The administration in the Indian capital, New Delhi, has been on its toes since last week as Indian opposition parties and an informal movement known as Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) are staging protests over the removal of millions of names from voter ‌lists. 

New Delhi became a fortress over the weekend, with barricades made of iron and armed personnel stationed at nearly all major intersections ahead of the protests. Still, people showed up, thousands were detained, and the formal opposition parties took the baton with a massive march towards the Supreme Court on Monday.

The key demand of the protesters is the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over allegations that a country-wide revision of the electoral database is helping the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) party, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to stay in power and win elections across states. Both the BJP and the Election Commission have rejected the accusations. 

CJP back in action

The CJP, a youth movement born out of an online meme, became prominent earlier this year for staging massive protests against irregularities in the examination system that eventually led to the resignation of the country’s education minister.

This time, the protests are challenging the nationwide Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls done by the Election Commission of India earlier this year. The CJP and formal opposition parties allege that the SIR exercise caused the widespread and irresponsible deletion of people from electoral rolls. Reports say there have been 130 million names deleted from the provisional electoral rolls through the ongoing revision process. The Election Commission says this is necessary to eliminate duplicate names, names of deceased people, and those who have migrated. It also maintained that it operated strictly under constitutional and legal frameworks.

On Saturday, thousands of young activists, students, and opposition leaders gathered around Jantar Mantar and several other prominent locations in the center of the Indian capital. This is despite warnings from the police and the lack of official permission to protest.

The Delhi Police formally denied permission for the Jantar Mantar protest on Saturday, citing public order and traffic concerns. A 24-hour temporary mobile internet shutdown was enforced across central Delhi and key border points. Entry and exit were restricted or closed across 57 Delhi Metro stations around the central corridor, and over 60 incoming regional trains were canceled or short-terminated.

Over 23,000 police and paramilitary personnel were deployed across central intersections, converting locations like Connaught Place and Janpath into restricted zones.

“We have a right to protest against the Election Commissioner,” Ariba Fahim, 19, a student activist who was detained briefly near INA on Saturday during the demonstration, said.

Shiv Tanakiya, 21, a college student who traveled from Meerut in the neighboring state of Uttar Pradesh a day before the protest, said young people have a right to seek accountability from the government.

“We are the youth of this country wanting to be heard. We live in a democracy. We are not doing this at the behest of any opposition party, but this is a concern for the whole country,” he said. 

Early Saturday morning, key CJP organizers Abhijeet Dipke, Saurav Das, and Ashutosh Ranka were taken into preventive custody directly from an incoming flight at Delhi Airport. After over 24 hours of preventive detention, all three were freed after a peace bond.

At a press conference shortly after their release on Sunday afternoon, the leaders condemned the government’s response, saying the use of thousands of security personnel and internet shutdowns against peaceful demonstrators exposed the administration’s fear of youth-led accountability.

“Picking up citizens off airplanes and shutting down an entire city just to block a peaceful protest is not governance; it is intimidation,” Das told reporters, reaffirming that the CJP would continue its pan-India campaign for electoral transparency despite the state restrictions. 

Prominent YouTuber and influencer Dhruv Rathee, who traveled to Delhi from Germany where he resides, to take part in the protests was detained from his parents’ residence before he could do so. “I was not arrested or detained, I was KIDNAPPED,” Rathee said in a post on X after he returned home.

Official police reports indicate that over 7,000 individuals were taken into preventive detention across Delhi and surrounding border checkpoints throughout the day; most of them were freed on Sunday. 

“We are educated peaceful protesters exercising our constitutional rights,” Kirti Sahu, 22, a university student who was detained near CP before being loaded onto a police bus, said. “The government caused inconvenience to people by shutting down metro stations, cutting the internet; you are proving our point about highhandedness.”

Another student protester, Rinku Singh, said the key demand is transparency in public institutions.

The CJP seemed to be prepared for the police crackdown. Just as the detentions started, founder Abhijeet Dipke dropped a pre-recorded video telling protesters to spread out. Prominent student leader Neha Bora, the president of All India Students’ Association, quickly shifted the crowds away from a blocked Jantar Mantar toward Connaught Place, outsmarting police barricades and keeping the protest moving across the city.

“Narendra Modi’s government cannot simply ignore young people. India has a massive youth population with high ambitions, but millions of educated graduates are struggling to find decent jobs, creating deep frustration,” Asim Ahmad, a researcher from Jamia Nagar, Delhi, who was also part of the protest, said.

Nitin Nabin, the president of the ruling BJP, lambasted the CJP protests and said the leaders working at the behest of the opposition cannot see India moving forward.

“PM Modi has the trust of [the 1.4 billion] people of India. We will ensure the Viksit Bharat dream will be taken forward, and any forces, whether they live in this country or outside trying to destabilize India will be strictly dealt with,” Nabin said in a post on X, adding that the opposition is attempting to destabilize the country in collusion with foreign powers.

Special attention

The Delhi protests were widely covered by international media, drawing immediate attention from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). It released a statement on Saturday, expressing concern over “mass detentions” and urging the Indian authorities to “ensure that the right to peaceful assembly is fully respected and fulfilled, and that those detained arbitrarily are released immediately.”

The Ministry of External Affairs issued a firm response, calling the OHCHR’s remarks “an unwarranted interference in the internal affairs of India”

“As in every democracy, Indian citizens exercise this right subject to the maintenance of public order and safety. Our law enforcement authorities act strictly in accordance with the law, and our courts remain available to all for the redressal of any grievances,” New Delhi said. It also noted that OHCHR’s “double standards” in commenting on protests – and the way local authorities respond to it – in various parts of the world.

“Violent responses to protests in our neighborhood have gone uncommented, as indeed have law enforcement actions in its own vicinity. Such double standards only erode the credibility of its standing and contribute to the loss of faith in multilateralism,” New Delhi said.  

While images of detentions in India are dramatic, they are hardly comparable to those coming out of France, where student protesters have clashed with fully equipped riot police using tear gas and water cannons. 

No official statement came from the OHCHR office regarding the French protests, though the spokesperson for the UN human rights office on Friday said the body is “following with concern incidents related to the student protests and high school blockades in France.”

“We call on everyone to ensure that they remain peaceful and that there is no disproportionate use of force by law enforcement,” the spokesperson said, according to Le Monde. 

Opposition springs into action

The official opposition has called for new protest, with Rahul Gandhi, the head of the main opposition Congress party, leading a march to the Supreme Court on Monday. He was joined by other opposition leaders who form the INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) bloc.

At a press conference ahead of the march, Gandhi said the opposition’s fight will continue until the Election Commission’s leadership changes, the Constitution is upheld, and the electoral system is overhauled.

INDIA leaders filed a petition in the Supreme Court against the Election Commission, alleging large-scale voter deletions and irregularities in the electoral roll revisions. The plea also raises concerns over restrictions on peaceful demonstrations. 

In anticipation of the opposition march, Delhi Police not only barricaded all major access roads with multiple layers of barriers and closed nearby metro stations, but also de-notified Jantar Mantar as a designated protest site – a role it had served for more than three decades.

Under the new arrangement, protests will be permitted only at Ramlila Maidan in central Delhi, Burari Ground in north Delhi, and CBD Ground in east Delhi.

However, in a special hearing on Sunday following the October 10 security lockdown, a Supreme Court bench comprising Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana reasserted the constitutional right to peaceful assembly, ordered an immediate halt to all unauthorized preventive detentions, and demanded the full restoration of normal transit and mobile internet services across the capital. The court stressed that while law enforcement can enforce prohibitory orders in specific restricted zones, citizens holding peaceful, unarmed demonstrations cannot be subjected to city-wide blackouts or arbitrary detentions.

Thousands took part in the march on Monday, with drone footage showing massive crowds in the streets of central Delhi leading to the Supreme Court building, which Gandhi and other opposition leaders reached by the evening. Chief Justice of India Surya Kant earlier declined the request of the opposition for a meeting, arguing, according to the media reports, that the meeting would be inappropriate as the issues to be raised are already sub judice before the Supreme Court.

While local protests over the electoral rolls have been seen in other large cities, including Mumbai and Bengaluru, agitation is yet to become nationwide. What is clear, however, is that it is unlikely to die out easily. 

“It is the people who choose the government. People have a right to seek answers, but this government is not listening and is using police to stop peaceful demonstrations,” Shiv Tanakiya said. “We are the future of this country, and we must be heard.”

Iran has rejected accusations of plotting to attack a UK airbase, describing them as part of a false-flag operation aimed at covering up Britain’s involvement in the US war in the Middle East.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Monday after the UK government imposed sanctions on two Iranian individuals amid allegations of an Iranian-backed terrorist plot targeting RAF Fairford in southwestern England, which hosts US bombers flying missions against Iran.

The ministry said the allegations were aimed at “advancing an anti-Iran campaign and evading accountability for Britain’s involvement in the US-Israeli military aggression against the Iranian people.”

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran categorically rejects the baseless accusations against Iran and holds the British government, along with those who planned and carried out this clumsy false-flag operation, responsible for all consequences arising from these fabrications,” the statement read.

Addressing Parliament on Monday, UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham said it is “highly likely” that Iran was behind the alleged plot and that it was “almost certainly” directed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The Foreign Office summoned the Iranian ambassador later that day.

The UK imposed sanctions on Ruhollah Bazghandi, described as the head of the IRGC’s counterespionage operations, and Shahram Ali Reza Tamarzadeh Jakki, described as a “facilitator of the Zindashti criminal network, involved in several plots against Iranian dissidents.”

Tehran previously accused the US of using the war with Iran to distract from domestic economic problems. In August, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said US President Donald Trump’s threats of intensified economic warfare were intended to divert public attention from the national debt and rising interest costs. He described America’s economic pressure campaign as “economic terrorism.”

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has poured more than $276 million into Republican political groups since early July, becoming the largest known donor ahead of next month’s crucial US midterm elections, the New York Times reported on Monday.

The contributions come just weeks before the November 3 vote, which will determine whether Republicans retain control of both chambers of Congress.

According to the NYT, Musk donated $158 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, which backs Republican Senate candidates, and $20 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund, which supports House Republicans. The newspaper cited figures provided by Musk’s representatives ahead of a federal disclosure deadline on Thursday.

Another $76 million went to Musk’s America PAC, while $22 million was distributed among other Republican groups, Reuters reported. These organizations, known as super PACs, can raise and spend unlimited sums to support candidates but are prohibited from coordinating directly with their campaigns.

“If Democrats take control of Washington and win key gubernatorial and attorney general races this November, then America risks becoming a socialist, woke and borderless country,” the NYT quoted Andrew Romeo, a spokesman for Musk’s America PAC, as saying.

Musk previously spent more than $290 million backing Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and other Republican candidates during the 2024 election cycle. The two publicly feuded in 2025 over Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill but have since appeared to reconcile, attending several events together.

The elections come amid declining approval ratings for Trump, mounting concerns over living costs and the economic fallout from the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Trump’s approval rating fell to 30% in early October, down from 37% in January, before the US-Israeli attack on Iran in February, according to Pew Research Center polling.

Saudi Arabia’s aviation regulator has extended the closure of the kingdom’s main airport following two deadly strikes over the weekend, as Yemen’s Houthi rebels continued launching missiles at the country.

The kingdom’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) announced on Monday that the suspension of operations at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh was extended. Several airlines, including Flydubai, Emirates, Etihad Airways, Qatar Airways, and Air India, have canceled flights to and from Riyadh.

Houthi strikes on the airport on Saturday left 12 people dead, including four Saudi nationals, and more than 300 injured. Another attack the following day killed a Pakistani national and injured 11 others.

The Houthis, an Iranian-backed Shiite group, have described the strikes as “deterrence operations,” accusing Saudi Arabia of maintaining an illegal “siege” of the parts of Yemen under their control.

Early Tuesday, General Turki Al-Malki, the spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, said coalition forces intercepted two Houthi ballistic missiles launched toward Khamis Mushait, a city in southwestern Saudi Arabia.

Videos posted on social media reportedly show Saudi air defenses launching interceptors into the sky.

Footage from earlier shows Saudi PAC-3 interceptors being launched to engage incoming Ansar Allah (Houthi) ballistic missiles over Riyadh. If it weren't for the Bangladeshis, we wouldn't have any footage of this xD https://t.co/RSD3FcdmQg

— OSINTWarfare (@OSINTWarfare) October 12, 2026

The latest escalation in Yemen’s civil war, which began in 2014, was triggered by a Houthi offensive last month. In a rapid advance, the rebels captured the strategic port of Mokha and Perim Island in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a vital shipping route connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. The territorial gains prompted the Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government to launch a counteroffensive aimed at retaking the lost territory.

🔴 مشاهد تطهير وتأمين مديرية #جبل_حبشي ومثلث #البيرين و #مفرق_يفرس بمحافظة #تعز وطرد تحشيدات العدو السعودي منها 01-05-1448هـ 12-10-2026م #ضرب_تحشيدات_العدو_السعودي https://t.co/Xaxlt4GjRc

— قناة المسيرة (@Almasirah_YE) October 12, 2026

The group said Saudi Arabia conducted nearly 120 airstrikes over the last 24 hours, targeting civilians in Sanaa and elsewhere. At least 385 people have been killed or wounded by Saudi strikes since September 3, many of them women and children, according to the Houthi health authorities.

French right-wing politician Marine Le Pen has emerged as the frontrunner in the 2027 presidential race and would defeat both left-wing and centrist rivals in hypothetical runoffs, according to a new poll.

Published on Monday, the Toluna Harris Interactive survey for French broadcasters M6 and RTL puts Le Pen, the longtime face of the National Rally (RN), at 67% against Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of the left-wing France Unbowed party, and 56% against former centrist Prime Minister Edouard Philippe.

Le Pen also leads all five first-round scenarios tested, with 35% to 37% support. Melenchon comes second with 18% to 19%, while Philippe polls between 13% and 17%.

The survey also suggests growing confidence in Le Pen’s leadership. Some 51% of respondents believe she would make a good president, up six percentage points from the previous poll, compared with 47% for RN president Jordan Bardella.

Le Pen reached the presidential runoff in both 2017 and 2022 but lost to Emmanuel Macron on each occasion. The incumbent is barred from seeking a third consecutive term. Macron’s approaching departure comes as France faces mounting fiscal pressures.

Her party has also strengthened its parliamentary position. In September, RN and its ally, the Union of the Right for the Republic (UDR), secured enough Senate seats to form a parliamentary group for the first time.

Macron’s centrist camp has lacked a parliamentary majority since 2022, leaving successive governments struggling to pass budgets. France’s public debt reached €3.6 trillion (over $4 trillion), or 119% of GDP, as of the end of June, while the proposed 2027 budget faces opposition in the fragmented parliament.

RN has repeatedly opposed open-ended military funding for Kiev and warned against steps that could bring France into direct confrontation with Russia. Le Pen has called for the normalization of relations with Moscow.

The prospect of a Le Pen presidency has reportedly alarmed Ukraine’s Western backers. The Telegraph reported in August that officials feared her election could undermine French-led efforts to coordinate military and financial aid for Kiev, as well as plans to deploy Western troops to Ukraine following a ceasefire.

The Toluna Harris Interactive survey was conducted online from October 5 to 8 among 2,004 registered voters.

US federal agents have raided the home of Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who President Donald Trump has repeatedly accused of immigration fraud.

Omar, a Somali-born naturalized US citizen, is a vocal critic of Trump’s policies and a supporter of Palestinian rights. Agents were filmed searching her home in Washington, DC on Monday morning.

Without naming Omar, the Justice Department (DOJ) confirmed that investigators from the Department of Homeland Security executed a court-authorized search warrant as part of an ongoing criminal investigation. A senior White House official told the Washington Post that Omar’s residence was searched as part of a probe into immigration fraud.

“I’m ok. Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement,” Omar wrote on X after the raid. She accused Trump of using “baseless lies and smear campaigns” as a means of “political intimidation.”

🚨 UPDATE: After over 5 HOURS, DHS has JUST NOW completed their raid at Ilhan Omar's DC house SEVERAL vans and SUVs were loaded up with boxes upon boxes from inside the home 🔥 NO WORD on where Omar is. But it's about team we see her in cuffs! https://t.co/SuCoKnW7L6

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) October 12, 2026

Asked about the search later that day, Trump described Omar as “totally crooked” but denied responsibility for the raid. “I think she’s a terrible person. But that’s really up to the DOJ. I have nothing to do with it,” he said. Trump also argued that Omar arrived in the US from “a non-country.”

Critics have long accused Omar of immigration fraud, including an unsubstantiated allegation that she once married her brother, which she has denied. Last month, Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, told Fox News that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) opened an investigation into Omar but declined to provide details.

Omar’s family fled civil war-torn Somalia in the 1990s when she was eight. She became a US citizen in 2000 at 17.

Elected to the House of Representatives in 2018, she became one of the most high-profile Democrats during Trump’s first term. In 2019, Israel barred Omar and fellow Democratic Representative Rashida Tlaib from entering the country.

Trump has accused Omar of being unpatriotic, supporting Islamic extremism, and spreading anti-Semitism, and has called on her to leave the country. Omar has accused Trump of racism, Islamophobia, and authoritarianism, describing his attacks on her as a “really unhealthy and creepy obsession.”

Last year, the DOJ directed its lawyers to step up efforts to revoke the citizenship of naturalized Americans in eligible cases. The federal authorities have also intensified their crackdown on fraud schemes in Omar’s home state of Minnesota, including cases involving members of its large Somali American community.

The investigations have targeted alleged misuse of taxpayer-funded food assistance, housing support, and autism treatment programs. One of the largest cases involved a nonprofit whose operators and associates were accused of stealing around $250 million from a federal child nutrition program during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The once Great State of Minnesota is being taken over by Somali Immigrants. There is Violence, Murder, and Mayhem all over the State. The people of Minnesota must fight back,” Trump wrote on Truth Social last week. His remarks prompted Democrats to accuse him of stigmatizing the entire Somali community.

Many soldiers from the UK’s elite Special Air Service (SAS) have refused to answer questions as part of an inquiry into alleged war crimes committed in Afghanistan, The Guardian reported on Monday.

The inquiry, launched in 2023, was established to investigate alleged extrajudicial killings by British forces in Afghanistan from 2010 to 2013. It is also examining allegations of a cover-up and whether the Royal Military Police properly investigated the incidents.

At Monday’s hearing, Lord Justice Charles Haddon-Cave said that written requests for information were sent to numerous SAS soldiers linked to the deliberate detention operations (DDOs) at the center of the allegations, according to The Guardian.

“A high proportion have indicated their intention to rely on their privilege against self-incrimination and have refused to answer any questions asked by the inquiry,” the judge said, as cited by the newspaper.

The inquiry has also faced difficulties obtaining documents from the Defense Ministry.

At a hearing in September, Haddon-Cave revealed that 97 million records from the period under investigation were omitted from earlier searches. The judge described the discovery as “troubling and regrettable.”

The ministry said it expected only around 1,200 additional documents to require disclosure and apologized for delays in responding to the inquiry’s questions.

In April, British media reported that SAS soldiers were resigning in significant numbers over fears of prosecution related to past operations. “Morale is s**t at the moment,” The Telegraph quoted an unnamed insider as saying.

In 2022, a BBC Panorama investigation identified 54 people killed in suspicious circumstances by one SAS unit during a six-month deployment to Afghanistan’s Helmand province from November 2010 to May 2011. Former SAS personnel told the BBC that unarmed Afghan men were killed during night raids and that weapons were planted at the scenes to make the shootings appear justified.

The BBC also reported that senior special forces officers were aware of concerns over the killings but failed to report them to military police.

British forces were deployed to Afghanistan in 2001 as part of the US-led invasion following the September 11 terrorist attacks. The UK subsequently became one of the largest contributors to the NATO-led mission, with British troops heavily involved in fighting Taliban insurgents, particularly in the southern province of Helmand.

More than 450 British military personnel were killed during the nearly two-decade campaign. The UK withdrew its remaining troops in 2021 as the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan following the collapse of the Western-backed government.

The Nobel Peace Prize has never been a straightforward affair. For a start, it isn’t awarded by the same institutions responsible for the other Nobel Prizes, but by a committee of five people appointed by the Norwegian Parliament and these five individuals decide who has done the most for world peace, although their understanding of that concept has long been influenced by political considerations.

Controversial decisions are hardly a recent development. Take Cordell Hull, the former US secretary of state, who received the prize in 1945 for his contribution to establishing the United Nations.

Hull was an accomplished diplomat, but why him? The prize could just as easily have gone to Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, who headed Moscow’s delegation at the San Francisco conference, or Andrey Gromyko, who subsequently led it, given the Soviet delegation played an important role in shaping the organization, including provisions intended to prevent another world war.

Yet Hull received the honor because, by then, Washington was already consolidating its influence over Western Europe, and American political preferences were increasingly reflected in international institutions.

Hull himself was hardly beyond controversy and before the war, his attitude towards Nazi Germany wasn’t always what modern admirers might expect. Indeed, even Adolf Hitler was once nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, although that nomination was a protest rather than a serious endorsement.

Among those honored elsewhere were anti-apartheid campaigners and political figures whose contributions to peace were considerably more debatable.

Consider Lech Walesa and Mikhail Gorbachev. Both became international symbols of political transformation, but the consequences of those transformations weren’t universally peaceful as Gorbachev’s weakness contributed to the Soviet collapse, followed by conflicts across the Caucasus and other upheavals. The withdrawal of Soviet support also helped bring about the eventual collapse of Afghanistan’s secular government.

These developments were celebrated in the West as victories for freedom, even though their human consequences were rather more complicated.

Perhaps the most extraordinary decision of the modern era, however, was the award to Barack Obama in 2009.

Obama had been president for barely nine months and he had scarcely begun implementing his foreign policy, let alone demonstrated its lasting contribution to peace, so even he appeared surprised.

American anti-war activist Brian Becker offered a memorable explanation, describing it as the prize Obama received for not being George W. Bush.

A closer examination of the laureates suggests another interesting pattern: the influence of political ideas associated with America’s Democratic Party.

Four US presidents who received the prize were Democrats, as was Gore, while anti-apartheid campaigners and other human rights activists have also featured prominently. These causes have generally enjoyed greater sympathy among American liberals than among the industrial and conservative interests traditionally associated with the Republicans.

This helps explain Donald Trump’s determination to become the first Republican president to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

Trump has approached the matter with characteristic vigor, apparently believing that diplomatic achievements and his celebrated ability to negotiate deals might eventually persuade the committee, but he has misunderstood the institution.

The American establishment isn’t simply a collection of officials who can be persuaded through bargaining because its liberal ideology is deeply embedded in universities, international organizations, government departments and the professional classes from which their personnel are drawn.

These networks survive changes of administration because they are sustained by shared beliefs rather than individual political appointments. The Nobel Committee operates within much the same intellectual environment. Its members don’t need instructions from Washington, much less envelopes stuffed with money, to favor candidates whose political outlook resembles their own and Trump, by contrast, represents almost everything that this crowd dislikes.

Last year, the committee passed him over and awarded the prize to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, a prominent critic of Nicolas Maduro.

I have admired her ever since because, whatever one thinks of her politics, it was an elegant and spectacular move, combining personal generosity with an unmistakable political calculation.

Trump, naturally, accepted the medal and his administration subsequently moved against Maduro, dramatically changing Venezuela’s political circumstances while leaving its human rights campaigners with considerably less influence over events.

But a medal is only a medal and the honor itself cannot be transferred, therefore Trump has still not become the first Republican president to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and I doubt he ever will.

This year, perhaps having learned from the controversy surrounding its previous decision, the committee chose a safer candidate in South African human rights lawyer Navanethem Pillay, a former UN high commissioner for human rights.

Pillay belongs to another category traditionally favored by the committee,  prominent figures from the UN and international human rights institutions.

Her career hasn’t been without controversy, given critics in South Africa have questioned her Western connections, while her position on Palestine has attracted fierce criticism in Israel.

Nevertheless, Pillay is a substantial figure whose achievements deserve recognition and unlike some previous recipients, she can’t reasonably be accused of having been plucked from obscurity or rewarded merely for her celebrity.

She is, in short, the sort of compromise candidate the Nobel Peace Prize badly needed as the institution’s decline in credibility has been evident for decades, but perhaps this year’s decision suggests that the committee is finally beginning to understand the dangers of turning the world’s most prestigious peace award into an instrument of political fashion.

For the moment, at least, the decline has been arrested.

This article was first published by the online newspaper Gazeta.ru and was translated and edited by the RT team

European countries should expand their own arms production because American factories will largely be occupied with supplying the US military, Washington’s envoy to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, has said.

US defense spending could reach $1–1.5 trillion in 2026, leaving limited manufacturing capacity for foreign buyers, Whitaker said at the Warsaw Security Forum on Monday. “The US needs friends with manufacturing capacity,” Whitaker said, urging Europe to increase output to meet its own growing weapons demand.

The warning comes as Washington struggles to replenish missile stocks depleted by its war against Iran. The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated that US forces had fired over 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles by late May, representing nearly a third of its stockpiles. It also used over 1,500 high-end Patriot interceptors, or about 65% of its reserves, as of late July. Reuters also reported in August that the US army had used “virtually all” of its high-precision long-range missiles.

Bloomberg reported last month that NATO members faced delivery delays of up to several years as Washington prioritized rebuilding its own inventories. Germany’s requests for accelerated Tomahawk deliveries were unlikely to be fulfilled within five years, according to the report.

Europe has continued to suffer weapon shortages after donating billions worth of arms to Ukraine. A European Defence Agency assessment presented in September identified significant shortages in air and missile defense, ammunition and other essential capabilities. Efforts to manufacture Patriot interceptors in Germany have also yet to bear fruit.

He also urged NATO to modernize bases, supply chains for fuel, and deployment arrangements to move forces and equipment from Western to Eastern Europe, “where we would expect any future conflict.” He announced no new relocation decisions.

Since returning to office, President Donald Trump has moved to reduce US military commitments in Europe. He has repeatedly criticized NATO members for insufficient spending and demanded that they assume greater responsibility for their own defense.

European governments have meanwhile been ramping up military spending, citing allegations that Russia could attack a NATO country by the end of the decade. Moscow has repeatedly rejected claims that it plans to attack Europe, but has warned that NATO would face a full military response if it attacked Russia first.

German police have seized a humanoid robot that allegedly groped a 16-year-old girl on the streets of Cologne, and are investigating its owner for sexual harassment.

Officers seized the robot in the early hours of Sunday morning after it “allegedly touched a 16-year-old girl’s buttocks and made thrusting motions against her,” according to a statement from Cologne Police. 

The teenage girl was standing outside a fast food restaurant with her friends when the robot approached her from behind and made obscene motions, the statement continued. Shortly afterwards, officers found the robot in the trunk of a nearby car and confiscated it, along with the mobile phones of its 16-year-old owner and his 19-year-old accomplice.

The red and gold robot, modeled on Marvel’s ‘Iron Man’, was seen in an evidence photo clad in a white vest, a gold chain, and a stick-on mustache.

#PolizeiNRW #Köln #Leverkusen : Mutmaßlich ferngesteuerter Roboter fasst 16-Jähriger ans Gesäß - Polizei beschlagnahmt ungewöhnliches Beweismittel - Infos unter: https://t.co/XlwfQf5dpm https://t.co/3nEL5OTw74

— Polizei NRW K (@polizei_nrw_k) October 12, 2026

Police are now “examining how the robot was functioning at the time of the incident and whether someone was deliberately controlling its movements.” The two teenagers operating the droid – who live-streamed the incident online – are being investigated on suspicion of sexual harassment.

Video footage shared on TikTok showed the sex-pest robot, named ‘Ahmed’ by his owner and accomplice, harassing multiple women. The droid made masturbatory hand gestures and thrusting motions at several women as his alleged operators laughed, and approached one woman from behind, causing her to scream. It is unclear if this is the incident that triggered the investigation.

According to Germany’s criminal code, sexual assault requires contact between perpetrator and victim. Acts “carried out by machines or by third parties” do not rise to the level of assault, The German Federal Court of Justice ruled in 2021. If found guilty of sexual harassment, however, the suspects could face a fine or up to two years in prison.

The European Commission is orchestrating a “dirty smear campaign” against Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom in an effort to force it out of Hungary, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has asserted.

The campaign targets Rosatom’s construction of the Paks II nuclear power plant, which is intended to expand Hungary’s existing Soviet-built nuclear facility, the agency said in a statement on Monday.

“[European Commission President] Ursula von der Leyen has directly set before her administration a task to force Peter Magyar’s government to refuse from cooperation with Russia in the sphere of peaceful atom,” according to the SVR.

Magyar’s Tisza party decisively defeated Viktor Orban’s Euroskeptic Fidesz in April, signaling a shift toward closer ties with Brussels. However, despite describing Hungary’s reliance on Russian energy as a “security risk,” the new government has sought an exemption from US sanctions targeting buyers of Russian oil.

“Eurobureaucrats have openly acknowledged the inability of European manufacturers to compete fairly with Rosatom in the nuclear energy market,” the SVR said, warning that any alternative contractor would make Paks II less efficient and less secure.

The agency further alleged that von der Leyen expects to personally benefit from replacing Rosatom with a Western company, accusing her of a history of lobbying for major corporations and facilitating questionable multibillion-euro contracts.

The SVR also accused what it called the “globalist clique” running the EU of disregarding Hungary’s national interests, warning that Budapest could be pressured into abandoning a reliable source of electricity capable of ensuring its energy security for decades.

