World, in brief

US forces struck two Iranian rocket launchers on Larak Island, off Iran's southern coast, on Sunday. [1][2]

It was the first known American strike on Iran since late July. [1][4]

A US official said Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the country's most powerful armed force, had been seen 'preparing to launch rockets with sea mines' into the Strait of Hormuz. [1][3]

The Revolutionary Guards said the strike killed and wounded soldiers and civilians, and promised a 'response and punishment'. Iran's semi-official Tasnim agency called it a drone strike. [1][2]

Iran was attacking US forces stationed in Jordan on Sunday, the US network Fox News reported, citing a US source. [5]

The strait is the narrow waterway at the entrance to the Gulf. Before the war about a fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas shipments passed through it, and it has been shut since February. [1][6]

Iran's deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi said on Saturday that the strait is closed and that any ship wanting through must arrange it with Iran first. [6]

Seven cargo ships crossed on Thursday, against a ten-day average of fifteen. [6]

Up to 400 ships carrying about 6,000 crew have not been able to leave the Gulf safely since the war started, the International Maritime Organization said on Friday. [6]

Iran is being squeezed hard too. Its annual inflation hit 66% last month, and President Masoud Pezeshkian says imports and exports have fallen nearly 35%. [6]

US President Donald Trump said last week that every mine had been cleared from the strait's international waters, and that any boat laying a new one would be destroyed. [1]

The war began on 28 February when the US and Israel attacked Iran. Strikes on Iran and on Lebanon have killed thousands and displaced millions; 18 US service members have died. [1]

Oil rose on the news. Japan's Nikkei share index fell 2.1% on Monday and South Korean shares fell 2.4%. [5]

Iran and Oman have agreed a temporary shipping corridor in principle, but Iran says it will only act once the US honours a memorandum signed in mid-June that has since lapsed. [6]

Why it matters. Watch the daily count of ships crossing the strait, not the oil price: Iran and Oman already have a corridor plan agreed in principle, and the count moving off seven a day is what would show it started.

The combined death toll in Nepal and Tibet reached 797 by Sunday, with 3,048 people still missing five days after a glacier collapsed into a Himalayan river. Nepal's army pushed an air pipe into a flooded tunnel at the Trishuli 3A dam where more than 100 workers may be alive. [14][17][48]

Why it matters. Rivers upstream are rising again, and fresh flood warnings were issued for the Trishuli valley on Sunday.

More than 250 bodies have washed up along riverbanks in Chitwan, about 100 miles downstream, and only nine have been identified. Nepal is burying the rest in shallow, tagged graves in Devghat forest after taking DNA samples. [16][14]

Why it matters. The morgues are full, so identification is being deferred rather than done.

China said 261 foreign nationals from 23 countries are missing on the Tibetan side, including 104 Nepalis, 49 Indians, 33 Latvians, 18 Americans and 15 Britons. It has sent 2,100 rescue workers and 220m yuan, about $32.7m. [15]

Why it matters. A single valley collapse has become a consular problem for two dozen governments at once.

Debris from the flood dammed the river and formed a new lake a kilometre upstream of the Gyirong crossing, which China is watching with satellites, radar and drones. Nepal has rescued more than 8,700 people using about 20,000 security personnel. [51][18][49]

Why it matters. The disaster built the thing that could cause the next one, and the first warning of it comes from across the border.

A Russian strike on an ammunition warehouse in the village of Myla, west of Ukraine's capital Kyiv, killed 38 people, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday. Fires from the blast damaged at least 50 nearby homes, and four people are still missing. [10][12][11][9]

Why it matters. It is the deadliest single attack of the war this year, and it hit a village rather than a front line.

Russia's defence ministry said it has begun preparing 'massive strikes' on Ukraine's energy sites, calling it a reply to Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries and on Wildberries, Russia's biggest online retailer. Zelensky said Russia fired nearly 2,000 strike drones, more than 1,600 aerial bombs and 31 missiles this week alone. [9][10]

Why it matters. Ukraine lost heat and light for long stretches in the last two winters, and the next one starts in about ten weeks.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a ten-country Eurasian security group, opens its annual summit on Monday in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Narendra Modi, Masoud Pezeshkian and Pakistan's Shehbaz Sharif are due to attend. [23][24]

Why it matters. Iran's president will sit with China, Russia and India the day after US forces struck an Iranian island.

Icelanders rejected restarting talks on joining the European Union by 52.8% to 47.2%. Fish and marine industries are almost 40% of Iceland's exports, and no voters feared losing control of fishing grounds under the EU's shared fisheries rules. [19][20][50]

Why it matters. One industry's specific fear outweighed a security argument built on Russia's Arctic build-up.

Iceland's parliament will now debate whether to withdraw the application altogether, which has sat frozen since a eurosceptic government suspended talks in 2013. The European Commission's public response was brief. [21][22][20]

Why it matters. A paused application and a withdrawn one are different things for anyone who wants to try again later.

The Pacific Islands Forum opened in Palau on Monday without the prime ministers of Fiji, Vanuatu, Samoa and Solomon Islands or Kiribati's president. Solomon Islands' Matthew Wale flew home to face a no-confidence vote. [25]

Why it matters. The meeting was meant to show regional unity on climate and drug crime; five empty chairs say something else.

After Taiwan's foreign minister Lin Chia-lung handed over donated electric buses in Palau, China declared the tourism-dependent island unsafe for travellers, its president Surangel Whipps said. Chinese tourists are Palau's largest group of visitors. [26]

Why it matters. Palau is one of three Pacific states that recognise Taiwan rather than China.

