World, in brief

China's leader Xi Jinping arrived in Egypt on Tuesday evening and told Middle Eastern countries to be "masters of their own destiny" and to explore a new regional security arrangement. [1][2]

It is his first trip to the Middle East in four years, and his first to Egypt in a decade. [1][2]

Egypt receives about $1.3bn a year in US military aid, more than any country except Israel. It welcomed Xi with a military ceremony. [1][2]

He said China is ready to help protect shipping routes. That is the concrete part of the offer, after the war between the United States and Iran cut traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandeb. [1]

The two governments agreed to deepen security and counter-terrorism work together, and to cooperate on data centres, computer chips and critical metals. [1]

They also agreed to use more of each other's currencies when they trade, which takes the US dollar out of part of the business between them. [1]

In August their air forces flew a joint exercise called Eagles of Civilization. Chinese J-16 fighters flew a combat drill alongside Egypt's French-built Rafales for the first time. [1]

Egypt's president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi calls the policy "strategic balance". Egypt also restated its support for China's claim to Taiwan. [1][2]

Egypt bought about $10bn of Chinese goods in the first half of this year. It has 110 million people and owns the Suez Canal. [1][2]

Rob Geist Pinfold, who teaches international security at King's College London, said China is selling itself as a "more responsible and more hands-off" partner than the United States. [2]

Nothing was traded away. The American aid continues, and the Chinese agreements sit on top of it. [1][2]

Why it matters. Watch whether any government in the region signs something with China that names a specific duty, because so far the offer is a framework, and a framework nobody has had to use costs nothing. [1][2]

Israel's defence minister Israel Katz said his government is organised and prepared to get Palestinians out of Gaza "by sea, by air and by any means", and is waiting for the United States to find somewhere to take them. He said the US president has not cancelled the plan, only frozen it. [4][5]

Why it matters. Two US senators, Chris Van Hollen and Jeff Merkley, published a report last year calling this ethnic cleansing; Van Hollen said the minister had now confirmed it. [6]

Israel's national water company Mekorot stopped the flow to Gaza on Tuesday during a crisis at Israel's own desalination plants. Nearly a million people in Gaza went short of water that day, UNICEF said. [7]

Why it matters. The senators' report last year argued that departure is not voluntary once the things needed to stay alive are removed. [6]

Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry says Israeli attacks have killed more than 900 people in Gaza this year, bringing the total since the 10 October ceasefire to over 1,300, including 301 children. The Israeli military disputes the figures. [8]

Why it matters. The ceasefire plan both sides accepted suspended all military operations, including bombardment from the air and by artillery. [8]

Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinian youths during a settler raid on a West Bank village, medics said. [6]

Why it matters. It is the third front of the same war, and the one that carries no ceasefire at all.

Save the Children said Israel has killed or wounded an average of seven children a day in Lebanon since March. Over six months it counts at least 4,300 people killed, 12,000 wounded and 60 to 70 villages destroyed. [9]

Why it matters. Lebanon's government and Israel have signed agreements meant to end the fighting; the strikes continued anyway.

A BBC team travelled with UN peacekeepers into the strip Israel holds inside Lebanon. It covers about 5% of the country, reaches up to 10km from the border, and Israeli forces are building service roads and living in Lebanese apartment blocks. Demolitions have continued since the June ceasefire. [10]

Why it matters. Occupied land with roads built through it is much harder to hand back than a front line.

The US president said renewed fighting with Iran will not last "too long" and that his forces are ready to strike at any time. Iran's health minister said US attacks have killed 19 people, two of them children, and Iran's security chief promised a new war strategy. [11]

Why it matters. The same war is what has US attention tied up while China makes offers to the region.

Saudi Arabia says Iran hit the Sidr, an oil tanker owned by its national carrier Bahri, as it crossed the Strait of Hormuz late on Monday, killing two crew members from the Philippines. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar all condemned it. [12]

Why it matters. Qatar's foreign ministry said the strait must not be used as a bargaining chip, which is exactly what it has become.

Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned foreign airlines that the skies over Russia are no longer safe, saying Russian airspace "will effectively be closing" as Ukrainian long-range drones fly deeper into the country. Russia's president Vladimir Putin called it state terrorism and said he does not negotiate with terrorists. [13][14]

Why it matters. Ukraine says the drones do not target civil aircraft; the warning is that there will simply be too many of them to fly through.

Ukraine says its long-range drones have grown from a reach of about 630km in 2022 to 1,750km this year, with strikes as far as Omsk, about 2,500km away. When they approach a Russian city, airports there stop arrivals and departures until the threat passes. [15]

Why it matters. The reach, not the damage, is what closes an airport, and the war is not going to run out of reach.

Russian drones struck central Kyiv on Wednesday for the seventh day running, wounding 11 people and damaging homes and university buildings. Two civilians were reported killed in attacks on Dnipro. [14][16]

Why it matters. The air war has intensified while the front line in the east and south has barely moved.

Ukraine's domestic security service and its military intelligence service exchanged gunfire in Kyiv, wounding three officers. Zelenskyy called it "absolutely shameful", fired a senior officer and sent in prosecutors. [16]

Why it matters. Reports say the fight began when one service detained a commander working under the other's protection.

Germany's government said police work, the pattern of the crime and intelligence findings together make Russia responsible for a failed drone attack on Leipzig airport on 4 August. Three drones carrying explosives were found. Russia says the evidence was planted. [17][18]

Why it matters. Leipzig is a freight hub, and Ukraine's aircraft maker Antonov uses it as a base to move material to Ukraine. [17]

The EU's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas called the Leipzig attack "state-sponsored terrorism" and said the bloc is readying sanctions on 1,600 more people and companies tied to Russia's military industry, on top of more than 3,000 already listed. Russia's envoy was summoned. [18] NATO's secretary general Mark Rutte offered solidarity, and the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said every loophole Russia exploits must be closed. [19]

Why it matters. It is the same tool used for four years, applied to a new kind of attack.

Tankers and cargo ships are passing through the Bosphorus strait with nets, water tanks and tyres strapped on to stop drone strikes. The burned-out Russian cargo ship Omskiy-107 drifted onto a beach near Istanbul. Turkey says the attacks are causing a grain crisis in Africa. [20]

Why it matters. Russia has rejected Turkey's plan for safe passage, so the ships are improvising their own.

A week after a glacier collapse sent a flood down a Himalayan valley, Nepal's disaster agency counts 1,114 dead and nearly 4,000 missing, with almost 12,000 rescued. On the Tibetan side China reports 16 dead and more than 500 unaccounted for, and has reopened the road to the Gyirong crossing. [21][22]

Why it matters. Hundreds of workers are still thought to be inside flooded hydropower tunnels.

The US contribution to Nepal's flood response has risen to $3.6m, enough to feed 10,000 households for up to three months. Aid specialists called the initial $500,000 symbolic of a response shrunk by the closure of USAID, the American aid agency shut down in July 2025. [23]

Why it matters. The agency that used to do this work no longer exists, and the money is now moved by the US state department.

Government figures published on Wednesday put deaths in Congo's Ebola outbreak at 3,007, with 6,186 confirmed cases and a death rate of 48.6%. It is the country's worst outbreak, has spread to six provinces, and is second worldwide only to the West African epidemic of 2014 to 2016. [24][25]

Why it matters. The strain is Bundibugyo, for which no vaccine or treatment has ever been approved. [26]

More than 1,000 schools in Ituri province sit in the active-transmission "red zone". Rules published on 19 August would have replaced classes with worksheets and radio lessons, but schools opened as normal this week after officials decided remote learning would set pupils back further than the virus threatens them. [25]

Why it matters. Where a remedy needs infrastructure that is not there, the choice is between two harms, not between harm and safety.

