World, in brief

Trump told the UN General Assembly on Tuesday that he had a big decision to make about Iran: a deal that lets it rebuild, or annihilating its government quickly. [1][2]

He said he believed a deal would come right after the US midterm elections on 3 November, because Iran was waiting to see how he did in them. [4][1]

Senior Iranian diplomats boycotted the speech, and one lower-ranking diplomat stayed in the hall to the end. [1]

Hours later Trump said his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had talked with an Iranian delegation for three hours, and that it 'went very well'. [3]

Witkoff then wrote that the talks went through mediators, who carried messages between the two sides all day, rather than face to face. [3]

Iranian state media said Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi gave the US Iran's terms for reopening the Strait of Hormuz. They are: lift the US naval blockade, release Iran's frozen money, and end the war on all its 'resistance fronts', meaning the fights involving Iran's allies. [3]

A senior Iranian official told Reuters the strait could reopen within seven days of the US easing military pressure and lifting the blockade. [7]

Before the war the strait, the sea lane out of the Gulf, carried about 125 large ships a day and a fifth of the world's oil and gas. On Monday two tracked cargo ships crossed, down from 10 the day before; ships with trackers switched off are not counted. [10]

No face-to-face US-Iran meeting is known since July, when an interim deal collapsed weeks after Trump and Iran's president Masoud Pezeshkian signed it. [6]

Pezeshkian said Iranians are wary of more talks, because the US and Israel attacked Iran twice while negotiations were going on. [9]

Trump said, without evidence, that 72,000 Iranians were killed by their own government last year. Iran's own figure for the protests last winter is about 3,500, and rights groups say 5,000 or more. [4]

He told the hall the US has more munitions than it could ever use. US and NATO officials told AP that stockpiles are shrinking and some will take years to rebuild. [4][8]

The war has pushed fuel prices up around the world, and a Reuters/Ipsos poll on Monday put Trump's approval at an all-time low of 32%. [11]

Why it matters. Watch whether the mediators fix a date for the next round Trump says is coming soon, and whether the US says anything about lifting its blockade, which is Iran's first condition. [3][7]

Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, opened the General Assembly on Tuesday for the last time; his second five-year term ends on 31 December. [13] He said the world's crises come down to power, and warned against a split into two rival blocs with separate economies, technology and armies. [13] He told the biggest powers that their power 'isn't so super'. [2] He asked that life-and-death decisions never be handed to machines. [13]

Why it matters. His critics say he spent more effort on climate and AI than on stopping wars, the UN's core job. [15] The Security Council is choosing his successor, and after three rounds of voting among eight candidates no favourite has emerged. [13]

Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky met Trump for 40 minutes in New York and said they discussed a ceasefire on strikes against energy sites and how to end the war. [18] He said Ukraine was ready for any form of energy truce, and that nobody asked Ukraine to stop hitting Russian refineries on its own. [18] He said intelligence showed Russia preparing a new massive attack, and that easing sanctions on Russia could not be discussed under that threat. [17]

Why it matters. Russia has been hitting Ukraine's power grid and Ukraine has been hitting Russia's refineries, which has caused diesel shortages well beyond both countries. [16]

Ukraine's special forces said drones struck the Kuibyshev oil refinery in Samara, a Russian city more than 1,000km southeast of Moscow, and started a large fire. [16][19] The regional governor said one person was killed and four wounded. [19] Russia's attack on Ukraine the same night used anti-ship, ballistic and cruise missiles and more than 200 drones, and killed four people in the city of Dnipro. [16]

Why it matters. A Carnegie Europe report said attacks last month cut both countries' farm exports by two-thirds. [16] They have supplied about 30% of the world's wheat, and the report warns that several African countries are at risk of famine. [16]

Saudi Arabia's King Salman, who is 90 and rarely speaks on current affairs, called Yemen's Houthi movement a 'terrorist militia' at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday. [20] He accused the Iran-allied group of repeatedly targeting Mecca, Islam's holiest city. [20] Last week Saudi Arabia said it shot down a Houthi drone heading there, and the Houthis called that a lie. [20] It was the first security alert in Mecca in nearly ten years. [20]

