Geopolitics

Iran has rejected Trump's threat to declare the Strait of Hormuz US territory, saying its blockade holds until Washington concedes defeat. Attacks on shipping are multiplying.

Moscow's mayor said about 600 drones headed for the city overnight; Russian missiles struck Kyiv and Kryvyi Rih.

A magnitude 7.7 earthquake off Indonesia's Flores island killed at least 51 people on Saturday. The toll rose through the day as rescuers reached outlying villages.

Israeli air strikes on two villages in southern Lebanon killed at least 11 people, including three children, on Saturday, the deadliest day since the truce with Hezbollah took effect in June.

Six days after Colombia's magnitude 7.4 earthquake, official counts put the dead at 288 to 294. New president Abelardo de la Espriella asked Donald Trump to suspend US tariffs on Colombian goods.

US strikes on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific have killed fishermen and civilians, with no case reaching a court. Ecuadorean survivors describe attacks Washington never claimed.

Police recovered 22 more bodies from the ferry that sank on Lake Kariba, raising the toll to 68, according to an announcement on Saturday. Le Monde reports that no details were given about the new victims and that most of those on board were villagers.

The Taliban marked five years in power on Saturday with a ceremony in Kabul and rallies across the country. The UN warned of a deepening rights crisis.

A wildfire in Belgium's Hautes Fagnes has become the country's largest on record and forced evacuations near the German border. Belgium called in EU air support on Saturday.

Washington is pressing Israel's prime minister to condemn settlers besieging Palestinian families in the West Bank village of Qusra. Benjamin Netanyahu has not commented.

Houthi missiles and drones hit residential areas of government-held Marib on Saturday and again overnight. Yemen's government calls the attacks an escalation; the port of Mokha has halted operations.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung proposed talks on Saturday to replace the 1953 armistice with a permanent peace regime. North Korea answered by denouncing coming US-South Korean drills and vowing stronger nuclear deterrence.

Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya travelled to Cairo on Sunday to meet Egypt's intelligence chief. US envoy Jared Kushner is due in Israel and Egypt next week.

The Ebola outbreak in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is outpacing efforts to contain it, the WHO says. It is spreading faster than any previous outbreak of the virus.

Parliament has adopted an amnesty law for members of the PKK, which President Erdoğan presents as a gift of peace. The FAZ writes that something quite different lies behind the move, with critics reading the law as a political trade rather than an opening of democratic space.

Moroccan police arrested more than 100 people who tried to enter the Spanish exclave of Ceuta on Saturday, 111 according to The Guardian and about 300 according to the FAZ, after a social media campaign called for another mass crossing. The larger surge did not happen, and the FAZ reports that officers apparently used tear gas.

China has issued ecological assessment reports on nine disputed South China Sea features amid an escalating row with Washington over Beijing's establishment of a national nature reserve, the South China Morning Post reports. The Philippine defence chief rejected Chinese criticism and called the response a 'squid tactic', while China's embassy dismissed claims by Teodoro about Chinese workers as baseless.

Myanmar says it has verified more than 300,000 Rohingya refugees for repatriation as the exodus enters its ninth year, The Hindu reports. Conditions for a safe return to Rakhine remain unaddressed.

China's defence ministry criticised Japanese politicians for their moves at the Yasukuni Shrine on the 81st anniversary of Japan's unconditional surrender, marked on Saturday. Global Times also reports public commemorations in Beijing and new documents on the Japanese invasion handed to the Nanjing Massacre memorial hall.

In his Independence Day address on Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said his government would provide free online coaching for competitive exams and training in artificial intelligence, weeks after youth-led protests forced out the education minister. He also set out growth targets, among them 50 Indian companies in the Fortune 500.

Al Jazeera reported on Saturday that cleanup crews are working along 12 kilometres of Omani coastline after a spill from the grounded tanker. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei put the region's environmental damage from the Hormuz oil slicks in the trillions of dollars and said everyone involved in commercial shipping operations must bear legal and moral responsibility for clearing the aftermath.