The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on Wednesday it is still unknown how many people the dead had been in contact with. The US disease agency says up to 80% of new cases are outside known contacts. The response is more than $1bn short. [26]

Why it matters. Contact tracing only works while you know who the contacts are, and that stopped being true some time ago.

About 50,000 people rallied in Madrid over the migration crisis in Ceuta, Spain's small territory on Morocco's coast, with protests in more than 200 towns. Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas after the Madrid march. Spain's government has allocated 309m euros to the city. [27][28]

Why it matters. More than 70,000 people crossed from Morocco into Ceuta in late July, and a month on the city has not returned to normal. [27][28]

Guinea-Bissau's electoral commission confirmed a 70% Yes vote on turnout above 50% in a referendum on a new constitution. The main opposition party says the vote has no legal basis because the bodies that ran it were created by the military after the November 2025 coup. [29]

Why it matters. A new constitution written by a government nobody elected is the usual way a coup becomes permanent.

A court in Madagascar sentenced Richard Ravalomanana, the former Senate president and a retired general, to 10 years of hard labour for complicity in murder during the crackdown on youth protests in 2025. At least 22 people were killed. He denies it and will appeal. [30]

Why it matters. The protests brought down Madagascar's previous government; the one that replaced it is led by an army colonel.

Joshua Wong, who led Hong Kong's student protests as a teenager in 2014, pleaded guilty to colluding with foreign forces and could face life imprisonment. He is the only Hong Kong activist prosecuted twice under China's national security law, and has been in prison since 2020. [31]

Why it matters. The law was introduced in 2020; six years on it is being used a second time on the same person.

Zhong Shaojun, long described as Xi Jinping's eyes inside China's armed forces, has been removed along with General Zhang Youxia, the most senior uniformed officer. [32]

Why it matters. It is happening before the Communist Party's national congress in 2027, and it is the man Xi installed, not an opponent.

Palau's president Surangel Whipps called for a "unified" Pacific response to China's test of an intercontinental missile in July, which landed in the ocean between Solomon Islands, Nauru and Tuvalu with almost no warning. The 18-country Pacific Islands Forum has still issued no formal response. [33]

Why it matters. China's Pacific envoy warned of "consequences" after Taiwan's foreign minister attended the summit's opening.

Japan is transferring retiring destroyers to the Philippines and Indonesia. The Philippines expects five Abukuma-class escorts within three years, and Japan and Indonesia are discussing Asagiri-class destroyers, the first of which retired in March after 38 years. [34]

Why it matters. The ships come with training and maintenance, which builds a long relationship without asking anyone to line up against China.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a bloc of ten countries including China, Russia, India, Pakistan and Iran, adopted its first declaration on nuclear safety at a summit in Kyrgyzstan. It condemns attacks on peaceful nuclear sites and affirms members' right to civil nuclear power. [35]

Why it matters. It was adopted while US and Israeli forces were striking Iran, a member.

Pakistan's foreign ministry said relations with Afghanistan will not improve until the Taliban government gives written, checkable assurances that Afghan territory will not be used for attacks. A UN report found the Taliban moved about 2,000 Pakistani Taliban fighters away from the border while support for the group continued. [36]

Why it matters. Moving fighters is not the same as dismantling the command and training networks, which is what Pakistan says it is asking for.

Pakistan's prime minister Shehbaz Sharif ended a three-day visit to Kyrgyzstan with an agreement to raise trade between the two countries to $200m within two years. He said he had pushed for a binding agreement rather than the memorandum first proposed. [37]

Why it matters. It closes a Central Asian trip that ended in Bishkek, while Pakistan's relations with its own neighbour Afghanistan stay frozen.

Libya's rival administrations in the east and west, split since 2014, agreed under UN mediation to hold parliamentary and presidential elections within two years. The electoral commission will be restructured and the legal disputes that blocked earlier attempts have been settled. [38]

Why it matters. Every previous timetable has slipped; this one at least resolves the legal arguments that killed the last.

