prisoners who had finished their sentences, 33 of them fishermen. [41]