Former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji has died, the South China Morning Post reported on Saturday. The paper wrote that Zhu took personal risks for better relations with Washington and that his death is a reminder of what US-China ties have lost.

At least 20 people were killed in clashes between Kambari and Fulani communities in central Nigeria, The Hindu reported on Saturday. The report gave no further detail on where the fighting took place or what triggered it.

Iran has formally accused Qatar of holding three air force pilots as prisoners of war since their fighter jets were shot down in March during an attack on the US Al Udeid air base, and has asked the International Committee of the Red Cross to examine the case. Qatar denies detaining any Iranian pilots and dismissed Tehran's account as misleading.

Xi Jinping called for disaster management to move from response towards prevention after weeks of floods and landslides, the state news agency Xinhua reported. Repair work is under way at the site of a levee breach on the Jialu River in Henan province.

Venezuela's interim government announced on Friday the release of 131 more political prisoners after talks with the opposition supervised by the United States. Folha de S.Paulo described the step as a sign of progress in the US-sponsored negotiations.

Thousands of Syrians have had their refugee protection status revoked in Germany this year, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported on Sunday, pointing to the changed situation in their home country. The responsible authority is expanding its reviews.

An official audit has found technical shortcomings in Taiwan's counter-drone systems and the collapse of a key procurement programme after repeated failures, the South China Morning Post reported on Saturday. According to the report, the island's defences are falling behind China's fast-evolving drone technology.

President Hakainde Hichilema has taken an early lead in Zambia's presidential election, Bloomberg reported on Saturday. The electoral commission had halted the tally a day earlier after attacks on polling staff and the theft of ballots.

A week of heavy rain has left at least five people dead in the US state of Indiana, Al Jazeera reports. The state's governor said the US government has promised assistance, and rescue and clean-up work continues.

Iran's intelligence ministry says it has detained two French diplomats and that seized material points to a foreign influence operation. Tehran said on Saturday that France should not waste its citizens' tax money on illegal interference in Iranian affairs.

More than 170,000 people have signed a Canadian petition calling for the expulsion of US ambassador Pete Hoekstra, which is set to be debated in the House of Commons. The New York Times and Al Jazeera describe the campaign as a measure of discontent with President Trump's policies, with relations at a historic low.

Locals spotted a suspicious object on a beach in Sakarya, the third piece of drone wreckage found in Turkey within a single day, the Turkish newspaper Nefes reported according to TASS. On Saturday, the agency IHA reported wreckage of unknown origin on the coast in Istanbul's Arnavutköy district.

Italy lowered the alert level for volcanic activity at Mount Etna from red to orange, and Catania airport again handled arrivals and departures on Saturday, FAZ reported. Major restrictions remain in place and the eruption continues, according to Bloomberg.

Reuters reported on Saturday that a funeral was held for the Australian Indigenous girl whose death sparked riots in the outback. The available report gives no further detail on the circumstances of her death or on the unrest.

US President Donald Trump said on Friday he would soon declare the Strait of Hormuz a territory of the United States. Tehran rejected the claim.

Hundreds of firefighters and army vehicles are battling what North Rhine-Westphalia's government calls the state's largest forest fire. Britain's prime minister called his country a 'powder keg'.

Russia has turned down Kyiv's offer of a mutual halt to attacks in the Black Sea. Strikes on ports on both sides continue.

A magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck off Indonesia's Flores island early on Saturday, collapsing buildings and killing at least five people. A tsunami warning that sent thousands to higher ground was later lifted.

Congo's Ebola epidemic has reached a sixth province, Bas-Uele, after a man died there, Africa CDC said on Thursday. Government figures put the toll above 2,100 deaths in more than 4,500 cases.

