World, in brief

Russia fired drones and missiles at 11 regions of Ukraine overnight into Wednesday 7 October, and at least 24 people were killed. [1][2]

The worst hit was Pryluky, a town in the northern Chernihiv region. At about 6.30am a missile brought down half of a five-storey block of flats. [3]

The count rose through the day. Zelenskyy first said five had died in Pryluky, and police later said nine, after the bodies of three children were found. [4] By evening the toll given there was 18. [3][2]

Three of the 18 were babies of 12 months, and one was a boy of eight, Zelenskyy said. [3]

Two people died in a fire in Kyiv's Darnytskyi district, and others died in Dnipro, Kremenchuk and Oleksandriya. [5][6]

Ukraine's air force said Russia sent at least 50 missiles and 130 drones. [3] It shot down most drones and cruise missiles, but only five of about 20 ballistic missiles, which are harder to stop. [7][3]

Zelenskyy had warned the night before that intelligence showed a 'massive attack' coming, aimed mostly at power stations and lines. [8][3]

Ukraine's energy ministry then scheduled power cuts, and at least five regions were still without electricity on Wednesday morning. [7]

Russia's defence ministry said it hit factories that make missiles and drones, including sites of Fire Point, the Ukrainian firm that builds the Flamingo cruise missile. [9][10] It did not mention any civilian deaths. [5]

The strikes fell on Vladimir Putin's 74th birthday, and Zelenskyy called the ruined block a birthday 'gift' to him. [7][2]

Zelenskyy asked allies for more air defence, naming the US-made Patriot interceptor. [2] The EU the same day released 1.24 billion euros for Ukraine to buy drones and drone interceptors made in Ukraine. [11]

Ukraine said it hit two Russian oil sites and a training ground in Perm, Samara and Astrakhan. [4] Sea drones also set fire to a tanker off Sochi, a Russian Black Sea resort, and all 23 of its Indian crew were rescued. [4][12]

Why it matters. The next test is whether Ukraine gets more interceptors that can stop ballistic missiles before winter, since it stopped five of about 20 this time and power stations were a main target. [7][4]

Attacks on two Saudi airports on Tuesday and Wednesday killed three people and wounded 36, Saudi Arabia's civil aviation authority said. [13] The Houthis, the Iran-backed group that holds most of north-west Yemen, claimed both attacks. [13][24] Two women died at Abha airport, and a Sudanese man died at King Khalid airport in Riyadh, the capital. [25][26] The Saudi-led coalition said it shot down a ballistic missile north of Riyadh and destroyed a launch site in Sanaa, Yemen's capital. [27]

Why it matters. Saudi Arabia is now being hit in its capital as it backs Yemen's government in a war that restarted in July. [13] New fences now surround fuel tanks of Aramco, the state oil company, near Riyadh's airport. [27]

Houthi forces have cut the roads into Taiz, Yemen's third-largest city, since Sunday. [28] About 30 staff of the Halo Trust, a British charity that clears landmines, are trapped inside. [28] The Institute for the Study of War, a US research group, said the Houthis had stopped the Yemeni government's advance on the coast. [14] The Yemeni government's army says it has 'neutralised' 1,860 Houthi fighters since its offensive began on Sunday. [29] The UN says the fighting has driven more than 200,000 people from their homes. [13]

Why it matters. The siege cuts Taiz off from Aden, the Yemeni government's main city, so supplies cannot come in by road. [28] Yemen already has the world's third-highest number of landmine casualties over ten years, and Taiz is among the worst-hit areas. [28]

Syria is considering military help for Saudi Arabia against the Houthis, a US official and a Syrian military official told Reuters. [30] The US official said Saudi Arabia had asked Syria to send forces to fight. [30] Syria's information ministry said it stands with Saudi Arabia but is 'not opening new fronts'. [31] Pakistan's military spokesman confirmed that Pakistani troops are already in Saudi Arabia and said they have been there 'for decades'. [32]

Why it matters. Pakistan and Turkey agreed on Tuesday to activate the Mecca Pact, a defence deal they signed with Saudi Arabia in August. [24] Each new partner brings Yemen's war closer to becoming a fight between countries.