Why it matters. The Houthis now hold Yemen's whole Red Sea coast, which Saudi Arabia had been using to ship oil around the closed Strait of Hormuz. [20] Last month Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed a pact treating an attack on one as an attack on all three. [20]

Air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition on Mokha, a Red Sea port in Yemen, killed six civilians including two children, a Houthi news agency said on Tuesday. [21] The Houthis took Mokha in a fast offensive this month. [21] Yemen's war began in 2014 and had been mostly frozen from 2022 until it restarted in July. [21] The G7, a group of seven rich democracies, told the Houthis to stop firing and told Iran to stop arming them. [21]

Why it matters. Britain and France have promised Saudi Arabia defensive help, but the US has turned down Saudi requests to rejoin the fight. [21][22] The New York Times reported that Trump called off strikes on the Houthis at the last minute on Sunday. [22]

Trump signed a security agreement with the leaders of Denmark and Greenland at the UN on Tuesday. [5][2] Greenland is a self-governing island that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. [23] The deal reaffirms its sovereignty but gives the US broad access to its airspace and land, including two new bases at Narsarsuaq and Mestersvig. [2][23] Greenland's prime minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said it was 'an agreement with us', not only about Greenland. [5]

Why it matters. It closes a crisis inside NATO that began in January, when Trump would not rule out taking the island by force. [23] It is the first big increase in US military sites there since the Cold War. [23]

The United States is holding back a visa for General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of Sudan's army and its de facto leader, days before he is due to speak at the UN on Thursday. [24] A Sudanese diplomat and a Western analyst told Reuters the visa seems to depend on him signing a 90-day ceasefire proposed by US envoy Massad Boulos. [24] Sudan's UN ambassador asked Guterres to step in, and the UN says it has raised it with US officials. [24]

Why it matters. Under its deal to host the UN, the US is not supposed to refuse visas. [24] Burhan wrote this week that ceasefires in Sudan's war have failed because they were written about Sudan without Sudan. [24]

Sudan's pound traded at about 7,500 to the dollar on the black market on Tuesday, against 4,100 in May and about 600 before the war began in 2023. [25] Sudan's central bank no longer updates the official rate. [25] In Omdurman, next to the capital Khartoum, a litre of cooking oil rose from 17,000 to 23,000 pounds in a week. [25] About 5 million of the 14 million people driven out by the war have come home, mostly to areas the army retook, and that has pushed prices up too. [25]

Why it matters. Much of Sudan's gold, livestock and farm exports come from areas held by the Rapid Support Forces, the paramilitary group fighting the army, so the army's side earns few dollars. [25] Officials reported 70 tonnes of gold mined last year, and only 14.7 tonnes exported. [25]

Jordan's King Abdullah told the assembly that Israel's military activity in southern Syria risks threatening Jordan directly, and called the Israeli government's 'expansionist appetite' a regional threat. [1] Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Gaza 'the most inhumane and shameful concentration camp of our time'. [1][26] Israel's delegation left the hall during his speech. [1] Qatar's emir said Israeli leaders were openly calling for Gaza's people to be moved out. [27]

Why it matters. Jordan, Turkey and Qatar all work closely with the US, and they spoke on the same day that Trump mentioned Israel only once in his own speech. [1] Israel's prime minister speaks on Thursday. [9]

Brazil's president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, speaking just before Trump, said the UN's credibility has never been lower. [28] He warned of foreign interference in Brazil's election in October, where he seeks a fourth term against Senator Flavio Bolsonaro. [28] Flavio's father, former president Jair Bolsonaro, is serving a 27-year sentence at home for an attempted coup, and the Trump administration has publicly backed the Bolsonaro camp. [28] 'Brazil is nobody's backyard,' Lula said. [28][29]

Why it matters. Trump recently named two Brazilian gangs as terrorist organisations, and some Brazilian analysts and politicians say the aim is to paint Lula as soft on crime before the vote. [28]

Trump called the International Criminal Court, which tries war crimes and genocide, a 'rogue institution' and told every member country to resign from it immediately. [5] The US has never been a member, but many of its allies are. [5] His government has already sanctioned court officials over arrest warrants for Israel's prime minister and over a past inquiry into US troops in Afghanistan. [1] Reuters reported on Monday that sanctions on the whole court are ready. [1]