Israel's defence minister ordered the army on Friday to hand civilian law enforcement in the occupied West Bank to the police. Settlers have besieged Palestinian families in Qusra since Sunday.

Rescuers are still searching for hundreds of missing people five days after Colombia's magnitude 7.4 quake, with the death toll put at 281 to 287.

Sudan's Rapid Support Forces attacked the town of Umm Arda in North Kordofan on Friday, killing at least 14 civilians. The paramilitaries say they took the town; the army says it drove them back.

Houthi forces fired six ballistic missiles at the government-held Red Sea port of al-Makha on Friday, killing at least four. They also claimed a drone strike on a Saudi Aramco site in Najran.

Jared Kushner is due in Israel next week to save the US-backed Gaza plan. Netanyahu rejected its Hamas disarmament terms on Sunday.

Levee breaches in three areas of Henan province triggered China's national disaster relief response on Friday, with no casualties reported. Global Times reported on Saturday that one breach has been sealed, while a rescue team from Yantai deployed amphibious craft in flood-hit Weishi.

The Taliban marked five years in power on Saturday with a cricket match in Kabul that women may not attend. Their foreign minister asked the United States to return, while the UN warned that women's aid groups may fold.

Lebanon's prime minister pressed US mediators on Friday for a date for Israel's withdrawal. Hezbollah's leader rejected the framework the same day.

The New York Times reported on Saturday that Russia ran a covert campaign against Moldova's pro-Western government. Poland said a day earlier that it had detained a man recruited by Russian intelligence for a planned killing.

Zambia's electoral commission has suspended the count in the presidential election after allegations of violence and fraud. President Hakainde Hichilema is seeking a second term.

Record rainfall in Chiba prefecture east of Tokyo has killed at least five people and forced evacuation orders for more than 400,000 residents. The New York Times reports eight dead.

Japan's prime minister Sanae Takaichi sent a ritual offering to the Yasukuni Shrine on Saturday, 81 years after the surrender, but stayed away herself. Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi visited in person.

Taiwan slowed internet speeds in northern and central cities this week, its first drill simulating an attack on its undersea cables. US instructors are separately training Taiwanese coastguards.

Washington has circulated a questionnaire among NATO members asking how far they back President Donald Trump's foreign policy, Bloomberg reported on Friday. It comes as the United States prepares deep cuts to its forces in Europe.

Venezuela's interim government granted 131 political detainees 'alternative measures' to jail on Friday. Washington called it a crucial step for national reconciliation.

A funding shortfall could leave more than 650,000 refugees in South Sudan without UN food aid within weeks, the world body warned on Friday. According to Le Monde, the warning comes as the rainy season peaks, access becomes harder and food prices rise.

Spain and Morocco massed police and troops at the Ceuta border before online calls for a crossing on Saturday. Some 5,000 migrants from the late-July influx remain in the enclave.

Italian Eurofighter jets shot down a drone that had entered Latvian airspace on Friday, a decision the defence ministry said was taken to avert a threat to Latvia's population. Separately, drone debris was found on a Romanian holiday beach, where police and gendarmerie secured the site and tourists were evacuated while the origin of the aircraft is being established.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr said on Friday that talks with China on joint oil and gas exploration had moved forward, signalling hopes of a deal before he leaves office in mid-2028. China's defence ministry said it would continue rights-protection and law-enforcement operations in waters adjacent to Ren'ai Jiao, and Beijing rejected the Philippine defence chief's accusation of extortion.

Ash from Mount Etna has largely paralysed Catania airport, the busiest in Sicily, for about a week, and the airport has repeatedly been closed completely. Le Monde reports more than 1,000 cancelled flights and tens of thousands of stranded travellers, while Al Jazeera says flights are suspended until at least Saturday afternoon.

Power failed simultaneously in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan on Friday afternoon, Meduza reported. The four states remain linked by a shared Soviet-era grid through which outages have repeatedly spread across borders.