A tanker was struck by several projectiles about 94km off the north coast of Qatar on Wednesday, and casualties were reported. [15] The UKMTO, a British agency that tracks shipping, did not say who fired or how many were hurt. [15] The ship was about 500km from the Strait of Hormuz, where most attacks on ships have happened since the war began in late February. [33] Only seven cargo ships crossed Hormuz on Tuesday, the fewest in over two months. [16]

Why it matters. Attacks on tankers last week were the most in any week of the war, shipping data showed. [16] Oil crossing Hormuz fell to about 10.1 million barrels a day, 74% of its level before the war. [16]

Iran's army spokesman said on Wednesday its forces are ready to carry out 'pre-emptive' strikes against the US. [34] A senior adviser to the Revolutionary Guards, Iran's most powerful armed force, said Hormuz is closed and fully under Iran's control. [34] US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the same day that Iran had 'lost complete control' of the strait. [35] Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, faced three hours of questions in parliament over a meeting with US officials in New York. [36]

Why it matters. An MP has filed a motion to impeach Araghchi, and the questions show a split inside Iran's leadership. [36] Its supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, was killed on the first day of the war, and his son and successor has not been seen in public since. [37]

France and Germany said on Wednesday that the diesel they promised under last week's G7 deal will come from stocks pledged in March. [38] So it may add no new fuel. [39] The G7 agreed on Friday to release 100 million barrels after US officials threatened a ban on diesel exports. [39] EU countries want the IEA, which runs rich countries' emergency oil stocks, to assess the market before any further release. [39] France will still sell 10 million barrels of diesel, which its prime minister said will cut pump prices by 12 to 18 cents a litre. [20]

Why it matters. Diesel in Europe reached a record 2.24 euros a litre, up from 1.59 euros before the Iran war. [40] Drivers, farmers and lorry firms pay that price every day.

Iraq's cabinet set a new official rate of 1,500 dinars to the US dollar late on Tuesday. [18] It is the country's second big devaluation in six years. [18] Iraq gets more than 90% of its budget from oil, and nearly all of that oil leaves through the Strait of Hormuz. [18] With the strait squeezed, Iraq's government has delayed salaries and payments to wheat farmers and builders. [18] Its finance ministry told parliament it could not fund the 2026 budget without the change. [18]

Why it matters. Iraq's government had been covering its deficit with short-term loans from state banks. [18] A weaker dinar also makes everything Iraqis buy from abroad dearer.

Iraq's political blocs have agreed to finish Prime Minister Ali Al Zaidi's government by creating four deputy prime ministers, three political sources told The National. [41] Two would be Shiite, one Sunni and one Kurd. [41] Al Zaidi, a businessman, was sworn in in mid-May. [41] Nine ministries, including defence and interior, still have no minister. [41]

Why it matters. Top jobs in Iraq are shared out by sect and ethnic group, and the bargaining has left ministries empty for almost five months. [41]

Libya's parliament in the east voted out its speaker, Aguila Saleh, 82, on Tuesday after almost 12 years in the job. [42][43] A day earlier, 98 members voted to limit the speaker to one 12-month term. [42] His replacement is Al Salhin Abdulnabi, an engineer from Tobruk who comes from Saleh's own tribe. [42][43] Saleh called the vote 'not official'. [42]

Why it matters. Libya has had two rival governments since Muammar Gaddafi fell in 2011, one in Tripoli and one in the east backed by the military leader Khalifa Haftar. [43] Analysts say Saleh was weakened as Haftar's sons, especially Saddam Haftar, took more power. [43]

A federal judge in Karlsruhe ordered August Hanning, 80, a former head of the BND, Germany's foreign spy agency, to stay in detention until trial. [44][20] Investigators say his former chief of staff, Manfred D., took more than 2,000 secret documents between 2010 and 2023 and passed them to Hanning. [44] Hanning, by then a private security adviser, is accused of using them to advise a foreign spy service. [44][20] His lawyer told Die Welt that Hanning had confidential papers but did not pass on what was in them, and not for money. [20]