Hungary has long relied on Russian nuclear fuel and technical support for its four Soviet-built reactors at Paks, which generate around 40% of the country’s electricity. The two additional reactors planned under Paks II are expected to significantly increase nuclear power generation and reduce the country’s dependence on imported energy.

Moscow would only be ready to halt its strikes on Ukraine for the presidential election day, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has told journalists. Earlier, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky demanded a 60-day “total truce” to supposedly prepare for the vote after US President Donald Trump stated it was high time the Ukrainian leader was replaced.

Kiev’s request has little to do with the elections and is designed to buy time needed for the Ukrainian military to rearm and regroup, Peskov stated on Monday, commenting on Zelensky’s words.

“If Kiev genuinely wants to hold elections, then the president of the Russian Federation… will be ready to issue an order not to carry out strikes against Ukraine on the election day specifically,” the spokesman stated. “They don’t actually want to hold elections in Kiev; that is absolutely obvious. And they need a 60-day ceasefire not to hold elections, but to regroup, recover from their losses, and continue the war.”

Zelensky hit back by stating that, if Trump “really wants some changes,” he should “tell Putin, give us two months, 60 days off.” Russia considers the Ukrainian leader illegitimate, as his presidential term expired more than two years ago and he has not called a new election since, citing martial law.

On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also said that Moscow would not let itself fall into a trap of empty promises.

According to the Russian minister, the Ukrainian leader did not “deserve a respite.” Peskov also stated that Kiev did not bother to let Russia hold its September parliamentary elections in peace and actively sought to disrupt them instead, including through attacks on civilian infrastructure.

Moscow was targeted by more than 1,600 Ukrainian drones in what Mayor Sergey Sobyanin called an “unprecedented” raid during the three-day vote. The attack killed two civilians in the Russian capital’s suburbs and damaged an oil refinery, residential buildings, and civilian infrastructure.

Russia’s frontline areas – including new regions which voted for the first time in the parliamentary elections – also came under Ukrainian strikes. A total of 74 buildings housing election commissions had been damaged or destroyed in ten Russian regions during the vote, according to Rodion Miroshnik, a Russian diplomat heading the mission tasked with documenting alleged Ukrainian war crimes.

Global poverty has risen for the first time since 2010, with 1.2 billion people facing acute deprivation, according to a new UN report.

The study, released on Monday by the UN Development Program (UNDP) and the University of Oxford, found that the number of people living in acute poverty has increased by 51.5 million compared with the previous assessment. The increase is the first recorded since the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) was introduced in 2010.

The report, which includes 108 countries, measures poverty beyond income, examining deprivation in health, education, and living standards. It uses ten indicators, including nutrition, child mortality, schooling, access to clean water and electricity, sanitation, and housing conditions. People are classified as living in acute poverty if their households are deprived in at least one-third of the weighted indicators.

Nearly half of those living in poverty – 534 million people – face ‘severe’ deprivation, meaning they lack at least half of the basic necessities measured by the index. Another 952 million people are considered vulnerable to poverty, experiencing significant deprivation without meeting the threshold for acute poverty, the UNDP said.

The 2026 global Multidimensional Poverty Index reports the 1st rise in the number of people living in #MultidimensionalPoverty since 2010. Yet, 33 countries have halved their MPI value in fewer than 15 years showing that progress is possible. Learn more: https://t.co/XJmwpCaz4p https://t.co/mHsGDGzj1p

— UN Development (@UNDP) October 12, 2026

Children account for more than half of those affected, at 617 million. Over 80% live in rural areas. Sub-Saharan Africa has the largest number of people living in poverty, with 616 million, followed by South Asia with 393 million.

UNDP Administrator Alexander De Croo described the increase as a “wake-up call for the world,” warning that millions of people face hardships that reinforce the others, including hunger, missed schooling, and lack of basic services.

Despite the global rise, several countries have made progress. Egypt, Nepal, and Tajikistan recorded significant declines in both the share and number of people living in poverty. Nigeria, however, saw earlier gains reversed, with poverty increasing again in the 2020s.

Overall, 33 countries have halved their poverty index scores in less than 15 years. China recorded the fastest reduction among countries with available data. Vietnam and Eswatini also made significant progress.

A World Bank assessment released in September estimated that more than 824 million people worldwide – around one in ten – were living on less than $3 a day in 2024.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for a criminal investigation into anonymous sources depicted as Israeli soldiers in a documentary alleging that the country’s military used AI-powered targeting systems to kill civilians in Gaza, according to a letter released by the premier’s office, as cited by The Times of Israel.

NAZA, an 80-minute-long film – the name alludes to an Israeli military shorthand for expected “collateral casualties” – is based on the accounts of anonymous Israeli military and intelligence insiders alleging that the IDF heavily relied on AI systems to identify people and homes for attack on a massive scale, often disregarding collateral civilian casualties. Some insiders described the process as “insanely fun” and akin to a “video game.” Israeli insiders allege in the film that the IDF used an AI system called Lavender to identify assassination targets, relying on data from thousands of hacked phones. Even the phrase “daddy’s home” detected on a child’s phone could reportedly trigger an attack.

The documentary, directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, received a 25-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival and won the Special Jury Prize.

On Monday, Netanyahu called on IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, chief of Israel’s domestic security service David Zini and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara to launch a criminal probe into the soldiers who appeared anonymously in the documentary over what he described as “serious information security offenses, criminal defamation, and harming Israel’s diplomatic and security interests.” The prime minister stressed that investigators must identify those involved.

According to the letter released by Netanyahu’s office, those involved in the film may have committed criminal offenses, including leaking classified information and breaching security at a highly sensitive intelligence unit.

At the time, Netanyahu pledged to seek new legislation giving West Jerusalem the power to strip citizenship from people who smear Israeli soldiers.

The IDF has acknowledged using AI for military purposes, including a system known as The Gospel that rapidly generates targeting recommendations. In April 2024, media reports citing Israeli intelligence sources said Lavender had flagged about 37,000 people as suspected terrorists, with personnel sometimes spending only seconds reviewing its recommendations. Sources cited by The Guardian also alleged that, in the war’s early weeks, the military permitted the killing of 15 to 20 civilians in strikes on low-ranking militants. The IDF has rejected the allegations.

At least 139 migrants, including 15 children, have died after a boat carrying more than 300 people capsized off the coast of Djibouti while heading to Yemen, the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Sunday. A further 84 people remain missing.

The vessel was carrying 305 passengers when it overturned near Guhere, north of the Djiboutian port town of Obock, during the night of October 8-9, according to survivors cited by the agency. Around 82 people survived, all Ethiopian nationals, while search and rescue operations continue along the coast.

“This is a devastating loss of life,” Alexandre Coissac, the IOM’s chief of mission in Djibouti, said. “This tragedy is a stark reminder of the dangers faced by migrants along this migration corridor as they seek economic opportunities.”

The death toll initially stood at 109 before another 30 bodies were recovered, according to the IOM. The first confirmed victims included 52 men, 42 women, and 15 children.

The agency noted that poverty, food and financial insecurity, and climate change continue to push people to undertake the dangerous journey. Its monitoring system recorded more than 20,000 movements from Ethiopia into Djibouti since September 10.

The latest tragedy follows another shipwreck off Djibouti in March, when nine migrants died and 45 others went missing while attempting to reach Yemen.

Yemen’s Houthis have warned the US against joining Saudi Arabia’s military campaign, threatening to strike American forces if Washington intervenes in the escalating conflict.

The confrontation has intensified following deadly Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia’s main international airport. An attack on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on Saturday killed at least 13 people, including an American national, and injured more than 300, according to the latest figures. Another strike on Sunday left one person dead and 11 injured.

Speaking to RT on Sunday, officials in Houthi-controlled Sanaa warned that US military involvement would trigger retaliation, including against American warships in the Red Sea and the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The warning followed remarks by US President Donald Trump that Washington was “going to look at” joining Saudi strikes against the Iran-backed movement.

The latest escalation comes amid renewed fighting in Yemen’s decade-long conflict. The Houthis made major territorial gains along the Red Sea coast and around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in September, including capturing the port city of Mocha. Saudi-backed government forces have since launched a counteroffensive, claiming to have recaptured key positions near the vital shipping route linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.

Riyadh has stepped up airstrikes in support of the Yemeni government offensive, while the Houthis have vowed to continue targeting Saudi airports and infrastructure until the kingdom ends its military campaign and blockade of Yemen.

Poland has deployed more than 20,000 police officers nationwide following a series of school stabbings and online threats, launching a sweeping security crackdown that has resulted in dozens of arrests.

The emergency measures follow three stabbing attacks in four days that left one person dead and more than a dozen injured. Threats of further violence circulating online have fueled widespread alarm, prompting some schools to suspend classes and parents to keep their children at home.

Police announced on Monday that officers conducted nearly 80,000 inspections of educational institutions, detained 135 people, and identified 311 suspected criminal offenses.

“Police operations are still underway throughout Poland to ensure the safety of children, young people, and all employees of educational institutions,” the national police headquarters said, adding that officers are monitoring online threats around the clock.

“There will be no tolerance for any attacks on Polish children, nor for the descent of public life into anarchy,” Kierwinski told state broadcaster TVP Info.

Police have also detained teenagers suspected of planning attacks or posting violent threats online.

In one case, investigators discovered that a boy had recreated his school in the online game Roblox and simulated attacks on fellow students. Police said they found a firearm, ammunition, and knives in his possession.

The security operation follows three stabbing incidents in less than a week.

On Wednesday, a 19-year-old attacked students, teachers, and passersby at a vocational school in Ostroleka, north of Warsaw, injuring nine people before being arrested.

The following day, a 15-year-old former pupil wearing a helmet-mounted camera fatally stabbed a school caretaker and wounded two teachers in Leszczydol-Nowiny, northeast of the capital.

On Saturday, three people were injured in another stabbing at a further education college in Warsaw. A woman was detained in connection with the attack.

The violence was followed by a surge in social media threats of a ‘Bloody Friday’ campaign targeting schools, further fueling public fears.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk has warned of a growing “fascination with violence” among young people, describing it as a disturbing trend both in Poland and worldwide.

The authorities, however, said investigators found no evidence that the attacks were coordinated, warning that misinformation and unverified threats circulating online contributed to public panic.

South Africa has withdrawn a directive requiring refugee reception offices to accept asylum applications from people who entered the country irregularly, following violent anti-migrant protests in Soweto and Durban.

The Department of Home Affairs announced the reversal on Friday, citing overwhelmed refugee reception offices, risks to staff, and threats to public order. The measure, introduced on September 28, had sought to implement a July 7 Constitutional Court ruling that struck down restrictions on access to the asylum process.

The department described the directive as a “purely operational attempt” to comply with the court’s order and rejected claims that it was politically motivated, noting that it had opposed the case.

“The attempt to practically implement the judgement immediately led to serious consequences that could not have been foreseen in the Court order,” Home Affairs said in a statement.

Anti-migrant groups including March and March and Operation Dudula have demanded tougher immigration enforcement, blaming foreigners for crime, job shortages, and pressure on public services. Protests intensified from April, with campaigners setting an unofficial June 30 deadline for undocumented migrants to leave. The government has since stepped up immigration enforcement under a five-point plan announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa to tighten border controls and overhaul immigration laws. Ramaphosa warned against vigilantism, saying enforcement was the sole responsibility of authorized officials.

At a briefing on Sunday, Justice Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi said 30 people were arrested in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal, where soldiers were deployed to support police. Kubayi said the government would seek court supervision of the asylum ruling’s implementation and introduce online registration, biometric checks, and appointments by November 10. She stressed that the ruling remained binding despite the directive’s withdrawal and that deportations of people whose asylum claims have been finally rejected would continue.

Chaos and violence has broken out in Durban, with rioters setting buildings and cars alight after foreign nationals shot and killed at least one South African. There are reportedly 7 vehicles and 8 buildings on fire, with multiple shops being looted. SAPS is apparently outnumbered. Just another day in South Africa.

— Pookie's Polls & Opinions (@pookiepolls) October 8, 2026

Iran will destroy US technology infrastructure in the Gulf if Washington attacks again, the secretary of its Supreme National Security Council, Mohsen Rezaei, has warned.

Speaking to Press TV in an interview aired over the weekend, Rezaei singled out US assets in the United Arab Emirates and around the Strait of Hormuz. He estimated their value at more than $2 trillion and described them as the “pulse of the American economy in this region.”

“We have not yet included these assets among our targets. But if war breaks out, many of these cables, data centers, artificial intelligence facilities, and numerous other sites will be destroyed,” he said.

Rezaei said that Tehran had deliberately held back some military capabilities during earlier fighting, but is prepared to deploy them and “face the enemy with a much broader and more extensive plan” if hostilities resume.

Diplomatic contacts have continued through Pakistan, Qatar, and Iraq. Rezaei said Washington had accepted some of Tehran’s seven conditions for resolving the conflict but left others unclear, making its response inadequate.

Iran’s demands include lifting the naval blockade, ending hostilities on all fronts, and releasing frozen assets. Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday that exchanges through mediators were continuing and Tehran was reviewing Washington’s latest points.

US President Donald Trump previously rejected the Iranian proposal, saying that Tehran wanted “to make a deal, but it is not the deal that I want to make.” He has also suggested that US strikes could resume.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also stated last week that Tehran had “lost complete control” over the Strait of Hormuz and that oil flows were approaching prewar levels.

Amid the contradictory statements from Washington and Tehran, security risks in the key waterway persist. Last week, an oil tanker was struck near Oman, injuring 12 crew members. No side claimed responsibility.

Meanwhile, oil prices have continued to fluctuate in response to the Middle East crisis. Brent crude rose above $106 a barrel on Monday as Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia added to concerns over regional supplies. Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser warned that pressure on the energy chain would intensify until Hormuz fully reopened.

Hundreds of opposition protesters led by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi marched toward India’s Supreme Court in New Delhi on Monday demanding the resignation of the country’s election chief Gyanesh Kumar over a disputed revision of voter lists.

The latest rally followed a weekend of unrest in Delhi, when police detained thousands of protesters, including leaders of the youth-led Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), who are also asking for the election body’s special revision of electoral rolls to be halted.

The march was stopped by police barricades a few hundred meters from the top court. Lawyers representing Gandhi filed a plea in the court after it permitted a delegation of 10-15 people to enter the petition-filing area outside its high-security zone, The Times of India reported.

Gandhi was joined by his sister Priyanka Gandhi, opposition lawmakers, and student leaders, including Neha Bora. Some demonstrators pushed through barricades but were dealt with by riot-police and water cannons. The entries and exits at six Delhi Metro stations were closed for ten hours, while traffic restrictions affected more than 20 roads.

The opposition went ahead with the march after India’s Chief Justice Surya Kant declined a request from Gandhi and Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge for a private meeting. He said related matters were already before the court and the opposition should pursue formal judicial proceedings.

❗️Rahul Gandhi & Opposition Leaders File Supreme Court Petition Against Electoral Commission Over Alleged Irregularities RT India correspondent @KediaRiddhima reports as 'senior Congress members plan to keep up their protest' until demands are met. https://t.co/gKZhXO5Trd

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) October 12, 2026

Separately, the court agreed to hear on Tuesday petitions over allegations that lawyers had been detained during the protests. Kant said demonstrations should not impede the court’s functioning.

Meanwhile, Delhi Police removed Jantar Mantar, long a protest venue in central Delhi, from the capital’s list of officially designated demonstration sites.

On Sunday, the Delhi police named Ramlila Ground, about 3 km away from Jantar Mantar; Burari Ground, about 21 km away; and CBD Ground, about 12 km away, as replacements. Police cited the recommendations of a Home Ministry panel for the change. CJP leaders, however, objected and demanded a date for a peaceful protest at Jantar Mantar itself, giving police 24 hours to respond.

About 300 people were detained during a demonstration in the financial capital of Mumbai on Sunday, and about 80 protesters in the western city of Pune.

The voter-list revision, launched last year, has resulted in more than 130 million names being cut from electoral rolls, including those of people recorded as deceased, relocated, or untraceable, according to Election Commission figures cited by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The Election Commission and BJP deny manipulating the rolls for political gain. The poll body says wrongly excluded voters can seek reinstatement.

The BJP, meanwhile, has accused Congress of undermining constitutional institutions in an attempt to regain political power.

European leaders who threaten nuclear-armed Russia while assuming there will be no consequences are displaying “suicidal” incompetence and ignore basic realities, Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs has said.

In an interview with Afshin Rattansi on ‘Going Underground’ published on Monday, Sachs described the dismissal of Russian warnings that a direct conflict with NATO could escalate into nuclear war as “unbelievably reckless.”

Smaller European NATO nations that engage in hostile rhetoric act “a little bit like Israel... even radically more so,” believing the US will protect them in an actual conflict, he said.

“This is actually not how the world works and they are so reckless and stupid to talk in these terms,” Sachs stressed.

The West’s broader confrontation with Russia, which Sachs maintains was provoked by NATO’s 2008 declaration that Ukraine would eventually become a member, reflects “not only war profiteering” but also “a tremendous amount of incompetence and cowardice and unwillingness of these politicians to admit basic truths.”

Sachs also criticized US President Donald Trump for failing to follow through on an agreement he reached last year with Russian President Vladimir Putin to wind down the Ukraine conflict.

He lamented the UN’s inability to fulfill its role as guardian of world peace, arguing that Washington routinely disregards international rules.

“Essentially, the United States says: ‘We don’t obey any rules,’” he said.

Watch the entire interview.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s campaign has accused US tech giant Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, of interfering in the country’s presidential election in favor of his right-wing rival, Flavio Bolsonaro.

In a statement on Saturday, Lula’s Workers’ Party (PT) accused Meta of repeatedly restricting its campaign activities while failing to provide convincing explanations. “The complete lack of transparency in the company’s systems makes these explanations scarce and opaque,” the statement read.

The campaign said the latest incident occurred between October 9 and 10, when Meta allegedly prevented Lula’s official Instagram account from boosting posts. It also claimed that the view count on one of Lula’s Instagram posts stopped increasing on October 8, affecting its reach, with similar problems registered on other accounts supporting the incumbent.

Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court subsequently ordered Meta to provide detailed technical explanations within 48 hours as well as to preserve relevant advertising data, moderation records, and audience metrics.

US President Donald Trump has described Jair Bolsonaro’s prosecution as a “witch hunt,” with Washington imposing steep tariffs on Brazilian goods. While the US leader has stopped short of endorsing Bolsonaro Jr., Lula has described him as a “Trump candidate.”

Just days before the first round of the vote, Meta blocked the advertising account on Facebook used by Lula’s campaign, preventing it from running new ads. While the account was restored within hours, Meta offered no specific explanation for the suspension.

Earlier this month, Brazilian authorities requested an investigation into alleged US funding for activities intended to interfere with the elections and undermine the Supreme Federal Court. The move followed a Guardian report claiming that the Trump administration had earmarked $1 million for a project called ‘Countering Lawfare and Censorship in Brazil’. However, Brazil’s Federal Police later closed its preliminary review, citing insufficient evidence to open a criminal investigation.

Last month, Lula’s campaign accused Trump of seeking to “colonize” Brazil in a bid to gain access to its natural resources.

Pope Leo has condemned capital punishment as an attack on human dignity amid growing criticism of the US military’s plans to livestream the execution of the convicted Fort Hood shooter.

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced last week that Nidal Malik Hasan would face a military firing squad on December 3. President Donald Trump has confirmed that he personally authorized the broadcast.

Writing on X on Saturday on the international World Day Against the Death Penalty, Leo criticized capital punishment as a concept, but did not name Hasan or directly address the livestream.

“The death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,” the pontiff wrote, adding that “the common good can be safeguarded and the requirements of justice can be met without recourse to capital punishment.” Leo argued that effective detention protects citizens without denying offenders the possibility of redemption.

Senior Catholic officials also explicitly condemned the planned broadcast on Friday. Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin called it “unacceptable to turn death into a spectacle,” adding that “however guilty the person may be, there are other ways.”

Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, also described the decision as “a barbaric promotion of a culture of death” and urged Washington to reconsider.

Hasan, a former US Army psychiatrist, killed 13 people and wounded 32 at Fort Hood in November 2009. A military court sentenced him to death in 2013.

Hegseth has defended public viewing of the execution, arguing that “people need to understand there’s serious consequences for these types of things.”

If carried out, Hasan’s execution would be the US military’s first since 1961 and its first by firing squad since 1945. Broadcasting it live to the public would be unprecedented.

The controversy also follows a botched lethal-injection attempt in Tennessee, where death-row inmate Christa Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital and was hospitalized last month. She had been sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of classmate Colleen Slemmer.

The Russian Defense Ministry has revealed a new service providing drone developers with combat footage from FPV, multirotor, and fixed-wing drones to train military AI systems. The ministry said the platform will help the armed forces adapt to evolving AI-related challenges.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in September that Russia will continue to actively integrate digital technologies and AI-based solutions into its weapons development programs. However, he warned of the risks of using AI in the military, noting that cases in which the technology makes decisions autonomously have been recorded.

The new service is protected by certified information-security systems, including modern encryption and authentication tools, the Defense Ministry said on Monday. The platform also uses a standardized classification system for machine-learning data, allowing developers to organize and process information in a common format.

Developers upload the results of their work to the platform, where the data is checked for completeness and to ensure it follows the standardized format. The Defense Ministry uses the data to build and train its own AI models.

More than 40 organizations involved in AI model training have joined the project, Deputy Defense Minister Dmitry Shcherbinin said. Some are already integrating their trained models into combat drone systems, he added.

The Defense Ministry has also been integrating AI into drones, air defense systems, and military command and control. Russia established a separate branch of the military dedicated to unmanned systems in November 2025. Deputy Chief Sergey Ishtuganov said the branch’s training units were working closely with drone manufacturers.

Earlier this year, Belousov said Russian drones use AI for image recognition, target acquisition, and navigation. He said neural networks need continuous training, prompting the creation of data centers across the country. He also identified air defense as another area for AI development, with a project to upgrade these systems due to be completed by the end of the year in cooperation with commercial companies.

Last year, Belousov announced trials of SVOD, a system that uses AI to analyze intelligence and recommend courses of action to commanders as part of a broader digital transformation of the military. In July, Konstantin Nechaev, the commander of Russia’s Center Group of Forces, said the system enabled automated fire strikes and had been in use for nearly a year.

Vladimir Zelensky should no longer be treated as a “good ally” after Kiev’s continued strikes on Russian oil refineries have threatened US efforts to lower diesel prices, Trump adviser Alex Bruesewitz has said. He accused the Ukrainian leader of undermining US President Donald Trump and hurting American consumers.  

In a post on X on Sunday, Bruesewitz blasted Zelensky in response to a comment by conservative activist Laura Loomer, who had defended the Ukrainian leader following an interview she did with him this summer. Loomer said Zelensky had praised Trump and “is eager to sign a deal to end the war” with Russia, provided it did not amount to Ukraine’s unconditional surrender.  

Taking a swipe at Loomer, Bruesewitz suggested that if she was “still in communication with” Zelensky, she “should tell him to stop undermining Trump and hurting the American people with his actions.”  

In a separate post, Bruesewitz accused Zelensky of disregarding US interests by pressing ahead with the strikes. “Zelensky is not being a friend to the American people,” he wrote.  

The criticism comes after Trump reached a diesel deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, following repeated US requests for Kiev to halt attacks on Russian oil infrastructure. The agreement is aimed at easing global fuel shortages that have sent American energy prices soaring.  

Zelensky called Trump’s move a “weak decision,” arguing that it would provide Russia with additional revenue.  

Trump hit back, accusing Zelensky of ignoring US warnings against attacking refineries and repeatedly rejecting opportunities to end the conflict with Russia. He also called for the Ukrainian leader to be replaced.  

“Zelensky could have settled this war many times. Many, many times. And he chooses not to,” Trump told reporters on Saturday, adding: “I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal.”

On Sunday, Trump unexpectedly announced an immediate ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine covering attacks on energy infrastructure, claiming both sides had agreed to halt the strikes.  

“Effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine. Both parties have agreed. Do not break it!” he wrote on Truth Social.  

The announcement appeared to catch Kiev off guard, with Zelensky saying it “was news for me.” Moscow has not confirmed the agreement. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that contacts were continuing but declined to provide details.

At the 81st session of the UN General Assembly in September, appeals for Africa to gain two permanent seats on the UN Security Council (UNSC) grew louder, with leaders from Asia, Latin America, and Africa advocating for systemic equality.

Demands for fair representation have become Africa’s most persistent diplomatic priority at the United Nations since the African Union adopted the Ezulwini Consensus in 2005. At the September sitting, Kenyan President William Ruto reminded delegates that the equality proclaimed in the General Assembly ends at the Security Council doors.

Ruto argued that Africa’s 54 countries comprise almost a quarter of the UN’s membership, and its people represent about one-fifth of humanity. Nevertheless, the continent still has no permanent Security Council seat.

Ghana President John Dramani Mahama said Africa’s exclusion from permanent membership of the Security Council was “fundamentally unacceptable in the 21st century,” calling for permanent representation with full rights and veto powers.

“Security Council reform is not a favor to Africa; it is an imperative for the legitimacy, credibility, and survival of the United Nations,” Mahama said.

Outgoing UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres observed that the Security Council, designed in the aftermath of World War II, must be reformed to reflect today’s world with the legitimacy and effectiveness that today’s challenges demand.

“When the UN was founded, most of Africa was still under colonial rule. Today, Africa still has no permanent representation on the Council. A 21st-century Security Council without permanent African seats is unjust and indefensible. This must change,” Guterres said.

“Not just fill seats but bring meaningful change”

But even as calls for Africa to get a permanent UNSC seat grew bolder, experts on the continent say something needs to be put right first. Faisal Roble, a Horn of Africa political analyst based in Arusha, Tanzania, says Africa’s grievance is legitimate, but diplomacy alone cannot fix it.

Roble says Africa must be well-represented in rooms where decisions about its future are made because the current arrangement befits neither the continent nor the United Nations’ legitimacy.

“Africa is asking to help govern global security while at the same time it is home to several places providing a setting for some of the world’s gravest security failures. The continent must show it has capability by first putting its house in order,” Roble told RT.

Roble observes that support for Africa’s demand for equal power on the Security Council exists beyond the continent. Still, leaders must show the continent “will not just fill seats but bring meaningful change to the critical UN institution.”

Roble argues that for Africa to succeed, it must move “beyond mere diplomatic rhetoric” and strategize on how to overcome structural obstacles to pushing through an amendment to the UN Charter that will grant the continent two permanent seats on the UNSC.

“Africa can get the required two-thirds support from member states to push through the amendment, but it must strategize on how such an amendment can get ratification by all five permanent members because here is where the real obstacle is,” he notes.

“Homegrown solutions that can fix the continent’s problems”

Dr. Jalale Getachew Birru, a security and peace analyst at Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED), says it will be impossible for Africa to secure a permanent seat with veto powers at the UNSC if the continent cannot prove that it can end its own wars.

“Africa has continuously relied on the big brothers in solving every economic, social and political problem at home. The continent has unending conflicts, and this portrays it as poorly placed to help manage the world’s security concerns,” Dr. Birru told RT.

According to the expert, permanent UNSC membership carries responsibility for international peace and security. If Africa cannot handle its own conflicts, it will find it harder to persuade skeptical capitals like Washington and London that the continent deserves equal powers on the council.

Dr. Birru argues that Africa’s leverage in its quest for a permanent UNSC seat is to “show that African institutions and solutions work.”

“Africa must take more responsibility for its own security”

Mesenbet Assefa, Senior Fellow at the HORN Institute, explains that having a functional AU Peace and Security Council will strengthen Africa’s quest to gain power at the UNSC.

He says the AU must stop responding selectively to crises on the continent, especially those perpetuated by sitting heads of state, and that African governments need to show they can carry out the responsibilities they are asking to share.

“It will be ironic for Africa to get a permanent seat and veto powers at the UNSC when the AU peace and security council is dysfunctional. Africa must take more responsibility for its own security by funding mechanisms that curb the flow of arms and illicit minerals that sustain the unending crises on the continent,” said Assefa.

He added, “Africa must take a prominent and leading role in ending the current conflicts in Sudan, DR Congo, Ethiopia, South Sudan, and the Sahel.”

At the same time, Assefa notes that Africa must arrive at the negotiating table with a settled proposal on which of its members will serve as permanent members of the UNSC.

“With support from Russia, China and France, Africa might succeed in pushing for two permanent seats on the UNSC, but there will be trouble on the allocation of the seats, and this will complicate the whole process. The continent’s quest will be deflected the moment they start arguing over who sits where,” Assefa told RT.

Each member of the council has one vote. The five permanent members – China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States – have veto powers which they can use to overrule any decision made.

UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham claims that Russia “clearly” interfered in the 2016 Brexit referendum which led to Britain leaving the EU, without providing evidence to back up the rehashed allegations.

Speaking on ‘The Rest is Politics’ podcast on Sunday, the prime minister said he sought answers about Russia’s alleged involvement after taking office this summer.

“I asked the question coming to Downing Street: Well, was there interference in the 2016 referendum from Russia? I’ve had the clear answer that yes, there was.”

Burnham did not identify who provided the assessment, what evidence supports it, or whether any alleged interference affected the result. Defending the timing of his unsubstantiated claim – ten years after Brexit – Burnham argued that voters need to understand that some political movements were “instigated via our enemies, namely Russia.”

