World, in brief

Ukraine fired more than 1,000 drones at Russia overnight into Sunday, the largest attack on Moscow since the war began. [1]

Russia's defence ministry said it shot down 1,110 Ukrainian drones across the country, Crimea and the Black Sea, and Moscow's mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 450 of them were heading for the capital. [1][3]

Russia launched 138 drones at Ukraine the same night and Ukraine's air force said it shot down 101 of them. [2]

Drones reached the grounds of the Moscow Oil Refinery, which processed 11.6 million tonnes of crude in 2024. [3]

A drone crashed into a 21-storey block of flats and the fire forced 400 people out of the building. [2]

Two people died in the Moscow region: a 74-year-old man and a 44-year-old woman, the regional governor Andrei Vorobyov said. [1]

Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky said the strikes used Ukraine's own Flamingo and Pelican missiles and hit oil and logistics sites. [1]

The attack landed on the last day of Russia's first wartime parliamentary election, which ran from Friday to Sunday for 111 million eligible voters. [5]

Sobyanin said the attack was planned to disrupt the vote and that it failed. [3]

Russia held the vote in four Ukrainian regions it annexed and does not fully control, and in Crimea; the European Union called that a blatant violation of international law. [5]

Yabloko, the only registered party that publicly criticised the war, was struck off the ballot by Russia's Supreme Court 12 days after being registered. [6]

Russia's own drones killed a mother and her two three-year-old children in the Kyiv region, and a girl died in hospital after a second strike. [4]

Why it matters. Watch what Russia's government asks its new parliament to do: the result was never in doubt, and the first test is whether the new Duma is handed anything the old one was not. [6]

Iran's military central command said on Sunday that it has information the United States and its allies are preparing a major new attack. [17][18] It said any such attack would bring sustained retaliation against US bases and interests across the region, and that US allies in the Gulf would be treated as parties to the war. [17] The US State Department had already told Americans on Saturday to expect possible flight cancellations and airspace closures in the Middle East. [17] The war is nearly seven months old and neither side has offered a major concession. [17]

Why it matters. Iran's security chief Mohsen Rezaei set out six conditions for ending the war, among them the release of billions in frozen funds and an end to the US blockade of Iran's southern ports. [19] Iran's parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on Sunday that the Strait of Hormuz, the sea gate for much of the world's oil, stays closed until those conditions are met. [19]

Nearly 130 heads of state arrive in New York this week for the UN General Assembly, the yearly meeting where each of the 193 member countries gets to speak. [9][10][11] Donald Trump speaks on Tuesday, Iran's president Masoud Pezeshkian on Wednesday, and Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday. [9][10] Trump has cut the US contribution to the UN and pulled out of dozens of its bodies. [10] Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas was refused a US visa for the second year running, and the assembly voted to let him appear by video instead. [9]

Why it matters. Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group, a conflict research group, said the UN is stuck in an open-ended crisis. [10] The Security Council, the fifteen-country body that can order action, cannot move on Ukraine because Russia holds a veto there. [9]

China's president Xi Jinping will not attend the General Assembly and will instead spend two days with Donald Trump in Washington from Thursday. [10][8] He last addressed the assembly by video in 2021. [10] A state banquet in his honour on Wednesday night is due to include the heads of several American artificial intelligence companies. [8] Trump is not expected to meet Netanyahu while both men are in New York. [10]

Why it matters. The week's biggest decisions on artificial intelligence and trade will be taken at a table with two countries at it, not in the hall where 130 leaders are speaking. [8][10] Governments that are not in that room will be told the result afterwards.