The US Treasury refused credentials to reporters from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg for the G20 finance meeting in Asheville, North Carolina. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said it had nothing to do with their point of view. [27]

Why it matters. The meeting is where sanctions on Iran, bond markets and inflation are being discussed.

Bessent told Reuters he will press G20 countries to re-examine their trade terms with China, saying the world cannot carry a Chinese trade surplus of $1.2 trillion and that China must lean on its own shoppers instead of exports. [28]

Why it matters. US tariffs pushed Chinese goods toward Europe and Latin America; this asks those places to close their doors too.

The market-implied chance of a September rate rise by the US central bank reached 57% by Monday, up from 35.4% on Thursday, after its chair Kevin Warsh said policymakers still have work to do on inflation. Short-term US government borrowing costs jumped on Friday. [5][8]

Why it matters. Gulf currencies are pegged to the dollar, so Saudi and Qatari shares fell on Sunday before the strike news landed.

The yen slipped below 160 to the dollar on Friday. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called the move 'pretty well contained' and said Japan has reached the end of Abenomics, the stimulus programme launched in 2013. [29][5]

Why it matters. 160 is the level that has previously triggered joint US-Japan action to prop the currency up; this signals no repeat for now.

Representatives of Libya's four main institutions signed an agreement at UN offices in Tripoli to hold presidential and legislative elections within 24 months, under a single government and unified national bodies. [30][31]

Why it matters. Libya has been split between eastern and western administrations since 2014, and the last scheduled vote collapsed in 2021.

Syria and Libya's Tripoli-based government agreed to restart a joint committee at prime-minister level and open a Syrian consulate in Benghazi. The embassy had been shut since 2012. [32]

Why it matters. Syria's new government is rebuilding ties one country at a time after Bashar al-Assad was removed in December 2024.

Soldiers fought loyalist forces overnight from Friday at Niamey's main airport and near the presidential palace. Dozens were arrested or killed and paraded on state television. Junta leader Abdourahamane Tchiani has not appeared in public. [33]

Why it matters. The airport also hosts the headquarters of Russia's Africa Corps in Niger.

Guinea-Bissau held a referendum to give its president more power over its prime minister and to cut parliament from 102 seats to 65. The opposition urged a boycott, calling it a way for the country's military rulers to concentrate power. [34]

Why it matters. The country of 2.2 million has had repeated coups, the last of them a year ago.

Uzbekistan confirmed it has taken at least six Chinese J-10CE fighter jets, becoming the second foreign buyer after Pakistan. Bangladesh confirmed a deal for the same aircraft, plus Chinese attack helicopters and drones. [35][36]

Why it matters. Central Asia's combat aircraft market was Russian for decades, and the jets' selling point is a night of air combat with India.

Pakistan, Turkiye and Saudi Arabia hold the first meeting of their joint defence committee in Istanbul on Monday, with foreign ministers, defence ministers and military chiefs attending. The pact treats an attack on one as an attack on all. [37][38]

Why it matters. India's foreign ministry has said it will take steps to protect its security as the pact looks at adding Egypt and Bangladesh.

Israel's military said it killed a Hamas operative in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. Gaza medics said a three-year-old boy, Tayyem Hamdan, was killed too. A separate strike in Khan Younis killed two Hamas fighters. [39][40]

Why it matters. Israel says the strikes were allowed under the ceasefire because the men posed an immediate threat.

Police targeted four independent Hong Kong bookshops in four months over alleged sedition. Greenfield, a 50-year-old shop, is closing at the end of its lease; Have A Nice Stay shut on Sunday, citing 'elusive red lines'. [41]

Why it matters. The security secretary Chris Tang says there will be no list of banned books, so shops are guessing.

Ukraine's new defence minister Yevhenii Khmara said he will ask European partners to bring forward part of a 45bn euro loan planned for next year, to cover a $27bn hole in the military budget. [13]

Why it matters. The EU has committed 90bn euros through 2027, and Ukraine has already spent more than planned this year.

The UN committee on racial discrimination expressed 'grave concern' in its first review of India since 2007, citing police violence against minorities, Dalits and non-citizens, and mass removals from electoral rolls. India called the findings politically motivated. [42]

Why it matters. India argues caste discrimination sits outside the treaty; the committee says inherited status counts.

Japan's weather agency issued its highest heavy-rain warning for the cities of Fukui, Ono and Katsuyama on Sunday morning. It was lowered a few hours later. Katsuyama recorded 300mm of rain in 24 hours and Ono 233mm, both the most ever measured there. [43]

Why it matters. Five towns in two neighbouring prefectures got the same top-level warning on Thursday.

One Nation's Luke Herdegen won the Secret Harbour state byelection in Western Australia, beating Labor's Georgia Tree. Party figure Barnaby Joyce called the result 'decisive' and said voters are disillusioned with the traditional parties. [44]

Why it matters. It is the party's second state gain in recent months.

At a discussion in Islamabad, Pakistan's ambassador to the US Rizwan Saeed Sheikh said the Indus Waters Treaty has 'no crisis of content' but 'a crisis of intent in implementation'. Boston University's Adil Najam urged restoring data-sharing. [45]

Why it matters. The 1960 treaty survived three wars; most of Pakistan's population and farmland depend on the rivers it governs.

Officials in Tarrant County, Texas, proposed cutting the number of polling sites, drawing protests from local commissioner Alisa Simmons and Senate candidate James Talarico at a news conference in Arlington on Sunday. [46]

Why it matters. Tarrant is one of the state's largest counties and a close one in statewide races.

Sonia Gandhi's memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, will be published in November. Leaders of Congress, India's oldest political party, say an earlier publisher was pressed to change passages critical of India's government; the publisher says it stayed willing to publish. [47]

Why it matters. It is the first full account by the woman who led that party for two decades.