At least nine Russian aerial bombs, some weighing 3,000kg, hit the village of Komyshuvakha in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region on Monday, striking a school used to hand out humanitarian aid. Ukrainian authorities put the death toll at 24 before local officials raised it to 26, with five people injured. President Volodymyr Zelensky called the attack utterly horrific and said the settlement was hit several times during the day. The strike came days after Washington eased sanctions to allow imports of Russian diesel, a deal Zelensky described as a gift to Moscow. Fighting has also returned to the Kherson region after the war's longest ceasefire, a six-day truce.
Iran's foreign minister says Tehran has agreed a plan with Qatari mediators to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within two days if the United States meets its conditions, while President Trump says talks are going fine but that he is in no hurry. The diplomacy was complicated by an attack on a Qatari liquefied natural gas tanker in the Arabian Gulf, confirmed by operator Nakilat and condemned by the UAE. Oman is being discussed as a possible broker of a wider Gulf non-aggression pact. Shipping and energy markets are watching Doha closely, and any reopening is expected to be phased rather than immediate.
Hundreds of thousands of people marched across France on Saturday for the third weekend in a row, with students, unions and Yellow Vest supporters pressing demands over the cost of living and the state of schools. Most marches stayed peaceful into the afternoon, but police fired tear gas in Paris and Lyon after dark, and groups of masked demonstrators threw paving stones at officers on the edge of the capital. The interior ministry said at least 290 people had been arrested nationwide by the evening, far below the more than 1,000 detained during the first wave in mid-October. The movement has no single leader and lands six months before a presidential election.
Spain's transport minister has refused to resign after two high-speed trains collided near Urda in Toledo province, killing at least 69 people and injuring dozens more. A preliminary report says the moving Renfe train was travelling at 160 kph or faster when it hit a stationary Iryo train on the Madrid-Seville line. The transport minister says a computer failure stopped six trains and the control centre then cleared them to move again under inexplicable circumstances. A trade union has demanded his resignation and protesters have gathered outside the ministry. It is Spain's deadliest rail accident since 2013 and the second fatal crash in less than a year.
Israelis are waiting for about 500,000 absentee ballots to be counted after an election that left neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's allies nor the parties seeking to replace him with a majority in the 120-seat Knesset. Likud took the most votes of any single list but has accused Arab-led parties of stealing the election, a claim the election committee has played down. Arab-led lists had a strong night and the Joint List said it was open to political cooperation. Gadi Eisenkot, Netanyahu's chief rival, called for a government that serves all citizens. Israel's president is expected to task one candidate with forming a government next week, with another election possible early next year.
Two high-speed trains collided near Urda in Toledo province on Wednesday morning, killing at least 68 people in Spain's worst rail disaster since 2013. A Renfe AVE carrying 397 passengers ran into the rear of an Iryo train with 147 people on board that had stopped further up the Madrid-Seville line. Two carriages went down an embankment. Renfe says its train had been authorised to continue and struck the stationary unit for reasons it cannot explain. Spain's transport minister called the cause an inexplicable error and said the control centre's decisions will be examined. It is the second crash this year involving the same two operators.
Exit polls from Israel's main television stations showed neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc nor the alliance led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot reaching the 61 seats needed for a Knesset majority. Turnout passed 74% by 8 p.m., eight points above the 2022 race and the highest at that hour in decades. Official results are due by November 4, after which President Isaac Herzog has a week to consult party leaders and pick a candidate to form a government. Arab-led parties could decide who governs. The vote was the first national election since the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, and worked as a verdict on Netanyahu's wartime record and his corruption trial.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won a fourth term on Sunday, defeating Senator Flavio Bolsonaro in Brazil's closest presidential runoff since the return to democracy. With 99.9% of ballots counted, electoral authorities put Lula on 51.7% and Bolsonaro on 48.2%. The Supreme Court extended voting by two hours after both campaigns asked for more time. Flavio Bolsonaro, eldest son of imprisoned former president Jair Bolsonaro, had promised to pardon his father, who is serving 27 years for plotting a coup. He has refused to recognise the result and asked for it to be annulled. Lula campaigned on democracy, resistance to US tariffs and lower inequality, and takes office in January.
Israel said on Sunday that all land crossings with the West Bank will be closed on Tuesday, when Israelis vote in a general election, and that Palestinian workers are barred from entering Israeli communities from now until then. The announcement followed the killing of two soldiers at a checkpoint near Hebron on Friday. Israeli forces pushed into Hebron a day earlier and displaced about 2,000 residents, and Defense Minister Israel Katz said they would not return until what he called the Hamas issues in the city are settled. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised a heavy price and an operation on a scale not seen since 1967.
Protests against war and rising living costs filled squares in Rome, Milan, Turin, Naples and other Italian cities on Saturday, with scattered clashes reported. The wave of unrest started on 16 October with student sit-ins over low wages, high rents and cuts to school funding, and it has since merged with a separate movement of farmers and truck drivers in the south who are angry about diesel prices. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has condemned the violence, and her cabinet approved a security package that allows troops to guard sensitive sites and sets heavier penalties for riot damage. With national elections due in 2027, the government is under pressure to answer the price question rather than only the policing one.