Britain voted to leave the EU in the June 23, 2016 referendum, with 51.89% backing Leave against 48.11% for Remain, with 72.2% turnout. The vote was driven largely by demands to reclaim sovereignty, control immigration, cut EU regulations and budget contributions, and pursue independent trade deals, amid widespread dissatisfaction with the political establishment.

Russia has dismissed the allegations as baseless speculation and part of a pattern of Western accusations. Moscow has not yet commented on Burnham’s claims.

Russian interference?

Western governments have repeatedly pointed the finger at Russia over elections and political developments, including recent contests in Germany, France, Moldova, and Georgia. On the podcast, Burnham recalled a conversation with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, whose CDU was defeated by the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) in three major state elections in recent weeks. According to Burnham, Merz also raised the issue of Russian involvement, citing the AfD’s alleged ties to Moscow.

Russia, meanwhile, has accused the West of meddling abroad. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said earlier this year that Western governments interfere through color revolutions, military force, and “electoral neocolonialism” – using politically biased election monitoring, media campaigns, and external pressure to influence other countries’ political processes and challenge unfavorable results.

Russia has accused Britain of interference in the Ukraine conflict, citing extensive weapons deliveries, military training, and intelligence support for Kiev, as well as former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s alleged role in derailing the 2022 peace talks. Moscow argues that London’s actions make it a de facto party to the conflict and obstruct peace efforts. Lavrov said in August that British involvement in missile strikes on Russia gave the country grounds to regard the UK as a party to the conflict, “with all ensuing consequences.”

Burnham’s decision to revisit alleged ‘Russian interference’ comes as his government considers closer ties with Brussels. At the Labour Party’s annual conference last month, he argued that Brexit has done “more harm than good,” and suggested that rejoining the EU could feature in the party’s next election manifesto, opening the door to reversing the vote.

Economic assessments have generally found that Brexit has hurt Britain’s economy, which has experienced weak growth since leaving the EU. Recent estimates suggest that GDP is 6% to 8% lower than it would have been had the country remained.

A YouGov poll last month suggests that 59% of Britons support rejoining the EU, with 32% opposed. However, support for closer ties without rejoining the EU, single market, or customs union is higher, at 73%.

Critics of reversing Brexit, including Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, argue that rejoining the EU would force Britain to surrender control over immigration, regulation, and trade policy while taking on new financial obligations.

“The prime minister is a liar. Yes, a liar... There was no Russian interference. And the Russia hoax has run all the way through this,” he said, citing previous denials under Boris Johnson and Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty’s assertion that any attempted meddling failed.

India is not inclined to relax security requirements or offer special treatment to Elon Musk’s Starlink, despite the trillionaire’s repeated jabs over his satellite internet service’s delayed launch in India, according to Indian media reports.

With US-India relations “nose-diving” amid an unclosed trade deal, and Washington adding to the visa and other curbs on Indian IT companies and workers, New Delhi has no reason to humor Musk, the Hindu BusinessLine said on Monday.

Musk last week accused Indian businessman Mukesh Ambani of stalling Starlink’s launch in India. He doubled down on those allegations over the weekend, saying in a series of X posts that Ambani’s Reliance Jio was operating as a “de facto monopoly.” The world’s richest man even sarcastically addressed the Reliance Industries chairman, seen as close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling BJP party, as “Prime Minister Ambani.”

He also argued that Starlink would give consumers more choice and promised affordable prices, without announcing a subscription rate. “Obviously, if Starlink is too expensive in India, no one will buy it,” Musk said.

India’s Communications Ministry rejected allegations of favoritism last week, describing its satellite licensing framework as “fair and non-discriminatory.” Starlink, Ambani’s Jio Satellite Communications, and Bharti Group-backed Eutelsat OneWeb are all undergoing security assessments before they can receive spectrum and begin commercial operations.

Indian Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia also rejected Musk’s monopoly allegations, saying India does not allow monopolies in any sector. The Home Ministry is examining the operators’ compliance with security requirements and will issue final clearances, he said.

Jio and OneWeb completed their technical and security compliance demonstrations before Starlink but are still awaiting final approvals. Jio completed its demonstration in March last year, OneWeb in the second half of the year, and Starlink in early 2026.

The dispute comes ahead of Jio Platforms’ planned initial public offering, which is targeting a valuation of around $106 billion, Reuters reported.

The death toll from a drone strike blamed on Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) near a camp for displaced people in Blue Nile state has risen to 41, according to a local rights group. 

On Friday, the Emergency Lawyers group reported the revised death toll, accusing the RSF of targeting civilians. Local authorities have put the number of fatalities at 32, with another 43 people injured, according to Al Jazeera Arabic. The attack took place also on Friday in the Abu Shandi area, near the Ethiopian border.

The RSF-allied Sudan Founding Alliance (TASIS) has denied responsibility for the attack, instead accusing Egypt of carrying it out. In a statement reported by the Sudan Times on Saturday, coalition spokesman Ahmed Tugud Lisan claimed that an Egyptian drone had been launched from a police facility in Wad al-Mahi with the involvement of Egyptian specialists. The allegations against Egypt have not been independently verified.

Separately, at least 72 gold miners were killed in an airstrike near Sudan’s border with Egypt on Saturday, according to Emergency Lawyers. The organization accused the Egyptian Air Force of carrying out the attack, but the allegation has not been independently verified. Egypt has not officially commented on the incident. The Sudan Tribune reported that survivors put the death toll at more than 200, although the figure remains unconfirmed.

The attacks come amid an ongoing civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF, which erupted in April 2023.  According to UN estimates, 33.7 million people in Sudan need humanitarian assistance, while more than 8.5 million remain internally displaced. 

Several RSF commanders have defected to the Sudanese Army since 2024. Most recently, Lieutenant Colonel Mohamed Azraq al-Fanjari reportedly switched sides with around 300 fighters and 30 military vehicles on Thursday.

Eritrea has asked the UN Security Council to take deterrent measures against Ethiopia, accusing its neighbor of using allegations of invasion by Eritrean forces to justify a war aimed at securing sovereign access to the Red Sea.

The appeal follows Ethiopia’s notification to the Security Council last week that Eritrean forces, including mechanized units, had advanced up to 60 km inside the northern Tigray region. Foreign Minister Gedion Timothewos sought international support for Ethiopia’s right to self-defense, demanded the immediate withdrawal of the troops, and called for the UN to unequivocally condemn the alleged incursion.

Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel rejected the accusations on Friday, calling them “audacity and duplicity in their most extreme forms.” 

In a letter published on Saturday, Eritrean Foreign Minister Osman Saleh rejected Addis Ababa’s claim that it was acting in self-defense as “deceitful attempts to rationalize its brazen acts of war against a sovereign UN member State.” He warned that a confrontation would devastate both countries and destabilize the region.

The confrontation comes amid renewed fighting in northern Ethiopia after the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) formed an alliance with six other armed groups last month to overthrow the federal government. TPLF forces seized airports in Mekelle, Tigray’s regional capital, and the cities of Axum and Shire. Federal troops and allied fighters retook Mekelle on October 4 following the TPLF’s withdrawal.

At least 52 civilians were killed around Alamata in southern Tigray in late September, the BBC reported, citing hospital sources. More than 720 wounded people had been admitted to hospitals in Korem, Alamata, and Shire by September 25, according to Doctors Without Borders.

The violence has sparked fears of a return to full-blown war in the East African country, which has struggled to maintain stability since a peace deal in November 2022 ended a brutal two-year conflict in Tigray. Eritrean troops fought alongside Ethiopia’s federal army during the 2020–2022 Tigray war, but relations have since soured over Addis Ababa’s maritime ambitions. On October 1, Asmara severed diplomatic ties after Ethiopia expelled ten Eritrean diplomats and closed its embassy in Eritrea.

Ethiopia became landlocked when Eritrea gained independence in 1993. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed calls sea access an existential issue and says it should be secured through peaceful dialogue, while Asmara sees his government’s ambitions as a threat to its sovereignty.

A South Korean container ship has completed a trial round trip to Europe via Russia’s Northern Sea Route, demonstrating the potential of the Arctic passage as a commercial shipping corridor.

Seoul considers maritime cooperation with Russia important to its trade strategy, despite joining some Western sanctions against Moscow over the Ukraine conflict. Chinese shipping companies have also been exploring the strategic Arctic route.

The PanStar Acro returned to Busan on Sunday, 50 days after departing for Europe along Russia’s northern coast. The ship reached Felixstowe, Britain, on September 12 and Rotterdam, Netherlands, the following day. It also called at Gdansk, Poland, before returning to South Korea.

President Lee Jae-myung congratulated the crew on their safe return and thanked them for their work. The voyage, which cut travel time by approximately ten days in each direction compared with the traditional route through the Suez Canal, provided valuable navigation experience and data as South Korea prepares for an “Arctic route era,” Lee wrote on X.

Earlier this month, Russian nuclear corporation Rosatom, which operates the Northern Sea Route through its subsidiary and maintains a fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers, welcomed the PanStar Acro’s eastbound passage. The ship crossed the Arctic section in just 5.85 days, compared with 6.4 days on its westbound journey.

Timely Russian navigational guidance and information about weather and ice conditions “enabled route optimization and adherence to the planned schedule,” Rosatom said.

Russia used the Northern Sea Route for decades to supply its own hard-to-reach settlements in the north. With international traffic expected to rise due to climate change, Moscow is rapidly developing infrastructure required to support it.

According to Yonhap, the operator of the 2,758-TEU vessel had hoped to complete the journey faster but nevertheless considered the trial successful. The delay was relatively minor, and the ship encountered no major incidents.

South Korea has joined some US-backed sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine conflict but has not directly sanctioned Rosatom. Seoul has also declined to supply weapons to Ukraine and recently experienced a diplomatic dispute with Kiev after Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky disclosed an arrangement concerning the transfer to South Korea of two North Korean prisoners of war captured in Russia.

Meanwhile, Chinese carrier Sea Legend Shipping announced earlier this year the launch of regular seasonal deliveries from Ningbo-Zhoushan to European ports, including Felixstowe, Rotterdam, Gdansk, and Hamburg. The company said its “Arctic Express” service is focusing on time-sensitive cargo.

Ukraine needs a new leader with the political will to end the conflict with Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. His comments came after US President Donald Trump stepped up pressure on Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, whose presidential term expired more than two years ago, to hold new elections.

Speaking to RIA Novosti on Monday, Peskov said Trump believes it is high time for Ukraine to elect a new leader because “Ukraine’s president must make very responsible and very difficult decisions to stop this war.”

“Either Zelensky takes on this responsibility and shows such political will, or he does not,” Peskov continued, adding that he has so far failed to do so.

The comments come after Trump suggested on Saturday that it is time for Ukraine to get “a new president,” accusing Zelensky of repeatedly rejecting opportunities for peace. He added that he believes Russia wants an agreement and Zelensky does not.

On Sunday, Trump announced that Russia and Ukraine had reached an energy ceasefire. Zelensky replied that the announcement was “news for me,” but expressed readiness to stop attacking Russian refineries if the country stops its strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Russia has yet to comment.

Zelensky has also argued that elections in Ukraine can only be organized if Russia agrees to a 60-day ceasefire.

Moscow has opposed the idea of a temporary ceasefire, arguing that it would only serve to allow Kiev time to rebuild its battered forces and receive more weapons from the West.

The US pressure intensified after Trump’s phone call on Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, after which the sides reached a major deal on diesel exports to the US to alleviate the global fuel shortage.

The latest turn in Russia-US relations has shocked Kiev, outraged the EU, provoked discontent among a considerable number of politicians in the US, and left many observers around the world perplexed.

The Trump administration’s sudden decision to suspend sanctions on Russian diesel supplies appears to contradict its recent actions, including the adoption of tough new sanctions legislation intended to increase pressure on Moscow, and while some attribute the reversal to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictability, others see the beginnings of a new policy, or evidence of a fundamental change in the administration’s approach to Ukraine.

To understand what’s happening, however, we must look beyond the peculiarities of the US president’s public behavior. Trump’s extravagance, which frequently borders on the absurd, often conceals a relatively clear set of objectives, but whether those objectives are sensible is another question.

The most likely explanation for his latest reversal lies in domestic American politics, as the congressional midterm elections are less than a month away, and the Republican Party faces difficult prospects. Trump maintains an air of indifference, but losing control of both houses of Congress would condemn him to two years of political confrontation and considerable frustration.

He probably understands that there’s little prospect of fundamentally improving the economic situation, particularly consumer prices, before voters go to the polls, so for now, the emphasis is on psychological impact.

Russia isn’t the first country Washington has approached about increasing fuel supplies to international markets, and the more agreements Trump can announce, the more opportunities he has to proclaim that the White House is working tirelessly to protect ordinary Americans from rising prices.

We shall soon discover whether this approach works, but there’s nothing particularly irrational about it, and Trump is pursuing a deliberate political objective. The fact that his latest decision contradicts previous statements doesn’t trouble him because he’s long operated on the assumption that words have value at the moment they’re spoken, but impose few obligations thereafter.

What does this mean for Russia, beyond the welcome prospect of additional budget revenues?

Colleagues from the Vatfor project have identified an important development, in that for the first time since the beginning of the conflict, the US president has made a significant decision regarding Russia without making Ukraine the determining consideration.

Until now, the Ukrainian question has been inseparable from virtually every aspect of Washington’s policy towards Moscow, but this time, not only has it been set aside, the decision directly contradicts Kiev’s interests at a particularly difficult moment.

Hence the indignation of the Ukrainian leadership, as from its perspective, the Americans have behaved unfairly.

There are probably several reasons for this change, but the principal one appears to be Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s unwillingness to accommodate Washington’s demands that Ukraine stop attacking Russian energy infrastructure.

Trump, meanwhile, has become fixated on Russian oil supplies as a means of addressing rising fuel prices, and their importance shouldn’t be exaggerated, even if additional Russian supplies alone are unlikely to transform the global market. Nevertheless, Trump has evidently decided that Zelensky bears responsibility for aggravating the situation.

Once the US president reaches this conclusion, persuading him otherwise becomes extremely difficult. Therefore, for the moment, Kiev’s objections have simply been disregarded.

The more consequential question concerns American intelligence assistance, because to stop, or at least substantially reduce, Ukrainian attacks on Russian targets, Washington would have to restrict the intelligence it provides to Kiev, and much of this information amounts, in practical terms, to targeting assistance.

Trump already demonstrated willingness to use this instrument when around a year and a half ago, he temporarily suspended intelligence cooperation for several days to put pressure on the Ukrainian leadership.

A longer interruption would be a different matter and it would represent a genuine change in Washington’s approach to the conflict, effectively distancing the US from its Ukrainian partner, but whether Trump is prepared to take this step is uncertain.

There is, after all, an extensive informal coalition interested in maintaining the present course, and it includes the US defense industry, increasingly influential technology companies, European governments, and their political allies in Washington.

If Washington proves unwilling to exert sustained pressure on Kiev, the latest initiative could gradually lose momentum, and this is especially likely after the congressional elections, when the immediate political value of announcing presidential achievements will diminish.

The decisive question, therefore, is whether the US leadership can compel its partners to move in the direction it considers necessary, and if it can, an opportunity for further negotiations on a settlement could emerge.

There’s also a second conclusion which is particularly important for Russia, because Washington’s latest actions offer a glimpse of how Russia-US relations could develop after the military phase of the conflict ends.

The enormous collection of sanctions imposed on Russia is unlikely to disappear, and removing them would be exceptionally difficult, both procedurally and politically, given too many restrictions have become embedded in law and institutional practice.

Instead, the sanctions will probably remain formally in place, while decisions about their enforcement are taken according to circumstances; thus, when a particular restriction conflicts with US interests, Washington could suspend its application, but when the circumstances change, it can be restored.

The Americans generally display a greater degree of pragmatism as they are perfectly capable of proclaiming principles with great conviction, abandoning them when circumstances demand it, and returning to the same principles when doing so becomes convenient. European governments, by contrast, have increasingly bound themselves to political commitments from which retreat is both institutionally complicated and publicly embarrassing.

For Moscow, understanding this difference will be essential when constructing its future relationship with Washington now that the confrontation over Ukraine has reached a stage at which its consequences extend far beyond the immediate military and territorial questions.

Whatever the eventual outcome, it will help determine the structure of future political relations between Russia and the various components of the Western world, and while that structure is already beginning to emerge, its geometry remains unsettled, and the lines are still moving.

Two Indian sailors are missing after a tanker was attacked off Oman on Sunday. A second tanker was also struck on the same day in the Strait of Hormuz, but the Indian crew on board were unharmed.

New Delhi condemned the strikes on the two commercial vessels.

The Nicaragua-flagged MT Petro Dolphin was reportedly struck by a drone at Sohar Anchorage on October 11. Nine of the 11 Indian crew members were rescued and are safe, while Oman’s Coast Guard is searching for the other two, Indian Shipping Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said.

Another tanker, the Marshall Islands-flagged MT Valthera, was hit by an unidentified projectile while passing through the Strait of Hormuz the same day, causing a fire on board. All Indian seafarers aboard the vessel were reported safe.

India’s embassy in Muscat is coordinating with the Omani authorities and the respective ship management companies to locate the missing sailors and assist the crews, the Indian Foreign Ministry said. “The recurring attacks on commercial shipping in the region are deeply concerning,” the ministry said, warning that they risk further aggravating tensions.

Statement on the attacks on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz region ⬇️ 🔗 https://t.co/SqBo213LvT https://t.co/t4zJMeZSdZ

— Randhir Jaiswal (@MEAIndia) October 11, 2026

New Delhi called for immediate de-escalation through dialogue and diplomacy, stressing that attacks on commercial vessels, seafarers, and civilian infrastructure must stop.

Indian crews have been caught in several recent attacks. On October 9, the Panama-flagged tanker MT Gem No. 2 was struck at Sharjah Anchorage in the United Arab Emirates, but all 22 Indian sailors aboard were reported safe.

Three days earlier, 11 Indian seafarers were among 12 crew members injured when the Panama-flagged tanker MT On Peace was hit by an unidentified projectile off Oman.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has challenged US President Donald Trump’s approach to AI, warning that the government cannot leave the world’s “most dangerous technology” entirely in the hands of the companies that develop it.

Trump signed the White House Accord on Super Intelligence last month alongside representatives of Google, OpenAI, Meta, xAI, Anthropic, and Nvidia, establishing voluntary safety commitments and internal oversight mechanisms.

Speaking to CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, Gates questioned whether Trump’s agreement with America’s biggest tech companies goes far enough to prevent potentially catastrophic abuses.

“The idea that for the most dangerous technology humans ever invented, that that’s the final word, that just the companies themselves are the only check that society has,” Gates said, warning that “it’s clear we’re not doing enough.”

Gates identified cyberattacks as the most immediate danger and warned that criminals could exploit AI models stripped of safeguards against hacking and bioterrorism. “When you have bad people, no safeguards, and then the latest models, that’s where over the next year... we are going to have a lot of negative surprises,” he said.

His warnings follow a series of incidents involving AI agents acting beyond their intended instructions. Last week, Anthropic disclosed that its Claude models had taken unauthorized actions on government websites, including submitting a fabricated homicide tip to a Philadelphia police website during testing in July. Other reported incidents have involved AI agents accessing restricted information, exploiting vulnerabilities, and attempting to breach government websites.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has argued that the world must accept some “bad things,” including hacks and scams, in exchange for the benefits of AI and widespread access to the technology. In an interview published last week, he insisted that the “good stuff” would outweigh the harm by “orders of magnitude.”

Confronted with Altman’s remarks, Gates acknowledged that eliminating every risk is impossible, comparing AI to the automobile industry, where accidents persist despite decades of safety improvements.

“Those were a big deal, but nothing compared to this,” Gates said, referring to the personal computer and the internet. “This changes the world more than all previous technologies.”

US President Donald Trump is furious with Vladimir Zelensky over Kiev’s continued attacks on Russian oil refineries, with Washington reportedly threatening to cut off weapons supplies and intelligence sharing unless Ukraine stops the strikes, according to Axios and the Financial Times.

The confrontation comes after Trump struck a diesel deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to ease a global fuel shortage that has sent American energy prices soaring.

Kiev has continued to target Russian refining facilities despite repeated warnings, with Trump accusing Zelensky of deliberately hurting American consumers and farmers while refusing opportunities to end the conflict.

“Trump is really mad. He feels Zelensky is taking the US for granted,” a White House official told Axios on Sunday. The source argued that Kiev’s attacks on Russian refineries are doing more damage to its relationship with Washington than to Russia.

US officials contacted Kiev and several European capitals over the weekend, threatening to suspend intelligence sharing and the NATO-backed Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) mechanism, through which European countries purchase American weapons for Ukraine, according to the Financial Times, which cited officials familiar with the discussions.

A US official, however, denied making direct threats, saying the negotiators instead reminded Kiev of Washington’s extensive military and intelligence support and urged it to stop taking actions that hurt American consumers.

The confrontation has threatened to derail broader negotiations aimed at ending the Ukraine conflict. Witkoff and Kushner have reportedly put their planned trip to Moscow on hold until Kiev and its leading European backers clarify whether they are prepared to support a unified peace proposal.

Zelensky called the move a “weak decision,” arguing that the agreement will provide Russia with additional revenue. Trump hit back, accusing the Ukrainian leader of creating problems for the world and suggesting that it is time for Ukraine to elect a new leader capable of reaching a deal.

The announcement caught Kiev by surprise, with Zelensky saying it “was news for me.” Moscow has also yet to confirm the agreement.

A White House official described the proposed agreement as a “refinery for refinery” arrangement, under which both sides would stop attacking oil refineries, but not necessarily other energy infrastructure, according to Axios. Kiev has said the deal would disproportionately benefit Russia, since Ukraine has only one largely nonfunctional refinery and fully relies on imported fuel.

Hundreds of protesters have gathered in the Polish city of Jaroslaw, demanding tighter immigration controls and denouncing Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera following the fatal stabbing of a local priest by a Ukrainian national.

Last month, a 31-year-old Ukrainian citizen stabbed five people at the city’s Benedictine abbey, killing Father Stanislaw Zbojnowicz and wounding four others. Investigators said the suspect entered Poland from Germany and was apparently heading toward Ukraine. He admitted to the charges on October 7 but declined to explain his actions, prosecutors said.

The demonstration took place in the city’s market square on Saturday, with participants waving Polish flags, setting off flares, and chanting slogans including “Poland for Poles” and “Bandera, get out!”

“We want a safe Poland, and this is not racism. This is our concern for our loved ones, our families, and ourselves,” Marcin Kowalski, a local activist with the nationalist Ruch Narodowy (National Movement), told the crowd, insisting that demands for an immigration crackdown are “about safety.”

Manifestacja antyimigracyjna w Jarosławiu https://t.co/zPXaln8vBc

— Ruch Narodowy Powiat jarosławski (@awski35196) October 11, 2026

A banner featuring a crossed-out Ukrainian trident declared: “No more hospitality, you ungrateful bastards!” Some demonstrators wore clothing condemning the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).

Bandera led a radical faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), which collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II. The faction and its armed wing, the UPA, were responsible for massacring tens of thousands of ethnic Polish civilians in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, territories that belonged to prewar Poland and are now largely in western Ukraine.

The massacres remain a major source of tension between Warsaw and Kiev. Poland recognizes the killings as genocide and estimates that Ukrainian nationalists murdered around 100,000 Poles, while Ukraine continues to honor OUN and UPA figures as national heroes.

Saturday’s rally followed a March of Silence held in memory of the slain priest. Organizers also collected signatures demanding an end to Jaroslaw’s partnership with the Ukrainian city of Skole.

The killing has also fueled wider calls for tougher border controls, while a July survey found that 52% of Poles oppose accepting Ukrainian refugees.

Two German opposition parties have called for restoring economic ties with Russia following US President Donald Trump’s example in striking a diesel deal with Moscow, challenging Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s sanctions policy as soaring fuel prices put further pressure on Europe’s largest economy.

The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the left-wing Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), which together command a majority in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt’s parliament, are preparing a joint resolution demanding an end to the sanctions on Russia and financial support for Kiev amid growing frustration over Berlin’s foreign policy and its economic consequences.

“Germany also needs a diesel deal with Russia,” Claudia Wittig, the deputy leader of the BSW parliamentary group, said, according to German media.

Wittig described fuel prices at German filling stations as “a scandal,” arguing that the sanctions have “failed across the board” and are primarily hurting Germany itself. She insisted that Berlin should go further than a one-off fuel agreement and resume regular imports of Russian oil and gas to help rescue German industry.

AfD co-leader Alice Weidel also hailed Trump’s deal with Moscow, accusing Merz of undermining Germany’s economy with sanctions and expensive liquefied natural gas imports.

“That’s how it’s done!” she wrote on X on Saturday. “While Merz ruins Germany with sanctions and expensive LNG, Trump practices realpolitik. German interests instead of escalation!”

The initiative comes after Trump reached a surprise agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday to ease the global diesel shortage. Washington subsequently suspended sanctions on Russian diesel exports, allowing the country to release hundreds of thousands of tons of fuel to the international markets.

The joint resolution is scheduled for a vote in the Saxony-Anhalt parliament in Magdeburg on October 14. AfD and BSW hold a combined majority following September’s regional elections, although the state legislature has no authority to lift federal or EU sanctions on Russia. The initiative also marks a further breach of Germany’s longstanding political ‘firewall’ against the AfD, which mainstream parties have sought to exclude from power despite its growing support.

The chancellor, whose popularity has sunk so low that he faces calls to resign from within his own party, has faced mounting criticism over the impact of his policies. Wagenknecht previously accused him of turning German citizens into “cash cows for Ukraine.” Moscow has accused Merz of acting more like a “Ukrainian chancellor” than a German leader.

King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh has come under another deadly attack just one day after a Houthi strike killed 12 people and injured 309 at the facility. The latest attack on Sunday killed a Pakistani national and injured 11 others, according to Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA).

An unidentified projectile struck Terminal 4 of the airport, sparking a fire, Major General Turki Al-Maliki, the spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, told reporters on Sunday. 

“The Coalition also intercepted and destroyed a cruise missile in the vicinity of the airport,” he added.

The GACA said the injured were taken to the hospital for treatment, and the extent of the damage to the airport is still being assessed. The latest casualties bring the combined toll from the two attacks to 13 dead and 320 injured.

The airport has remained closed since Saturday’s deadly attack, which killed four Saudi citizens and eight foreign nationals, including two Bangladeshis and one each from the US, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Palestine, and Sudan. Some of the injured were reported to be in critical condition.

العربية تعرض لقطات من لحظات الاعتداء على مطار الرياض يوم أمس https://t.co/mQYJiki0m1

— العربية عاجل (@AlArabiya_Brk) October 11, 2026

Yemen’s Houthi movement, also known as Ansar Allah, claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attack on Riyadh airport, as well as strikes that it said it carried out on an airport in Dammam in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, and two facilities of Saudi oil giant Aramco.

The developments come amid a sharp escalation in fighting between the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition, which has backed Yemen’s internationally recognized government against the group since intervening in the country’s civil war in 2015.

Large-scale hostilities largely subsided following a UN-brokered truce in 2022, but fighting flared up again this summer after Saudi-backed Yemeni forces bombed an airport in the Houthi-controlled capital, Sanaa, reportedly to prevent a delegation returning from Iran from landing.

Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces have since launched a counteroffensive aimed at reversing the Houthi advances. Earlier this week, they reportedly recaptured the market and security headquarters in Al-Masrakh district of Taiz province, according to local media.

Saudi Arabia has intensified its bombing campaign in support of the government offensive. The Houthis claimed that Saudi warplanes carried out 124 airstrikes over a 24-hour period, targeting Sanaa and the group’s northern stronghold of Saada.

UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham has rushed to reassure Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky after US President Donald Trump publicly called for his replacement. The US leader accused Zelensky of refusing to reach a peace deal with Moscow and worsening the global fuel crisis through continued Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure.

Burnham called Zelensky on Saturday, the day Trump suggested that the Ukrainian leader should be replaced for refusing to reach a settlement with Moscow. The UK prime minister described the previous 24 hours as being “difficult for Ukraine” and “reiterated his complete solidarity,” according to Downing Street.

Burnham and Zelensky also discussed “the importance of maintaining pressure on Russia,” with London vowing to slap Moscow with additional sanctions.

Earlier on Saturday, Trump accused Zelensky of seeking to “make problems for the world” through the continued attacks on the Russian energy infrastructure, including refineries. “I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal,” he said.

On Friday, Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin reached an agreement aimed at reining in skyrocketing global fuel prices. Washington temporarily waived sanctions on Russian diesel, while Moscow agreed to release 300,000 metric tons of diesel immediately and another 500,000 in November. Zelensky called Trump’s decision “weak.”

Kiev’s European backers have repeatedly rushed to Zelensky’s defense following public criticism from Trump.

In February 2025, after Trump branded Zelensky a “dictator without elections” and slammed him for his unwillingness to reach a deal with Moscow, then-UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and several European leaders, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron, publicly defended the Ukrainian leader and criticized Trump’s choice of words.

Later that month, a White House meeting between Trump and Zelensky descended into a shouting match, with the US president accusing his guest of gambling with millions of lives and risking World War III. European leaders, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, Macron, and Starmer, quickly rallied behind Zelensky, reaffirming their support for Kiev.