A mosquito species that migrated from Asia is pushing malaria numbers up in Africa, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported on Friday. According to the newspaper, it thrives in cities of all places and is resistant to insecticides.

Washington is pursuing maximum economic pressure instead of military action against Cuba, with the aim of cutting off the island's revenue sources, Bloomberg and TASS reported on Friday. The Dominican Republic expelled nine officials of the Cuban embassy in Santo Domingo on Thursday, while Havana marks Fidel Castro's centenary and, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, loosens some strict rules.

Cairo is examining the legal issues around joining the Mecca Agreement, the defence pact signed by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey, The National reported on Friday. Turkish Foreign Minister Fidan said Ankara and Cairo would continue to deepen their ties, while the Iranian daily Javan called the pact a message to Washington.

Luigi Mangione admitted in federal court on Friday that he fatally shot UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson and pleaded guilty to two federal charges of stalking him with intent to kill. The Wall Street Journal reports that the case also involves double jeopardy claims by Mangione.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun called on Japan to respect the international order on the Kuril question, saying the results of the victory in the war against Nazism must be respected and defended. Analysts told the South China Morning Post that Vladimir Putin's first visit to the disputed southern Kurils points to a coordinated Russian and Chinese push to pressure Tokyo.

A new poll puts President Lula ahead of Flávio Bolsonaro, but the gap has closed before Brazil's presidential election, Al Jazeera reported on Saturday. Bloomberg had reported the narrowing lead a day earlier.

An Iran-aligned militia told the Iraqi government that any attempt to disarm it by force would trigger internal strife, The National reported on Friday. The warning comes as Washington presses Baghdad to rein in armed groups.

Chinese health authorities recorded 522,000 new Covid-19 infections and one death in July, the Global Times reported on Friday. The authorities described the trend as fluctuating but upward: it is the highest monthly figure reported in the current wave.

Andrés Manuel López Beltrán, son of former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said the US government had cancelled his visa and attacked Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a letter, according to reports by the New York Times, Bloomberg and Breitbart. President Sheinbaum criticised the revocation of visas held by Mexican political figures.

Nigel Farage won the Clacton by-election with 63 percent, ahead of the novelty candidate Count Binface on 27 percent, after giving up the seat over an undeclared donation. Parliament's standards watchdog has resumed its investigation into his finances, and Farage says voters do not care about the allegations.

Le Monde reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is equipping its agents with electrified gloves, raising concerns about possible abuse. According to the paper, the federal force tasked by Donald Trump's government with carrying out mass deportations of undocumented migrants has become the symbol of that policy's excesses.

At least eight workers died after a toxic gas leak at a ship-breaking yard in the district of Chattogram in south-eastern Bangladesh, officials said on Friday. The industry, which dismantles a large share of the world's merchant fleet, has a long record of fatal accidents.

The UAE accuses Iran of attacking two ADNOC ships in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday evening. Tehran says no ship may pass without its permission.

Congo's Ebola epidemic has spread to Bas-Uele province after a traveller from Haut-Uele died there. The WHO says the outbreak is on course to become the deadliest on record.

Kyiv has offered Moscow a mutual halt to attacks on civilian ships in the Black Sea, sent via a third country. Moscow says no formal proposal has reached it.

Colombia's toll from Monday's magnitude 7.4 quake is now put at 265 to 281 dead, with about 380 people missing and more than 40,000 families affected. Rescuers made a final push on Thursday as the 72-hour window closed.

Israeli soldiers moved Palestinian families out of their besieged homes in Qusra in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, but the settlers blockading them since Sunday stayed.

The Rapid Support Forces launched a coordinated drone attack on Wednesday against the capital and other army-held cities hundreds of kilometres apart, the second consecutive day of such strikes, Le Monde reported. The RSF separately said it had captured a key town near the Ethiopian and South Sudanese borders.