Why it matters. Manfred D. worked for every BND chief after Hanning until he retired in March. [45] Countries that share secrets with Germany now have to ask what reached a foreign service. [45]

Maricarmen Abascal, 87, whose eviction set off protests across Spain over rents, has died, the Madrid Tenants' Union said on Wednesday. [23][46] Police carried her out of her flat of more than 70 years on a stretcher on 23 September. [23] An investment firm had bought the flat and tried to raise her rent by 230%. [47] The owner later offered a lower rent, but she was in hospital and never signed. [23] Rents in Spain have risen 80% in ten years. [47]

Why it matters. The row over her eviction helped bring an early election on 29 November, after Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's housing measures failed in parliament on 2 October. [23][48] Polls show Vox, a far-right party, gaining most, at about 18%. [49]

France's interior minister, Laurent Nunez, suspended police use of stun grenades at high school protests on Wednesday. [21] On Monday a 15-year-old lost a hand after picking one up and it went off. [21] More than 6,500 people, most of them under 18, have been arrested since students began blocking schools in late September. [50] They complain of teachers absent for weeks and school days that run until 6pm. [51] Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said the anger 'didn't come out of nowhere' and promised first answers by the end of October. [52][20]

Why it matters. A poll for the TV channel BFMTV found 55% of French people back the students. [20] France and Iran also summoned each other's ambassadors, after France accused Iran's foreign ministry of spreading false posts about the protests. [20]

The EU's trade commissioner, Maros Sefcovic, meets China's commerce minister, Wang Wentao, in Beijing on Thursday and Friday. [53] The EU buys more than 1 billion euros a day more from China than it sells there, and China has limited exports of rare earths, metals that factories need. [53] The EU hopes for a first deal on one sector, most likely cheap Chinese hybrid cars. [54] China has refused an EU request to curb those car exports itself, the Financial Times reported. [55]

Why it matters. EU leaders meet on 15 and 16 October with China high on their list. [53] On Wednesday the European Parliament voted 454 to 86 for a tougher line, calling China a 'decisive enabler' of Russia's war. [56]

Kosovo's parliament elected Justina Shiroka Pula, an economist and academic, as president late on Tuesday. [57] The vote came moments before a deadline that would have forced a snap election. [57] She won 81 votes in the 120-seat parliament. [57] Kosovo's lawmaking has been stuck for over 19 months, through two early elections. [57] Just before the vote, lawmakers passed a law limiting a special court in The Hague that tries war crimes by the Kosovo Liberation Army in the 1998-99 war. [57]

Why it matters. Thousands of protesters outside parliament had demanded the law on the court. [57] It weakens the court set up to try former Kosovo Liberation Army fighters for crimes in the war with Serbia. [57]

Russia's government called reports of a second suspected case of pneumonic plague in Siberia 'false information' on Wednesday. [58] The first case was Darya Shipilova, 28, a worker at an anti-plague research institute in Irkutsk, who died two days after falling ill. [59] Russia says she died of pneumonia of unknown cause, yet it locked staff inside her institute for three days. [59] US President Donald Trump said he would discuss the case with Putin by phone. [60]

Why it matters. The WHO calls the risk outside Russia 'very low', but says it does not have the 'full picture' from Russia. [60][59] It has asked Moscow for a formal answer about the second case. [58]

Bulgaria called off the search on Wednesday for the missing crew of a cargo ship. [17] A drone hit the ship on Tuesday about 130km off Bulgaria's coast, and it sank. [61] 'There are no traces of the sailors from the first ship,' said a vice-admiral at its maritime agency. [2] A second ship, carrying grain, was hit in the same area, and its 18 crew were rescued. [4] On Monday a Turkish-owned ship carrying Ukrainian grain sank off Romania, and two people died. [61]

Why it matters. Bulgaria's president, Iliana Yotova, said after an emergency security meeting that Russia's war has made the Black Sea much less safe for merchant ships. [62] Bulgaria has not said who it thinks sent the drones. [4]

