World, in brief

Fear of a new Iran war

The US has told Gulf states to be ready for a short, intense offensive on Iran after its 3 November vote, a newspaper report says. [11] Netanyahu hinted on election night at a third bombing campaign against Iran. [9] US defence department figures put the war's cost so far at over $47 billion. [12]

Neighbours opening their own talks

Finland and Norway, which both border Russia, called President Putin themselves for 90 minutes. [13] Qatar's emir met Iran's president in Moscow to talk about the war and the Strait of Hormuz. [14] Jordan and Syria agreed a joint security committee a day after Jordan's strikes. [15]

Drones hitting power and markets

A drone hit a power station outside Khartoum, Sudan's capital, affecting up to 60% of the city's power, an official estimated. [16] A Sudanese army drone hit a market in Nyala and killed at least 36 people. [17] Russia fired 16 ballistic missiles and over 280 drones at Ukraine in one night. [18]

Courts used against critics

An Egyptian court closed Mada Masr, the country's best-known independent news site. [19] Tanzania's jailed opposition leader stopped eating because his lawyers are kept out. [20] A Pakistani court reserved its verdict on a human rights lawyer and her husband. [21]

2 pressures seen across the day run through World too.

• Fuel staying dear from the Iran warHigh ↑ · seen in 4 beats→
• Diseases spreading in people and animalsHigh ↑ · seen in 3 beats→

1. 1Israel's election leaves neither Netanyahu nor Eisenkot with a majority, as Arab parties win a record 18 or 19 seats
2. 2US tells Gulf states a short war may come
3. 3Gulf states draft a plan to stop it
4. 4Houthis aim at Saudi Arabia's biggest refinery
5. 5Finland and Norway call Putin

Israel voted on Tuesday, and three TV exit polls gave neither side the 61 of 120 seats in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, needed to govern. [1]

The next fixed date is 4 November, when official results are due and President Herzog starts consulting the parties; the test is whether Eisenkot's camp talks to the Arab parties. [6][5]

The US has told several Gulf states to be ready for a short but intense offensive against Iran after the 3 November US elections, the Wall Street Journal reported. [11]

It is moving a Patriot air-defence battery from Texas and pulling troops from exposed bases. [11] The Trump administration would not comment on 'military plans that may or may not exist'. [11]

The US defence department now puts the war's cost at over $47 billion, a quarter above its July estimate. [12]

The war, begun with Israel in February, has pushed up fuel prices and is hurting Republicans before next week's vote. [12][22] Gulf states have already faced Iranian attacks this year. [23]

Also seen in Finance, Money and Food.

The war keeps oil dear, and that cost reaches the pump and the price of fertiliser.

Gulf states are building a peace plan with several parts to stop the US-Iran war restarting, the Guardian reported. [24]

Iran would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the blockaded sea lane out of the Gulf, within four days of sanctions being lifted. [24][14]

The Houthis, Yemen's Iran-backed rebels, would pull back forces inside Yemen. [24] The US is holding out for more, possibly UN weapons inspectors back in Iran. [24]

Qatar's emir met Iran's president in Moscow the same day. [14]

Saudi, Pakistani and Turkish officials who flew to Tehran on Monday got a promise to keep talking, not a deal. [25] Qatar said Iran must still 'show goodwill' by reopening Hormuz. [26]

The Houthis said they fired a ballistic missile at Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia's biggest oil refinery, on Tuesday, causing 'massive fires'. [27]

A maritime security firm said a fire there had been contained, and the damage was unclear. [27] The refinery can handle 550,000 barrels a day. [27]

Blasts also shook Riyadh, the Saudi capital, and the Saudi-led coalition said it shot down two missiles aimed at the city. [27]

It came a day after Iran told visiting Saudi officials it had no power to make the Houthis stop. [25]

A Houthi leader called Egypt's vote to send military help to Saudi Arabia a declaration of war. [27]

Finland's President Alexander Stubb and Norway's Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store held a 90-minute call with Russia's President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday. [13]

Both countries border Russia, and the leaders said they spoke for themselves, not for Europe. [13] Stubb called the talk 'frank and substantive', and Store said big differences remained. [13]

Russia's government said all three agreed to keep in direct contact. [28]

The call comes before US-Ukraine-Russia talks planned for early November in Abu Dhabi. [13] Denmark's prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, said the two had gone 'solo' and Europe should stay united. [29]

A war's missiles and shut borders hit its neighbours first, so they gain most from a deal and open talks before allies further away do.