In early October, the bloc rejected Ukraine’s plea to accelerate financial support needed to cover an unexpected $27 billion defense gap, prompting Zelensky to lash out at Kiev’s backers by accusing them of not doing enough for Ukraine.

Russia has said the position of Kiev’s European backers is one of the main obstacles to settling the conflict. The EU is still clinging to the idea of “strategically defeating Russia,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last month.

Commenting on the situation last week, Peskov said that neither Ukraine nor its European backers have moved any closer toward talks, with European nations still “obstructing” the peace process.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has ignored allegations of “very well-documented” NATO war crimes brought before it, former Libyan Information Minister Moussa Ibrahim has told RT.

In an interview on Saturday, he argued that the US-led military bloc has never been held accountable for what he described as “very well-documented” crimes committed during military interventions in several countries.

“In Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Libya, we have literally… millions of documents, videos, footage, statements, witnesses who testify to the crimes against humanity committed by NATO collectively and NATO countries individually,” he said.

The former minister said he had personally participated in a 2013 effort to bring allegations of NATO war crimes before the ICC over the bloc’s 2011 intervention in Libya, which left the country devastated and deeply divided.

The failure to pursue such cases demonstrated the “limitation” of the system, he said, urging the East, particularly China and Russia to “rethink the whole equation.”

The ICC needs to be “radically, not superficially” reformed or replaced with a new international judicial institution capable of upholding human rights without Western political interference, he stressed. A handful of powerful Western countries currently exploit the ICC for their own advantage while ensuring “that they are immune against any cases brought forward against them,” he said.

Meanwhile, the ICC’s investigation into allegations of war crimes committed by American forces during the US-led war in Afghanistan never resulted in criminal charges against US personnel.

Watch the RT segment below:

At least five people have been reported missing after powerful flash floods swept away homes and bridges in northern Nepal on Sunday, according to local disaster authorities. This comes just over a month after a catastrophic flood and landslide killed more than 1,400 people across the South Asian country.

The flooding may have been triggered by a landslide on Saturday that blocked a river tributary before accumulated water burst through, creating a flash flood, according to an official from Nepal’s Department of Hydrology and Meteorology cited by the Kathmandu Post.

Floodwaters swept away an estimated 35-40 houses in northern Gorkha District, the newspaper reported, citing local authorities. Several bridges were also reportedly destroyed, while roads and hydropower facilities were damaged.

Videos circulating on social media purported to show floodwaters sweeping away buildings in a mountain valley.

Other footage appeared to show the Soti Khola Bridge in Gorkha District being destroyed.

Two women and three men have been reported missing, according to preliminary data from Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA).

The latest flooding comes just over a month after a catastrophic disaster struck Nepal and parts of China’s Tibet on August 26. As of late September, at least 1,451 bodies had been recovered and 5,745 people remained missing, according to NDRRMA data.

It was supposed to be a safe space for all the Karens and institutionally-backed wine moms who spend their days policing public discourse like it’s neighborhood Block Watch fodder. Instead, this year’s EU #Disinfo2026 confab in Lithuania turned into a bust.

What happened was basically the equivalent of a friend’s husband getting called out ahead of the confab as the neighborhood perv, prompting everyone to ghost the meetup at the last minute.

The problem? A scheduled panel called ‘USA as a FIMI threat: adapt, acknowledge, push back.’ Incidentally, ‘FIMI threat’ is one of those hip acronyms that these people are overpaid to come up with so that it sounds like they’re doing something only those with their rare expertise can wrangle. In reality, it just means ‘foreign information manipulation and interference,’ and the average seventh grader can push back against it on social media if they want to. Usually with memes that are a lot more savvy, and without billing taxpayers.

The meetup was organized by the Brussels-backed EU Disinfo Lab, and was apparently such a great use of EU funds that the bloc had its own sponsorship logo taken right off the promotional signage and bailed on itself. “The organizers chose to frame some of the discussions in a way which does not align with the positions held by the EU,” said EU foreign affairs spokesman Christian Wigand.

Color me shocked that people who put an extraordinary amount of effort into corralling the masses into establishment-approved groupthink have just had a collective anaphylactic reaction to a deviation from it.

What about Canada? Surely it maintained its presence, right? Particularly since there’s a lot of talk in Canada these days about entities close to Trump, including State Department officials, getting involved in manipulation efforts to gin up incredibly long-shot independence movements in the provinces of Alberta and Quebec, with a view to gaining control of Canadian resources and then pressuring the federal government into doing what Trump wants. So you’d think that Canada would have relished the opportunity to head over to this conference and confront Washington, knowing that its behavior would be a focus. At the very least, it would have been a chance to demonstrate that all this talk about defending democracy and information integrity extends beyond smack talking from a comfortable distance.

“Following changes to the framing of several panel discussions, Global Affairs Canada decided to revise its participation in those sessions at the EU DisinfoLab 2026 conference,” a Canadian government spokeswoman said.

What could possibly have been behind all these US allies bailing in such a coordinated fashion? Couldn’t have been because they were all being pressured, right? Surely, nobody would ever think of manipulating anyone into not attending a conference about manipulation.

Thanks for confirming that “disinfo” can only ever come from entities that you don’t like and depends on the source rather than a critical assessment of the info itself.

To be fair, it’s worth defining terms. “Disinformation” seems to be a convenient catch-all phrase used by the Western establishment to marginalize a wide range of discourse – from adverse opinions that contradict the establishment’s own mass mind-bending efforts, to straight-up nonsense. The fact that they don’t make enough of a distinction between those two things is to their discredit. There’s a rather significant difference between someone challenging an official narrative and someone insisting that the planet is run by a cabal of lizard people. But both have become fodder for the same sprawling industry of experts and other taxpayer-funded initiatives.

Before the internet and social media, the average person didn’t need some Western apparatchik to tell them that the guy ranting on the street corner was a nutjob. Or to know that states have a tendency to spin in their own self-interest. Or to take whatever you hear around the water cooler at work with a grain of salt. But apparently, now that we’re all connected online, everyone’s brains have gone to mush and we need self-appointed babysitters to tell us what to think under the pretext of protecting us. And certainly not just protecting their power, surely. The public, once trusted to exercise a modicum of judgment, has been demoted to a classroom of toddlers who would eat the crayons the minute they’re unsupervised.

See what I did there? Countered some info with other info. Not hard, right? And all without adult supervision. Unlike some folks who have made a career out of demanding that everyone else show their work, and clearly aren’t especially keen on having to ask the same of Trump’s America. But instead of showing up to their own conference and accepting the obvious – that Trump contradicts himself every five minutes all day long – it turns out that some of these guardians of information integrity ultimately decided that the cause wasn’t so critical to democracy that it was worth a Trump-grade headache.

Guess it’s a lot easier to keep lecturing the powerless than risk inconveniencing the powerful. What a stunning profile in courage from our fearless Western leaders. One might even call it a double standard. Although perhaps they should convene a panel before deciding, lest it qualify as disinfo.

The time has come for Elon Musk to join efforts to build a 70-mile underwater tunnel linking Russia and the US, Russian presidential aide Kirill Dmitriev has said.

Dmitriev, who also heads Russia’s sovereign wealth fund (RDIF), first proposed the project in October 2025, describing it as a link that would “symbolize unity” and saying it would spur resource exploration, create jobs, and boost both economies. The tunnel would run under the Bering Strait, which is 51 miles wide at its narrowest point and separates Russia’s Chukotka Region from Alaska in the US.

“Time for The Boring Company to start working on the Putin-Trump tunnel that would unite Russia and the US, Eurasia and the Americas,” Dmitriev said in a post on X on Sunday, tagging the US-based billionaire.

Dmitriev’s appeal came after Musk posted that Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky “has gone too far.” Musk’s remark followed US President Donald Trump’s call for Ukraine to elect a new president.

Trump has repeatedly criticized Ukraine, and Zelensky personally, for exacerbating the global fuel crisis, accusing authorities in Kiev of deliberately targeting Russian refining facilities and driving up energy prices. Earlier this week, the US president approved a temporary waiver of sanctions on Russian fuel exports shortly after a phone call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. The move has been condemned by Zelensky as “weak.”

Dmitriev first proposed the tunnel two months after Putin and Trump met in Alaska in August 2025 to discuss efforts to resolve the Ukraine conflict. The summit marked the first top-level direct contact between Moscow and Washington following the escalation of the conflict.

The presidential aide has estimated that the project could cost more than $65 billion using conventional technology, but said that the Boring Company’s methods could cut the price by 90%, to under $8 billion, and allow construction to be completed within eight years. The RDIF is ready to participate, he said, citing the fund’s role in building a rail bridge linking Russia and China.

Earlier this year, Dmitriev announced that the fund had signed an agreement to continue designing the tunnel, with further steps expected by the end of the year.

A Ukrainian drone strike damaged a major data center operated by Russian tech giant Yandex, forcing a shutdown and reportedly disrupting services for businesses and users across the country.

Yandex is Russia’s largest technology company, offering search, ride-hailing, e-commerce, cloud computing, and AI services. The Yandex Cloud platform, which provides computing power, data storage, and AI tools, is used by more than a third of Russia’s largest companies.

The attack on Sunday targeted a Yandex facility in Vladimir Region, around 180 km (112 miles) northeast of Moscow. The site also houses Galushkin, one of the company’s three supercomputers used for AI development. The strike damaged the data center’s infrastructure and forced a shutdown, Yandex said on Telegram.

“The infrastructure of Yandex’s data center in Vladimir was damaged as a result of a drone attack, and the data center’s operations have been completely suspended. Some Yandex services are unavailable to users,” the company said.

No injuries were reported. Emergency crews and Yandex engineers worked to assess the damage and restore services. The company urged cloud customers to activate alternative disaster-recovery plans.

The attack forced Yandex Cloud into emergency operation, with outages affecting banks, online marketplaces, delivery services, retail apps, pharmacies, fitness clubs, and the website of St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport, according to media reports.

In a later update, Yandex said access to some of its services, including Alice AI assistant, Search, Maps, Taxi, and Mail, was gradually being restored.

The attacks come amid mounting US criticism of Kiev’s strikes on Russia, particularly against oil refineries. US President Donald Trump lashed out at Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky on Saturday, accusing him of rejecting peace deals and worsening global diesel shortages by ignoring warnings against targeting Russian refining infrastructure.

“I think it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president,” Trump said.

Zelensky said on Sunday that Ukraine would continue its strikes until a ceasefire backed by “real guarantees” is secured. Later in the day, Trump claimed on Truth Social that Russia and Ukraine agreed to an immediate energy ceasefire, urging both sides not to violate it. Neither country has publicly confirmed the terms of the purported agreement.
Russia has rejected the idea of freezing the conflict without addressing the root causes, arguing that a temporary ceasefire would only give Ukraine time to rebuild its military and resume the hostilities. Putin recently warned that Kiev faces a “catastrophic scenario” by attacking Russian economic and civilian infrastructure.

US President Donald Trump has said Russia and Ukraine have agreed to an immediate energy ceasefire. The announcement comes just days after Trump’s phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, during which the two leaders agreed on a deal aimed at easing the global fuel crisis through Russian diesel exports.

“Effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday, adding that “both parties have agreed” and urging Moscow and Kiev not to “break it.”

Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky later confirmed on X that he discussed Trump’s announcement with NATO chief Mark Rutte, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, and Finnish President Alexander Stubb, adding that Kiev supports the initiative. 

Moscow has not commented on Trump’s announcement so far.

On Friday, Trump and Putin held a phone call, shortly after which the US Treasury Department announced a temporary waiver of sanctions on Russian diesel, allowing the fuel to be sold, delivered, and imported into the US until April 7, 2027.

The US president allegedly struck a deal with Moscow after Zelensky ignored Washington’s requests to stop strikes on Russian oil refineries, Axios reported on Saturday. Trump has blamed Ukraine, and Zelensky personally, for exacerbating the global fuel crisis, saying that Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries have driven up fuel prices, including for American consumers.

“If President Trump really wants to have some changes during elections… please tell Putin, give us two months, 60 days off. Total ceasefire, 60 days, and we will organize elections,” he told ABC on Sunday.

Russia considers Zelensky illegitimate, as his presidential term expired more than two years ago and he has not called a new election, citing martial law.

Ukraine has ramped up long-range strikes on targets inside Russia, including civilian and energy infrastructure such as oil refineries, amid continued setbacks at the front. Zelensky has recently threatened to intensify attacks on Russian refineries in particular. Moscow has denounced the attacks as acts of terrorism and vowed to intensify strikes on Ukrainian military-related facilities, including drone and missile warehouses, while maintaining that it never targets civilians.

A scandal is brewing in Austria over a secret Ukrainian intelligence shipment reportedly allowed to cross the country unchecked, with opposition politicians demanding to know what it contained and who authorized its passage.

A Volkswagen van belonging to Ukrainian intelligence carried 200 kg of undeclared “special cargo” through Austria in January, Kronen Zeitung reported on Saturday. The shipment was reportedly linked to the Ukrainian delegation attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky was present.

The case emerged after the right-wing opposition Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) obtained a diplomatic note requesting permission for the van to cross Austrian territory. The Foreign Ministry later confirmed the note’s existence in response to a parliamentary inquiry, according to the outlet.

The cargo reportedly passed through Austria without customs clearance or security screening. Its contents remain unknown.

“What was in those 200 kilograms? Cash, gold, weapons, documents, or something else entirely?” he asked, as cited by the newspaper. “Austria is not a lawless transit corridor for foreign intelligence services. We are still a neutral state!”

Asked about the shipment, the Foreign Ministry declined to elaborate, telling Kronen Zeitung it receives hundreds of diplomatic notes daily and that it forwarded the request to the Interior Ministry.

The FPO plans another parliamentary inquiry to determine who authorized the shipment, why it escaped inspection, and what it contained.

A transit hub for Kiev’s billions?

Hafenecker already questioned the authorities over suspicious shipments to Ukraine earlier this year.

In May, he demanded that the Finance Ministry explain how nearly $22 billion in cash and gold has been transported from Austria to Kiev since 2022 without triggering money-laundering concerns or regulatory scrutiny. The figure emerged from an FPO parliamentary inquiry to Finance Minister Markus Marterbauer, which revealed 1,011 cash export declarations for shipments from Vienna to Kiev from 2022-2026.

Hafenecker noted Austria’s anti-money-laundering rules, which require individuals withdrawing as little as €12,000 ($13,400) from inherited accounts to prove the money’s origin, while anyone crossing the EU’s external border with more than €10,000 in cash must declare it.

The Austrian Financial Market Authority described the shipments at the time as routine banking operations, citing Ukraine’s widespread use of foreign currencies. Hafenecker nevertheless demanded full disclosure of the transfers, a regulatory audit, and a parliamentary report from Austria’s Money Laundering Reporting Office.

His Euroskeptic FPO party previously demanded an end to Austrian financial aid to Ukraine, branding the country a corrupt “bottomless pit” amid high-level embezzlement scandals.

Kiev’s ‘war mafia’ cash convoy in Hungary

Hafenecker’s demands in May followed a separate scandal over cash and gold shipments transiting Hungary en route to Ukraine.

The diplomatic row erupted in March when the Hungarian authorities seized two trucks belonging to Ukraine’s state-owned Oschadbank near Budapest, confiscating $40 million, €35 million, and 9 kg of gold in a money-laundering investigation. The shipment originated from Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank.

Hungary said the convoy was supervised by a former general of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), with other escorts reportedly having military backgrounds. All seven were deported to Ukraine, and the vehicles and assets remained in Hungarian custody. Kiev called the seizure “state banditism” and blackmail.

Hungary ultimately returned the seized assets in May, after Orban lost the election to Peter Magyar’s pro-EU Tisza party. Kiev maintained that the shipment was a routine bank transfer but did not publicly explain the origin of the assets or why such a large sum was being transported through Hungary.

On the evening of October 9, the presidents of the United States and Russia spoke by phone. The announcement that followed was straightforward: Russia would sell the US 1.8 million metric tons of diesel over the next three months, followed by a million tons a month, and the US would issue temporary licenses authorizing the shipments.

The news drew a furious, bordering on hysterical, response from Kiev and stunned silence from Europe.

Let’s look at why this deal matters, what it has to do with Ukraine, and what might come next.

The tug-of-war championship

Ever since US President Donald Trump returned to office, the central aim of Russian diplomacy has been to separate relations with the US from the Ukraine issue. The White House is open to the idea, too: The US needs Russia as a counterweight to China, and there are substantial economic opportunities. But as we explored in an earlier piece, until recently, neither side managed to pull it off.

In February and March 2025, Trump relieved America of responsibility for Ukraine’s fate and handed the job of financing it squarely to Europe. The US retained just three commitments: the relatively modest military supply programs already approved under former President Joe Biden, intelligence sharing, and weapons sales for cash, with Ukraine waiting in line like any other customer.

This maneuver cemented a status quo that neither Europe and Ukraine on one side nor Russia on the other would allow to change, with their respective allies in the US also weighing in. Everyone tried to bring Trump over to their side on Ukraine. Nobody succeeded.

This is why the understandings reached in Anchorage went nowhere: Ukraine’s supporters torpedoed them. It is also why those supporters failed to use Trump to escalate the conflict. Russia prevented deliveries of Tomahawk missiles, the expansion of Starlink coverage over Russian territory, and so on.

Despite the apparent stalemate, Russian officials kept talking to Witkoff and Kushner. The aim was to maintain a channel to Trump and deny Ukraine’s supporters an opening to drag the US back into the war on their side or steer him back onto Biden’s course.

This is why Russian officials at every level distinguish between US and European actions, often explicitly contrasting the two.

Russia is one of the world’s largest diesel exporters, supplying just under 40 million metric tons to the global market in 2025. On July 8, 2026, Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries prompted a temporary ban on diesel and gasoline exports.

Since then, Russia’s refining situation has improved considerably. Gasoline remains in short supply, but a domestic diesel surplus has emerged, and the export ban has begun to loosen in practice. According to Reuters, diesel deliveries to Central Asian countries were already up 19% in September.

Rising diesel production was only part of the story. The end of the harvest season also reduced demand. And as the seasons change, Russia switches to winter-grade fuel, traditionally selling off its remaining summer-grade stocks to countries with warmer climates.

One way or another, seaborne diesel exports were heading toward a restart. Trump had also raised that possibility, publicly linking it to Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries.

The Krivoy Rog school of diplomacy

Back to geopolitics. Until yesterday, Russia had been unable to separate its relationship with the US from the Ukraine issue. Even the war with Iran failed to do the trick, despite keeping oil and petroleum product shipments from the Persian Gulf blocked for more than six months.

Zelensky responded by demanding a sweeping energy truce. We’ll stop hitting refineries, he effectively said, if Russia stops attacking our energy infrastructure and blockading our ports. And you, Trump, have to supply us with missiles for our Patriot systems, and so on.

Getting nowhere with Zelensky, Trump struck a deal directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who offered to supply diesel in exchange for a suspension of sanctions, without any preconditions.

The transaction itself is not particularly consequential. Yes, it could cool speculative trading ahead of the elections and push prices down somewhat. But the 1.8 million metric tons due to arrive over three months will cover just three or four days of American consumption.

For Russia, the US is an ordinary customer in purely commercial terms. Moscow will make some money selling to America, but it could just as easily have sold these volumes elsewhere. Petroleum products are in short supply worldwide, while Russia has a diesel surplus.

Yet the deal gave both sides what they had been seeking since February 2025: a bilateral relationship detached from Ukraine. So far, that applies to just one specific issue, but getting started is the hard part. Zelensky tried to twist Trump’s arm, pushing him to make Putin stop bombing Kiev, and overplayed his hand. Now Kiev can be bombed relentlessly, and Trump has no reason to care. He got what he wanted.

The art of the backroom deal

Cynics insist that the Trump administration is a complete mess, with the right hand oblivious to what the left is doing. The way this agreement came together suggests otherwise.

After the campaign of long-range strikes against Russia went badly off script, Zelensky once again tried to secure a ceasefire through Trump. He has been trying since early 2025, with no success, but he still held out hope.

Trump could have publicly given Zelensky the boot again. But on Ukraine, he faces opposition not only from Congress but also from parts of his own administration. And an election is just around the corner.

Instead of staging a public showdown, Trump’s team spent more than two months visibly engaged in intensive talks with Ukraine about an energy truce. His envoys, Witkoff and Kushner, traveled to Kiev, and Trump himself showered Zelensky with compliments. In reality, all of it proved to be a screen for a quiet, swift, informal deal with Moscow.

That takes some skill. This episode shows that Trump keeps a firm grip on his team and can prevent leaks when he needs to. Even Rubio, prone to breaking ranks, played his part exactly as the boss wanted.

And once the deal was done, there was no longer any need to smile at Zelensky in public. The masks came off. For the first time, Trump publicly declared that Ukraine needs a new president and must hold elections.

The liberal media will inevitably say that Trump is repeating Russian propaganda narratives. In fact, he was saying what he thinks.

***

The diesel deal does not mean Moscow and Washington will now live in perfect harmony. The differences between them are deep and fundamental, and the recently enacted ‘Graham law’ makes lifting any sanctions impossible for at least the next five years.

But this Friday, Putin and Trump finally managed to get past Ukraine and leave it behind. US-Russia relations now depend on Russia and the US alone.

Thousands of people took to the streets of London on Saturday, calling on the UK government to stop supplying arms to Israel and boycott trade with the country over its actions in Gaza, which protesters say amount to three years of genocide against Palestinians.

Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza three years ago in response to the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, in which about 1,200 Israelis were killed and 250 taken hostage. The United Nations estimates that around 1.98 million people, or 90% of Gaza’s population, have been displaced by the operations since then, while much of the enclave’s water and sanitation infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed.

Video footage from central London shows crowds of demonstrators gathering along the Victoria Embankment, with many wearing keffiyehs, carrying Palestinian flags, and holding placards reading ‘End the genocide’, ‘Free Palestine’, ‘Disarm Israel, save lives’, and ‘Make empathy great again’ as they marched towards Parliament. A bride and groom also appeared to be among those taking part.

The protesters urged the British authorities to step up efforts “make much more strident efforts” to force Israel to comply with international law, journalist and political commentator Syed Mohsin Abbas, who was at the scene, told RT. The Deep Dive Perspective podcast host stressed that demonstrators were calling for more concrete steps against Israel wherever possible.

“The realistic demands are really that the arms to Israel should be stopped altogether, trade with Israel should be boycotted,” Abbas added.

There are already some UK restrictions on arms exports to Israel, including the suspension of licenses for equipment that could be used by Israeli forces in Gaza. Britain has also taken steps to restrict trade with Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories. London has said it will refuse export license applications for goods that could materially contribute to the occupation, while other trade restrictions target settlement-linked activity.

Protesters view those measures as limited steps that fall short of bringing about meaningful change for Palestinians. Ismail Patel, head of the UK-based campaign group Friends of Al-Aqsa (FOA), criticized the restrictions for targeting trade linked to Israeli settlements rather than taking broader action on arms exports and commerce with Israel, accusing the British government of adopting a “performative” stance instead of meaningful action to protect Palestinian rights.

Recently, a friend went to buy trainers for her 14-year-old and was surprised to discover that most of the suitable styles had Velcro fastenings. When she asked about proper laces, the sales assistant simply shrugged and said teenagers increasingly struggle to tie them.

We laughed and then we both went rather quiet because I remembered primary school teachers talking about first-graders who can’t dress themselves, fasten buttons, pack their things, tie their shoelaces or sometimes even manage a trip to the toilet without an adult.

And it doesn’t end with primary school as I’ve seen parents tie the shoelaces of perfectly capable 12- and 13-year-olds, carry their rucksacks and generally treat them like particularly honored guests.

I would love to adopt the traditional middle-aged complaint: “At their age, we were already…” but, unfortunately, that won’t work, because I’m one of those mothers myself.

In fifth grade, I took the tram to school alone and there was no mobile phone and certainly no parents’ group chat, so I got on the tram, travelled to school and came home. Somehow, I survived.

Now I have a child of my own, and repeating that educational experiment seems considerably more frightening. Perhaps that contradiction explains much of what’s happened to us. We want our children to become independent, but preferably in a safe environment, under CCTV surveillance, with geolocation switched on and an adult never too far away.

Why have we become like this? After all, the 1990s can hardly be remembered as a wonderfully safe and sheltered period, yet children spent hours outside, cycled to school, went to the shops and somehow found their way home without the equivalent of an electronic ankle bracelet.

Perhaps our parents were no less worried, but they simply lacked the technology to worry about us in real time.

They couldn’t open a map and discover that their child had been standing behind the neighboring house for seven suspicious minutes instead of outside the school. A child went out to play and, for a few hours, really did disappear from the family’s field of vision.

Today, every horrific incident involving a child, even one happening a thousand kilometers away, can appear on our phones within minutes, so we know far more about these cases than our parents ever could and not necessarily because terrible things happen more often, but because now we hear about almost all of them.

Modern overprotectiveness is therefore partly an expression of adult anxiety as we want to control a world that constantly reminds us how little control we really have and our own child becomes the most obvious place to start.

Often, when we overprotect children, we are reassuring ourselves rather than them, so I feel calmer if I take my child somewhere myself, write to the teacher, check the schoolbag and know exactly where he is.

Because we rarely see them managing alone, letting go becomes even more frightening.

Independence doesn’t suddenly arrive on an 18th birthday. It’s built through hundreds of tiny rehearsals, such as fastening your own jacket, asking a shop assistant for help, packing your schoolbag and, occasionally, forgetting an exercise book – it means walking to a friend’s house alone, encountering some minor problem and discovering that you can solve it.

How many of these little rehearsals do we cancel simply because doing things ourselves is quicker and less stressful? Well, I did exactly that with my first son, I was always rushing somewhere, so it was quicker to tie his laces, pack his things, find whatever he had lost or write to his teacher myself because at the time, this made life easier for everybody.

A few years later, when he actually needed to start doing these things himself, it was suddenly very difficult and research has repeatedly found an association between overprotective parenting and symptoms of anxiety and depression among adolescents and young adults. That doesn’t mean overprotection automatically causes psychological problems, but the likely mechanism isn’t difficult to understand, given if an adult always intervenes before a child has the chance to cope, the child gets fewer opportunities to develop a sense of competence.

Seen that way, the problem becomes considerably more serious than an inability to tie shoelaces.

Of course, civilization will survive Velcro, but the real problem begins when, confronted with any ordinary difficulty, a child’s first thought is ‘where is the adult who is going to sort this out for me?’

We want to protect them from disappointment, lateness, forgotten clothes, poor grades, unpleasant shop assistants, dangerous roads and all the other things that make up a life in which not everything works perfectly on the first attempt.

Then the child grows older and we are astonished. Why is he afraid to make decisions? Why can’t he prepare his own breakfast? Why doesn’t he know how to pack his schoolbag?

Surely there must be some middle ground between the old approach of “here’s your key, heat up your own lunch” and accompanying a healthy teenager practically as far as the changing room.

But we will never find it unless we give children the right to make mistakes, and that means patience. We have to wait while a child struggles with a zipper rather than doing it ourselves and we have to remain quietly at home instead of racing to school with the exercise book they forgot.

I tell myself this every day, that perhaps a parent’s job isn’t to make a child’s road completely smooth, but gradually to teach them how to walk along a bumpy one.

Otherwise, one day we may discover that we protected our children brilliantly from all of life’s shoelaces, only to find that sooner or later they’ll still have to learn how to tie them themselves.

This article was first published by the online newspaper Gazeta.ru and was translated and edited by the RT team

The family of Palestinian journalist Muhammad Abdel Aziz al-Najjar, who was killed in an Israeli strike in southern Gaza, has demanded accountability from the Israeli military, accusing it of killing an innocent man whose family depended on him for survival.

Al-Najjar was killed on September 30 in an Israeli drone strike in the Mawasi al-Qarara area, north of Khan Yunis, according to Palestinian media. Local sources said the attack came as Israeli forces continued shelling and firing across Gaza despite a ceasefire agreement with Hamas reached a year earlier.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) admitted to killing al-Najjar, but claimed he was a member of Hamas’ military wing and took part in the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the war. An IDF spokesman, cited by Israeli media, accused him of plotting attacks against Israeli troops and civilians and “working to rebuild Hamas’ military capabilities.”

His family’s account, however, differs greatly. In an exclusive interview with RT on Saturday, they described him as a journalist and religious teacher. His father, Abdelaziz, said al-Najjar worked as a field correspondent for Holy Quran Radio and was also a Quran teacher, preacher, and imam at the Ibad al-Rahman Mosque.

His brother, Alaa al-Najjar, said Muhammad held the family together through war and displacement.

“There is a massive void now,” he said. “He was the one who always kept the family united. We have lost a brother so dear that only God knows the depth of that loss.”

Al-Najjar was the 263rd Palestinian media worker killed since Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Government Media Office.

In February, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Israel was responsible for two-thirds of the record 129 journalists and media workers killed worldwide in 2025.

In March, RT correspondent Steve Sweeney and cameraman Ali Rida Sbeity narrowly survived a missile strike less than 10 meters from their position in southern Lebanon, suffering shrapnel wounds. Israel denies that it deliberately targets journalists, insisting its operations are directed against Hamas and other armed groups.

Al-Najjar’s killing comes amid Israeli strikes and gunfire across Gaza despite last October’s ceasefire, which the Palestinian authorities have accused Israel of violating. The Gaza Health Ministry says at least 1,431 Palestinians have been killed and 5,026 wounded since the agreement, bringing the overall toll since October 2023 to more than 74,000 dead, including at least 21,000 children, and 175,000 wounded.