The UN envoy warned on Thursday that Yemen is closer to all-out war than at any time since the 2022 truce. Houthi forces hit a military airfield near Bab al-Mandeb and claimed a drone strike on a Saudi refinery.

A passenger ferry capsized on Lake Kariba on the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia, and at least 44 people died. Police said the vessel was carrying far more people than permitted and was hit by strong waves; dozens have been rescued and the search continues for an unknown number of missing people.

Poland detained a Russian recruited by Moscow's intelligence services over a plot to kill a man with Ukrainian and US passports, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Thursday. He called it the first Russian-ordered attack on a US citizen in a NATO state.

Britain recorded 38.1C on Thursday, its hottest day of 2026, while a wind-driven forest fire forced more than 250 people off beaches in northern Greece.

An Israeli drone killed Gaza City's police chief, Colonel Jamal Abu Kamil, on Thursday, a day after Israel resumed air raids. A second strike killed one person in Khan Younis.

Vladimir Putin visited Iturup on Thursday, the first trip by a Russian president to the disputed Kuril Islands. Tokyo summoned Russia's ambassador and called the visit absolutely unacceptable.

Specialists have boarded the sanctioned tanker Caroline Bezengi, aground in a marine reserve off Oman since late June. Its crude has now reached the mainland.

On the fifth anniversary of the Taliban takeover, the UN's women's agency said the movement has systematically stripped Afghan women of their rights and erased them from public life.

Turkey's Defence Ministry set out on Thursday how the Mecca pact with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan will work: no common enemy, and a complement to NATO rather than a rival.

Colombia has authorised joint US military operations against cartels on its soil and joined the US-funded Shield of the Americas coalition, Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday.

Surging waters along the Mekong have driven tens of thousands from their homes in Myanmar and Laos. Thai farming communities along the river are bracing for more flooding.

Torrential rainfall around Tokyo caused flooding and forced evacuations, and several people died, FAZ reported. More than 20,000 households were left without electricity.

Taiwan is seeking to dissolve the China Unification Promotion Party over its alleged ties to Beijing, Al Jazeera reports. China's state outlet Global Times said a joint air force exercise with Thailand had begun with J-10C fighter jets deployed abroad, and that Chinese and Belarusian airborne troops had launched the Swift Eagle drill.

Newly disclosed records show the Department of Homeland Security sent undercover agents into meetings and infiltrated chats of groups opposing the immigration crackdown, The Guardian reported on Friday. State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said the department has revoked more than 175,000 visas, and Breitbart reports a new task force against birth tourism.

The government of Delcy Rodríguez held its first talks with a section of Venezuela's opposition, Al Jazeera reported on Friday, and what they will achieve remains open. Caracas has also restored consular relations with Israel after two decades as Iran's principal strategic partner in Latin America, while Emirati and Qatari companies are entering the country through a BP-led gas deal.

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam accused Israel on Wednesday of systematically destroying homes in southern Lebanon in violation of international law, Daily Sabah reported. The National reports that Hezbollah, which once paid families $14,000 for a destroyed home, may no longer be able to compensate them.

Zambians went to the polls on Thursday, with President Hakainde Hichilema seeking a second term and the economy dominating voter concerns in the copper-dependent country, Al Jazeera reported. The Guardian writes that the campaign remained overshadowed by the feud between Hichilema and the family of his rival Edgar Lungu, who died in 2025.

The National reports that some 3,500 former regime figures remain at large after the in absentia death sentence against Bashar al-Assad, a verdict many Syrians describe as bittersweet. The same paper reports plans for a Damascus investment conference with Lebanon, while Syrian artefacts returned from France went on display at a summer festival in the capital.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan received the lawmakers Pervin Buldan and Mithat Sancar of the DEM Party's İmralı delegation at the Presidential Complex in Ankara on Thursday, together with families of fallen soldiers, Daily Sabah reported. It was the first such meeting since the framework law on reintegration entered into force.