Leaders far away weigh the same wars as budgets and votes, and each side sees only part of what the other carries.

Russia fired 16 ballistic missiles and more than 280 drones at Ukraine overnight into Tuesday, hitting energy and transport sites in 11 regions, President Zelensky said. [18]

In Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, the Pivdennyi bridge over the Dnipro river was damaged and metro trains stopped crossing. [18] A 46-year-old woman was killed and 14 people were hurt. [18]

Student housing and campus buildings were among the places hit. [18] Russia struck again while rescuers were still working. [30]

Ukraine stopped about 74% of Russia's jet-powered drones this month, a US research group says, against about 60% in early September by Ukraine's own count. [31]

Zelensky said deliveries of US Patriot air-defence missiles are late. [18]

A ceasefire around Oleshky, a Russian-held town in southern Ukraine, held on its first day and was widened across the Kherson region. [32]

Witnesses said the front line across the Dnipro river was quiet for the first time in four years. [33] Aid deliveries come first, then evacuations planned for Friday. [32]

Between 1,700 and 2,000 people remain in the town, many eating garden weeds. [32] The truce runs until Sunday night. [32]

Ukraine's foreign minister said that if it works it could open other steps toward peace. [32]

The Trump administration credits Melania Trump with brokering it, and the Vatican points to the Pope. [34]

A Sudanese army drone hit a busy market in Nyala, the main city of South Darfur, on Monday evening. [17]

Doctors Without Borders said its hospital received 36 bodies and over 150 wounded. [17]

A medic told AFP 21 were killed, and Emergency Lawyers, a Sudanese rights group, said more than 100. [35][36]

Nyala is the base of the RSF, the paramilitary force fighting the army since April 2023. [35]

A resident said the market was used mostly by young men, many of them RSF fighters. [35] The three counts of the dead run from 21 to more than 100. [35][17][36]

A drone hit the Al-Markhiyat transformer station in Omdurman, on the edge of Khartoum, Sudan's capital, early on Tuesday. [16]

A power company official blamed the RSF and said up to 60% of the capital's supply could be affected, with water pumps worst hit. [16]

One resident said he had no power or water for 17 hours and worried for his insulin. [16] The day before, RSF drones hit five power stations in three eastern states. [37]

Drone attacks on the capital had become rare since the army retook it in May 2025. [16] The UN says drones across Sudan are killing civilians and cutting basic services. [16]

The US, the EU and 30 other governments warned of an 'alarming deterioration' in Sudan's food supply and asked the warring sides to let aid through. [38][39]

The war has driven 14 million people from their homes. [38]

The statement blames the fighting itself for most of the hunger, because it wrecks roads, markets and farms. [38]

It came the same day as the Nyala market strike and the blackout in the capital. [17]

Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo have passed 10,000, with 4,887 deaths since the outbreak was found in mid-May. [40]

The virus is a rare type called Bundibugyo, and there is no approved vaccine or treatment for it. [40] Kenya has nine cases, two of them deaths. [40]

Nigeria is the fourth African country to report a case, and Europe's disease agency sent experts there. [41]

Africa's disease agency calls it the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak in history. [40] Nearly half the people confirmed to have it have died. [42]

Also seen in Food and Mind & body.

In Washington and on the US-Mexico border, animal diseases are being fought by stopping animals and trade, so healthy farms near a sick herd lose sales too.

