World · past 30 days
The significant world news that fits no single desk: elections, institutions, disasters, and the slow-moving stories that later become market narratives.
World
Flávio Bolsonaro leads Lula in Brazil's runoff polls as household consumption heads for its weakest growth since the pandemic
Datafolha shows the senator ahead 52% to 48% before the October 25 vote, after the Ibovespa rose 7.7% to above 200,000 points following the first round.
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Pakistan's Government Weighs Emergency Rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as Its Feud With Imran Khan's Party Deepens
President Asif Ali Zardari approved emergency rule and governor's rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Sunday, dissolving the province's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government, after the federal cabinet recommended the move and police had already put districts on alert for violent protests.
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Justice Department Opens Antitrust Inquiry Into Five Networks That Suspended White House Pool Coverage
ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and Fox News face questions over whether their joint protest amounted to an illegal group boycott.
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India Shuts Delhi Transport and Detains Hundreds to Stop a Youth Protest Against the Election Commission
Police detained thousands of protesters, journalists and lawyers and shut down transit across the capital before a planned march demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over a revision of the voter rolls that has removed more than 130 million names at the draft stage.
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EU trade chief opens Beijing talks as Germany blocks a COSCO purchase
Germany and France asked Brussels for stronger tools against Chinese imports days before a one-year Chinese pause on extra rare-earth export restrictions is due to expire.
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Lula trails Flávio Bolsonaro by about two points heading into Brazil's October 25 runoff
Lula's campaign will target the 21% of voters who abstained, especially those over 70. Senator Flávio Bolsonaro is seeking the support of the Centrão, a bloc of centrist parties, and of São Paulo Governor Tarcísio de Freitas.
World
Sánchez announces 21 emergency housing measures as Spain heads to a snap election on November 29
The eviction of an 87-year-old woman in Madrid set off nationwide protests. Housing, migration and the rise of the right-wing populist Vox party are expected to dominate the campaign.
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Parti Québécois wins the Quebec election with 59 of 127 seats and less than 30% of the vote, reopening the independence question
Party leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon promises a third referendum but has said he would not hold one before January 2029, and Prime Minister Mark Carney pledged to work with the incoming minority government.
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Oman had barred Flydubai co-pilot from flying before attack on Israel-bound flight
The United Arab Emirates' attorney general said the co-pilot attacked the captain with the cockpit's crash axe in an attempted act of terrorism, as new details confirm he was previously barred from flying in Oman over extremist material found in his possession.
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French student protests spread as more than 1,900 people are detained
More than 700 of France's roughly 3,700 high schools have been affected, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has accused a left-wing political party of fueling the unrest, and officials estimate about €3 million in vandalism damage.
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US and Australia close consular services in Brazil two days before a knife-edge election
Brazilian federal police executed search warrants over suspected plans against US diplomatic facilities, as polls show Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro effectively tied.
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United Arab Emirates Opens Investigation Into Possible Terrorism Link in flydubai Cockpit Attack
Israeli carriers had a day of reversals over their landing permissions in Dubai: El Al cancelled Friday's rescue flights after the United Arab Emirates revoked approval, while Israir and Arkia received clearance and flew, as President Trump warned Iran would be hit "very hard" if investigators confirm a link to the attack.
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Brazil Votes Sunday With Lula and Flavio Bolsonaro Inside the Margin of Error
Federal authorities opened an investigation into an alleged United States plan to fund right-wing causes in Brazil, days before a first round that polls suggest will go to a runoff on 25 October.
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Cockpit Attack on Dubai-Tel Aviv Flight Prompts Saudi Arrest and Competing Accounts
The United Arab Emirates ordered a prosecution-led investigation and flydubai suspended its Israel flights, while Israel identified the suspect as an Omani national and accounts from Israel, the United States and India continue to differ.
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Costa Rica's Rebeca Grynspan Extends Her Lead in the Race to Lead the United Nations
She took 10 encourage votes to three discourage in the Security Council's fourth straw poll, ahead of Guyana's Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett and Argentina's Rafael Grossi on eight each.