Why it matters. Many of the court's members are close US allies, and they now have to decide whether to stay in a court the US government is working to undermine. [5]

Trump met leaders and ministers from 14 Latin American and Caribbean countries in the Shield of the Americas, an anti-cartel group his government launched in March. [29] He asked them to join the US in naming 24 drug gangs as threats and sanctioning them, and they later promised steps toward that. [29] Brazil and Mexico are not members. [29] Chile's president Jose Antonio Kast said his country's murder rate fell 11.5% in six months. [27]

Why it matters. US strikes on boats it says carry drugs have killed more than 220 people since last autumn, and rights groups call them killings without trial. [29]

Trump met Delcy Rodriguez, who has run Venezuela since US forces seized Nicolas Maduro in January, at a reception during the assembly. [30][11] It was her first trip to the US since taking office. [30] Trump told the assembly 'to the victor belong the spoils' about the oil deal his government signed with Venezuela last month. [30] He also claimed the two countries hold more than 60% of the world's oil; AP's fact-check puts it at about 22%. [8]

Why it matters. More than 50 Venezuelans protested outside the UN, asking for elections, which critics say the US has stopped pressing for in exchange for oil deals. [30]

Cuba's diplomats left the assembly hall when Trump called the island 'an absolutely failed state' that 'will fall'. [5][27] He said Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is Cuban American, is deep in negotiations with Cuba's leaders. [29] Cuba's foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez called the speech falsehoods, and said the US blockade, including on energy, is collective punishment. [27]

Why it matters. The US has not said what change it wants in Cuba. [12] The same speech held up the capture of Venezuela's leader as proof of what US military power will do in the region. [5]

France's president Emmanuel Macron, in his last UN speech as president, urged countries to stand firm against abuse of power by empires he did not name. [31] He called for a pause on attacks on energy sites and civilians in the Russia-Ukraine war, and on ships in the Black Sea. [31] He said Gaza is 'a spectacle that shames us all', because the ceasefire has not opened up aid deliveries. [31]

Why it matters. He also proposed an open-source model for advanced AI, independent of China and the US, hours after Trump rejected global rules for AI. [31] France elects his successor in 2027. [35]

Trump told the assembly that US government documents will now call artificial intelligence 'super intelligence', because the word 'artificial' makes it sound fake. [14] He said the US will encourage it, not rein it in. [5] On Wednesday the Security Council meets on AI and security, and China's DeepSeek is among the companies invited to brief it, two sources told Reuters. [32] OpenAI's Sam Altman plans to speak, and senior people from Anthropic are expected. [32]

Why it matters. Guterres asked for life-and-death decisions never to be left to machines, and Trump turned down new limits in the same session. [13][5]

A senior NATO commander, deputy supreme allied commander Stringer, told AP that Russia's president Vladimir Putin is becoming more careless and open to risk. [33] Russian sabotage, arson and influence incidents in Europe rose from 59 in March 2025 to more than 210, AP's tracking map shows. [33] Estonia's prime minister Kristen Michal said a regular Russian attack on Europe is still improbable. [33]

Why it matters. Poland's prime minister has said Russia might hit NATO countries on purpose and call it an accident. [33] Many saboteurs are hired online without knowing who they work for, which makes blame hard to prove. [33]

Diesel cost $6.53 a gallon in the US on Tuesday, up more than 70% since the US and Israel first struck Iran in February, the motoring group AAA said. [34] A growing number of Republican lawmakers from farm states want Trump to ban diesel exports. [34] Iowa senator Chuck Grassley said high prices were killing farmers' income. [34] A White House official said a ban was not on the table 'at this time'. [34]

Why it matters. Europe relies heavily on American fuel, so a US export ban would push prices up there too, where protests over fuel costs have already begun. [34]

Macron asked the European Commission to delay by a year new rules, due on 1 January, that make oil and gas sellers to the EU measure and check methane leaks. [35] Methane is the second-biggest cause of global warming after carbon dioxide. [35] More than a dozen EU members, including Germany, had already asked for a delay. [35] He also wants fuel quality rules loosened for now, which French refiners say could raise their output by 5% to 20%. [35]

Why it matters. EU governments agreed these rules themselves in 2023, and some now want them rolled back because the Iran war has made fuel scarce. [35]

