World

Protests over food, rent and wages swept France, Italy, Belgium and Portugal this weekend. EU food prices are up 34% since 2021, and some marches got violent.

No. The Iran war that began Feb. 28 has had truces but no settlement. Talks are stalled, Hormuz attacks are at a high and Russia is offering to mediate.

Israel votes Tuesday, Oct. 27, its first election since Oct. 7, 2023. Trump has endorsed Netanyahu in a tight race; a bloc needs 61 of 120 seats to govern.

Israeli, Lebanese and US officers meet in Tampa on Oct. 20. UNIFIL's mandate ends Dec. 31 with no successor agreed, and Israel still holds parts of the south.

Kenya has confirmed seven Ebola cases, including three health workers, all linked to one man who came from Congo. Officials say there is no community spread.

There is no credible evidence Kim Jong Un is dead or in a coma. Brain hemorrhage claims spreading online come from unverified social media posts.

Houthi missile and drone attacks on Saudi airports have killed 20 people this month. Riyadh sent state workers home and Egypt delayed a troop vote to Oct. 26.

Spain holds a snap general election on Nov. 29. Polls put Feijóo's PP 4.5 to 7 points ahead of Sánchez's Socialists, with PP and Vox above a 176-seat majority.

Attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz hit a wartime high this month, with 23 incidents since Oct. 1. Iran says two supertankers struck mines and caught fire.

Masked settlers beat Washington Post photographer Heidi Levine on Friday and attacked European diplomats in Taybeh on Saturday. Israel says it is investigating.

Flávio Bolsonaro, 1981-born senator for Rio and eldest son of jailed ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, won Brazil's first round and faces Lula in the Oct. 25 runoff.

German police are investigating 'in all directions' after a section of the perimeter fence at Leipzig/Halle Airport was found broken shortly before 11 p.m. on Saturday, most likely by a vehicle that has not been found. The north runway was closed for about 15 hours while officers, a helicopter and drones searched the airfield; no intruders or suspicious objects were found, and it reopened at 2 p.m. Sunday. Three sanctioned Russian Antonov cargo planes are parked at the airport, about two kilometres away, and in August a drone carrying explosives was found there, an attack Berlin blamed on Russia.

Pope Leo XIV, 71, left Rome's Gemelli hospital on Saturday, four days after surgeons removed the lower lobe of his right lung and confirmed lung adenocarcinoma. On Sunday he led the Angelus from the window of the Apostolic Palace to applause from the crowd in St. Peter's Square, thanked his doctors and said he would 'gradually resume' his activities once 'this delicate stage' is over. His surgeon says there is no clinical reason to cancel his November trip to South America. From his hospital bed on Friday, he phoned Vladimir Putin to ask for a ceasefire in the besieged Ukrainian city of Oleshky.

Two Romanian F-16s shot down two drones over Romania's territorial waters in the Black Sea on Saturday evening, both within minutes, 20 to 25 kilometres off Sulina at the mouth of the Danube. The defence ministry calls them 'jet-powered attack drones from the Geran family,' the name Russia uses for its Shahed-type drones, but has not formally said where they came from. It follows a week in which drones hit two chemical tankers near Sulina and at least five other ships off Romania and Bulgaria, with 23 sailors dead or missing.

Russia says it shot down 1,015 Ukrainian drones over 15 regions overnight, one of the largest aerial attacks of the war. In St. Petersburg, fires broke out at the city's oil export terminal, the Ruchyi oil depot and industrial warehouses, including a major Ozon logistics hub; a VK data centre was also targeted. Governor Alexander Beglov said one person was killed and five injured. The strikes come days after Ukraine resumed attacks on Russian oil facilities, following a short pause under Trump's 'energy ceasefire.'

UPDATED SUNDAY. Preliminary findings by the Interior Ministry's forensic evidence unit point to an 'internal malfunction' at the depot, not an external strike, the PMF says. A final report is still to come. Earlier: The PMF now says no external actor was behind the blast and reports five people lightly injured, with no deaths; security and medical sources told Reuters one member was killed. Earlier: A blast at an ammunition depot belonging to the Popular Mobilisation Forces in eastern Baghdad on Saturday killed one member of the Iran-aligned paramilitary alliance and wounded four, according to security and medical sources. The PMF says a stockpile of obsolete ammunition exploded. Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi has ordered an investigation. It is the second deadly explosion at a PMF site in Baghdad in under a year.

UPDATED MONDAY. The official toll is four soldiers dead and 39 hurt, 19 of them critical as of Sunday. The dead are Sgt. Morgan Wong and Ptes. Shaun Farrell, Aidan Goulding and Hayden Lykkemark. The division commander says a sudden wind shift drove a nearby grass fire over troops training with live munitions, and doubts that a gas line was hit. Cause under investigation. Earlier, unconfirmed: military sources told Global News at least seven people were killed and dozens injured, Global News reports, citing multiple military sources, who say a live-fire training exercise struck a gas line or gas well around 4 p.m. Saturday, causing an explosion. The Canadian Armed Forces has not confirmed the toll or the cause. Alberta hospitals went to Code Orange and burn patients were flown to Edmonton. The fire, pushed by winds up to 100 km/h, was being held by Saturday midnight. Earlier: An unspecified incident at Canadian Forces Base Wainwright in eastern Alberta on Saturday caused a fast-moving fire that killed and injured people on the base, Defence Minister David McGuinty said. Officials have not said what the incident was or how many people were hurt. Driven by high winds, the fire crossed the base fence; no evacuation order was in effect Saturday night.