An explosion and a fire struck an ammunition factory at Colleferro, about 40 kilometres southeast of Rome, on Thursday, Italian authorities and local media said. The plant, the former Sammel Difesa works, belongs to the German-French manufacturer KNDS; the cause and possible injuries were initially unclear.

CK Hutchison said what it called the forced termination of its operations at two Panama Canal ports cut 1 per cent from overall throughput in the first half of the year, the South China Morning Post reported on Thursday. Washington is also rolling out an AI assistance project and a digital passport scheme on the isthmus, steps the Chinese state outlet Global Times describes as overreach.

Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said about 5,000 migrants are still in Ceuta after the mass crossing, with about 880 police officers and 714 Civil Guard personnel deployed in the city, TASS reported. On Wednesday, Spain rejected any discussion of the status of Ceuta and Melilla.

A US oil company says it could be on the verge of a major discovery in Greenland, but people on the island are lining up against the project, the New York Times reported. The National reported that Greenland has delayed the venture's drilling plans, pushing the wells back to the winter of 2027.

President Donald Trump has ordered the US Navy to drop electromagnetic launch systems on new aircraft carriers and return to steam catapults, acting on a long-standing complaint and against the opposition of many naval officers. Bloomberg also reports that Hegseth was pressed in Congress over a purge at the Pentagon's weapons test office and over blocked test data.

Remembrances of the former Chinese premier, who died on Wednesday, dwell on his outspoken style and on his drive to integrate China into global commerce, in contrast with the rigidity of the Xi era. Malaysia's Anwar Ibrahim recalled a relationship with Zhu that went 'well beyond affairs of state'.

Oklahoma, Tennessee and Alabama carried out lethal injections within hours of each other, the first time in 15 years that three men have been put to death on a single day in the United States. Le Monde reports that the timing was a coincidence but reflects the pace of executions: 22 people have been executed in the country since the start of the year.

Europe's most active volcano is throwing out unusually large amounts of ash, and over the past week hundreds of flights have been cancelled and the plans of tens of thousands of travellers disrupted. Mountain guides are still taking visitors close to the lava.

Lebanon has abolished capital punishment, The Hindu reported on Thursday. The newspaper set the step against the countries where the death penalty still exists.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan co-chaired the second meeting of the Türkiye-Egypt Joint Planning Group with his Egyptian counterpart Badr Abdelatty in El Alamein on Thursday. On the same day Fidan met Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Fahmy and the head of Egypt's General Intelligence Service, Maj. Gen. Hassan Rashad.

Case numbers of the H5N1 bird flu virus are growing in Australia, The Telegraph reported on Thursday. Tasmanian devils, platypus and dingoes are among the species at risk of contracting it.

The Sverdlovsk region's election commission has rejected the candidate list of the pro-war Rodina party for the regional legislative assembly, days after Rodina's own lawsuit barred the antiwar Yabloko party from the State Duma race. A Moscow court also ordered the in-absentia arrest of comedian Sasha Dolgopolov on charges of rehabilitating Nazism, and a court in Novosibirsk ordered activist Larisa Mikhailova held for two months.

Global Times reported on Thursday that new archives on Unit 731 document the Imperial Japanese Army's biological warfare and the military's cover-up of it, while scholars trace the germ-warfare campaign across Asia. The same outlet reported that Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is considering skipping a visit to the Yasukuni Shrine on the anniversary of Japan's surrender, which the experts it cites read as political manoeuvring rather than historical remorse.

Trump said on Wednesday the United States has "total control" of the closed Strait of Hormuz. Tehran denied the same day that talks on extending the ceasefire are under way.

Confirmed Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo have reached 4,449, with 2,061 deaths, government data showed on Tuesday. Health officials call it the fastest-spreading outbreak on record.

Colombia's president says at least 265 people died in Monday's magnitude 7.4 earthquake in the west. Aid from regional partners began arriving on Wednesday.