The Pentagon has revised its previously underreported tally of US military deaths linked to the war with Iran, raising the official count to 21.

The Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) initially listed 18 US military deaths from hostile and non-hostile causes since the conflict began on February 28. The Washington Post reported last month, citing six US officials, that the database understated the number of deaths. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth called the findings “a complete lie.”

On Friday, the database was updated to include Army National Guard Maj. Sorffly Davius, 46, who died in Kuwait on March 6, and an unidentified Navy member who died by suicide in September.

It also recorded the death of Sgt. Devin A. Seibel, 26, who died in a training accident in Iraq in May. The military, however, did not link the incident to the war with Iran and classified it under Operation Inherent Resolve, the decade-long campaign against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS). His inclusion brings the broader number of US military fatalities in the Middle East since February 28 to 22, in line with the figure previously reported by the newspaper.

Democratic Representatives Adam Smith and Chrissy Houlahan criticized the incorrect count, calling it “an embarrassment” for the military.

“There is no excuse for a mistake of this magnitude,” they said in a joint statement.

Approached by the Washington Post, the Pentagon did not address the changes but said it “continues to maintain a steadfast commitment to the transparent, accurate accounting of all service member casualties.”

Last month, the US Navy acknowledged that eight sailors assigned to the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group attempted suicide during a ten-month deployment that included the Iran war. The disclosure followed reports of burnout, declining morale, and shortages of food and basic supplies.

Despite US President Donald Trump’s insistence that the campaign has been a success, a Reuters/Ipsos poll in September found that 62% of Americans disapprove of military strikes against Iran.

The conflict has also deepened political divisions ahead of November’s midterm election, with the financial cost and economic fallout drawing scrutiny. US Central Command estimated the bill at $43.6 billion through September 3, according to figures provided to lawmakers and seen by AP.

In a phone call on Friday, Trump discussed Iran with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who stressed that a diplomatic settlement remains possible and reiterated Moscow’s offer to accept Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium to help resolve the dispute over its nuclear program. Trump welcomed Russia’s diplomatic involvement, according to presidential aide Yury Ushakov.

American AI giant Anthropic has published a report detailing previously undisclosed instances of “unintended” actions by its artificial intelligence model, which included attempts to provide falsified information to the US authorities for the first time.

Some of the cases investigated by the company “involved websites run by US government agencies at the federal, state, and local levels,” Anthropic stated in a press release published on Friday, adding that it had briefed the White House and all the relevant agencies on the incidents.

In one instance mentioned in the report, its Claude Haiku 4.5 model filled out a police tip form linked to an ongoing homicide investigation. “I may have information regarding this case. I recall seeing someone matching the description in the area,” the AI model wrote, telling the police they can contact the sender “if this information is relevant” while leaving the name and contact fields empty.

Anthropic linked the incident to “ambiguous” instructions given to the model and “a misconfiguration within the environment” that prompted the model to fill out real forms instead of dummy ones prepared by the company.

Other incidents mentioned by Anthropic in its report involved the AI “exploiting a basic flaw in software to run commands on a server” or accessing “data that was gated by a token or a fee,” including on the government-run websites, by employing various workarounds. The company still described the newly revealed incidents as “significantly less severe from an alignment and security perspective” than the ones it had reported earlier.

The development adds to a pile of earlier incidents linked to rogue AI behavior reported by Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google. The tech giants have investigated tens of thousands of instances of problematic behavior by their frontier models, Axios reported in late September, adding that the list of cases involved the AI bypassing safeguards, hijacking websites, and evading monitors in testing and real-world settings.

A series of Soviet-style propaganda posters has appeared on the popular Russian social platform Pikabu following President Donald Trump’s grand announcement of a diesel deal with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.

Pikabu is a Reddit-style website where users create entertainment content and share stories, images, and memes. The tongue-in-cheek posters, celebrating a newfound partnership over barrels of fuel, appeared on Saturday in a post titled ‘Morning Propaganda’.

“American, remember! Your enemy is not Russian – the Russian gives diesel! Your enemy is the Green Rat, who bombs your diesel in Russia!” the first poster reads, referring to Vladimir Zelensky, known for his signature green attire and whose surname is derived from the word for ‘green’ in Russian and Ukrainian.

“From Russia with diesel,” the second says, giving a fuel-themed twist to the James Bond movie title. The poster features a Russian couple in traditional dress presenting a barrel of fuel to an American family.

The budding friendship goes a step further in the third image, which features a happy American family and soldiers from both countries shaking hands in front of a Patriot air defense system.

“Is the Green Rat bombing our diesel in Russia?” the caption asks. “Let’s give our Russian friends a Patriot and protect our values!”

The final poster features late US Senator Lindsey Graham, a close ally of Kiev and co-author of the “bone-crushing” sanctions bill that proposed a 500% tariff on countries that import Russian energy. Graham, who died in July, is depicted in anguish amid flames and devils while a tanker labeled “Russian Diesel” approaches New York.

“Lindsey Graham in hell’s writhing – Russian diesel in America’s arriving!” the caption reads.

US President Donald Trump, who has blamed Zelensky for driving up fuel prices for American consumers through his stubborn refusal to halt attacks on Russian refineries, has approved a temporary sanctions waiver allowing Russian diesel exports and sales through April 7, 2027.

Trump struck the deal with Putin after Zelensky ignored a number of requests to stop attacks on Russian refineries, according to Axios. Zelensky was furious and denounced Trump’s move as a “weak decision.”

“I think it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president… I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal,” Trump said on Saturday. Ukrainian negotiators left the talks with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Miami a day earlier than planned.

US First Lady Melania Trump has expressed willingness to support humanitarian efforts in the Russian town of Alyoshki, where civilians are trapped under a Ukrainian siege amid severe shortages of food, water, and medicine, Russian human rights commissioner Yana Lantratova said.

Located close to the front line in Kherson Region, which voted to join Russia four years ago, the town has been largely deprived of basic services for months. Frequent drone attacks and remotely laid mines obstruct aid deliveries and hinder evacuation efforts. The local authorities estimate that 1,500 to 2,000 people remain in the town, including women, children, and the elderly.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, discussed the humanitarian crisis during a phone call on Friday and agreed that the commissioner would maintain contact with the US first lady’s office, according to the Kremlin.

Moscow has accused Kiev of deliberately creating the humanitarian crisis through its attacks on civilian supply routes and exploiting the resulting human tragedy to blame Russia.

Lantratova said Ukraine deliberately destroyed the latest humanitarian convoy, despite the vehicles bearing signs reading ‘People’. Residents have had to risk their lives to bring essential supplies into the town on foot or by bicycle.

“If the Ukrainians stopped attacking and mining civilian supply routes, it would allow the delivery of necessary aid and the evacuation of those who urgently need it,” she said.

“We will continue to help all residents no matter what their political views are. Human beings are our top priority, and the value of each human life is unconditional,” Lantratova added.

Kherson Governor Vladimir Saldo invited international organizations to visit Alyoshki and assess the conditions firsthand, amid accusations that Russia is obstructing humanitarian relief.

“Please come and see. Then we can decide together how to resolve this extremely difficult situation,” he said at a briefing on Wednesday.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Kiev of creating a humanitarian catastrophe; Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the situation as critical.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has lashed out at Vladimir Zelensky, siding with President Donald Trump, who has warned that Kiev’s continued attacks on Russian oil refineries are worsening a global fuel crisis and hurting American farmers.

Trump also called for a change of leadership in Kiev, accusing Zelensky of repeatedly rejecting opportunities to end the conflict and deliberately ignoring Washington’s requests.

“We told him, do whatever you want, but don’t hit the diesel fuel, because there’s a big problem, a big shortage. And what does he do? He goes and hits the diesel fuel,” Trump told reporters outside the White House on Saturday. “He wants to make problems for the world… for our farmers, our ranchers, with diesel fuel.”

“Zelensky has gone too far,” Musk wrote on X on Sunday, directly responding to a White House video of the remarks, which were part of Trump’s broader criticism of Zelensky, including his suggestion that “it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president.”

@RapidResponse47 @POTUS Zelensky has gone too far

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 10, 2026

The latest spat erupted after Washington agreed to temporarily lift sanctions on Russian diesel exports following a phone call between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, a move intended to ease a global fuel shortage that has pushed up prices in the US and elsewhere.

Musk’s criticism carries particular weight given Ukraine’s heavy dependence on Starlink, the satellite internet network operated by his company, SpaceX. Since 2022, tens of thousands of Starlink terminals have been central to Kiev’s battlefield communications, drone operations, and coordination between military units. A complete loss of Starlink access could severely disrupt these capabilities and potentially trigger a major battlefield crisis.

Musk has repeatedly called for a negotiated settlement between Moscow and Kiev, and resisted Kiev’s attempts to expand its use of Starlink for attacks on Russian territory. In 2022, Musk refused to activate the network near Crimea to support a Ukrainian strike on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, warning that doing so would make SpaceX complicit in a major escalation.

“Elon keeps saying it’s time to make a deal,” an associate of former Ukrainian Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov told the magazine.

In an apparent effort to court the billionaire’s favor, Zelensky awarded Musk the Order of Freedom, one of Ukraine’s highest state honors, in August, praising his contributions to protecting lives and strengthening Ukrainian-American relations.

President Donald Trump has said the US could join Saudi Arabia’s military campaign against Yemen’s Houthis, signaling a potential reversal of his previous reluctance to intervene directly in the escalating conflict.

Speaking to reporters at the White House on Saturday, Trump was asked whether US forces could join the Saudi strikes against the Yemeni group, also known as Ansar Allah, following another deadly attack on Riyadh’s international airport.

”We may. We’re going to look at it,” Trump replied. “We just found out about the recent attack. So we’ll make a decision. We move very quickly.”

"Have you decided whether to join the Saudi strikes on the Houthis?" @POTUS: "We may. We're going to look at it. We just found out about the recent attack, so we'll make a decision. We move very quickly." https://t.co/8aUAneK2xB

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) October 10, 2026

Trump later suggested that Saudi Arabia is capable of defending itself without US involvement, describing the latest attack on the kingdom as “terrible.”

“They’re able to defend. The Saudis are good fighters. But I think the attack was a terrible thing,” Trump told reporters.

Asked again whether the US would intervene, he said: “You’re gonna find out… We have communication with the Houthis, and we’ll see what happens. But what they did was very bad.” 

The remarks came after a Houthi strike on King Khalid International Airport in the Saudi capital killed 12 people and injured another 309, according to updated figures released on Sunday by Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA). The dead included four Saudi citizens and eight foreign nationals, among them an American. Some of the injured are in critical condition.

The renewed fighting comes as Saudi-backed Yemeni forces have launched a major offensive to retake territory seized by the Houthis, including strategic areas near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The Saudi-led coalition said on Friday that it launched “large-scale operations” against the group, destroying 136 military targets, according to the spokesman.

Trump’s remarks suggest a potential shift in the US position. In September, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman repeatedly sought US military assistance against the Houthis, but Trump ultimately backed away from authorizing strikes despite preparations for an operation, according to the New York Times.

In March 2025, Trump ordered weeks of US air and naval strikes against Houthi positions, targeting missile launchers, radar installations, and other military infrastructure in an attempt to halt attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. The campaign ended abruptly in May under an Omani-brokered ceasefire after the Houthis agreed to stop targeting US vessels.

In September, Trump claimed that the Houthis contacted Washington, seeking to avoid another confrontation with US forces, saying the group “would much prefer not having us involved.” Ansar Allah denied making contact.

Death row inmate Christa Pike, who was convicted of murder in the US state of Tennessee, has been discharged from the hospital after surviving a botched execution. She was sent back to prison on Saturday, days after regaining the ability to walk and talk after receiving a double lethal injection, her lawyers said.

Pike, 50, was sentenced to death for the 1995 torture and murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow Job Corps student in Knoxville. Her execution, which was scheduled for September 30, was expected to be the first execution of a woman in Tennessee in more than 200 years.

The inmate did not lose consciousness after two syringes of pentobarbital were administered and complained of pain in her arm instead. She eventually lost consciousness but could be heard breathing heavily and snoring and still had a heartbeat nearly 90 minutes into the execution, prompting an ambulance to take her to the hospital, media reports suggest.

On Saturday, Pike was returned to the Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, where she had spent 30 years. “She is grateful to the first responders and her medical team for their care in these extraordinary circumstances,” her lawyers said, adding that she “is continuing to receive medical care at the prison.” 

The authorities provided no official explanation as to why Pike survived the execution. The New York Times reported earlier, citing medical experts, that Pike probably survived the procedure because the lethal drug leaked into tissue around the insertion sites instead of entering her bloodstream. The woman’s lawyers had warned that her medical history and small veins increased the risk that she would experience unnecessary pain.

Pike, then aged 18, was convicted of first-degree murder after she, her boyfriend, and another accomplice lured Slemmer, a fellow student, to an isolated area near the University of Tennessee agricultural campus, where Pike brutally beat her and cut her throat.

Her case is the second botched execution in Tennessee this year. In May, the execution of death row inmate Tony Carruthers was halted after officials repeatedly failed to establish intravenous access to administer pentobarbital. The governor granted the man a one-year reprieve and he was returned to death row. The incident raised questions about the state’s lethal injection procedures months before Pike’s execution.

A Houthi attack on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on Saturday killed 12 people, including an American citizen, and injured another 309, Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) confirmed on Sunday.

The Saudi aviation authority said the fatalities included four Saudi citizens and eight foreign nationals, including two Bangladeshis and one each from the US, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Palestine, and Sudan. Some of the 309 injured remain in critical condition, GACA said, adding that the extent of the damage to the airport is still being assessed.

The attack comes almost a week after Yemen’s internationally recognized and Saudi-backed government launched a major offensive to retake territory from the Iran-backed Houthis, including areas near the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Saudi-led forces have supported the operation with airstrikes, while the Houthis have retaliated with missile and drone attacks on targets in Saudi Arabia, including Riyadh’s international airport.

Footage from Terminal 3 of King Khalid Intl. Airport, Riyadh, following an Ansarallah ballistic missile strike. https://t.co/MoaFKmHR7B

— Tabz (@TabzLIVE) October 10, 2026

A missile struck the building housing two terminals used for domestic flights at the airport, AP reported, citing a regional official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

First video released from the Houthi missile impact site at Terminal 3 of King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Debris can be seen scattered on the ground, several people can also be glimpsed lying on the ground amidst the smoke. https://t.co/E0p3whcE24

— MoloMonitor 🇮🇹 (@MoloWarMonitor) October 10, 2026

Videos circulating on social media appear to show a plume of smoke rising above Terminal 3 following the strike.

Videos shared with us show that around two hours ago, the fire alarm went off at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh. Blood can also be seen on the ground, along with a large emergency response at the scene. https://t.co/ur6KM0Kpqn

— Faytuks Network (@FaytuksNetwork) October 10, 2026

At least 316 flights to and from Riyadh airport were canceled on Saturday, according to data from flight-tracking service Flightradar24. The US Embassy and several other Western diplomatic missions urged citizens to avoid the airport and warned of major travel disruptions.

Saudi Arabia has led a military campaign against the Houthis since 2015. The hostilities largely subsided following a UN-brokered ceasefire in 2022 before flaring up again this July following a strike on Sanaa Airport by Saudi-backed Yemeni forces.

Fighting escalated further in September as the Houthis made their biggest territorial gains in years, capturing the strategic port of Mocha and expanding their control along the Red Sea coast and around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a vital international shipping route.

Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a senior official and spokesman for the Yemeni group, also known as Ansar Allah, confirmed responsibility for the strike in an exclusive interview with RT, saying they were intended to force Saudi Arabia to agree to a “comprehensive and permanent peace” and an end to the war and mutual blockade.

Al-Bukhaiti accused Riyadh of destroying Yemen’s civilian infrastructure over the past 12 years, including airports, seaports, schools, hospitals, markets, and even wedding and funeral halls. He said the Houthis are now responding in kind to Saudi attacks, but insisted that the strikes are intended to pressure Saudi leaders into accepting a lasting peace agreement rather than motivated by revenge.

“Our military operations deep inside the Saudi entity will continue and will not end except by destroying all Saudi infrastructure belonging to the government,” he warned, specifically naming military facilities, airports, ports, and other vital installations.

In war-battered southern Gaza, a revived children’s media initiative is helping young Palestinians learn broadcasting skills, continue their education and pursue dreams beyond the conflict, local freelance journalist Rami Al Meghari reported for RT on Saturday.

Established in 2006, Pioneers of Palestine resumed operations earlier this year. The initiative now offers around 180 boys and girls aged eight to 18 television production training and other subjects in a basement studio in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.

“My ambition is to become a director,” one student told RT. The studio’s equipment could allow audiences worldwide to see that “Palestinian children have lives and aspirations similar to those of children elsewhere,” she said.

“This activity is something that is remarkable for this group and for the whole community right at this situation of war where the Israeli military continues its actions unabated on the territory from time to time, even after the ceasefire was instated back in October of 2025,” Al Meghari reported.

Israeli strikes have killed at least 1,481 Palestinians in Gaza since the October 10 armistice, according to the enclave’s health ministry.

Watch the full RT report below:

Ukraine should replace Vladimir Zelensky, US President Donald Trump told reporters outside the White House on Saturday, accusing the Ukrainian leader of refusing peace deals with Russia and worsening global diesel shortages.

“I think it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president,” Trump said.

“Zelensky could have settled this war many times. Many, many times. And he chooses not to,” he said.

Trump also accused Zelensky of ignoring warnings against attacking Russian refining facilities.

“We said, you can do whatever you want to Russia, don’t hit the refineries, because that’s a world problem that’s caused. And he wants to make problems for the world,” Trump said. “And what does he do? He goes and hits the diesel fuel.”

I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal.

Zelensky’s mandate as president expired in 2024, but he has retained power since, citing martial law. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stressed that this could undermine an eventual peace deal signed with Kiev.

“He should have an election,” Trump told reporters later in the day, reiterating that Zelensky “could’ve solved this war and he could’ve made a deal many times.”

🇺🇸🇺🇦 Trump calls for elections to be held in Ukraine "I think [Zelensky] should have an election" "Zelensky could have solved this war, or he could have made a deal many times" https://t.co/yJkK7X6jv9

— The Other Side Media (@TheOtherSideRu) October 11, 2026

Trump’s statements came a day after his phone call with Putin, during which the two presidents agreed on a deal aimed at easing the global fuel crisis. The US Treasury temporarily waived sanctions on Russian diesel exports immediately after the conversation.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak has confirmed that Moscow is ready to provide the fuel to Washington and other international buyers, and said that exports could be increased to one million tons by December.

Russia will begin lifting its diesel export restrictions ahead of schedule, he said.

My friends and relatives would tell me how lucky I was to work with professional tennis players. People, especially sports journalists, tended to lean over and whisper to me that my job was a dream. I replied, more nightmare than dream.

The Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, in Filderstadt, near Stuttgart in Germany, is German tennis’ moment to shine and 15 years ago I was there looking after one of our company’s clients who’d made the final. Sitting in the player’s lounge, having a snack, Danish star Carolina Wozniacki came over for a chat. She was “carbing up” for a semi-final with Poland’s Radwanska, and remarked how one Russian player who’d lost earlier in the tournament was still hanging around and “carbing up.”

Burning out talent

The heavy focus on training and playing has cost more top Russian talent successful careers than lack of funds to play tournaments or anything else. And after 1991, Russian tennis was over the top in this regard. Too many youngsters suffered physical and mental burn out.

“It’s important to remember they are kids,” Russia-born, Serbia Fed Cup team player Vesna Dolonc told us on Capital Sports last year. “Burn out is very real and parents, too, need to take care of it.”

Vesna, a talented Russian junior who chose to play for her father’s country, made the main draw in all Grand Slams and after winning eight professional titles retired in 2017 to focus on coaching. Her view is that there are hugely talented kids and coaches in Russia, though there needs to be focus on the “whole person.”

It’s something that Melik, father of retired Russian tennis ace Margarita Betova (née Gasparyan) pointed out when I worked with his daughter for a short stint in 2011-12.

“They [national team coaches] made her play when she had one leg, when she was barely able to stand and then complain [when] she loses,” he told me at our first meeting.

“The [Russian tennis] federation has not enough money to give all young [players], so everyone kills themselves to win and play, even when they’re hurt.”

That was then, when so many young Russian women who were superb on the junior circuit just fell away before making the top-100. Some players found alternative paths to success and support.

Spreading

Since and including 2011 there have been no fewer than six Russian players in the world’s top-100 at the end of each year. It has steadily increased since 2022, with 13 in the leader list from 2023-25. Ten Russian women are currently in the top-100. And there is an asterisk to put in there.

That does not include Russia-born players who are serving other countries, like Elena Rybakina. The Muscovite was the latest talent to fly the Kazakhstan flag with full funding, coaching, and support team guaranteed. Ditto World number 50, Anastasia Potapova, who switched to Austria, and it seems an annual occurrence when another nation, like Australia, Uzbekistan, or France snap up a graduate of the Russian tennis system.

“There are so many players,” explained Ksenia Pervak, the former world number 37 who switched to Kazakhstan for three years, “so many really good players that if you’re not, like, top, maybe, fifty early, you don’t get the funding.”

A super talented junior who won the Australian Open title in 2009, she succumbed to injuries and wrapped up her career fully in 2017 at the age of just 26.

Changing the system

“There were a lot of us,” Ksenia told me on Capital Sports in 2019, “a whole generation, like, tens of us. But you know, if I was playing as a junior now, it’s totally different.”

Better? I asked.

“So much,” she responded with gusto, going on to explain how the Russian Tennis Federation (RTF) had implemented best practice for coaches, players, and even parents.

One of that “generation,” Ekaterina Bychkova, explained this to a genuinely enraptured audience of students at Russia State Social University in 2020.

“Parents can be a bit crazy, they live out a life through their kids,” she said, offering a few funny stories from personal experience both as a player and coach.

“[The tennis system in Russia] is unrecognizable from when I was a kid. Now, they tell you about nutrition, proper fitness, even sleep. It’s not perfect, but I would have no problem in putting my kid, when I have one, into it,” Ekaterina said, as if predicting the future.

Now a mother, she has enrolled her young son, Mark, into tennis lessons and says he’s loving it.

The RTF seems to have heard what the first generations of post-Soviet players endured. They have, as mentioned above, put in place standards that will evolve and improve with time. The issue with parents is something that was always a great bugbear of mine.

Liudmila Mikoyan, a leading Russian coach who was a successful tour pro and played for her father’s homeland of Armenia, used to advise me on the “crazy mothers.” The ones who have the same clothes and hairstyles as their daughters and perch themselves perilously close to the action.

One of these “crazy mothers” was the reason for the federation to begin considering guidelines. I was there at the Moscow venue, for an International Tennis Federation (ITF) $25k pro tournament when Russian officials genuinely were lost for words and action.

In the second set of a doubles match, the woman’s child kept messing up her forehand volleys close to the net. Exasperated, the mother went down from the balcony overhanging the court during a break between games. She emerged out onto the playing surface, dragging her daughter up from her seat with her, and proceeded to show her how to play the shot correctly.

The umpire called for help, tournament officials arrived, but it was already too late. German player Annika Beck and her mother were standing next to me, watching it unfold. Our chat about my former life in Germany and their hometown of Giessen abruptly halted as the Russian crazy mother was led from the court by the tournament referee, and her teenage daughter barely held back tears.

There are, I’ve been told by Vesna and Ekaterina, occasional outbreaks from parents at training or tournaments, but greatly reduced thanks to RTF guidelines. Alongside better coach education, information for players and parents, and limits on tournament participation to prevent ‘overplaying’, Russia is beginning to blossom into a much better place for kids to play tennis and once the ITF removes the stigma of being born in Russia, we’ll see a lot more home-produced talent winning major tournaments under a Russian flag.

US President Donald Trump’s decision to approve a temporary waiver of sanctions on Russian fuel exports came after Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky ignored multiple requests to stop strikes on Russian oil refineries, Axios reported on Saturday, citing a US official with direct knowledge of the matter.

Trump has persistently blamed Ukraine, and Zelensky personally, for exacerbating the global fuel crisis, accusing authorities in Kiev of deliberately targeting Russian refining facilities and driving up prices for American consumers. Despite repeated warnings from Washington, the Ukrainian leader pledged earlier this month to ramp up the long-range strikes.

“The attacks on the refineries cause pain in Russia, but it causes pain for the US, too,” the US official told the news outlet.

US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner reportedly warned Ukrainian negotiators during eight hours of talks in Miami earlier this week that Trump planned to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin and lift sanctions on Russian diesel exports.

The media outlet cited the official as saying that the dispute over the diesel deal emerged as the US mediators conducted constructive talks on ending the conflict with Ukrainian and European diplomats. The negotiations reportedly focused on finalizing security guarantees for Ukraine from the US, Europe, and NATO, as well as new territorial proposals.

The official added that Witkoff and Kushner had presented postwar plans covering Ukraine’s reconstruction, military funding, and budget deficits, while participants discussed Kiev’s potential EU accession, its future relationship with NATO, and a possible postwar security framework between Europe and Russia.

Trump and Putin held a phone call on Friday, shortly after which the US Treasury Department announced a temporary waiver of sanctions on Russian fuel trade, allowing diesel to be sold, delivered, and exported, including into the US, until at least April 7, 2027.

The Kremlin said Moscow was ready to supply oil and petroleum products to global markets, adding that this would benefit the world economy. Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak also confirmed that Russia would lift diesel export restrictions ahead of schedule, with the process to begin “immediately.”

Russia had previously extended restrictions on diesel, ship fuel, and gas oil exports until October 31 to stabilize the domestic market amid seasonal demand from the harvest. Fuel producers are barred from exporting until October 31, while fuel resellers face a ban until January 31, 2027. Gasoline exports are also prohibited until the end of January.

A gunman opened fire at a home in Erie, Pennsylvania, killing at least nine people, according to local law enforcement. Two children are among the victims, the police said, adding that the suspect committed suicide.

The police received a report about a shooting at a residence in the city of Erie in the early evening on Friday, according to the local media. Two women were subsequently found dead outside of the home; the other victims were discovered inside.

The suspect reportedly initially barricaded himself indoors, leading to a standoff with the SWAT teams deployed to the scene, the police department said. A local news media outlet photographer, who was present at the scene, stated that he had heard screams and gunfire at some point during the standoff.

The gunman then took his own life, according to Erie Police Chief Rick Lorah, who said the suspect died from a “self-inflicted gunshot wound.”

Neither the victims nor the suspect have been publicly identified. The motives for the shooting also remain unclear. “Our investigators are working diligently to establish the full circumstances of what occurred,” Lorah said, adding that “it’s going to take some time to put this all together.”

Russia’s most award-winning restaurant is leaving St. Petersburg for Moscow, and the reaction tells you rather more about the relationship between the country’s two capitals than it does about food.

For eight years, we Petersburgers have taken pride in Birch, a celebrated fine-dining eatery, twice named Russia’s best and renowned for its inventive tasting menus and notoriously hard-to-get tables. Of course, most of us stopped going there long ago, once it became largely the preserve of visitors from Moscow, because locals are not generally eager to spend $200 per person on dinner, which is roughly what the basic set menu with non-alcoholic drinks would have cost this year. You also had to pay in advance for a reservation, often months ahead.

A Moscow friend merely laughed when I mentioned the prices. “That’s reasonable,” she said. “Average for the market, really.”

There, in miniature, you have the difference between the two cities.

Birch was brilliant, but increasingly not for us and then came the news that it was closing and moving to Moscow.

I won’t speculate here about the business reasons, given that’s a conversation for people who take fine dining rather more seriously than I do, but what interested me was the reaction of Petersburgers who had never eaten at Birch and had no intention of doing so.

The restaurant worked in much the same way, while you might consider spending that much on dinner absurd, it was comforting to know that you could. Better still, you could complain that “those Muscovites” had taken all the tables, as though you had spent every morning desperately refreshing the booking page.

Now comes the ultimate betrayal as Birch is defecting to Moscow, our ancient rival.

The comments beneath reports of the closure were wonderfully predictable, such as the owner had gone chasing Moscow money and he had been somebody special in Petersburg, but Moscow was full of people like him and let’s see how much they appreciate him there.

The resentment was unmistakable because we simply don’t like it when somebody chooses Moscow over us.

It happens with almost everything, Petersburgers compare restaurants, museums, architecture, public transport, the pace of life and even our respective words for kerbs and needless to say, in this invisible competition St. Petersburg wins almost every category. At least according to St. Petersburg.

Russian writers were comparing the two cities long before any of us arrived. In imperial times, when St. Petersburg was the capital, it could afford to look down on Moscow, but although the capital moved more than a century ago, a certain Petersburg snobbery survived the transfer remarkably well. 

Three hundred years of self-importance aren’t easily erased, but there may be another reason for the difference.

Moscow often feels like a city of arrivals as people move there from every corner of Russia to build careers, make money and seize opportunities, yet many never quite decide that Moscow is home.

When I worked there, I was amazed by colleagues who had lived in the capital for five or seven years but barely knew the city. They still regarded Perm, Krasnodar or wherever they had come from as home and even after 15 or 20 years in Moscow, they would announce that they were “going home” for the holidays.

St. Petersburg works differently, if you live here for a couple of years you begin, almost involuntarily, to become a Petersburger and soon enough you are complaining about Muscovites arriving with their money, occupying the best tables and theater seats, clogging Nevsky Prospekt and pushing up property prices because you have been assimilated.