UPDATED SUNDAY. France's interior minister now counts 1,800 arrests nationwide and more than 500 police, gendarmes and firefighters injured, and later reports put arrests above 2,000. Nineteen people have been detained in the Limoges area. The prime minister blames the 'ultra-left' and is holding a crisis meeting; Macron is due to address the nation Sunday evening, according to France's ICI radio. Saturday: More than 15 people have been arrested over the fire and rioting in Limoges, the local prosecutor says, and the prime minister puts the national toll at about 1,200 arrests and 150 officers injured. The mayor and prefect say Limoges's 1883 city hall is 'largely lost': the roof has fallen onto the floors below, two-thirds of the facade is gone, and the 43-metre bell tower collapsed at about 9:20 p.m. No one was hurt. The prefect blames rioters, 'not protesters.' Nationally, about 400 people were arrested and Macron says those responsible will be punished. Earlier: Part of a protest march in Limoges broke into the city hall on Saturday afternoon and set a fire on the ground floor that spread to one wing and the roof, according to local media and a witness quoted by AFP. It came at the end of a nationwide day of student and cost-of-living protests that organisers say drew 800,000 people. Clashes were also reported in Paris, Marseille and Lyon, and about 272 people had been arrested by mid-afternoon.

At a military graduation on Saturday, Egypt's president said his term ends in 2030, that the constitution 'will not be touched,' and that potential future leaders will be put through a 30-month program at the military academy first. Then he asked for an emergency session of parliament to authorise action to defend Saudi Arabia, which has been hit by Houthi attacks on its main airport and Aramco. Parliament meets on Sunday.

UPDATED. At 8:40am on Wednesday a wall of water arrived in northern Nepal from the Tibetan side of the border, with no rain behind it. Scientists believe an ice-and-rock avalanche fell into the Lhende Khola and released a surge that raised the Trishuli nine metres in thirty minutes. The toll has climbed from dozens to more than 160. And the debris is still sitting in the river: a barrier lake is filling behind it, and ICIMOD says a second flood is considered imminent.

Trump hosted Zelensky in the Oval Office on Tuesday morning, then Netanyahu at 11, then eulogized Lindsey Graham at the National Cathedral at 2. Ukraine is offering the drone and counter-drone technology the US wants. It is asking for missiles it needs now — and what it has been promised is the right to build them itself.

The fire burning north of Bordeaux has consumed 42,000 hectares and reached within 15km of the city. It has generated a pyrocumulonimbus — a fire cloud that produces its own winds and lightning, which is what officials mean when they call it unmanageable. Spain has declared a national emergency.

After 13 nights of American strikes, the US paused. Iran paused too. Trump says he halted the attacks at Tehran's request and will resume if talks fail. Iran's Foreign Ministry says there are no negotiations. Both statements were made on Monday. What mediators are actually working on is not the nuclear program — it's who controls shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

A vehicle drove into people in Tiergarten park on Saturday night, near the route of Berlin's Christopher Street Day celebrations, before crashing into a tree. Police called off the parade and a concert, and are searching for a suspect. They say they do not yet know the motive.

Brasília blocked a trip planned for July 27-30 by assistant secretary Riley Barnes and deputy assistant secretary Samuel Samson. Brazilian officials called it election interference. The State Department says the visit was routine and that any suggestion of a plot is 'a baseless lie.'

Hong Wang and Yu Deng are among four winners of the 2026 Fields Medal, announced at the International Congress of Mathematicians. They're being celebrated as the first Chinese nationals ever to claim the discipline's highest honor — and Wang's win rests on cracking a century-old geometry puzzle.

Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis say they struck the tankers Encelia and Layla with missiles and drones to enforce a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia. Riyadh confirmed one ship was hit, with its crew safe — and the target now is one of the last open routes for Gulf oil.

Péter Szijjártó helped land BYD's multibillion-forint push into Hungary — subsidies, permits and a new factory — while serving as foreign minister. Days after he resigned his seat to take an executive job at the company, the new government launched a probe into the whole arrangement.

In an open letter to Britain's brand-new prime minister, a group of wealthy Britons — from footballer Gary Lineker to musician Brian Eno — is pressing for a tax on large fortunes. The government is politely non-committal, and the opposition says they can simply write a cheque.

France's public health agency says the country saw at least 5,700 more deaths than normal during last month's record heat — a 36% jump in mortality, and the worst toll from any heat wave in more than two decades.

Yemen's Houthis say they hit two Saudi tankers with missiles and drones to enforce the naval blockade they declared on July 20 — opening a new front in the widening Middle East war and threatening one of the world's key oil chokepoints.

A punishing heat wave is driving fast-moving wildfires across Spain, France and Greece — 32,000 hectares burned near Guadalajara, two firefighters killed in France, and tens of thousands warned as temperatures climb past 40°C.