The US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said on Sunday that the United States has proposed a notification mechanism, a way for the two countries to tell each other about artificial intelligence accidents serious enough to touch national security. [12] He spoke after eight hours of talks in New York with China's vice premier He Lifeng. [14] The two sides also agreed to start running a Board of Trade that Trump and Xi discussed in May. [12] The US trade representative Jamieson Greer said farm products, energy and medical devices could be considered for lower tariffs. [12]

Why it matters. The two countries are racing each other to dominate artificial intelligence, and each has said it worries about the technology in the other's hands. [13] Sun Chenghao at Tsinghua University in China said there is meaningful room for cooperation on risks that would harm both, such as attacks made with AI or a model getting out of human control. [13]

Michelle Bachelet, twice president of Chile and formerly the UN's human rights chief, withdrew on Sunday from the race to succeed Antonio Guterres as UN secretary-general. [11] She pulled out a day after a third informal straw poll of the Security Council showed her support had all but collapsed. [11] That poll put Costa Rica's Rebeca Grynspan in front. [11] Seven candidates are left, and Guterres finishes his second five-year term on 31 December. [11]

Why it matters. Bachelet had built her campaign on defending international law at a moment she said it was under sustained pressure. [11] The Security Council recommends one name and the 193-member General Assembly has long treated that choice as a formality. [11]

The Trump administration is preparing sanctions against the International Criminal Court itself, the court in The Hague that tries individuals for war crimes, people familiar with the plan told the South China Morning Post. [29] It has already sanctioned a number of the court's judges and prosecutors, but has held off punishing the institution. [29] US officials want it to drop its arrest warrants against Israeli leaders and an investigation into American troops in Afghanistan. [29] The US secretary of state Marco Rubio announced a campaign in July to persuade other countries to leave the court. [29]

Why it matters. Netanyahu, who is wanted by that court over alleged war crimes in Gaza that Israel denies, speaks at the UN on Thursday. [9] Sanctioning the institution itself, rather than named judges, has long been one of the options under consideration. [29]

Mohamed al-Bukhaiti of the Houthis' political bureau warned other countries on Sunday against joining Saudi Arabia in Yemen's renewed civil war. [20][21] He told the Associated Press that the group has assured the Trump administration it will not attack US ships, though he confirmed only indirect contacts through Oman. [20] Oman brokered a 2025 ceasefire that ended a US bombing campaign in exchange for the Houthis sparing US vessels. [20] The group has taken a long stretch of Yemen's west coast this month, down to the Bab al-Mandab strait. [20]

Why it matters. Turkey's foreign minister Hakan Fidan said his country could meet Saudi military needs in certain technical areas, and Pakistan has pledged support too. [25] The three countries named their defence pact the Mecca Defence Alliance on 31 August, on the principle that an armed attack on one is an attack on all three. [24]

US embassies issued security alerts after Houthi missiles and drones were fired at Saudi cities. [22] The Saudi-led coalition said its air defences shot down a ballistic missile aimed at Riyadh, and that Baish, Taif, Farasan and Yanbu were also targeted. [22] Residents reported flames and smoke at Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport on Saturday, and the tracking site Flightradar24 said the airport had major problems. [22] The UN recorded 28 people killed and 82 injured in Yemen in 31 separate incidents since fighting escalated in August. [22]

Why it matters. The Houthis declared a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia in July, and Saudi strikes have not stopped their advance. [22] The UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric urged all parties, and those with influence over them, to de-escalate and protect civilians. [22]

A barrel of Brent crude, the price most of the world's oil is set against, rose 81 cents to $104.68 on Monday morning. [23] US crude rose 76 cents to $101.06. [23] Both went up after the Houthi missile and drone strikes on Riyadh on Saturday. [23] Oil passed $100 in recent weeks because tankers are being attacked around the Strait of Hormuz, and because the Houthis control the Red Sea route Saudi Arabia has been using to export. [19]

Why it matters. Attacks on tankers around the Strait of Hormuz and the loss of the Red Sea route pushed the price past $100 in recent weeks. [19] Europe's airports are already bracing for jet fuel shortages linked to the same crisis. [27]

Qatar's prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani described the fallout from the US-Israeli war on Iran as an earthquake, speaking at the Qatar Economic Forum in New York. [28] He said permanent security cannot be built on arrangements that leave any state permanently exposed to insecurity. [28] He pledged more than $38bn of spending on Qatari infrastructure over five years, which Al Jazeera's correspondent said was meant to attract private investors. [28] Qatar's foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari said separately that Qatar's efforts to restart talks between the US and Iran are continuing. [28]

Why it matters. Gulf leaders meet Trump on Tuesday during the assembly week. [28] Qatar's foreign ministry says its efforts to restart US-Iran talks are still running, while its own gas company is shipping only a very small volume. [26][28]