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Dangote Presses Ahead With a $16 Billion Kenyan Refinery After a Court Freezes Work at the Site
A Kenyan judge ordered the status quo maintained at Lamu until an October 14 hearing brought by 133 residents claiming ancestral land, but declined to stop today's groundbreaking ceremony.
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Ethiopia Accuses Sudan and Eritrea of Backing Tigray Forces as Sudan Rejects Outside Solutions at the UN
Khartoum denies the Ethiopian allegation, and its foreign minister addressed the General Assembly after Washington refused a visa to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.
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Myanmar Air Strike on a Rakhine Market Kills Dozens, With Death Tolls Reported Between 33 and 49
Aid workers now put the toll from Monday's strike near a Kyauktaw township market at 50 dead and 58 injured, after early counts ranged from 33 to 49.
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Pakistan Expects a 25% Water Shortfall for Its Main Wheat Season
Reservoir carryover has fallen below 9.5 million acre-feet after a season in which the country already imported wheat to cover a shortfall of more than two million tonnes.
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UN Adds 61 Companies to Its Settlement Business Database a Month Before Israel's Election
The listing lands as Israeli parties open their final campaign month and as European governments respond publicly to Benjamin Netanyahu's description of walkout delegates as morally cowardly.
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Housing Costs Turn Into Electoral Risk From Madrid to the American Midterms
Tens of thousands marched in the Spanish capital after the eviction of an 87-year-old woman, while institutional landlords have become a target in United States midterm campaigns.
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Storms Disrupt Travel and Power Across Three Continents in a Single Weekend
A nor'easter cancelled hundreds of flights in the United States Northeast, Bangkok was declared a disaster zone after flooding, and Japan's weather agency tracked a strong typhoon toward Okinawa.
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Pakistan Seals Its Capital With 1,500 Shipping Containers as a Court Strikes Down Travel Controls
The barricades were erected to block a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf march on the capital that has now been postponed to October 4, on the same weekend the Islamabad High Court voided the rule allowing agencies to bar citizens from leaving the country.
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Islamabad Pays 46.5 Million Rupees a Day for Shipping Containers to Block a Protest March
Imran Khan's party postponed its march to October 4, a delay police sources say will double the capital's security bill.
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Central Asia's Shared Grid Fails Again, Cutting Nearly a Gigawatt of Supply in Kazakhstan
The loss of 1,516 megawatts of generation in Uzbekistan severed north-south transmission and forced 962 megawatts of load shedding across Kazakhstan.
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Italy's Senate Votes to End the Country's Nuclear Ban Almost Four Decades After Chernobyl
The measure passed 81 to 51 with seven abstentions as European energy costs stay high and refining margins lift oil company shares.
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European Commission Moves to Release €4.2 Billion to Hungary Under Its New Government
Ursula von der Leyen cited rule-of-law progress since Peter Magyar became prime minister in May, while about €2 billion stays frozen and member states must still approve the release.
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Younger Filipinos Warm to China Even as the Maritime Dispute Continues
Consumer goods, entertainment and business partnerships are moving Southeast Asian opinion in a direction that security confrontations have not reversed, with Indonesian business groups courting Chinese partners in film and short-form drama.
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United Russia heads for a constitutional majority in the State Duma election
The Central Election Commission confirmed a record 355 seats for the party in the 450-seat State Duma, exceeding its previous high of 343 seats set in 2016, a result that removes any parliamentary constraint on wartime budgets for the next five years.
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Pakistan deploys more than 22,000 security personnel in Islamabad as Imran Khan's sisters are detained
The authorities have again commandeered freight trucks to block roads, and transport operators say the seizures are damaging a sector that carries most of the country's goods.
World
Typhoon Dujuan approaches the Tokyo region with the highest-level landslide warning issued for Izu Oshima
Japan's weather agency placed parts of the Kanto region under Level 4 danger warnings, and organisers postponed an Asian Games equestrian event in Aichi.
World
Six miners die in a Sudanese gold-shaft collapse as Amnesty accuses M23 of trafficking Congolese gold to Rwanda
Gold near 4,370 dollars an ounce is increasing incentives for informal and armed-group mining in two active war zones at once, and Sudan's doctors say the health system that treats the casualties is failing.