Flavio Bolsonaro, who lost Brazil's presidential election on Sunday, left the country for the US despite a court order to hand over his passports, US media reported. [43]

He is under investigation for corruption and money laundering and loses his immunity as a senator with the defeat. [43]

The US State Department said it would give him and his family visas. [44] President Lula called the departure 'shameful'. [44]

Flavio is the son of Jair Bolsonaro, the jailed former president. [43] His allies told a Brazilian news site he planned to ask for asylum in Florida. [45]

At a rally in Texas, President Trump showed off a tanker he said carried a million barrels of Venezuelan oil. [46]

He said Venezuela might 'soon' become 'a prosperous 51st state' of the US. [46]

The US attacked Venezuela in January and captured its leader, Nicolas Maduro, and now backs an interim government there. [46]

Secretary of State Marco Rubio joined him on stage, which is rare for the US's top diplomat. [47]

The same day, the Nobel committee said Venezuela 'still requires a democratic transition' with free elections. [48] The US votes on 3 November. [47]

About 1,000 soldiers from El Salvador have flown to Haiti in recent days, a security official in Haiti told Reuters. [49]

They went after four Salvadoran air force technicians disappeared in a gang ambush near Port-au-Prince, the capital, on 18 October. [49] The US military lent C-130 transport planes. [49]

Before the ambush, El Salvador had at least 124 troops in the UN-backed force fighting Haiti's gangs. [49]

It is unclear who will command the new troops or how long they will stay. [49] Gangs control much of the capital, and nearly 1.5 million Haitians have fled their homes. [49]

The US military said it killed five people in a strike on a boat in the eastern Pacific on Tuesday, saying it carried drugs. [50]

A tracker kept by WOLA, a US human rights group, counts at least 238 people killed in 68 such strikes since September 2025 before this one. [50]

The Trump administration has given little evidence that the people killed were smugglers. [51]

Legal experts and rights groups call the strikes killings without trial. [50][51] Media counts now put the dead at more than 240. [51]

A shouting match between the US and Cuba halted a debate at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday. [52]

Cuba's foreign minister walked to the podium to demand that Mike Waltz, the US ambassador, be stopped. [52] Waltz shouted 'This isn't Havana.

You're not going to intimidate me.' [53] The debate was on Cuba's yearly call to end the US trade embargo, in place for more than 60 years. [53]

This year the US has added an oil blockade, which has worsened shortages and power cuts across Cuba. [53]

The UN vote is not binding, and only the US Congress can end the embargo. [53]

China will send only a defence attache from its embassy to a meeting of Southeast Asian defence ministers in Cebu, in the Philippines, on 29 October. [54]

In 2025 its defence minister, Dong Jun, attended. [54] China and the Philippines keep clashing over the South China Sea. [54]

China's ambassador said this month that China 'may easily win' a fight, which President Marcos called 'like a threat'. [54]

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth will attend, with ministers from India, South Korea and Japan. [54][55]

China's absence takes away another chance for the US to meet Dong, who also skipped a big Asian security meeting in May. [54]

The head of India's border police said Chinese troops returned in larger numbers this year and pitched tents six to seven kilometres inside land India claims. [56]

He said face-offs began in July in Arunachal Pradesh, an Indian state China claims, and are still going on. [56] Comments like this from a serving officer are rare. [56]

The two countries' troops fought in 2020, and at least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers died. [56]

India and China agreed in 2024 to ease tension along their 3,440km border. [56] His remarks set off a political row in India's capital. [56]

Jordan admitted on Tuesday that civilians died in its air strikes on southern Syria, aimed at Islamic State fighters after a church attack in Jordan killed nine. [57]

Syria said the strikes killed seven people, three of them children. [57] Jordan said more than 20 fighters died. [58]

Syria's government reopens Nassib, the only crossing between the two countries, on Wednesday. [59]

The two foreign ministers agreed a joint security committee to look into the strikes. [15] Jordan expressed 'deep regret' over the civilian deaths. [59]

Iraq's Prime Minister Ali Al Zaidi dismissed intelligence chief Hamid Al Shatri, five months after taking office, without giving a reason. [60]

He also changed his chief of staff, and a leaked letter shows 69 advisers dismissed. [60]

At the same time the head of Maysan province has called for civil disobedience unless a closed border crossing with Iran reopens. [60]