Human Rights Watch published a report on Wednesday saying Tunisia's president Kais Saied is trying to shut down independent groups entirely, mostly through money-laundering accusations that suspend an organisation's work. Four Gaza flotilla organisers have been held in a Tunis prison for more than five months; one has been on hunger strike for a week. [39][40]

Why it matters. An accusation that suspends you before any trial does the work of a conviction without needing one.

The US secretary of state Marco Rubio said his government will use the Organization of American States to isolate Nicaragua's government after constitutional changes he said "gutted what was left" of democracy. Daniel Ortega and his wife and co-president Rosario Murillo run the country. [41]

Why it matters. The same instrument the United States wants to use in the Americas is the one China is offering to replace in the Middle East.

A federal judge in Maryland, Deborah Boardman, blocked the US president's executive order of 6 August limiting citizenship by birth. The US Supreme Court had already ruled his previous attempt unconstitutional in June. [42]

Why it matters. It is the second version of the same order to be stopped in three months.

James "Fergie" Chambers, an American heir arrested on Ibiza in July, faces extradition to the United States accused of routing $7.5m through Tunisia to Hamas. The indictment is sealed, so the specific allegations are unknown. He denies wrongdoing. [43]

Why it matters. It is believed to be the first extradition attempt of its kind involving a US citizen and donations to Palestinian causes.

UNICEF said more than 162 million children in eastern and southern Africa, two-thirds of all children there, live in areas exposed to the strengthening 2026/2027 El Nino. Somalia could see up to 2.5 million people hit by flooding under the worst mapping. [44]

Why it matters. The forecast arrives before the damage, which is the one advantage this kind of disaster gives.

More than 500 students in East Java were taken to hospital with suspected food poisoning from meals supplied under Indonesia's free school meals programme. The food is being tested. [45]

Why it matters. The scheme, meant to end child undernutrition, has already had poisonings, corruption allegations and leadership changes.

German firms that once sold profitably to China now compete with Chinese goods at home, as China supports the same sectors and exports what its own economy cannot absorb. Volkswagen is cutting 50,000 jobs, BMW 8,000 and Bosch 13,000. A state election in Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday could give the far-right AfD its first regional governor. [46]

Why it matters. Germany's economy shrank in 2023 and 2024 and grew 0.2% last year, and the politics is following the numbers.

Sweden's migration minister Johan Forssell defended removing British citizens who applied late for the right to stay after Brexit, saying Sweden has fulfilled its commitments. One case is Joyce Thomas, a 78-year-old widow ordered to leave after 21 years. [47]

Why it matters. The Brexit withdrawal agreement set an application deadline, and six years on it is still taking homes away from people who have had them for decades.

Emmanuel Macron becomes the first head of state to visit Britain's new prime minister Andy Burnham at Downing Street, with talks on Iran, smuggling gangs and a new deal with the EU. [48]

Why it matters. Burnham had promised to stay focused on domestic policy; a summit weeks away has changed that.

Two-thirds of EU governments have pledged money for seven large shared AI computing centres, the bloc's biggest industrial policy push in years. Nine have refused to commit while their budgets are stretched. Governments must promise to buy computing power before building starts. [49]

Why it matters. The plan needs national money to convince private investors, so the nine absences are the whole risk.

Kaja Kallas rejected French and German plans to overhaul the EU's diplomatic service, saying most member states backed the current setup. The problem, she said, is not the treaties or the institutions but the way the rules are carried out. [50]

Why it matters. The bloc spent the same day arguing about how to answer Russia and about who should be allowed to answer.

In Betrawati, on the riverbank in Nepal's Rasuwa district, Dil Bahadur Shrestha has been digging through the ruins of his house with his hands, looking for the body of Jamuna Shrestha, his wife of 50 years. He no longer has a shovel. [3]

Why it matters. The disaster agency's table says 1,114. This is one of them.