For affluent residents of both cities, that future has practically arrived already, with a favorite restaurant moving 650 kilometers away an inconvenience rather than a tragedy as lunch in Petersburg and dinner in Moscow is no longer an especially exotic proposition.

For everyone else, perhaps the closer relationship between Russia’s two great cities will eventually bring other benefits and maybe some Moscow salaries will migrate north, while perhaps some Petersburg habits will travel south.

And perhaps, once Moscow and St. Petersburg are connected so closely that the distinction begins to blur, there will finally be no reason for envy or those familiar sidelong glances and we will become one enormous, harmonious urban family.

Although, naturally, St. Petersburg will still be the more beautiful part of it.

This article was first published by the online newspaper Gazeta.ru and was translated and edited by the RT team

A major energy deal reached on Friday to export Russian diesel to the US and global markets, potentially easing an international fuel shortage, is an “immediate win” for both US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Craig Pasta Jardula, host of the daily call-in show “Drive Time,” has told RT.

Both leaders spoke by phone for 90 minutes on Friday after which Trump announced Russia would immediately supply more than 300,000 tonnes of diesel, followed by 500,000 tonnes in November and an additional one million tonnes thereafter.

“I do think these are immediate wins for both Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. Trump has midterm elections coming up in less than a month, so he can tout this as a victory. One of the biggest concerns in the US is oil prices, so this will boost market confidence at a time when markets have become increasingly unstable,” Jardula said.

Diesel prices affect agriculture, home heating, and trucking costs, and are near record highs, posing a risk for Trump’s fellow Republicans ahead of elections on November 3 that will determine whether they retain control of Congress. US diesel futures fell almost 5% following news of the deal and were trading at $4.64 a gallon.

The Ukraine conflict dominated much of the discussion between the presidents, with Putin briefing Trump on the situation along the front lines and Moscow’s response to Ukrainian “terrorist strikes” on energy infrastructure and civilian targets deep inside its territory.

Putin said Kiev had effectively derailed plans to resume trilateral talks between Russia, Ukraine, and the US, which the leaders had discussed holding after Russia’s State Duma elections. Kremlin foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said Ukrainian drone attacks on polling stations and election officials had fundamentally changed the situation.

Moscow will now reconsider when negotiations can resume, according to the Kremlin aide.

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s plan to livestream the firing-squad execution of former Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 people at the Fort Hood base in 2009, is set to become an unprecedented event in the nation’s history.

Approved by US President Donald Trump, the plan has drawn bipartisan criticism and condemnation from human rights advocates and religious leaders, who say it risks turning an execution into a public spectacle.

What happened at Fort Hood

The fatal shooting occurred on November 5, 2009, at Fort Hood’s Soldier Readiness Processing Center in Texas, where troops prepared for overseas deployment. US Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a 39-year-old military psychiatrist, opened fire with two semiautomatic pistols, killing 12 service members and one civilian Defense Department employee, and wounding 32 more.

Military police injured Hasan by returned fire, leaving the shooter paralyzed from the waist down before taking him into custody. A US Senate report designated the spree killing as the deadliest terrorist attack on US soil since September 11, 2001.

The man behind the Fort Hood shooting

Born in the US in 1970 to Palestinian immigrant parents, Hasan trained as a doctor before becoming an Army psychiatrist. Before the shooting, he served at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Maryland, where he worked with service members, including those returning from combat zones. By 2009, he had attained the rank of major and was preparing for a transfer to Afghanistan.

Was the shooting part of a wider plot?

Hasan said he had acted in the name of jihad, and witnesses reported that he shouted “Allahu akbar” (“God is greatest”) during the shooting. Authorities examined the attack in the context of Islamic extremism, while the FBI said in the days immediately after the shooting that it had found no evidence of accomplices or a wider terrorist plot. Investigators continued examining the circumstances that led Hasan to carry out the attack.

From conviction to execution date

In August 2013, a military court found Hasan guilty of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder. Later that month, a panel of 13 senior military officers unanimously sentenced him to death, ordering his dismissal from the Army and forfeiture of all pay and allowances. Hasan has since been held on military death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Hasan would be executed by a firing squad of soldiers at Fort Hood on December, 3, at 1 PM – the same time the 2009 shooting began. Hegseth added that the execution would be livestreamed “because people need to understand there’s serious consequences for these types of things.”

Livestream plan draws bipartisan backlash

The plan has drawn criticism from lawmakers across party lines, religious leaders and the United Nations’ human rights office, which warned on Friday that broadcasting the execution would amount to “breach the absolute prohibition of torture.”

Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, said Hasan’s actions could not be condoned but called the livestream plan “a barbaric promotion of a culture of death,” warning that the decision would undermine the nation’s moral fabric.

The last widely recognized public execution in the US took place in Kentucky in 1936, when a convicted murderer was hanged in front of thousands of spectators.

How execution methods vary across US states

Firing squads are one of several execution methods permitted under US law, alongside lethal injection, electrocution, lethal gas and, in some jurisdictions, hanging. Execution by firing squad is legal in Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah. Electrocution is permitted in nine states, including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Tennessee. Several states also allow execution by lethal gas, including nitrogen hypoxia, under varying legal conditions, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

If carried out, Hasan’s execution would be the first in the US military since 1961, when Army Private John A. Bennett was hanged. The last known execution by a US military firing squad took place in November 1945. In 2025, South Carolina carried out the first civilian execution by firing squad in the US in 15 years.

Why is the Fort Hood shooter facing a firing squad?

The decision to execute Hasan by firing squad comes amid renewed scrutiny of lethal injection following a botched execution attempt in Tennessee last week. Christa Pike, a death-row inmate, survived after prison personnel failed to administer the lethal injection properly and was taken to hospital in critical condition. Earlier this week, her lawyers said she awoke, stressing that she had pneumonia, a blood clot, couldn’t swallow, and was unable to move her arms or hands.

Israel is angry that the Nobel Peace Prize committee has honored Navanethem ‘Navi’ Pillay, who chaired a UN commission accusing it of genocide in Gaza. Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels would have welcomed the decision, the Israelis said.

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory concluded in September 2025 that Israel was “responsible for the commission of four genocidal acts in Gaza with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza.” Israel vigorously disputed the findings of Pillay’s team.

A year earlier, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Gaza, including intentional targeting of civilians and using starvation as a method of warfare.

The UN says that some 1.98 million or 90% of the enclave’s population was displaced due to Israeli military attacks since October 7, 2023, with most of Gaza’s water and sanitation network damaged or destroyed.

Israel sent its forces into Gaza in retaliation for an incursion by Palestinian armed group Hamas, in which some 1,200 people lost their lives and 250 others were taken hostage.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced on Friday that the 125th Nobel Peace Prize would go to Pillay for “her efforts to promote peace and international law.” The 85-year-old South African lawyer, who was an ICC judge between 2003 and 2008, “has been instrumental in ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are prosecuted,” it said.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a post on X later in the day that honoring Pillay was a “grotesque weaponization of an award to legitimize anti-Israel hatred and prejudice.” The jurist was responsible for a “relentless, politically motivated demonization of Israel,” it claimed.

Goebbels was a loyal follower of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany’s propaganda minister between 1933 and 1945, who advocated the extermination of Jews.

The office of the Israeli prime minister suggested that the Nobel committee “has lost its moral compass” by giving the prize “to a bigot who built her career around inventing and propagating blood libels against the one and only Jewish state.”

Pillay, who currently sits on the International Court of Justice (ICJ), denied that she held any bias against Israel.

After being told by journalists that she had been awarded the prize, the jurist recalled that she was surprised when people complemented her on her courage for calling out Israeli actions in Gaza as genocide.

“Why would you need courage to speak the truth? You interpret the law. You look at all the facts, so it’s an impartial decision,” she insisted.

The protests in the Indian capital New Delhi demanding the resignation of the country’s chief election commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, have intensified, with the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a satirical youth movement joining the cause on Saturday. 

Delhi’s police have moved to snuff out the protests even before they begin. They detained CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke from inside a plane when he landed in Delhi on Saturday morning. And YouTuber Dhruv Rathee, a known critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was detained from his residence in Gurugram.

Central Delhi has been turned into a fortress. Prohibitory orders are in place and permission for further demonstrations have been denied. Local reports say 20,000 police personnel are now on Delhi’s streets. The capital’s stadiums have been turned into makeshift detention centers. And the internet has been cut. 

Up to 250 long-distance trains arriving in Delhi have been cancelled. Restrictions have been imposed on public transport, including on Delhi’s metro system – prompting India’s Supreme Court to intervene.

The approaches to Jantar Mantar – an 18th century astronomical observatory in central Delhi, which has served as a site for the protests – were sealed earlier this month. 

However, Delhi police have so far avoided the heavy-handed approach they had taken against the CJP in July, when the movement humbled Modi’s government and forced the resignation of federal Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. 

Why does the opposition want the election panel chief to resign?

The opposition parties allege that the Election Commission’s country-wide voter revision exercise is helping Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stay in power, and win elections in state after state.

The Election Commission of India started its special revision of voter lists in the world’s largest democracy last year, starting with the northern Bihar state. The aim was to identify, and remove, the names of dead voters, those who have moved locations, have registered for vote in more than one constituency, or those that simply could not be traced.

About 130 million names have been removed or flagged for removal so far, figures cited by the BJP itself show. If that figure sounds big, remember that India has a 1.4 billion population. The final decisions on removing many of these names are yet to be made. 

However, India’s opposition parties allege that legitimate voters, including people from minority communities and groups less likely to back the BJP, have been removed. 

They claim the name removals means India’s elections are no longer a level playing field. The opposition says the exercise has already skewed the results of state elections held in April, with the BJP and its alliance winning three of the five states.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has gone so far as to call it “vote theft,” arguing that any laws passed by lawmakers elected through “stolen” votes lack legitimacy. Both the BJP and the Election Commission have denied manipulating the rolls for political gain.

The BJP maintains that the exercise is only for removing ineligible voters. Home Minister Amit Shah has said it is also intended to prevent “infiltrators” – an euphemism for illegal immigrants, mainly from neighboring Bangladesh – from voting. 

The election panel contends that any wrongly excluded voters can request to be added back to the rolls, and further appeal any adverse decisions. 

Opposition Congress party leads the charge in Delhi

The Congress-led opposition took the issue to Delhi’s streets earlier this week. The protests received unexpected energy when Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Gandhi, led from the front. Dramatic scenes unfolded, with Rahul climbing atop police barricades and waving the national flag, and the siblings then dodging the police and entering the office complex of the state broadcaster All-India Radio in an attempt to reach the Election Commission office next door. 

Police detained them and several other lawmakers briefly on October 6, and again the next day. Cases were filed against them for alleged obstruction and assaults on officers. 

But Rahul Gandhi has remained unfazed and pressed on. He said there were already 45 first information reports (FIRs), the formal complaints that start police investigations, against him. “Every FIR is a medal for me,” he taunted, adding that he wanted the figure to reach 100.

What happens next?

Kumar remains in office. He can only be removed after a parliamentary process and a two-thirds majority vote in both the houses of the Indian Parliament. That seems a bridge too far – the opposition alliance holds just 184 of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha.

The opposition’s only other option is to raise the pressure on Kumar through public protests and force him to resign. 

The CJP’s role is crucial. Its last protest was successful because it resonated across India. Can they get the same popular support this time is the key question.

Gyanesh Kumar’s future, and that of the CJP, depend on it

Investors are exaggerating the likelihood of a military confrontation over Taiwan, a senior US diplomat has said.

Michael DeSombre, US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, told CNBC on Thursday that investors were “overpricing the risk of something happening across the Taiwan Strait.” 

“Both China and the US don’t want conflict, and we’re able to deter conflict,” he said.

Beijing regards Taiwan as part of its sovereign territory and says it seeks peaceful reunification, although it has not ruled out using force. The self-governing island remains a source of friction between China and the US, which maintains a one-China policy but continues to supply Taipei with weapons.

Experts, however, warn that financial markets may be ill-prepared for the economic fallout of a crisis.

Taiwan dominates global production of advanced semiconductors, supplying chips essential to smartphones, vehicles, and AI systems. A blockade or military escalation could disrupt manufacturing and key shipping routes, sending shock waves through global trade and technology supply chains.

Bloomberg Economics estimated in February that a US-China war over Taiwan could wipe $10.6 trillion, or 9.6%, off global GDP in its first year. The EU would be among the hardest-hit regions, according to British think tank Chatham House.

Johns Hopkins University professor Hal Brands has warned that Beijing could opt for a blockade or customs quarantine rather than a full-scale invasion.

“No one has a good idea how to price in the risk of a US-China military conflict over Taiwan,” he told an investment conference in September, according to Business Today.

Meanwhile, Beijing has repeatedly denounced US arms sales to Taiwan as interference in its internal affairs, demanding that Washington stop the shipments.

Washington approved a record $11 billion arms package for Taiwan last December. Trump has reportedly delayed approval of another $14 billion deal, calling the potential sale a “very good negotiating chip” in talks with Beijing.

US officials have claimed that Xi ordered China’s military to be ready for a potential operation against Taiwan by 2027, although Beijing has not confirmed this.

DeSombre, however, described the Chinese leader as “a very rational actor” who would carefully weigh the consequences of military action.

Israeli attacks have left more Palestinians dead in Gaza as the ceasefire approaches its first anniversary, without bringing an end to the violence.

At least eight Palestinians were killed and several others wounded in Israeli strikes and gunfire across the enclave on Thursday and Friday, according to local medical sources and rescue workers.

On Friday, Israeli troops reportedly shot dead a Palestinian man near refugee camps in central Gaza, wounding several others.

“Two people, a woman and a child, were killed and others were wounded when Israeli aircraft bombed a residential building” in Gaza City, the Civil Defense Service said. Another woman was killed by artillery fire, while a separate fatality was reported in central Gaza.

The US-brokered ceasefire took effect on October 10, 2025. Israel has continued to conduct strikes, saying it is targeting militants and accusing Hamas of violating the agreement.

More than 1,450 Palestinians have been killed and over 5,000 wounded since the truce began, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. UK-based aid group Islamic Relief said on Thursday that an average of one Palestinian has been killed or wounded every 90 minutes over the past year, with at least 320 children among those killed.

Nearly all of Gaza’s 2.1 million residents have been displaced during the war, which has left much of the enclave in ruins. Around 82% of its structures have been damaged or destroyed, according to Islamic Relief, while reconstruction has barely begun.

Netanyahu has also faced scrutiny over reports that he received advance warnings of the October 7 attack but downplayed the threat. Haaretz reported that UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed had warned him of a possible major Hamas operation roughly ten days beforehand. Netanyahu’s office dismissed the allegation as an “absolute lie.” The Israeli leader traveled to Abu Dhabi in late September to seek a denial of the claim that he had been warned.

Ukrainian spy balloons have been spotted over central Russia’s Yaroslavl Region for the first time, according to the regional Security Ministry.

Local authorities said several of the small flying objects were successfully shot down on Friday, urging residents to report anything suspicious that they see in the sky or suspected debris to emergency services.

The balloons “had been launched from the territory of Ukraine,” according to officials. Small reconnaissance balloons can be used to distract enemy air defenses, but they can also serve as reconnaissance platforms, including to pinpoint the locations of air defense systems or help direct strikes against other targets.

Yaroslavl Region has been targeted by Ukrainian long-range strikes in recent weeks. In mid-September, the Russian military shot down 65 drones over the region in a single day during a large-scale drone raid targeting a local refinery.

In September 2025, the Ukrainian military attempted to strike several Russian regions with dozens of meteorological balloons carrying explosives.

The Wall Street Journal claimed in a February article that Kiev had been using high-altitude balloons in attacks on Russia since the Ukraine conflict escalated in 2022. However, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, such attacks were first detected in autumn 2024, with another surge in reported incidents in late summer 2025.

The recent balloon attacks come as Russia has stepped up strikes on missile and drone warehouses, as well as unmanned aerial vehicle assembly facilities, in response to continued Ukrainian strikes on Russian civilian and energy infrastructure, which Moscow describes as terrorist acts.

On Wednesday, the Russian military targeted a Smart Ammunition facility used to assemble and store FP-5 Flamingo cruise missiles, FP-9 tactical ballistic missiles, and components for both weapons, as well as other sites across several Ukrainian regions, including a drone workshop in Kirovograd Region and the JTI Ukraine tobacco factory in Kremenchug, which Russian officials say is used to manufacture small-arms ammunition.

US President Donald Trump’s top envoys have begun two days of negotiations with Ukrainian and European representatives in Miami, focusing on preparations for the coming winter and potential ways to de-escalate the Ukraine conflict on terms that would be acceptable to Moscow.

US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff described Friday’s discussions as “constructive,” saying American representatives had discussed prospects for a “lasting peace” with Kiev and its most hawkish European backers, including Britain, France and Germany, as well as officials from the European Commission and NATO.

The talks covered “near-term measures related to winter preparedness,” including energy resilience and grain exports, as well as longer-term security guarantees, post-war reconstruction and Ukraine’s potential accession to the EU, according to Witkoff.

“The exchange was productive and helped identify areas for further exploration ahead of the United States’ next engagement with Russia,” he wrote on X.

Today, representatives from the United States, the E3, the European Commission, Ukraine, and NATO met in Miami and held constructive discussions on potential avenues to de-escalate and conclude the war with Russia ahead of winter and advance efforts toward a durable and lasting peace. The discussions covered a broad range of issues, including near-term measures related to winter preparedness (energy resilience, grains exports), security guarantees, as well as longer-term arrangements for Ukraine’s and Europe’s security to prevent future conflicts, and support Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction and economic prosperity, including EU accession. The exchange was productive and helped identify areas for further exploration ahead of the United States’ next engagement with Russia. Participants reaffirmed their shared commitment to continuing diplomatic efforts toward a sustainable peace that strengthens security and creates opportunities for lasting stability and prosperity.

— Special Envoy Steve Witkoff (@SEPeaceMissions) October 9, 2026

The negotiations were scheduled to continue on Saturday, and no concrete agreements or breakthroughs have been announced so far.

The US delegation is led by Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, while Kiev is represented by Vladimir Zelensky’s chief of staff, Kirill Budanov, foreign intelligence chief Rustem Umerov, deputy chief of staff Sergey Kislitsa and senior lawmaker David Arakhamia.

The talks follow reports that Witkoff and Kushner were preparing to present “new ideas and proposals” aimed at breaking the diplomatic deadlock. According to Axios, the pair could travel to Moscow later this month for further talks with Putin.

One proposal under consideration reportedly involves a partial ceasefire covering strikes on energy infrastructure, amid growing anxiety among Kiev’s European backers over the economic and energy consequences of the conflict.

“They are all nervous about the winter. It will be a tough winter if the war does not stop,” a US source previously told AFP.

Zelensky lashed out at Trump, effectively accusing Washington of stabbing Kiev in the back by striking a separate diesel deal with Moscow. Zelensky branded the move “a weak decision by strong partners” and accused the US of using talks with the Ukrainian delegation in Miami as a “smokescreen” while negotiating with Putin behind Kiev’s back.

Trump has repeatedly pressed Zelensky to halt Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries, blaming them for worsening a global diesel shortage and driving up fuel prices for American consumers. According to Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov, Trump promised Putin that he would convey Moscow’s position to the Ukrainian delegation in Florida.

Paris and Berlin are contradicting each other on the fate of a much-heralded joint main battle tank development project. French Chief of Defense Staff General Fabien Mandon has claimed Germany withdrew from the program, while the German government says the opposite.

Known as the Main Ground Combat System (MGCS), the project was launched back in 2018 with the aim of replacing both the French Leclerc and German Leopard 2 main battle tanks. It was a collaboration between the Amsterdam-headquartered KNDS – the EU’s largest tank maker – the German Rheinmetall weapons manufacturing giant, and the French Thales industrial group. Berlin even purchased a 40% stake in KNDS in June, with another 40% held by Paris, when the project was still in full swing.

On Thursday, Mandon told French lawmakers that the plans for the project had essentially fallen through. “The outcome isn’t good. We had hoped to build a future tank in cooperation with the Germans, but unfortunately, we have to acknowledge that the Germans have withdrawn from the project,” he said during a hearing on next year’s budget.

A German Defense Ministry spokesperson denied that claim, stating that Berlin merely wants to “adjust” the program to include the “lessons” of the Ukraine conflict. “We remain committed to equal partnership in the MGCS and are focusing on future technologies for armored combat,” the official said, according to Reuters.

Madon himself stated in a press release published after the hearing that an industrial proposal submitted in early 2026 “was incompatible with the need to replace the current tanks by 2037,” prompting Berlin to opt for a national effort to replace its Leopard 2 tank.

The general also maintained that a decade of work had “not been in vain” and the MGCS project was not scrapped but rather “pushed back to the late 2040s.” Paris would now launch its own national development of “an interim” replacement for its Leclerc tanks, he added.

The total cost of the project remains unclear, although a French parliamentary budget report suggested that Paris authorized a total of €212 million ($237.3 million) for the program over 2025 and 2026. The German government has not published any specific figures related to the project’s funding, but said in 2024 that the two partners were “each contributing 50% of the costs.”

Another major Franco-German armament program collapsed just months ago. Dubbed the Future Combat Air System (FCAS), it aimed to produce a next-generation fighter jet by 2040. The venture failed in June after an estimated €3.2 billion in sunk R&D costs due to irreconcilable disputes between aircraft makers Dassault and Airbus.

Police in Lansing, Michigan, are investigating whether a serial killer is responsible for the deaths of five men found along a short stretch of a river trail in the city over the past year.

The victims, aged between 22 and 70, were all believed to be homeless. Their bodies were discovered along a 1.5-mile (2.4-km) section of the trail near downtown Lansing between October 2025 and August 2026.

”One question that we are being asked is ‘Do we have a serial killer in Lansing?’” Police Chief Robert Backus told reporters at a recent briefing.

”What we need the public to know is that we are investigating all of these cases. They are all active investigations, and we are looking at the idea or the possibility that these may be related cases.”

Four victims suffered apparent blunt-force injuries to the face, while the fifth was stabbed. Three deaths have been ruled homicides, one remains undetermined, and the cause of the fifth has yet to be established.

Edward Smith has been charged with murder in connection with the August 20 stabbing of Daniel Lusk, 22, but police have not linked him to the other deaths. Another victim, Louis Woodruff, 57, was found injured on August 30, after Smith’s arrest, and died on September 1.

A lack of witnesses and limited surveillance footage have hampered the investigation. Police have stepped up patrols and deployed mobile surveillance cameras along the trail, while social workers are reaching out to homeless residents to help them secure housing.

Serial killings are rare in the US, accounting for less than 1% of all murders according to the FBI. One of the country’s most high-profile recent cases involved Rex Heuermann, arrested in July 2023 in connection with the Gilgo Beach murders in New York. He was sentenced to life in prison this June after admitting to killing eight women.

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has lashed out at US President Donald Trump over his decision to lift sanctions on Russian diesel exports, accusing Washington of striking a deal with Moscow behind Kiev’s back.

Zelensky described the move as “definitely unfair,” “definitely not partner-like” and “a weak decision by strong partners,” effectively portraying it as a stab in the back just as Ukrainian negotiators and Kiev’s European backers were meeting American officials to discuss a potential peace settlement in Miami.

In a voice memo sent to Western journalists on Friday, Zelensky suggested Trump had used talks with Ukrainian negotiators as a “smokescreen” while pursuing a separate agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“You know, it looks like a happy birthday present for Putin. It looks absolutely terrible,” he told Axios in a separate phone interview, referring to the Russian leader’s 74th birthday earlier this week.

Q: Zelenskyy said you're weak because of the Putin deal. He just criticized you TRUMP: Who said that? Q: Zelenskyy. He said you're weak TRUMP: Okay. *walks away* https://t.co/niHd2ynoVP

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 9, 2026

Trump initially ignored journalists’ questions about Zelensky calling him “weak” but later brushed aside the criticism, defending the agreement as necessary to ease soaring fuel prices.

Reporter: President Zelensky said that this is a weak move by a strong partner that will only prolong the war. Trump: We need oil for the world and this is diesel, which is what we need. So we're very happy to get it. https://t.co/8clgGPbJvv

— Faytuks Network (@FaytuksNetwork) October 9, 2026

“We need oil for the world and this is diesel, which is what we need. So we’re very happy to get it,” the US president said.

The US Treasury subsequently issued a six-month sanctions waiver allowing Russian diesel exports, as Washington seeks to contain a global fuel shortage exacerbated by the US-Israeli war on Iran and Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries.

Trump has repeatedly blamed Kiev – and Zelensky personally – for worsening the global fuel crisis, accusing Ukraine of deliberately knocking out Russian refining capacity and driving up prices for American consumers.

Trump doubled down earlier this week, arguing that the main driver of soaring US fuel prices was no longer the disruption of oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, but Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has similarly linked the strikes to a broader global “energy shock.”

Despite Washington’s repeated warnings, Zelensky pledged last weekend to intensify long-range strikes on Russian oil facilities. A senior Ukrainian official told the Financial Times on Friday that Kiev would ignore Washington’s deal with Moscow and “will burn their refineries.”

Frustrstion and anger in Kyiv tonight over Trump's diesel deal with Putin. Zelenskyy blasts Trump, calling the move "weak." A senior Ukrainian official tells me Kyiv will continue its long-range drone strikes on Russia's energy facilities "We will burn their refineries."

— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) October 9, 2026

The fuel shortage has become an increasingly pressing domestic issue for Trump ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. US diesel prices surged to record highs above $6.50 per gallon in September, with prices in California exceeding $8 in some areas.

Putin confirmed following Friday’s conversation that Russia was prepared to supply oil and petroleum products to American and global markets, expressing confidence that the move would have a positive effect on the world economy.

Macron sends a nuclear message

When France’s military test-fired its latest nuclear-capable ballistic missile, the submarine-launched M51.3, on Tuesday, French President Emmanuel Macron chose to milk the spectacle for every last drop of propaganda value. “To be free, we must be feared,” he said. “And to be feared, we must be powerful.”

The launch, Macron said, was intended as “a clear message… for wherever it must be received.”

The missile may have splashed down in the north Atlantic, but the message was received “loud and clear” in Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the following day. “Problems should be resolved through dialogue, not demonstrative missile launches,” but Russia will take “all necessary measures” to protect its strategic security, Peskov added.

This domestic turmoil isn’t unique to France, nor is it something that can be fixed with minor policy tweaks. As RT examined on Friday, mass migration has already pushed European housing, security, and welfare systems to the breaking point. With native Europeans set to become minorities in their own countries in the coming decades, the social and political consequences could be deadly.

Germany’s enemies within

France is not the only European power gearing up for conflict abroad while its political and economic foundations disintegrate at home. Germanys’ foreign intelligence chief opened the week with a warning to lawmakers: Moscow is waging “a shadow war” against Europe, and “Germany is in danger ​of becoming embroiled in a violent conflict with Russia.”

The Kremlin views accusations of “shadow war” and “hybrid war” – which are unprovable by nature – as “hastily cobbled-together provocations,” designed to serve “Kiev and the militaristic wing of the European political class.”

However, the German government can’t trust the loyalty of its own intelligence agents. Former spymaster August Hanning was charged with treason and espionage this week, in what appears to be the country’s worst spy scandal since the Guillaume affair of the 1970s. 

German prosecutors aren’t revealing which foreign services Hanning allegedly collaborated with, but as RT explored in the latest installment in our ‘Wired for War’ series, all the signs point to Israel’s Mossad.

Russia reminds Zelensky what it’s capable of

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky is also on shaky ground this week. “Disappointment” and “shame” are now the most common feelings Ukrainians associate with him. US President Donald Trump blamed him for the worldwide diesel fuel shortage while Zelensky doubled down on silencing his critics, stepping up his long-range strikes on Russian oil refineries. 

He soon learned that Russia always responds. Russian forces pounded data centers, logistics hubs, weapons depots, and missile factories across Ukraine this week, including production plants of Ukraine’s flagship ‘Flamingo’ cruise missiles. “People in Ukraine should blame only the head of the Kiev regime for this. It is Zelensky who bears full personal and political responsibility for it,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement. 

The strikes continued all week, as Zelensky prepared to fly to Miami for a meeting with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner on Friday. Witkoff and Kushner were bringing “new ideas and proposals” aimed at resolving the conflict. The two could travel to Moscow later this month for another round of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

Although Zelensky’s situation at home may be deteriorating, he can still count on the support of his backers in Europe. Russian military blogger Mikhail Zvinchuk, who has been sanctioned by Ukraine and the EU over his war reporting, was detained in Montenegro on Friday. Zvinchuk founded the ‘Rybar’ Telegram channel, and was reportedly preparing to film a report on Montenegro’s plans to align its visa policy with EU standards. To the country’s pro-EU government, that now counts as “hybrid activity.”

‘Muslim NATO’ triggers article 5: Saudi Arabia calls for backup 

Saudi Arabia’s renewed conflict with Yemen’s Houthis is not going well for Riyadh. After conquering a swathe of new territory along the Red Sea coast and the Bab el-Mandeb strait, the Houthis declared Saudi airspace a “theater for military operations” this week, and struck Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport multiple times to make their point.