A Baghdad court has ordered an investigation into him. [60]

Al Shatri's name was once talked about as a possible prime minister. [60] The shut crossing has hurt trade and raised prices in Maysan. [60]

At least two drones were shot down near Baghdad's Green Zone on Tuesday, Iraqi security officials said. [61]

The fortified district holds Iraq's government, parliament and foreign embassies, including the US embassy. [61] The US embassy's air defences switched on when the drones approached. [61]

Nobody was hurt and no damage was reported. [61]

The Green Zone has been a frequent target since the Iran war began on 28 February. [61] Security forces are looking into where the drones came from. [61]

An Iraqi court sentenced seven French citizens for belonging to the Islamic State group on Tuesday. [62] Six got life, which in Iraq means 20 years, and one got 15 years. [62]

They are among 47 French suspects held in Syria and moved to Iraq for trial. [62] They have 30 days to appeal. [62]

Iraq has become a courtroom for foreign fighters whose home countries in Europe will not take them back. [63] The US moved 5,704 suspects from Syria to Iraq early this year. [63]

A Kuwaiti court sentenced three men to death for plotting to kill the deputy prime minister, spying for Iran and joining Hezbollah, the Lebanese armed group. [23]

Eight others got five years in prison with hard labour. [23] The target was Sheikh Fahad Yousef Saud Al Sabah, who is also in charge of internal security. [23]

In March Kuwait arrested dozens of people over links to Hezbollah. [23]

Gulf states have faced attacks from Iran this year and plots at home by its supporters. [23] The court said a foreign power giving orders inside Kuwait was a hostile act. [23]

Two London men aged 24 were charged under the UK's National Security Act over a plot at RAF Fairford, an air base the US used to strike Iran. [64][65]

Prosecutors said a handler called 'Ali', believed to work for Iran, sent five men to drive vans of petrol to the base in September. [64]

One man is accused of buying the vans and the other of filming the base. [64]

One driver called police after the handler warned there was a bomb in the vans. [64] US bombers left Fairford soon after the arrests. [65]

Alistair Burt, the UK's first envoy for people held abroad by governments, told MPs that state hostage-taking is rising. [66]

He has met envoys from the Five Eyes countries and the Gulf states to work on it together. [66] The UK hopes to host a meeting of hostage envoys next year. [66]

Among the cases is a British couple, Craig and Lindsay Foreman, serving 10 years in Iran for spying, which they deny. [66]

The Foremans' family has accused the UK government of moving too slowly. [66] Their case is made harder by the US-Iran war. [66]

Tinned food, bottled water and radios sold out in parts of the UK after the UK government asked households to be ready to manage alone for three days in an emergency. [67]

Iceland, a frozen food chain, said tinned food sales rose 40%. [67] Maplin said torch sales nearly quadrupled in three days. [67]

The guidance names bad weather, floods, and hostile action by Russia and Iran as threats. [67]

Security Minister Dan Jarvis said the step brings the UK into line with many other European countries. [67]

The guidance came out just before two storms hit the UK at the weekend. [67]

An Egyptian court ordered Mada Masr, the country's leading independent news site, to close and fined its editor, Lina Attalah, for running it without a licence. [19]

Security officers then lifted her off the ground and carried her out of the courtroom, the site said. [68] She was freed once the fine was paid. [19]

Mada Masr says it has asked for a licence since 2018 and got no answer. [19]

Egypt holds 25 journalists in jail, one of the highest counts in the world, the Committee to Protect Journalists says. [19]

Amnesty International called the ruling 'a crushing blow to press freedom'. [19]

An inquiry found that 33 men held in a cell in Minna, in central Nigeria, died in September from overcrowding, poor air and guards ignoring calls for help. [69]

Fifty men had been held in a cell of about 20 square metres. [69]

They were arrested by the NSCDC, a government security force, on suspicion of illegal gold mining, but their mines were licensed. [69][70] Officers will be suspended. [69]

The interior minister said the cell had been cleaned before investigators arrived. [69] Survivors said something that stung their throats was sprayed into the cell. [70]