Ukrainian drones hit Novorossiysk and Russia's Krasnodar region overnight into Wednesday, halting all three grain terminals at the country's main wheat port. Three people were killed, among them an eight-year-old.

Israel struck Gaza on Wednesday for the first time in over a week, killing one man. Its defence minister ruled out any pullback from Gaza, Lebanon or Syria.

The PLA says Chinese and Indonesian frigates have completed their first joint drill east of Taiwan. Beijing separately rejected a statement by 41 countries on its missile-test notifications.

Thousands of people were moved from flood- and landslide-prone parts of Beijing on Wednesday as the remnants of Typhoon Dolphin brought torrential rain. Forecasters warned the capital could get more than a third of its average annual rainfall in 24 hours.

Putin threatened on Wednesday to seize European ships over EU confiscations of Russian vessels. NATO the same day blamed Moscow for drones over Poland and Romania.

Settlers have kept two Palestinian families trapped in their homes in the West Bank village of Qusra since Sunday. Israeli troops sent to lift the siege pulled back on Wednesday without ending it.

Zimbabwe's police raised the death toll from Tuesday's ferry capsizing on Lake Kariba to at least 44 on Wednesday. Dozens remain unaccounted for as rough weather slows the search.

Former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji died of illness in Beijing on Wednesday, aged 97 by most accounts. He drove the overhaul of China's state sector and its entry into the World Trade Organisation.

Drones suspected to belong to Sudan's Rapid Support Forces hit three cities on Wednesday, residents said. Neither side in the war has commented.

The EU and 32 countries condemned Iran's continuing executions of protesters in a joint statement on Wednesday. Tehran rejected the criticism as hypocrisy.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan ended a two-day visit to Libya's rival governments on Wednesday, as a drone destroyed a power substation near Zawiya.

A Pentagon review disclosed on Tuesday found that US strikes on Yemen's Houthis killed 153 civilians in 2025. It surfaced as the rebels escalated their attacks on shipping.

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday that Colombia has joined the regional military coalition against drug cartels, and vowed to continue lethal strikes on boats while warning that the International Criminal Court may investigate them. President Abelardo de la Espriella has authorised joint counter-narcotics operations with Washington, and two people were killed as Colombia stepped up air strikes on rebels.

The Board of Investment agreed at the May summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping is unlikely to be among the deliverables for their expected meeting next month, the South China Morning Post reports. A proposed US rule barring scientific collaboration with China has drawn protest from American researchers, according to Global Times, while Singapore and South Korea are positioning to take up the work.

The World Health Organization said on Wednesday that Donald Trump's plan to overhaul childhood vaccination in the United States goes against "decades of evidence". Trump signed an order on Monday recommending that childhood vaccinations be spaced out, after having withdrawn the country from the organisation.

Russia's Supreme Court barred Yabloko, the only party campaigning for peace with Ukraine, from the State Duma election on Monday, citing copyright and campaign financing, and never ruled on whether calls for peace amount to extremism, Meduza reports. Sources close to the Kremlin told Meduza that the party's registration in late July was an experiment that was dropped once the polling came back.

Iraq has reached a final agreement with the United States on the withdrawal of the anti-ISIS coalition, Al Zaidi said, according to The National. Prime Minister al-Sudani is seeking legal cover to bring the weapons of Iran-backed militias under state control, and officials from Iraq, Jordan, Syria and the Kurdistan region met to discuss border security.

Crude from a tanker suspected of belonging to Russia's shadow fleet, which ran aground in June, has come ashore on Oman's mainland and is approaching the country's largest island and a nature reserve, the United Nations said, while monsoon weather delays salvage work. Iran is dealing with a separate spill near Qeshm, and experts cited by The National say the environmental damage from the war could pollute Gulf land, sea and air for years.