QatarEnergy's chief executive Saad al-Kaabi said on Sunday that the crisis over the Strait of Hormuz could delay some of the company's expansion projects, because the equipment they need cannot reach Qatar. [26] He said the company is currently shipping only a very minute volume of liquefied natural gas. [26] Several new production lines were due to start in 2027 and a second expansion in 2028. [26] Kaabi was speaking at the Qatar Economic Forum in New York. [26]

Why it matters. A delay decided now lands on gas buyers in 2027 and 2028. [26] QatarEnergy has already cancelled cargoes to buyers in Europe and Asia during this war. [26]

Europe faces a shortfall of jet fuel in the last three months of the year, according to analysts and shipping data. [27] Stocks at Europe's main trading hub fell to a seven-year low in the week to 10 September. [27] South Korea is stepping in, with September shipments to Europe running at about 129,000 barrels a day, a four-year high. [27] The Iran war cut off around half of Europe's jet fuel imports, so the continent has been buying from Nigeria, the United States and Canada instead. [27]

Why it matters. Stocks are at a seven-year low with the busiest flying quarter still ahead. [27] Airports across central and eastern Europe have already been bracing for shortages and flight disruption linked to the Middle East crisis. [27]

Russians queued at embassies in Berlin, Yerevan and other cities to vote in the parliamentary election, many of them people who left after the 2022 invasion. [7] Some protesters outside the Russian embassy in Berlin held a placard reading that Putin is a murderer and a war criminal. [7] Most anti-war candidates were barred from the ballot, and the parties that remained have voted with United Russia on every major question. [7] A 24-year-old woman who left Moscow told Reuters in Berlin that she still wants to live in a democratic Russia one day. [7]

Why it matters. Hundreds of thousands of Russians, many of them young and well educated, left after the war began and settled in Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan and across Europe. [7] Their votes cannot change the result and they cast them anyway. [7]

Germany's chancellor Friedrich Merz called the results of Sunday's state elections a disaster. [36] In the north-eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern his CDU party was first projected to scrape through with its worst ever result, then slipped below the 5% needed to stay in the state parliament at all. [36] The far-right AfD was on track to win the most votes there, but is unlikely to govern because no other party will work with it. [36] Merz said he would fight on after crushing defeats in two states. [8]

Why it matters. The party with the most votes in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern will not run it, because nobody will form a government with the AfD. [36] Merz leads Germany's national government and his own party has just been voted out of a state parliament. [36]

Canada's prime minister Mark Carney met France's president Emmanuel Macron on Sunday at Saint-Pierre, the capital of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, a French archipelago just off Canada's Atlantic coast. [37][38] The two asked their space agencies and defence departments to build and share space-launch systems, with no timeline or funding announced. [38] Carney said last week he would welcome Canada becoming the European Union's first associate member. [37] There is now a price to be paid for access to the United States market, he said, pointing to tariffs and demands for policy changes. [37]

Why it matters. Canada spent nearly four decades building its economy around closer ties with the United States, and Donald Trump turned that dependence into pressure with tariffs and claims on Canadian sovereignty. [37] Carney is not waiting for a different US president to undo it. [37]

China's cabinet appointed Li Chenggang as the country's international trade representative, a post carrying a minister's rank, the state news agency Xinhua reported on Sunday. [15] He was previously the commerce ministry's international trade negotiator, so the new title gives him a national mandate rather than a ministry one. [15] The change was made days before Xi Jinping's White House visit. [15] Vice premier He Lifeng is leading China's delegation to the United States for talks running from Saturday to Wednesday. [15]

Why it matters. The appointment names one person for other governments to deal with on trade. [15] It landed in the same weekend as the eight-hour New York talks that produced the AI alert line. [12][14]

Donald Trump meets New York City's mayor Zohran Mamdani on Monday at Gracie Mansion, the mayor's official residence, while he is in the city for the General Assembly. [16] Mamdani's office said the two would discuss issues affecting the city and New Yorkers. [16] Mamdani, a democratic socialist who beat former governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary, was called a 100% Communist Lunatic by Trump during the 2025 campaign. [16] Their meetings since have been cordial; at one, Mamdani handed Trump a mock newspaper front page reading Trump to City: Let's Build. [16]