Japan's prime minister Sanae Takaichi used her first UN speech to ask that the words 'enemy states' be removed from the UN's founding charter. [36] Clauses written after the Second World War still describe Japan and Germany that way, though all members voted in 2005 to remove them. [36] A complicated amendment process has kept them in. [36] China has recently used the wording to criticise Japan after their ties broke down over Taiwan. [36]

Why it matters. A label written about a war that ended 81 years ago is being used against Japan today, and the process to change it has not worked in 21 years. [36]

Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the UN on Thursday, little more than a month before an election in which polls show his side short of the 61 seats needed to govern. [37] Trump is not expected to meet him, and will be in Washington that day for talks with China's Xi Jinping. [9] On Tuesday Netanyahu released a video attacking New York's mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has accused him of genocide and threatened to arrest him. [37]

Why it matters. Netanyahu has boasted of his close ties with Trump, and a meeting could have helped him with voters. AP reports their relationship appears to be getting worse as the Iran war drags on. [9]

Israel's attorney general Gali Baharav-Miara said there appeared to be enough evidence to consider barring Sami Abu Shehadeh, leader of the Arab party Balad, from the coming election. [38] The case rests on an article he wrote the day after the 7 October 2023 attack; he denies supporting violence. [38] A Channel 12 poll on Tuesday gave Gadi Eisenkot's opposition bloc 54 seats and Netanyahu's coalition 50, with the Arab parties on 12. [39]

Why it matters. Eisenkot backed the bid to bar Abu Shehadeh, though the same poll shows his side cannot form a government without the Arab parties. [38][39]

Thirty-three detained miners died in a crowded, airless cell run by Nigeria's Security and Civil Defence Corps in Minna, a city in Niger state, last week. [40] Survivors told the BBC and Reuters they begged guards for water and were ignored as people died one after another. [40] The men were small-scale miners arrested in a crackdown on unlicensed mining. [40] Twenty-four of the agency's officers, including its suspended state commander, are in custody, and a committee has two weeks to find who was responsible. [40]

Why it matters. The agency has still not said how many people it was holding or who they were, so the survivors' accounts are most of what is known. [40]

South Sudan's president Salva Kiir signed changes to the election law that drop the need for a permanent constitution and a census before the vote. [41] The election is set for 22 December and would be the first since independence in 2011. [41] The main opposition coalition rejected the changes. [41] Kiir's long-time rival Riek Machar has been under house arrest since March 2025 and is on trial for treason, which he denies. [41] Voter registration has not begun. [41]

Why it matters. The new law keeps the sitting president in office with full powers through the campaign, and last week Kiir replaced the head of the election commission without giving a reason. [41]

Latvia's prime minister Andris Kulbergs said his country cannot accept removing Alisher Usmanov and Fridman, two Russia-linked billionaires, from the EU's sanctions list as the price of extending it. [42] France and Slovakia pushed to lift sanctions on Usmanov, and Luxembourg then asked the same for Fridman. [42] Three European diplomats said France acted under pressure from Azerbaijan, which has detained at least two French citizens; Azerbaijan denies this. [42]

Why it matters. EU ambassadors restarted talks on Tuesday morning to break the deadlock. [42] Fridman is claiming $16 billion from Luxembourg, which argued that lifting sanctions on Usmanov could weaken its own case. [42]

Britain's government borrowed 18.3 billion pounds ($24.5bn) in August, more than any economist in a Reuters poll expected, the Office for National Statistics said. [43] Borrowing for the year so far is running above official forecasts. [43] Finance minister John Healey presents his first budget on 28 October. [43] Prime Minister Andy Burnham has ruled out raising income tax, VAT, company tax or social security contributions. [43]

Why it matters. Britain's borrowing costs have risen since the Iran war pushed up oil and gas prices, because the country imports much of its energy. [43]

Sri Lanka's High Court convicted 14 of 24 men accused of direct roles in the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings, which killed 279 people. [44] Three judges gave the verdict on Tuesday after a five-year trial. [44] Nine men were acquitted and one was found guilty on only some charges. [44] The charges included murder and conspiracy to commit terrorism, and sentencing comes later. [44]

Why it matters. A court has now named 14 men as guilty, seven years after the attacks. [44]