EU envoys on Wednesday approved about 1,650 new people and firms for sanctions over Russia's war, Reuters reported, most of them linked to Russia's arms industry. [20] In the US, Democrat Jeanne Shaheen and Republican Roger Wicker asked the Trump administration to enforce a Russia sanctions law faster. [63] They want it to go after the 'shadow fleet' of old tankers Russia uses to sell oil around sanctions. [63] Most of the law takes effect on 18 October. [63]

Why it matters. Trump signed the law nearly a month ago, and the senators say the Trump administration has stayed mostly quiet since. [63] A sanction only bites if a government enforces it.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave a speech in Athens, with the Parthenon behind him, calling on Europe to 'awaken from its long slumber'. [64] He said the West will either keep its place 'at the head of the world' or decline, and said there is nothing wrong with loyalty to your own nation. [20] He was in Greece for talks on defence, energy and trade. [65] More than 1,500 people marched against him in Athens beforehand, angry about the war in Iran. [20]

Why it matters. Rubio is asking European governments to carry more of the cost of their own defence. [65]

The EU, Canada and Lithuania pulled their officials out of a conference on false information in Vilnius, Lithuania's capital, after pressure from the Trump administration, Politico reported. [66] A US State Department cable objected to sessions describing the US as a source of 'foreign information manipulation'. [66] US embassies were told to ask governments whether they agreed with that label. [66]

Why it matters. Lithuania, the host, is asking the US for a permanent military base on its soil. [67] Trump said he would 'certainly look at it'. [67]

A 19-year-old student attacked people with a sharp object at a vocational school in Ostroleka, north-east of Warsaw, on Wednesday morning. [68][69] Police arrested him nearby. [68] Counts of the injured ranged from seven, given by police, to ten, given by the regional governor. [69][70] Prosecutors said students, teachers and passers-by were hurt, none with life-threatening wounds. [68]

Why it matters. The attacker was a student at the school and was himself among the injured, officials said. [69][70] No motive has been given. [68]

About 50,000 people gathered in Tel Aviv's Yarkon Park on Wednesday for a memorial run by survivors and bereaved families, apart from the state's own ceremonies. [71] Hamas-led gunmen killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel on 7 October 2023 and took 251 hostages to Gaza. [72] At Kfar Aza, a kibbutz where 64 people were killed that day, relatives asked who else should answer for it. [72] 'I need my country to take responsibility,' said Inbar Goldstein, who lost her brother and niece. [72]

Why it matters. Families want to know who failed to stop the attack. [72] That question now runs into an election on 27 October, in a campaign where security drowns out other issues. [73]

Gaza has no fully working hospital and no MRI scanner a year after the ceasefire, Physicians for Human Rights Israel said in a report. [74] Intensive care has grown by one bed, from 103 to 104. [74] Gaza's health ministry says at least 1,570 patients, 264 of them children, have died waiting to be sent abroad for care. [74] On Wednesday Israeli strikes killed three people in Gaza, Palestinian officials said, and Israel said it killed two Hamas fighters. [75]

Why it matters. Israel controls Gaza's borders, so only a small share of the sick have been able to leave for treatment. [74]

Britain's consulate in East Jerusalem is due to close on Thursday after Israel ordered it shut. [76] Israel acted after Britain banned trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and put sanctions on people who help build them. [76] The consulate is separate from the UK embassy in Tel Aviv, which stays open. [76] It serves Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. [76]

Why it matters. Palestinians lose the British office that served them, an analyst at the International Crisis Group said. [76] Britain is reported to be weighing the expulsion of 27 Israeli diplomats in return. [76]

UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force in south Lebanon, said small-arms fire hit one of its posts near Kfar Shouba, on the border with Israel, on Wednesday morning. [77] No one was hurt, and the force called the attack deliberate. [77] It is investigating and did not say who fired. [77] Under pressure from the US and Israel, the UN Security Council has set 31 December as the end of the force's mission. [77]

Why it matters. UNIFIL was set up after Israel's 1978 invasion of Lebanon and has been renewed every year since. [77] It now has less than three months left on the border.