Why it matters. New York is hosting nearly 130 heads of state this week. [9] Trump called Mamdani a communist during the 2025 campaign, then said after his win that the mayor would surprise some conservative people. [16]

Israel's military and the Shin Bet security agency said on Sunday that they had killed three Hamas members in Gaza over the weekend. [32] Two of them took part in the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel and one was a commander in Hamas's Nukhba force, the joint statement said. [32] It said the three were systematically violating the ceasefire by rebuilding Hamas's capabilities. [32] Separately COGAT, the Israeli body that controls what enters Gaza, denied being to blame for the shortage of shelter materials and said more than 20,000 tents had entered in the past month. [32]

Why it matters. Israel says the three men were violating the ceasefire, and the strikes happened inside that ceasefire. [32] The second dispute is about shelter: COGAT was answering a claim that it is holding back the materials people in Gaza need before winter. [32]

Israeli security officials suspect that a Palestinian opened fire on a group of Israelis at a spring outside the settlement of Neve Tzuf in the occupied West Bank. [42] An Israeli man in his 30s was seriously wounded, medics and Israeli military sources said. [42] The army said the gunman remains at large and that it has launched large-scale sweeps in the area. [42]

Why it matters. Nobody has been named or caught, and the army is searching the villages around the settlement. [42] Neve Tzuf is one of the Israeli settlements built in the West Bank, land Israel has occupied since 1967. [42]

Benny Gantz said he would halt his campaign if polls in the final week show his Blue and White party failing to clear the threshold for entering Israel's parliament. [34] The party is polling at 2%, against the 3.25% a party needs to win any seats. [34] He said his only obligation is to his own voters and that he can guarantee their voice will not be thrown away. [34] Israel votes on 27 October. [34]

Why it matters. Under Israel's rules, votes cast for a party below the threshold elect nobody at all. [34] Gantz says he knows he will not be prime minister and is pitching his party as a bridge between the blocs for and against Netanyahu. [34]

Britain plans to ban imports of goods made in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, together with related measures, and eleven other countries have pledged similar steps. [30] Israel's government responded angrily, though the Haaretz analyst David Rosenberg writes that the measures would have little effect on Israeli exports and that most would be easy to get around. [30] What is different is that Britain says it will enforce the ban in law, rather than leave it to shoppers. [30]

Why it matters. A consumer boycott depends on individuals choosing not to buy. [30] A legal ban puts customs officers and company lawyers in the way instead. [30]

Dubravka Suica, the European Commissioner for the Mediterranean, said on Sunday that she had spoken to Israel's foreign minister Gideon Saar about EU-Israel relations, regional stability and rebuilding Gaza. [31] She said she pressed the urgent need to advance early recovery, the first repairs that let people live somewhere again. [31] She also raised what she called a reformed and functioning Palestinian Authority. [31] The EU and partner countries launched a fund in July aimed at restoring essential services in Gaza. [31]

Why it matters. Europe is arguing with itself about Israel this week. [30][31] Britain is preparing sanctions written into law while the European Commission is making phone calls about reconstruction. [30][31]

An official from the United Arab Emirates said that national leaders do not discuss security matters between themselves. [35] He was responding to a Haaretz report that the UAE's president Mohammed bin Zayed warned Benjamin Netanyahu shortly before 7 October 2023 that Hamas was planning a major attack. [35] The comment came through The National, a UAE outlet owned by the Emirati president's brother. [35] The official did not outright deny the report. [35]

Why it matters. Israel votes on 27 October, and the question of who was warned before 7 October is part of that campaign. [34][35] Haaretz published the original report earlier this month, and the UAE has not said it is untrue. [35]

North Korea launched a short-range ballistic missile on Sunday, South Korea's military said. [8] It came two days after North Korea said it would strengthen its nuclear weapons. [8] The launch landed in the week the UN General Assembly meets in New York, where nearly 130 heads of state are gathering. [9]

Why it matters. South Korea's military is the body that detects and reports each North Korean launch. [8] A short-range missile is one built to reach neighbours such as South Korea and Japan rather than distant countries.