International News Bulletin — November 3, 2026

Politics

• US strikes Qeshm Island as Washington reports progress in Iran talks – Iran’s IRNA news agency reported explosions on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz late on Monday, and a US official told the Associated Press the US had carried out “defensive strikes” against Iranians using surface-to-air missiles against US assets. Vice President JD Vance said he and President Donald Trump “feel pretty good about the prospects for potentially coming to a negotiated settlement,” while Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said “the ball is in the US court.” Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they captured two US drones south of the island, a claim not independently confirmed.
• Supreme Court refuses to set aside 20,000 California ballots before midterms – The US Supreme Court on Monday denied the Trump administration’s emergency request to make California officials separate the mail-in ballots of about 20,000 voters whom federal authorities suspect are not citizens, Anadolu Agency reported. The order, which recorded no vote split, came the day before Tuesday’s midterm elections, which decide control of Congress.
• Israeli opposition parties line up behind Eisenkot to form a government – Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beytenu and Yair Golan’s Democrats said on Monday they would recommend Gadi Eisenkot for prime minister, joining Naftali Bennett’s Together, Anadolu Agency reported. Lieberman said “I will not sit in a government with Netanyahu,” and President Isaac Herzog begins consultations with the parties on Wednesday, before the new Knesset convenes on November 10. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose Likud remains the largest party, said he is open to a broad government but insists on leading it.
• Washington presses Venezuela to follow a phased path to elections – Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Venezuelan Foreign Minister Oliver Blanco in Washington on Monday, and the State Department reaffirmed Trump’s “three-phase plan for Venezuela: stabilization, economic recovery and political reconciliation, and democratic transition,” according to AFP and Reuters. Opposition leader María Corina Machado said Rubio had laid out steps pointing to presidential elections in 2027, while interim President Delcy Rodríguez has promised a vote without setting a date.
• North Korea tests cruise missiles and rejects FBI’s Binance hack accusation – State news agency KCNA said on Tuesday that North Korea had tested strategic cruise missiles fitted with a new cluster-munition warhead on Monday, AFP reported. Kim Yo Jong, sister of leader Kim Jong Un, called the FBI’s finding that the North Korea-linked group TraderTraitor stole about $6 billion from Binance a “grave political provocation.” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said Seoul and Washington were analysing a separate test the North reported on Sunday.

Economy

• Oil drops more than 7% as US-Iran diplomacy eases supply fears – Brent crude fell 7.94% to $104.43 a barrel by 17:00 GMT on Monday, below $105 for the first time since early October, Anadolu Agency reported, and AFP put the day’s slide at more than 7%. Iranian state media said Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei had approved efforts to negotiate an end to the conflict, and Tehran said it had exchanged messages with Washington through Qatari mediators. Brent was little changed at $104.45 in Asian trade on Tuesday, according to AFP.
• Nasdaq slides on AI spending worries while the Dow edges higher – The Nasdaq Composite fell 1.1% to 25,164.32 on Monday and the S&P 500 lost 0.5% to 7,541.40, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.4% to 51,983.98, according to AP closing figures. AFP linked the Nasdaq’s reversal of its opening gains to doubts over how much big technology groups are spending on artificial intelligence. In Asia on Tuesday, Seoul’s Kospi was down 2.5% at 02:30 GMT according to AFP and 3.8% in a later Yahoo Finance quote, with SK hynix and Samsung each losing around 4%, while Tokyo was closed for a holiday.
• Reserve Bank of Australia raises its cash rate to 4.85% – The RBA lifted its cash rate target by 25 basis points on Tuesday, from 4.60% to 4.85%, with six board members voting for the rise and three for no change. Its statement said inflation partly reflects “higher fuel and other commodity prices affected by the conflict in the Middle East” and is expected to stay above 3% over the coming year. AFP described the rate as an 18-year high and the move as the bank’s fifth increase this year.
• Apple beats forecasts but guides to a lower holiday-quarter margin – Apple reported revenue of $114.48 billion and earnings of $2.10 a share for its July to September quarter on Monday, above analyst estimates of $113.46 billion and $2.00, according to Yahoo Finance. Chief financial officer Kevan Parekh said gross margin would be between 45% and 46% in the December quarter, down from 47.9%, which AFP linked to higher memory costs and the roll-out of Siri AI. Greater China revenue of $17.54 billion fell short of the $18.75 billion analysts expected.

World News

• Russian strike on an aid point in Zaporizhzhia region kills 26 – At least 26 people were killed on Monday when Russian strikes hit a school in the frontline village of Komyshuvakha where residents collected weekly aid, Ukrainian officials said, according to Al Jazeera and AFP. The dead included two rescue workers and four police officers, and the attack came hours after a local truce around Kherson, brokered by US First Lady Melania Trump for an evacuation from Oleshky, expired on Sunday. US envoy Steve Witkoff said Russian and Ukrainian delegations would meet for US-mediated talks in Abu Dhabi on November 10 and 11.
• Ebola deaths pass 5,300 in the outbreak centred on DR Congo – Africa CDC data from Monday put the toll at 5,376 deaths, 5,372 of them in the Democratic Republic of Congo and two each in Kenya and Uganda, AFP and Reuters reported. The Bundibugyo strain has infected about 10,444 people with a fatality rate above 50%, and no approved vaccine or treatment exists for it, although trials of the Ervebo vaccine have begun.
• Cyclone Murasu makes landfall on India’s Andhra Pradesh coast – The India Meteorological Department said the severe cyclonic storm began crossing the coast at 1 a.m. local time on Tuesday, with winds of up to 110 km/h, Anadolu Agency reported. Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu estimated that 6,000 to 8,000 electricity poles could be damaged, and authorities in Andhra Pradesh and neighbouring Odisha moved residents out of low-lying areas.
• Drones hit three Sudanese substations, causing widespread outages – Drone strikes on Monday hit electricity substations at New Halfa and Aroma in Kassala state and al-Ghazali in Northern State, cutting power across parts of the country, according to reports cited by Al Jazeera and Anadolu Agency. The same reports count 18 strikes on Sudan’s power grid over the past week. The army-led government accuses Ethiopia of helping the Rapid Support Forces carry out the attacks and filed complaints with the UN Security Council and the African Union on Sunday.
• Suspected cyberattacks disable supermarket freezers in eight European countries – Refrigeration systems at stores in countries including Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland and Estonia were tampered with overnight into Monday, forcing retailers to discard food, Anadolu Agency and France 24 reported. EU Agriculture and Food Commissioner Christophe Hansen called the attacks a deliberate attempt to disrupt European food security, according to Danish broadcaster DR, and Belgium opened a criminal investigation. Supplier Danfoss said the affected systems used default passwords and sat outside secure networks.

Bulletin automatically generated on November 3, 2026.