Morocco's interior ministry said on Wednesday it had reinforced security along the borders with the Spanish enclaves and made arrests after fresh social media calls for mass crossings. The European Commission announced a communication tool agreed with Meta and TikTok to counter the disinformation that fed the crossings of 30 and 31 July.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday he hoped more countries would join the mutual defence agreement signed last week by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, which he described as a stabilising factor for the region. The same day, Iran called on six major Muslim states, Turkey among them, to take a leading role in strengthening unity in the Islamic world.

Syria has sent letters to the UN secretary-general and the Security Council objecting to Colombia's recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights. At home, death sentences issued in absentia against ousted leader Bashar al-Assad and eight others have opened a debate over what transitional justice can deliver.

The cabinet on Wednesday approved a draft law lifting many restraints on the BND and the domestic intelligence service, allowing them to actively disrupt attackers rather than only observe them. The Green politician Konstantin von Notz said the reform overshoots its target and warned of chaos and legitimacy problems.

The US Department of Homeland Security is expected to spend up to $20 million on gloves that deliver a painful electric jolt to people who resist immigration officers. The planned purchase comes amid criticism of ICE's use of force during street operations.

Greenlandic authorities have made Greenland Energy, a US company connected to Donald Trump, postpone its planned wells, so drilling could now begin only in the winter of 2027. A US envoy had claimed Americans could be extracting crude as early as next year.

Emergency services, residents and environmental groups in south Lebanon told the Guardian on Wednesday that the Israeli military is dropping flares that burn forests and crops. Hussein Fakih, head of the civil defence in the Nabatiya region, said most of his teams' missions are now fire-related.

Business associations said the reintegration law, passed in the early hours of Tuesday, would lift investor confidence and unlock spending in Turkey's southeast and east after nearly forty years of conflict. Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş called the text balanced, and officials argue that security money can now be redirected to public welfare.

Mexican prosecutors have formally charged Ángel Aguirre, who was governor of Guerrero when 43 students disappeared in 2014, over his alleged involvement in the case, the Guardian reported on Wednesday. The disappearance became a symbol of cartel violence in Mexico.

An inspector general's review found infrastructure at US military bases across the Pacific to be severely degraded, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday. No further findings from the review have been reported.

Ukrainian and American units faced each other in an exercise in which Ukraine's drones prevailed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. Neither the location nor the timing of the exercise has been reported.

News organisations and an NGO filed suits on Wednesday over a subscription service charging up to $100,000 a month for early access to Donald Trump's posts on Truth Social. The plaintiffs argue that the US president is selling information he generates in his official capacity; according to them, between 9,000 and 11,000 posts and reposts appeared on his account last year alone.

Volodymyr Zelensky travelled to Belgrade on Saturday to meet Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic over artillery shells and restated that Kyiv does not recognise Kosovo's independence, Politico reports. The remarks caused an uproar that reached Pristina, where a "Free Ukraine" banner was taken down the next day, and Albania, which reacted sharply.

President Hakainde Hichilema, elected five years ago on a promise to protect civil liberties in the copper-rich country, faces accusations of trampling on them as Zambians go to the polls, the New York Times reports. Debt and copper earnings have dominated the campaign, and the outcome will shape how one of Africa's biggest copper producers deals with its creditors.

Ecuadorean crews in the Pacific have been attacked repeatedly by an unidentified outfit using drones, the New York Times reports, and some sailors appear to have been killed. Neither the identity of the attackers nor their purpose has been established.

Thailand's government has suspended the issuing of new firearms licences and promised tighter gun controls after an attack at a school that killed nine people. The New York Times reports that it remains unclear how far the government will go in a country that has seen a string of high-profile shootings in recent years.

Rescuers in western Colombia are still pulling survivors from the rubble after Monday's magnitude 7.4 earthquake. Tuesday's tallies put the dead above 200.

A US helicopter fired on a Panama-flagged cargo ship in the Gulf of Oman on Tuesday to enforce Washington's blockade of Iranian ports. Trump claimed full control of the Strait of Hormuz.