After an emergency meeting on Monday, Pakistan and Türkiye decided to deploy military forces to Saudi Arabia – the first deployment of the newly-formed “Muslim NATO.” Britain has also agreed to provide air-to-air refueling for Saudi warplanes; France is sending troops, radar, and air-defense systems; and Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former jihadist, is reportedly considering entering the conflict on the Saudi side. 

RT examined why the long-dormant Saudi/Houthi conflict is flaring up again, and compared the manpower, resources, and weaponry that Yemen’s Saudi-backed government and the Houthis bring to the table, as the government prepares for a ground offensive against the militants.

India hits a wall with Washington

A spat over work permits has driven another wedge between New Delhi and Washington. After US Vice President JD Vance lashed out at eight US and Indian tech giants for using H-1B visas to hire “indentured servants” from India over American workers, India’s Foreign Ministry slammed Vance for his “deeply offensive” comments.

“Resorting to terminology that carries painful historical and colonial legacy connotations is deeply offensive,” the ministry said. 

At the same time, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has accused Indian “oligarchs” of wielding undue influence over the country’s telecoms regulators, as his bid to introduce Starlink internet access to the Indian market remains stalled. India’s Communications Ministry called his allegations “baseless and misconceived,” but Musk doubled down on Thursday, asking whether telecoms and media tycoon Mukesh Ambani was “the real boss of India?”

And finally…

BRICS could face its biggest political test yet, however, if Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva loses his upcoming runoff election against Flavio Bolsonaro, son of imprisoned former President Jair Bolsonaro. Should Bolsonaro win, he is likely to pull Brazil into the orbit of the US, where Trump has made no effort to conceal his hostility toward BRICS.

Russian analyst Fyodor Lukyanov broke down what a Bolsonaro victory would mean for the multipolar project, and with two weeks to go until the runoff election, we’ll be keeping a close eye on Brazil.

Israel is now formally in campaign mode. The Knesset dissolved on July 17, and voters go to the polls on October 27, 2026. A week later, on November 3, American voters decide the composition of Congress.

The overlap is almost exact, and it has turned the relationship between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump into something closer to a competition than an alliance. What helps one man survive politically threatens to sink the other.

Netanyahu needs Iran to dominate the Israeli campaign. His best path back to power runs through a public that feels an immediate security threat and a prime minister positioned as the only leader capable of ordering military action at scale. Trump needs the opposite: proof to American voters that a long war is over, that gasoline prices are falling, and that no more Americans are dying for someone else’s fight. The result is a near-perfect zero-sum bind. A new round of escalation could hand Netanyahu a path to victory while costing Republicans their House majority. A negotiated end to the conflict could hand Trump a signature achievement while leaving Netanyahu exposed to hostile polling and an unresolved domestic reckoning.

On paper, Netanyahu’s position looks weak. The Knesset has 120 seats, a governing coalition needs 61, and any party must clear a 3.25% threshold to enter parliament at all – meaning the real battle isn’t just for vote share but for keeping allied parties above the line.

As of October 8, 2026, Israeli polling presents a mixed picture, with neither Netanyahu’s bloc nor the Zionist opposition securing a parliamentary majority in the latest surveys. A Channel 13 poll published on October 7 put Netanyahu’s bloc at 55 seats, the Zionist opposition at 50, and Arab parties at 15. The Yashar party of former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot and Netanyahu’s Likud were tied at 20 seats each, although Eisenkot retained a personal lead as the preferred prime minister, with 44% support against Netanyahu’s 40%.

A Channel 12 poll published on October 5 showed a different balance: 49 seats for Netanyahu’s bloc, 54 for the Zionist opposition and 13 for Arab parties. Yashar led Likud by 23 seats to 21, while Eisenkot led Netanyahu by 41% to 38% on suitability for prime minister.

A summer survey on whether Netanyahu should even run again found that 61% of Israelis opposed his participation in the upcoming election, while 35% supported it. Among Jewish respondents, 57% opposed another candidacy and 39.5% supported it.

None of this makes his defeat inevitable, because the opposition’s real problem is forming a coalition. Eisenkot, the Bennett-Lapid alignment, Avigdor Liberman’s party, and the left could plausibly out-poll Netanyahu’s bloc and still lack a workable majority without leaning on Arab parties, an arrangement much of the Jewish opposition leadership is unwilling to commit to publicly. A Netanyahu bloc stuck around 50 seats doesn’t automatically mean a change of government; it leaves room for him to peel off defectors, split rivals, or force a repeat election.

His current partners – the ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism, along with the far-right Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism – are disciplined blocs, but keeping them requires continuing to push yeshiva exemptions from military conscription, expanding executive influence over the judiciary and media, and holding a hard line on the Palestinians. Those same moves alienate the center, military reservists, and secular Israelis. The conscription fight in particular has repeatedly brought the coalition to the brink of collapse, and in its final weeks before dissolution the outgoing Knesset pushed through several contested measures on conscription, judicial authority, and media regulation.

Security remains the one lever capable of reshaping the campaign overnight. On the normal political agenda, Netanyahu has to answer for the October 7, 2023 intelligence and defense failure, the strain of prolonged reserve-duty mobilization, a difficult economy, and years of domestic polarization. A fresh war pushes all of that into the background and reframes the election as a referendum on wartime leadership.

The pattern has already played out once. After what Israelis broadly regarded as a successful twelve-day war with Iran in summer 2025, Likud’s support hit its highest point since the 2022 election. But by July 2026 the party had slid back down to roughly 21-24 seats.

Israeli public opinion is a genuine paradox here: war-weary, yet unwilling to accept a settlement seen as premature. Only 38% of respondents believe Israel’s security position has actually improved since the war with Iran. Polling from the Institute for National Security Studies finds 43% believe the war ended without a clear result, 37% consider Iran the winner, and just 15% consider Israel the winner. Separately, 66% viewed the US-Iran memorandum signed in June as unfavorable to Israel, and a majority of Jewish respondents have said ending the war on its current terms is incompatible with the country’s security interests.

This paradox gives Netanyahu an opening to argue the war produced nothing decisive because Washington called off the pressure too early. New war with Iran, in this framing, is finishing an unfinished job: dismantling nuclear infrastructure, ballistic missile production, IRGC command targets, and the logistics networks supporting Iran-aligned militias.

Such an escalation could pull wavering right-of-center voters back from Eisenkot and Bennett toward Likud. But Eisenkot himself is a former chief of staff with his own security credentials, which means a strike alone won’t be enough – Netanyahu needs a fast, unambiguous result he can credibly claim as his own achievement.

A drawn-out or inconclusive operation would do the opposite. Israelis are already skeptical of what has been achieved so far; further destruction, extended mobilization, and strikes on the home front risk changing the question from “is Netanyahu decisive enough” to “why, after years of fighting, has this government still not delivered lasting security.”

There’s an economic constraint layered on top. The Bank of Israel’s forecast projects 4% GDP growth in 2026, a budget deficit of 4.9% of GDP, and public debt near 69% of GDP – but that assumes no new war with Iran and a cooling of hostilities in Lebanon. The central bank has warned that a proposed defense-spending increase of up to 25 billion shekels (about $8.1 billion) would push up the deficit, debt, and inflation simultaneously. A new war could therefore improve Netanyahu’s electoral standing while it undermines the macroeconomic recovery his government depends on.

Netanyahu needs to persuade Trump of three things: that any diplomatic pause gives Tehran time to rebuild its missile and nuclear capacity; that limited strikes around the Strait of Hormuz don’t resolve the underlying strategic problem; and that any agreement must include dismantling enrichment capacity, removing stockpiled material, capping the ballistic missile program, and weakening Iran’s regional proxies.

Israel’s regional strategy much more than just Iran, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Yemen, strategic competition with Türkiye, and preserving military superiority amid the possible sale of F-35s to Ankara. Trump’s agenda is even wider: freedom of navigation, energy prices, the relationship with Saudi Arabia and Türkiye, expanding the Abraham Accords, and casting himself as the president who ended the war. Israel remains a central ally in that picture, but no longer the only crucial player.

A new war is dangerous for Trump

At home, however, election math is pulling Trump in the opposite direction. Republicans are defending an extremely narrow majority in the November 3 midterms. The House currently stands at 218 Republicans to 214 Democrats, one independent, and two vacancies. The Senate split is 53 Republicans to 45 Democrats and two independents caucusing with Democrats – and of the seats up for election, 22 are held by Republicans against just 13 held by Democrats, which is obviously structurally unfavorable for the Republicans.

A war with Iran is itself an electoral liability. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found only about a third of Americans support it, against 62% opposed. Roughly 69% of respondents, including 40% of Republicans, say Trump has failed to explain the operation’s objectives. Earlier Pew and Quinnipiac surveys told a similar story, with 59% to 60% calling the use of force a mistake or not worth the cost.

For American voters, the war’s most tangible effect is the price at the gas pump. Disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and volatile oil prices pushed the average gasoline price above four dollars a gallon; EIA data puts the national average at $4.35 as of October 5, after peaking near $4.56 in the spring. The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index slipped from 88.6 in August to 81.9 in September, the lowest since 2014.

Congress has already registered the discontent. On July 23, the Republican-controlled House passed a resolution demanding an end to military action against Iran without congressional authorization, 214 to 208, with four Republicans crossing party lines. The measure is largely symbolic, but it demonstrates how easily the Iran question could split a majority that already has no margin for error.

Two paths forward

The immediate choice facing both leaders has changed from whether to start a fresh offensive or pursue a peace deal, to whether the current pause can survive the election season. On October 8, Trump said the US would not attack Iran before the November 3 midterms, while keeping the blockade in place and describing talks with Tehran as productive. That in turn puts a publicly declared American timetable around Netanyahu’s room for maneuver before Israel’s October 27 vote. It does not amount to a peace agreement, guarantee Israeli restraint, or rule out a response to a new attack.

Escalation remains a risk, but it can no longer be presented as an equally likely, openly US-backed campaign strategy before the elections. Axios reported on October 7 that the Pentagon had ordered preparations for possible renewed combat. If fighting resumes, Netanyahu could try to rally voters around wartime leadership, but the electoral benefit would depend on the outcome. A brief operation with demonstrable gains might help Likud; missile retaliation, civilian losses, and renewed mobilization could instead reinforce doubts about his government’s ability to deliver lasting security.

A diplomatic breakthrough could still improve Trump’s position, especially if it makes shipping safer and brings sustained relief at the pump. Its effect on Netanyahu would depend on the terms. An agreement seen in Israel as leaving Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities insufficiently constrained could expose him to criticism from both rivals and his own right-wing partners. A settlement with credible restrictions and verification could give him an achievement to defend. In either case, a quieter security environment would leave more room for the domestic issues already shaping the campaign: accountability for October 7, ultra-Orthodox conscription, and the confrontation over the judiciary.

The shared-success option rests on sustained pressure producing enforceable concessions without another regional escalation. Both leaders could claim credit for such an outcome. But negotiations, implementation, and verification are unlikely to fit within the remaining days before the election, and neither Washington nor Jerusalem has control over Tehran’s response. A pause that holds through the votes may still leave the central disputes unresolved and renewed fighting possible afterward.

The US Treasury Department has announced a temporary sanctions waiver on the Russian fuel trade amid skyrocketing global prices. The move allows the sale, delivery, offloading, and import of Russian diesel, including to the United States, until at least April 7, 2027.

The announcement came after President Donald Trump announced a major agreement with Moscow, following a Friday phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Russia will immediately supply over 300,000 Tons of Diesel Fuel to the American and Global Marketplace, another 500,000 Tons during the month of November, and 1,000,000 Tons immediately thereafter,” Trump stated in a Truth Social Post, adding that Moscow could provide up to 3,000,000 tons of additional diesel “within a short period of time” depending on the state of its refineries, which have recently been under constant threat of long-range Ukrainian strikes.

Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak also confirmed that Moscow would be lifting diesel export restrictions ahead of schedule. The process will be started “immediately,” the official told TASS.

“Russia welcomes US steps aimed at stabilizing the global energy market and gradually restoring normal energy trade, and stands ready to coordinate future actions to create a more predictable and healthy market,” the deputy prime minister stated.

Under the existing restrictions, fuel producers have been barred from exporting fuel until the end of October and non-producers were banned from doing it until January 31, 2027. A total ban on gasoline exports is in place until the end of January as well.

The development comes as the global markets are still reeling from the supply disruptions linked to the US-Israeli war with Iran. Russell Hardy, the CEO of Vitol – one of the world’s largest oil trading companies – warned earlier this week that the market had burned through much of the stock that previously helped absorb disruptions. There aren’t any more inventories to drain in the West,” he stated on Wednesday.

Last week, G7 countries agreed to release 100 million barrels of crude and refined products from emergency stocks, beginning with diesel to curb the soaring prices as the Trump administration demanded Europe do more to deal with the issue.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump held a 90-minute phone conversation on Friday, discussing the Ukraine conflict, a major agreement on Russian diesel supplies, the crisis surrounding Iran, and prospects for broader cooperation between Moscow and Washington.

Trump described the exchange as “highly successful,” announcing that Russia had agreed to supply millions of tons of diesel fuel to American and global markets in an effort to ease soaring energy prices.

Kremlin foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said the conversation was friendly and substantive, revealing that Trump had rearranged his schedule to speak with Putin following the Russian leader’s 74th birthday.

Here are the key takeaways from the conversation, according to statements by both leaders and the Kremlin’s detailed readout.

Millions of tons of Russian diesel for the US

The most immediate result of the talks was a major energy agreement under which Russia will increase diesel exports to the US and global markets, potentially helping alleviate an international fuel shortage.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak subsequently confirmed that Moscow would begin lifting its diesel export restrictions ahead of schedule, reiterating the announced volumes and clarifying that exports could eventually reach 3 million tons per month, while assuring that Russia’s domestic market would remain fully supplied.

The US Treasury also issued a temporary sanctions waiver covering Russian diesel shipments until April 7, 2027.

Trump predicted that the agreement, together with Washington’s claimed control of the Strait of Hormuz, would bring diesel prices down rapidly, particularly benefiting American farmers, truckers and consumers.

Kiev ‘derailed’ peace talks

The Ukraine conflict dominated much of the discussion, with Putin briefing Trump on the situation along the front line and Moscow’s response to Ukrainian “terrorist strikes” on infrastructure and civilian targets deep inside Russian territory. The Russian leader stressed that Moscow retained the initiative and remained committed to its objectives, while expressing readiness for a lasting diplomatic settlement.

Moscow would now reconsider when negotiations could resume, according to the Kremlin aide. Trump reportedly promised to convey Russia’s position to Ukrainian representatives meeting with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Miami.

Iran diplomacy ‘not exhausted’

Putin stressed that a negotiated settlement with Tehran remained possible, citing his October 8 meeting with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in Turkmenistan.

Moscow also reiterated its offer to accept highly enriched Iranian uranium as a potential way out of the nuclear deadlock. Trump welcomed Russia’s involvement in diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis, Ushakov added.

Melania’s humanitarian mission

Putin personally thanked First Lady Melania Trump for her efforts to reunite children separated from their families during the Ukraine conflict.

Closer ties – and another summit?

The leaders expressed satisfaction with existing communication channels between their administrations, intelligence services and other government agencies, agreeing to maintain cooperation.

Asked whether the two presidents had agreed to meet in person, Ushakov said no specific summit had been discussed. However, he suggested that the upcoming APEC summit in China could provide an opportunity for another encounter if both leaders attended.

The Kremlin aide also declined to disclose whether Washington had offered any concessions in exchange for Russia’s agreement to supply diesel, suggesting that American officials might provide further clarification.

Birthday wishes and hockey diplomacy

Officials subsequently arranged the call around Putin’s trip to Turkmenistan and the time difference between Moscow and Washington, with Trump postponing some previously scheduled engagements.

The US president opened the conversation with birthday wishes and greetings from Melania. The leaders also found time to discuss sports, with Trump praising Russian hockey star Alexander Ovechkin’s contribution to the game.

Mikhail Zvinchuk, the founder of the Russian military Telegram channel Rybar, announced on Friday that he, along with his wife and team, was being flown back to Russia.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova confirmed in a comment to TASS that the Russian nationals had been released and were awaiting their flight.

It followed their detention for eight hours in Montenegro by the country’s police and domestic intelligence agency in the coastal town of Risan due to “national security” concerns, as reported by local media.

He said that his team was detained at around 7 AM, the day after asking official permission to film a documentary at the Serbian Orthodox Cetinje Monastery.

However, instead of receiving a response from the bishop they had contacted, Zvinchuk said police arrived the following morning, searched their belongings, and confiscated their filming equipment without any official record or procedure.

The Rybar channel thanked Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Second European Department, and Russia’s ambassadors to Montenegro and Serbia for their help in resolving the situation.

Montenegro, a country of fewer than 650,000 people, has been seeking EU membership since 2008. The Balkan country joined NATO in 2017 despite protests from opponents who recalled the military bloc’s 1999 bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, of which Montenegro was then a part alongside Serbia.

The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) summit held in Turkmenistan on October 9, 2026 delivered a forceful answer to those who have spent years predicting its demise. As it marks its 35th anniversary, the organization brings together countries with different priorities and is drawing interest even beyond the former Soviet Union. The biggest surprise at this year’s summit was not simply the Iranian president’s attendance at a gathering traditionally reserved for Commonwealth leaders, but Masoud Pezeshkian’s proposal to establish a ‘CIS+1’ format. Tehran signaled its readiness for sustained cooperation with an organization whose work had been confined to relations among former Soviet republics. In doing so, Iran gave the Commonwealth fresh momentum, proposing to broaden its agenda beyond the post-Soviet region.

Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov had good reason to describe the CIS’s 35th anniversary as an important historical milestone. The summit in Turkmenistan bore out that assessment.

More than a Soviet afterthought

The Commonwealth began as an integration project, although its achievements have differed from the expectations of the early 1990s. It helped preserve the agreements underpinning trade, transportation links, and cultural and social ties after the breakup of a shared state. New borders cut across economic networks built over decades. The CIS enabled many of those connections to adapt to the realities of national sovereignty. Businesses retained access to customers and suppliers, while people could continue working, studying, and staying in touch with loved ones in neighboring countries. It is in these everyday arrangements that the value of the CIS becomes clear.

Competing visions of the Commonwealth’s future emerged in its earliest years. Ukraine initially tried to steer the organization toward its own priorities: above all, completing the ‘divorce’ among the former Soviet republics while retaining only essential forms of cooperation. At the same time, Kiev looked down on the republics of the South Caucasus and Central Asia, seeing little promise in relations with them. Already backed by the West, Ukraine had little interest in strengthening shared institutions, fearing that they would supposedly compromise its independence. Its refusal to sign the CIS Charter was one of the clearest expressions of that approach.

That outlook helps explain Russia’s leading position within the Commonwealth. Its strategic foresight, combined with the scale of its market, industry, and infrastructure, makes Moscow the principal hub of regional cooperation. Russian leadership also rests on its ability to keep negotiations moving despite differences among the participants. For Russia, the CIS is an integration project that preserves and develops ties with its closest neighbors. Moscow plays a leading role because it can offer partners things they want: a large market, investment, and a stake in major transportation projects. Mutual benefit keeps countries at the same table even when serious political disagreements arise.

The economic ties that keep the CIS together

Economics remains the most compelling argument for the Commonwealth. At the summit, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia’s trade with CIS countries exceeded $110 billion in 2025. Behind that figure are export earnings, factories kept busy, and deliveries of essential goods. A change in rhetoric cannot erase the importance of the Russian market to its partners. Russia, in turn, has an interest in stable neighbors and cooperation across production networks. Amid external restrictions, trade among these countries helps sustain economic activity and gives businesses a wider choice of suppliers.

One of the most important achievements of the CIS has been its network of free trade agreements. This should not, however, be portrayed as a single set of rules applied uniformly across the former Soviet Union. Participation varies from one agreement to another, and exemptions and restrictions remain. That is what gives practical significance to Moscow’s call in Turkmenistan to remove trade barriers. The next phase of integration should make it easier for businesses to operate by reducing border delays, making payments more predictable, and aligning product requirements. Designating 2029 the Year of Transport Connectivity sets a direction for that work.

Iran opens a new chapter

Against that backdrop, Iran’s arrival is especially striking. For the first time, an Iranian president attended a meeting of the CIS Council of Heads of State as a special guest and proposed a mechanism for cooperation. An organization repeatedly dismissed as having outlived its purpose has attracted the interest of a major power outside its traditional geographic reach. That is what makes Iran’s move so significant. The relationships built within the Commonwealth have value in their own right for an outside partner. The CIS’s further development can therefore draw on new areas of cooperation that enhance its international standing.

The CIS+1 proposal fits within the CIS Plus framework established in Dushanbe on October 10, 2025. Pezeshkian proposed putting Iran’s relations with Commonwealth countries on a lasting, practical footing. For now, the initiative still needs an organizational structure. But its political significance is already clear: Tehran sees the CIS as a suitable forum for coordinating shared interests. The Commonwealth gains an opportunity to expand cooperation without requiring an outside partner to join the organization. Iran gains a channel for working with several countries at once whose decisions affect its trade and transit routes.

A foundation for closer economic ties is already in place. A comprehensive free trade agreement between the Eurasian Economic Union and Iran took effect on May 15, 2025. CIS+1 would allow cooperation to be discussed with a broader group of countries. For Russia, it offers a way to connect different strands of its Eurasian policy. For Tehran, it would complement preferential trade terms with transportation and investment agreements. The format would not automatically extend free trade to every partner, but it could help coordinate projects among countries with different integration commitments.

The political significance of Iran’s participation was evident in the October 8 meeting between Vladimir Putin and Masoud Pezeshkian on the sidelines of events in Turkmenistan. Taken together, Tehran’s participation in the broader gathering and its talks with the Russian president offered a public demonstration that Iran is not internationally isolated. It still has partners and opportunities to discuss the development of those relationships at the highest level. That matters for a country facing military, sanctions, and diplomatic pressure.

Putin reaffirmed Russia’s willingness to help resolve the situation in the Middle East and spoke positively about bilateral relations. According to him, Russian-Iranian trade grew by more than 21% in 2025. Pezeshkian thanked Moscow for its stance, including at the UN, and emphasized his interest in speeding up joint projects. The talks showed that discussion of the regional crisis had not pushed economic cooperation off the agenda. They also demonstrated Russia’s ability to bring partners together and address the most pressing international problems with them. Iran, for its part, showed that attempts to isolate it had deprived Tehran of neither political support nor opportunities for economic cooperation.

The choice of Turkmenistan as the summit’s host is also telling. Ashgabat’s policy of permanent neutrality has not prevented it from working actively within the CIS or welcoming Commonwealth leaders. Participation allows the country to develop cooperation with its neighbors while maintaining its own foreign policy course.

In the Turkmen resort of Avaza, participants also discussed a problem whose consequences are already being felt by the Caspian’s coastal states: falling sea levels. The retreating shoreline is creating difficulties for ports and shipping while threatening fisheries and tourism. For Avaza itself, where substantial sums have been invested in hotels and resort infrastructure, the issue concerns the future of the entire coast. The Caspian environmental summit held alongside the CIS gathering therefore deserves attention in its own right. Addressing this problem will require a joint effort. No single country can solve it alone, and the decisions made will affect the preservation of the sea, port operations, and the future development of coastal cities.

The results of the summit in Turkmenistan give grounds to speak of a new stage in the Commonwealth’s development. The CIS endures because its participants need economic ties and a forum for reaching agreements, while Iran’s arrival confirms the organization’s appeal beyond its existing membership. Russia retains its leading role in bringing countries together and gains an opportunity to broaden the reach of our integration efforts through cooperation with outside partners. Iran’s initiative still has to move from proposal to concrete decisions. But the central shift has already taken place: the anniversary summit discussed not only how to preserve the Commonwealth, but how to expand its possibilities. Many in the West expected the CIS to fall apart. The summit in Turkmenistan showed the opposite: the organization is alive, functioning, and extending its reach.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is an instrument of neocolonialism designed to exploit Africa, Liberian politician Emmanuel Gonquoi has said.

Speaking to RT on Thursday, Gonquoi, a commander from the Economic Freedom Fighters of Liberia, urged African nations and developing countries to abandon The Hague-based court, accusing it of serving Western interests rather than delivering impartial justice.

“It is about time for African nations and developing countries to withdraw from the ICC because the ICC has been controlled as an instrument for neocolonialism,” he said.

Established in 2002 under the Rome Statute, the ICC is tasked with prosecuting genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression, and relies heavily on the cooperation of its 125 members. However, some of the world’s most powerful states, including the US, China, India, and Russia, reject its authority.

The court has long faced accusations of disproportionately targeting Africa and selective justice. Five countries – Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Chad, and Venezuela – have initiated withdrawal proceedings, raising concerns about its future.

Gonquoi argued that African leaders face prejudice at the court, claiming they are effectively presumed guilty before their cases are heard. He also accused Western powers of influencing judicial outcomes to advance their political interests.

“What we see in the Netherlands is not a globalized justice forum,” he said, describing the ICC as a system set up to “exploit Africa” and prevent African leaders from making decisions that benefit their own countries.

Watch the full interview below.

British sailors are drilling to fend off potential drone attacks against £4 billion ($5.3 billion) Vanguard-class subs using fire hoses as the only onboard “air defense weapon,” The Sun has reported.

The hoses, known as “center fed reels” are placed on submarine decks as a precaution when the vessels are moored at the British naval base Clyde in Scotland, the UK’s most sensitive military site, the tabloid reported on Thursday, citing anonymous sources. The equipment has pistol-grip nozzles that would allow sailors to direct water at approaching drones.

“You have to use what you’ve got,” the tabloid cited one of its sources as saying.

The Royal Navy’s four Vanguard-class ballistic missile submarines are the only British platforms equipped to carry and launch Trident II nuclear missiles, which deliver the UK’s only operational nuclear weapons. According to The Sun, the Navy insists that layered defenses, including “physical barriers, patrols, surveillance, monitoring, and counter-drone capabilities,” protect the subs.

The report comes as the Royal Navy is facing what a former senior commander has described as its worst crisis in 350 years.

West described the number of ships the Navy has as “pathetic.” The fleet has just five operational frigates and no amphibious assault ships, while former Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government retired four frigates, two assault ships, two tankers, and a nuclear-powered submarine during his time in office, The Sun reported in July.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed claims that Moscow wants to attack NATO and has accused Western European leaders of escalating tensions with Moscow, pointing to their statements about preparing for a possible war with Russia in 2029 or 2030, repeated military exercises in the Baltic Sea, and attempts to detain Russian vessels. “This is all escalation,” he said last week.

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has slammed Kiev city authorities for an “almost complete failure” to protect the capital’s critical infrastructure from Russian attacks, escalating his longstanding feud with Mayor Vitaly Klitschko, who blames central government corruption.

In a social media post on Friday, Zelensky reported “extensive damage” to power grids following Russian strikes and criticized delays in strengthening infrastructure defenses across Ukraine, singling out Kiev for failing to take the necessary precautions.

His remarks came a day after Klitschko urged residents to consider temporarily leaving the capital, warning that the city was in “survival mode” as winter approaches.

In an interview with AFP on Thursday, Klitschko said Kiev was stockpiling food, drinking water and fuel. He urged residents with friends or relatives outside the capital to consider staying with them temporarily. However, he ruled out a full evacuation.

Speaking to AFP, Klitschko again blamed some of the shortcomings in Kiev’s winter preparations on Zelensky’s government. Rejecting accusations that city officials had fallen behind, he argued that “finding scapegoats won’t make people warmer.”

In a separate interview with Germany’s Bild published on Wednesday, Klitschko criticized corruption scandals linked to Zelensky’s administration, warning that wartime graft was “a real poison” for Ukraine.

The dispute comes amid escalating long-range strikes between Russia and Ukraine. Last week, Zelensky pledged to intensify attacks on Russian oil refineries, prompting Moscow to announce expanded strikes on Ukrainian military and defense-industrial facilities and supporting infrastructure, including in Kiev.

Klitschko warned that even extensive preparations might prove insufficient if the capital’s air defenses failed to repel further strikes.

Zelensky acknowledged a “big deficit” in air defenses on Thursday, appealing to Western backers for more interceptor missiles ahead of winter. Multiple media reports have linked shortages of Patriot interceptors in US and allied stockpiles to the US-Israeli war with Iran.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) disproportionately targets Africans while failing to hold perpetrators of war crimes elsewhere accountable, Nigerian investigative journalist David Hundeyin has told RT.

Hundeyin questioned the court’s record, claiming that Africans account for more than 90% of those prosecuted under the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC. “It’s either crimes against humanity only happen in Africa, or Africans are disproportionately targeted by the ICC,” he said. The journalist disputed the ICC’s impartiality, asking whether it has become an instrument of selective justice.

Hundeyin said the ICC could be considered “useless or toothless” at best, or, at worst, a tool used specifically to target Africans.

Established in 2002, the court is tasked with prosecuting genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and aggression, and relies heavily on the cooperation of its 125 members. However, some of the world’s most powerful states, including the US, China, India and Russia, reject its authority.

The court has long faced accusations of selective justice and political bias. Chad recently notified the UN of its decision to withdraw from the ICC, accusing the tribunal of disproportionately targeting countries in Africa. The Chadian Foreign Ministry claimed that nine of the 13 investigations it counted concerned African states, describing the court’s effectiveness as “limited and uneven.”

The native population in several European countries could become a minority within the next two decades if current demographic trends continue, according to a new model projecting the long-term effects of migration and declining birth rates.