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Russia closes a three-day parliamentary vote with turnout reported at 45 percent
The election is the first for the State Duma to include residents of four annexed Ukrainian regions, and first results are due after polls shut in Kaliningrad.
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Two German states vote with the Alternative for Germany polling near first place in the north-east
Surveys put the party at 35 to 37 percent in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, roughly double its 2021 result, while Berlin's contest is close between the Left and the Christian Democrats.
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Cuba suffers its eighth national blackout of the year as United States pressure tightens across the Caribbean
A transmission line failure cut power to more than nine million people, while American forces struck another alleged smuggling boat, killing four.
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Asia's air conditioning demand is outgrowing the grids that have to supply it
Cooling load rises fastest exactly when heat is degrading the transmission and generation equipment meant to carry it, raising the probability of failure at peak.
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Japan Counts 100,000 Residents Aged Over 100 as Hong Kong Opens Care Work to Foreign Labour
Employers warn the Hong Kong pilot scheme will raise wages for domestic helpers and price care out of reach for low-income elderly residents.
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China opens the Pinglu Canal, its first river-to-sea waterway since 1949
The 134-kilometre channel cost 72.7 billion yuan and cuts more than 560 kilometres from the route between landlocked southwest China and the sea.
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South Korea's president apologises as his approval rating falls to 38 percent
Washington is pressing Seoul over its reluctance to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz and over slow progress on a $350 billion trade package.
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Russia votes in State Duma elections held over three days under wartime conditions
Officials say polling stations in four annexed Ukrainian regions will take part for the first time, a claim Kyiv and most United Nations members reject.
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Hong Kong Adopts Its First Five-Year Plan as Chinese Airports Climb Global Connectivity Rankings
John Lee's policy address imports mainland planning practice into the territory, while Guangzhou records the fastest rise in a global airport connectivity ranking and Pakistan signs safeguards for a Chinese-built reactor.
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Fuel Price Increases Set Off Protests From Syria to Guatemala
Damascus raised diesel prices about 40 percent over the weekend, and Al Jazeera reported the increase triggered the largest demonstrations since the fall of the Assad government, while Pakistan's provincial legislators voted across party lines to demand an end to daily price adjustments.
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Poland Lost $230 Million Trying to Buy Venezuelan Oil With Cryptocurrency
On the same day, a businessman close to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is expected to plead guilty in a Miami money-laundering case built on falsified shipping records.
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US Supreme Court Rejects Trump Administration Bid to Restrict Mail Ballots
The decision leaves states running mail voting under their existing procedures, a method that has accounted for nearly a third of ballots cast.
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US Ends Open-Ended Stays for International Students as Afrikaner Refugee Program Slows
The Department of Homeland Security replaces open-ended, duration-of-status admission with fixed periods, while white South Africans admitted under a separate program report rejections.
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M23 Runs a Parallel Administration in Eastern Congo as Ebola Outbreak Passes Its Peak
Researchers describe a rebel tax and mineral-revenue system in the areas the group holds, while authorities say almost 3,500 people have died in the Ebola outbreak.
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Sweden's Centre-Left Leads by One Seat as Far-Right Vote Falls for the First Time
Counting will continue for days on overseas ballots, and the Sweden Democrats lost support, taking 17.6 percent against 20.5 percent in 2022.
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Washington's Visa Restrictions Slow Brazil Crime Cooperation as Canadian Shoppers Shun American Goods
Brazilian officials say American authorities are blocking expanded police cooperation, while Canadian grocers are rebuilding supply chains around domestic producers.
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China Pursues Port and Power Contracts in Sudan Before the War Ends
Beijing is negotiating with the army-backed government while most Western countries maintain only a limited presence, as developing states press for a larger role in setting global economic rules.
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Sweden Votes in a Race That Could Put the Sweden Democrats in Cabinet for the First Time
Polls published Friday put the four centre-left parties at 49.3 to 50.8 percent against 47.6 to 49 percent for the governing bloc, with one survey projecting a one-seat margin.
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The European Union Moves to Settle Its Budget and Climate Rules Before France Votes Next April
Diplomats say Paris is pressing for agreements that a future government led by the National Rally could not easily unwind, while figures in Germany's governing party fear losses in coming state elections.