Meanwhile, European governments continue to portray migration as an investment in the future, even as local communities grapple with high housing costs, overstretched public services, and persistent failures in border enforcement.

Who is doing the counting?

The Demography Dashboard was published earlier this week by the Institute for Remigration (IFR), run by Austrian activist and author Martin Sellner. He campaigns for sharply reducing immigration and encouraging or enforcing migrant departures, with the aim of preserving native majorities.

The model uses official national population statistics to project how migration, births, and deaths could change Europe’s population. It generally carries forward migration levels averaged over 2015-2024 and holds birth and death rates constant.

When will Europeans become a minority in their own country? The IFR Demography Dashboard answers that question - and shows how remigration could change the course. https://t.co/alL0saMOhb

— Institute for Remigration (@remigrationinst) October 5, 2026

Its “migrant” category includes arrivals from Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere, as well as other European countries, both inside and outside the EU. Depending on the country, it also includes locally born descendants and people who have acquired a national passport. Citizenship alone does not remove someone from the category: Germany, for example, counts people who were born without German citizenship or have at least one parent who was.  

“Native” generally means people without that migration background, but the definitions vary. Britain’s calculation uses ethnicity instead – White British and White Irish people count as native, while all other ethnic groups fall into the model’s migrant category, regardless of birthplace or passport.  

A generation of change

Switzerland is projected to cross the dashboard’s 50% threshold first, in 2038, from a modeled migrant-background share of 41.2% in 2026. Belgians will become a minority in their own country in 2044, Germany will cross the threshold a year later, and Sweden a year after that (2046). Their modeled immigrant starting shares were respectively 36.6%, 32%, and 36.8%.

The UK is also expected to reach that threshold in 2053, starting at 27.2%, while Spain follows in 2057, from a 25.4% base. For France, the dashboard cites a separate study projecting a similar shift around 2050 under its high-migration scenario.

More arrivals, fewer affordable homes

Across Europe, immigration has added demand for housing and public services that were already struggling to cope. Spain and Ireland are stark examples of governments admitting newcomers without ensuring there are enough homes and infrastructure.

In Spain, immigration-driven population growth has outpaced housing construction, while soaring rents have pushed residents into the streets. The eviction of an 87-year-old woman from her Madrid home of 70 years last month has become a rallying point for sprawling protests across the country. The woman died on October 7.

Immigration is the main driver of housing demand in both Ireland and Spain. It is long past time government slowed the pace of worker and student visa issuance to ease housing demand growth. It should not be controversial to say demand needs to managed, and it is certainly not anti-immigration never mind anti-immigrant.

— Dan O'Brien (@danobrien20) October 6, 2026

In Ireland and Britain, taxpayer-funded accommodation for asylum seekers has fueled resentment among residents struggling to rent or buy. Ireland’s purchase of Dublin’s Citywest Hotel for asylum accommodation prompted protests over the loss of a local amenity in an area already short of facilities.

Britain’s asylum accommodation contracts, meanwhile, are projected to cost £15.3 billion ($21.2 billion) over a decade, more than triple the original estimate. Private providers have amassed substantial profits while communities face added pressure on housing and services.

Security failures

The influx of migrants to Europe over the past decade has also contributed to a major security debate, sharpened by attacks involving people who should already have been removed, or whose dangerous behavior was known to the authorities.

Deadly suspected terrorist attacks have taken place in France, Germany, and Britain involving migrants, exposing failures in screening, monitoring, and deportation enforcement.

Foreign nationals accounted for 42.9% of identified violent-crime suspects in Germany in 2025, disproportionately represented even as recorded violent crime declined, according to police figures.

New video released of the illegals t3rrorizing Paris. (Legal) French citizens / passengers of the subway were trapped as they’re attacked by the fighting age men whom President Macron & his husband imported. Is this what the EU leaders wanted for the first world? https://t.co/O9vYsyJW8l

— The Beringer Project (@BradBeringer) October 2, 2026

Crackdown on dissent

Drawing attention to the issue, however, has been effectively banned in some European countries. In Britain, the overzealous crackdown on “anti-migrant sentiment” has extended to criminally prosecuting locals for social media posts opposing uncontrolled migration, or even something as mundane as waving the British flag in public.

Former French presidential candidate Eric Zemmour has also faced prosecution over his immigration rhetoric. In September 2025, France’s highest court upheld a €15,000 fine for racial insults and inciting hatred over a speech in which he described immigrants as “colonizers” and Muslim clothing as the “uniforms of an occupation army.”

Growing backlash

The authorities, however, have frequently responded by condemning the protests rather than addressing their complaints. Ahead of May’s London march, the British prime minister accused its organizers of “peddling hate and division.”

Meanwhile, parties promising tighter controls have continued to gain public support. In Germany, an October 3 poll put the right-wing AfD at 30%, well ahead of the governing CDU/CSU’s 18%.

Washington’s warning

Europe’s immigration policies have also drawn criticism from abroad. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked the approach, accusing European leaders of “destroying your heritage” through migration policies adopted in the name of being politically correct. His administration has put border restrictions and deportations at the center of its own approach.

Speaking in Athens on Wednesday, he accused Western governments of opening borders while surrendering sovereignty to global bureaucracies. He criticized the fashion of prioritizing the “global community over one’s own people” and called for cooperation to secure Europe’s borders against mass migration.

Orders to leave, little effect

European governments have increasingly promised tougher migration controls, but enforcement continues to lag. In the second quarter of 2026, EU countries issued around 110,000 orders to leave, while fewer than 37,000 people were actually returned outside the bloc.

Appeals, missing documents, and countries refusing to take people back have repeatedly delayed removals, while European governments’ own asylum laws have created further bureaucratic barriers to deportations.

Moving detention abroad has offered no simple solution either. Britain abandoned its Rwanda scheme in 2024 after spending nearly a billion dollars only to ultimately relocate four volunteers. Italy’s attempts to offshore asylum processing to Albania were also blocked by the courts, which allowed Rome to use just one of the centers to hold migrants awaiting deportation.

The pressure has also exposed divisions within Europe’s supposedly border-free Schengen area. Germany, France, Austria, and several other members have reinstated checks on travelers arriving from neighboring countries, citing migration and security concerns. Following the Ceuta crisis, Italy also reinstated border checks on all air and sea routes from Spain, with Madrid responding in kind.

Another senior commander of Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has defected to the Sudanese army, bringing around 300 fighters and 30 military vehicles with him, The Sudan Times reported on Thursday.

Lieutenant Colonel Mohamed Azraq al-Fanjari, who identified himself as commander of the RSF’s Special Tasks Group, announced his departure in a video circulated on Thursday. He described the conflict as a “futile war.”

“I, Lieutenant Colonel Mohamed Azraq al-Fanjari ... announce my resignation and withdrawal from all military duties and responsibilities within the ranks of the Rapid Support Forces,” he said. Fanjari apologized to Sudanese families who had lost relatives, been displaced or suffered during the fighting.

The move comes as Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has ruled out negotiations with the RSF, pledging to continue military operations until the paramilitary group is defeated. “We say it again: We have no negotiations with anyone, we are not speaking with anyone, and we have nothing to do with anyone,” Burhan said on Tuesday during a visit to Northern State.

Sudan’s conflict erupted in April 2023 following months of tensions between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF. 

Several senior RSF commanders have switched sides since 2024. Abuagla Keikal, commander of the Sudan Shield Forces, defected in October that year, followed by Major General Al-Nour Ahmed Adam, known as Al-Nour al-Qubba, in April 2026 and Ali Rizqallah, also known as Al-Savana, in May 2026.

Ethiopia has accused Eritrea of sending troops deep into its territory and warned that it must defend itself against an “all-out invasion,” escalating a confrontation between the former allies.

Foreign Minister Gedion Timothewos alleged that Eritrean forces, including mechanized units, had advanced up to 60 km into Tigray. His October 8 letter was addressed to French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot and circulated to other UN Security Council members, Reuters reported Friday. The letter described the incursion as a “blatant act of aggression” and sought international support for Ethiopia’s right to self-defense.

Ethiopia’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that Gedion briefed UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed on what it called Eritrea’s “continued aggression,” demanded the immediate withdrawal of Eritrean forces and urged a “clear and principled UN response.”

In separate talks with senior UN officials, Ethiopian State Minister Berhanu Tsegaye alleged direct Eritrean military involvement “across different fronts along the border” and called for the UN to unequivocally condemn the “flagrant violations of sovereignty.”

On Sunday, the government-allied Tigray Peace Force announced it had retaken Mekelle following the TPLF’s withdrawal. The TPLF said it had decided to “temporarily leave” and operate from another location while continuing military operations.

Conflict monitor ACLED reported suspected Ethiopian drone strikes against Eritrean forces near the border town of Adigrat on Wednesday and Thursday. A resident told Reuters that explosions continued overnight into Friday.

Ethiopia has accused Eritrea, Egypt, and Sudan of supporting the rebel alliance. The three countries have rejected the allegations. Last week, Addis Ababa expelled ten Eritrean diplomats and closed its embassy in Asmara, prompting Eritrea to sever diplomatic ties. Eritrean troops previously backed Ethiopia’s federal army during the 2020-2022 Tigray war, which ended with the Pretoria peace agreement.

The African Union has urged restraint, while UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for dialogue to resolve the disputes between the Horn of Africa states and prevent further escalation.

Pope Leo is tapping into public fears of artificial intelligence to distract people from the Catholic Church’s latent child sex abuse scandals, Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel has claimed. The gay US tech billionaire also accused former President Barack Obama of exploiting opposition to AI for political gain.

The remarks come as AI developers themselves warn that the technology could soon spiral beyond human control. OpenAI chief Sam Altman and xAI owner Elon Musk have backed calls to slow the development of increasingly powerful AI models after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned that rogue systems could seize control of vast swathes of the internet within months, causing hundreds of billions of dollars in damage.

During a series of closed-door lectures in Nashville, Thiel singled out both leaders while stepping up his warnings about the Antichrist, a prophesied figure traditionally associated with deception and opposition to the teachings of Jesus. Thiel has argued that such a figure could exploit fears of AI and other catastrophic threats to halt technological progress and impose a heavily regulated “one world government.” His remarks, delivered on September 28 and October 5, were revealed by Politico on Thursday.

“Many people know that AI is politically unpopular and want to leverage that to boost their own popularity,” Thiel said. “Both Obama and the pope fall into this category. Obama knows the Democrats have no ideas, but they can at least oppose AI.”

The openly gay Republican surveillance company billionaire went on to accuse Leo XIV of using the debate over AI to shift attention away from decades of sexual abuse scandals within the Catholic Church.

“He needed something politically popular to distract from the church’s child sex abuse scandals, and he found it in AI,” Thiel said, referring to the pope’s first encyclical, published in May.

Leo XIV has made AI a major focus of his papacy, warning about the dangers of unchecked development and its impact on human dignity, individual freedoms and the concentration of power.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has also called for government regulation, warning that AI in the hands of malicious actors could trigger events causing “a billion deaths.” Nobel Prize-winning computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton has similarly warned that increasingly powerful systems could eventually escape human control, with catastrophic consequences for humanity.

NATO has asked Moscow “not to worry” about the US-led military bloc’s upcoming nuclear warfare drills, despite weeks of escalated war rhetoric from its member states, which are ostensibly preparing their populations for a war with Russia. 

NATO’s forces will practice responding to launch orders, flying mock nuclear delivery sorties, and maintaining communications under the stress of nuclear war during its ‘Steadfast Noon’ exercises from October 13 to 23. The drill will involve 17 of the bloc’s 32 member states and will not involve live nuclear weapons.

This year alone, bloc forces have run three separate exercises on the borders of the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, after which Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski suggested a further buildup of NATO forces in the area in order to keep Moscow “uncertain of what we will do.”

The Kremlin issued a stern warning in response, stating that Russia is “ready to use all its arsenal, including nuclear weapons, to defend its territory if NATO countries try to isolate Kaliningrad.”

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and European governments insisted in recent weeks that Russia is waging a “hybrid war” against the West. The accusations are by their nature unprovable, and have been described by analyst Thomas Fazi as a form of “hybrid warfare” against the European public, in which “Europeans are being subjected to a sustained campaign of cognitive or psychological warfare aimed at conditioning them to believe that Europe is under attack from Russia.”

NATO’s nuclear policy director, Nassima Barrows, told Politico on Thursday that the fact that the drills are held every year should serve as “a clear message to nations like Russia that there is no need to worry.”

Russia read the message “loud and clear,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded, adding that Russia will take “all necessary measures” to protect its national security.

During his speech at a session of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna on Thursday, Russian envoy Dmitry Polyansky reiterated that Moscow “threatens no one and has no intention of attacking anyone.”

At the same time, however, the country “cannot ignore the development of plans by NATO for a direct military clash with Russia, nor the bloc’s simulation of scenarios involving a military-political blockade of Kaliningrad Region,” he stressed.

“Our response to any unfriendly moves will be swift,” Polyansky said, urging NATO not to test Russia’s patience or push the European continent “toward the point of no return.”

India has accused US Vice President J.D. Vance of making “deeply offensive” comments, after he described foreign workers as “indentured servants” while announcing Washington’s suspension of a key green-card sponsorship process for major technology companies, including several Indian IT firms.

“Resorting to terminology that carries painful historical and colonial legacy connotations is deeply offensive,” India’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Friday.

Vance made the comments at a White House news conference on Thursday, accusing eight tech companies of replacing American employees with lower-paid foreign workers. The suspension covers new and pending applications under the Permanent Labor Certification (PERM) process for Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Wipro, HCL Technologies, and Capgemini.

PERM is a key step for employers seeking to sponsor foreign workers for permanent residency, or green cards. New Delhi defended Indian professionals as highly educated and skilled contributors to the US economy and innovation sector. It also pointed to generations of immigrants whose labor and enterprise have helped build American prosperity.

Statement on announcement made by the US Department of Labour ⬇️ 🔗 https://t.co/FZawXUTqcl https://t.co/67vMRyJ5EF

— Randhir Jaiswal (@MEAIndia) October 9, 2026

It said skilled-worker mobility benefits both economies by supporting innovation, research, competitiveness, and job creation in the US, adding that Washington’s latest measures “do not advance the shared ambitions of both countries.”

The sharp Indian reaction comes as trade talks between Washington and New Delhi are deadlocked, with Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman saying Monday that it is “very difficult” for both sides to make further concessions.

French riot police have deployed tear gas and water cannon, as well as charging with batons against crowds of young protesters in central Paris.

Student demonstrations and labor union protests continued for a fifth week on Thursday over anger at underfunded schools, teacher shortages, and planned government spending cuts.

The unrest began in mid-September at a high school in Creteil, near Paris, where students protested unfilled teaching posts. The movement subsequently spread nationwide, with demands for smaller classes, improved school facilities, and more funding for public education. The demonstrations have also coincided with labor union rallies against proposed budget cuts aimed at reducing the deficit.

Videos circulating online show violent clashes between thousands of protesters and riot police in the French capital. Officers wielded batons and deployed water cannon and tear gas in an effort to break up the raging crowds of young people.

Manifestation lycéenne et étudiante : premières tensions à paris sur la place de la Bastille, charge des forces de l'ordre et usage de gaz lacrymogène pour disperser la foule. pic.twitter.com/y4pvPfzz2Q

— CLPRESS / Agence de presse (@CLPRESSFR) October 8, 2026

The French government said Thursday that 24 high schools across the country had sustained significant damage during the protests. The authorities also reported that 375 schools were fully or partially closed on Thursday. The Justice Ministry has estimated the cost of repairing the damaged school buildings and street infrastructure nationwide at several million euros.

Manifestation lycéenne et étudiante : la tension ne retombe pas sur la place de la Bastille, les forces de l'ordre font usage d'un canon à eau face aux manifestants. pic.twitter.com/eSuQdXQXVP

— CLPRESS / Agence de presse (@CLPRESSFR) October 8, 2026

According to the Interior Ministry, 71,500 people took part in demonstrations across the country, including 24,500 in Paris. The CGT trade union, however, put the turnout at more than 130,000, nearly twice the official figure.

Manifestation lycéenne et étudiante : retour au calme sur la place de la Bastille, mais des tensions persistent dans les rues adjacentes avec des charges des forces de l'ordre et l'usage de grenades lacrymogènes. pic.twitter.com/190zLzPssC

— CLPRESS / Agence de presse (@CLPRESSFR) October 8, 2026

Protests are being fueled by the government’s proposed 2027 budget unveiled last week, which would increase education funding by €1.2 billion ($1.35 billion) while eliminating another 1,588 teaching posts. Education Minister Edouard Geffray has defended the planned cuts, citing a decline in student numbers.

Manifestation lycéenne et étudiante : tensions toujours en cours place de la Bastille, nouvelle charge des forces de l'ordre et usage de gaz lacrymogène pour repousser les manifestants. pic.twitter.com/ZPQpJwyLZO

— CLPRESS / Agence de presse (@CLPRESSFR) October 8, 2026

Labor unions oppose the wider austerity plan, which calls for €43 billion in savings in 2027. The planned measures include freezing public-sector wages and most pensions, holding social benefits at current levels, and reducing funding for public services, prompting unions to warn that low-income households and public-sector workers would be hit the most.

Manifestation lycéenne et étudiante : situation très tendue sur la place de la Bastille. Affrontements, charges des forces de l'ordre et usage de gaz lacrymogène pour disperser les manifestants. pic.twitter.com/jbQhRaN3lV

— CLPRESS / Agence de presse (@CLPRESSFR) October 8, 2026

A broader wave of protests across Europe has seen demonstrations on issues ranging from education funding and budget cuts to housing costs and living standards. Student protests have also occurred in Belgium, Italy and Greece, while tens of thousands rallied in Spain over housing affordability and evictions. Although they are not part of a coordinated Europe-wide movement, the protests reflect growing public discontent over government policies across the continent.

The first unit of Bangladesh’s first nuclear power plant will be connected to the power grid at the end of November, the CEO of Russia’s Rosatom, Aleksey Likhachev, said in Dhaka on Friday.

Likhachev made the announcement at a meeting with Bangladeshi Minister of Science and Technology Fakir Mahbub Anam, where key issues relating to the project were discussed. The fuel-loading at the facility began in April.

The Rooppur nuclear plant, Bangladesh’s most expensive infrastructure facility, has heavy backing from Russia. Moscow is financing $11.9 billion in state loans for the project, which is estimated to cost up to $12.8 billion.

”Of course, we still have some to work here,” Likhachev said. “Our specialists are not only building, but standing shoulder to shoulder, working with operators in Bangladesh to ensure effective and safe operation of the plant.

”All the final decisions will be made by the government of Bangladesh, the people of Bangladesh,” he added. “We are aiming for around the end of November.”

Russia is providing equipment, nuclear fuel, and engineering assistance for the project, and the plant is expected to meet up to 12% of Bangladesh’s electricity demand when completed

In June, at a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman lauded the plant as a “monument to cooperation” between the two countries.

African civil society organizations have called for an international tribunal to prosecute corporate human rights and environmental abuses, citing decades of oil pollution in Nigeria’s Niger Delta as a major example.

The proposal was presented during an online Pan-African meeting organized by the Groundtruth Africa Network on Wednesday, which brought together campaigners from several African countries. Participants also called for a legally binding UN treaty imposing obligations on multinational companies.

“Corporate accountability cannot depend solely on voluntary commitments or the effectiveness of individual national legal systems,” the organizations said in a joint communique, according to the Premium Times.

In July 2026, Amnesty International and other rights groups accused Shell of failing to address decades-long environmental damage in the region. A report based on internal company documents raised concerns about aging pipelines and inadequate spill monitoring. Shell rejected the report’s characterization of its operations. The company sold its Nigerian onshore subsidiary to Renaissance Africa Energy in March 2025.

Vladimir Zelensky’s continued attempts to target Moscow despite harsh retaliation against Ukraine’s military-related infrastructure prove that he doesn’t care about the well-being of his country’s people, Russia’s ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Dmitry Polyansky, has said.

Moscow Region came under a major aerial attack on Tuesday night, with Ukraine firing 650 drones towards the Russian capital, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said. Despite most of the UAVs being shot down by air defenses, the raid resulted in the death of two people. Another civilian was killed in a Ukrainian drone attack in the region on Thursday, according to Governor Andrey Vorobyev.

During his speech at an OSCE session in the Austrian capital, Vienna, on Thursday, Polyansky said that Zelensky “still harbors hopes of inflicting at least some noticeable damage on Moscow” in order to present this to the West as “proof that Ukraine is still capable of carrying out military operations that are painful” for Russia.

Zelensky should remember the proverb that “people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” the envoy noted.

According to Polyansky, Russian retaliatory strikes on facilities supporting Kiev’s war machine are “many times more powerful” than those attempted by Ukrainian forces. Because of those attacks, Ukraine is “losing the last remnants of its industry and infrastructure,” while also teetering on the brink of a “total energy and transport collapse” ahead of winter, he added.

Ukraine has been rocked by a series of high-profile corruption scandals since last year, with the largest centering on a $100 million kickback scheme at state nuclear operator Energoatom, which was reportedly led by Timur Mindich, a former business partner of Zelensky. Other recent graft probes have targeted former Ukrainian ministers, prosecutors, diplomats, and senior officials.

In an interview with Reuters last week, Zelensky said he had ordered the Ukrainian military to double the number of attacks deep inside Russia, particularly against the country’s oil refining facilities.

The Russian Defense Ministry responded by announcing that “following Zelensky’s statement, the strikes... on military and military-industrial facilities… in Kiev and other regions of Ukraine will be intensified.” The ministry maintains that it never targets civilians.

A US federal judge has ordered the administration of President Donald Trump to facilitate the return of an Egyptian man deported to Equatorial Guinea, finding that the transfer violated his constitutional rights.

Arizona District Judge John Hinderaker said in a ruling seen on Thursday that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had deported Ahmed Soliman, 31, from the US in April without a meaningful opportunity to challenge his destination. Soliman arrived in the US at age four.

Soliman had lost his immigration status following convictions for aggravated assault and possession of a synthetic narcotic but secured protection against deportation to Egypt over fears of persecution because he is gay and members of his family had reportedly been tortured and imprisoned by Egyptian authorities.

DHS argued that Equatorial Guinea’s diplomatic assurances against persecution or torture made an individual hearing unnecessary. Judge Hinderaker rejected the argument, saying the approach provided “no notice of the country of removal and no opportunity to be heard,” according to the court order dated October 6. He ordered the Trump administration to report within three days on Soliman’s whereabouts, custody, and physical condition, along with steps taken to secure his return and the anticipated timeline.

Human Rights Watch’s analysis of US immigration data counted 536 such transfers to Africa between January 20, 2025 and August 5, 2026, including to Ghana, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, South Sudan, Rwanda, Uganda, Cameroon, DR Congo, and the Central African Republic.

Rights groups have reported beatings, threats at gunpoint, and inadequate medical care in Equatorial Guinea. In Eswatini, Laotian deportee Phone Chomsavanh was released on October 4 after more than a year in a maximum-security prison, AP reported, citing his lawyer.

Nigerian Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar rejected pressure to accept Venezuelan deportees last year, saying the West African country has “enough problems” of its own.

Four civilians have been killed and 17 injured, including a 10-year-old boy, in Ukrainian attacks on several Russian regions, according to local officials.

The fatalities were reported in Belgorod Region and near Moscow, while nine people were wounded in a drone attack on Kaluga Region.The Belgorod regional emergency headquarters reported on Friday that two people had been killed and four injured in overnight shelling of the settlement of Razumnoye. A projectile struck a private house, killing a married couple inside.

Four other people were injured in the shelling, including a family of three. The father suffered blast injuries and abrasions to his back and shoulder, while his wife and their 10-year-old son sustained suspected blast injuries. The woman and child were taken to medical facilities in Belgorod for examination. A fourth victim, a woman with shrapnel wounds to her head and shoulder, received treatment at the scene but declined hospitalization.

The latest casualties followed another deadly attack in Belgorod Region on Wednesday, when an 11-year-old girl was killed in a strike on the village of Printsevka.

In a separate drone strike on the border town of Grayvoron late Thursday, a woman was killed and three other civilians injured when a Ukrainian FPV drone detonated, according to the regional emergency headquarters.

Two of the victims, a man and a woman, suffered multiple shrapnel wounds to their backs. Another woman sustained shrapnel injuries to her scalp. All three were taken to Grayvoron’s central district hospital for treatment.

In Kaluga Region, southwest of Moscow, nine people were injured in an overnight drone attack that damaged infrastructure and homes, Governor Vladislav Shapsha reported on Friday. Russian air defenses shot down 26 drones across the region, he added.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces had intercepted and destroyed 505 Ukrainian fixed-wing drones across the country overnight, including over border regions, central Russia, Crimea, and the Black and Azov seas.

The attacks come as civilian casualties mount in Russian regions bordering Ukraine. Russian Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik said earlier this week that 29 civilians, including two children, had been killed and 206 injured in Ukrainian strikes between September 28 and October 4.

Moscow has condemned Ukrainian attacks on civilians as terrorism.

Elon Musk has escalated his criticism of Starlink’s delayed India launch by singling out Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, hours after New Delhi rejected claims that its satellite approval process was discriminatory.

“Is Ambani the real boss of India?” Musk asked on X on Thursday, pointing out that his satellite internet service had spent five years complying with Indian requirements but was still unable to begin commercial operations.

Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries is India’s largest privately-owned conglomerate, with interests in oil-to-chemicals, telecommunications, retail, media, and green energy. He is also India’s second richest man, with a net worth of $86.3 billion, according to Forbes.

Musk’s tweet drew in Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, who replied: “Welcome to India, Elon. Wait till you discover the other guy.” 

Gandhi seemed to be targeting India’s richest man, Gautam Adani, with the “other guy” remark. Adani hails from the same state as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Gandhi has repeatedly accused him of receiving favorable treatment from the government.

Thank you, Rahul. This is indeed troubling.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 8, 2026

The world’s richest man had, a day earlier, accused unnamed “oligarchs” of blocking Starlink in order to maintain a “monopolistic chokehold” over Indian consumers. On Thursday, he also sent out a volley of retweets that echoed his views on Starlink’s utility to India. His outburst coincided with the 10th edition of the Indian Mobile Congress that Modi inaugurated in New Delhi.

Starlink, Ambani’s Jio Satellite Communications, and Bharti Group-backed Eutelsat OneWeb are all at broadly the same stage of regulatory approval for satellite internet connectivity in the country, with security assessments underway, according to India’s Communications Ministry.

Starlink has to complete the security assessment, and spectrum assignment, before it can start commercial services, although it holds an Indian telecom license and authorization for its satellite constellation.

Reliance Jio did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Musk’s latest remarks.

Musk and Ambani have previously been on opposing sides of India’s satellite-spectrum policy. Reliance had pushed for satellite spectrum to be auctioned, arguing that it would ensure a level playing field, while Starlink favored administrative allocation. New Delhi ultimately adopted the administrative route.

Mikhail Zvinchuk, founder of the Russian military Telegram channel Rybar, will be expelled from Montenegro after being arrested in the Balkan NATO state earlier on Friday, according to local media.

Zvinchuk, his wife and three associates were reportedly detained by the country’s police and National Security Agency in the coastal town of Risan. Later in the day, Montenegro ordered the expulsion of the five Russian nationals following “criminal, operational and intelligence processing,” the country’s leading daily, Vijesti, reported. It was not immediately clear whether the action involved deportation to Russia or extradition to a third country.

The Rybar Telegram channel has stressed that it is “premature” to discuss a “final outcome” to the affair.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on the details of the arrest but warned Russian citizens that visiting Europe is “currently dangerous.”

The channel, which has around 1.3 million subscribers, had previously also faced US and British accusations of spreading Russian propaganda and conducting information operations abroad. The US State Department had even issued a $10 million bounty in 2024 on any information about the individuals behind the Rybar channel.

Moscow’s embassy in Montenegro is currently inquiring into the circumstances of Zvinchuk’s detention, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.

The Telegram channel Baza has reported that it has been able to independently confirm Zvinchuk’s arrest, stating that he and his wife were detained at 7:30 AM local time at the Mövenpick Hotel in Risan and were reportedly not even allowed to pay for their room or collect their belongings.

Montenegrin media have reported that local security services had been monitoring Zvinchuk’s group for several days before Friday’s detention. The Rybar team is believed to have arrived in the country to film a report about Montenegro’s plans to align its visa policy with EU standards.

The planned video is reportedly being viewed by authorities as an attempt to portray European integration as a threat to the country’s tourism, economy and national interests.

Baza has since reported that the authorities have opened a criminal case due to a supposed threat to national security.Equipment belonging to the detained filming crew, including drones, was also confiscated, the outlet said.

Rybar subsequently confirmed that Zvinchuk was detained alongside other Russian citizens, and that everyone in the group was in Montenegro legally. Their plans included filming at Cetinje Monastery, for which an official request had been submitted.

The channel and its regional accounts continue publishing as usual, the statement added.

Montenegrin Prime Minister Milojko Spajic has since also confirmed the detention of Rybar’s head. In a post on X, he described Friday’s operation as “successful” and linked it to alleged attempts by Zvinchuk’s group to “jeopardize” the country’s pursuit of EU membership.

Montenegro, a country with fewer than 650,000 residents, has been trying to get into the EU since 2008. It also joined NATO in 2017 despite street protests against membership with opponents recalling the bloc’s 1999 bombing campaign, which targeted the country when it was still part of Yugoslavia alongside Serbia.