International News Bulletin — November 4, 2026

Politics

• Democrats win control of both chambers of the US Congress – US media projected early on Wednesday that Democrats had taken the House of Representatives and the Senate in Tuesday’s midterm elections, according to AFP, Anadolu and Al Jazeera. In the Senate the party flipped Republican seats in Texas, where James Talarico beat state attorney general Ken Paxton, and in Ohio, North Carolina and South Carolina. President Donald Trump told the New York Times he was “absolutely willing to accept those results”.
• Iran calls Washington’s reply to its Hormuz conditions unconvincing – Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, wrote on X that “America’s response to Iran’s rights and demands was not convincing”, Al Jazeera reported. Trump confirmed that US forces had struck an Iranian anti-aircraft facility, which Iranian media placed on Qeshm Island, and called it a “minor attack”, while Qatar’s foreign ministry said both sides “remain committed to the negotiation process”. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said four tankers using a prohibited route hit mines and caught fire, a claim that has not been independently verified.
• Trump says US will end annual aid to Israel after this year – Trump told Fox News on Tuesday that he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed months ago to stop about $4 billion a year in US funding by the end of 2026, Reuters reported. A memorandum of understanding provides $3.8 billion a year in military aid until 2028, and Trump did not say how the funding would be halted. Israel’s finance ministry learned of the plan from the announcement, Channel 12 reported, according to Anadolu.
• Indonesian police detain three generals over alleged wiretapping of Prabowo – Asep Safrudin, head of the National Police criminal investigation agency, said late on Tuesday that three generals were suspected of illegally tapping the phones of President Prabowo Subianto, officials, journalists and businesspeople, then deleting the intercepts, AP and the Jakarta Post reported. AP named one of them as Gen. Listyo Sigit Prabowo, the presidential chief of staff and a former national police chief. Law minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra said investigators had found no indication of treason.
• Greenland’s parliament ratifies its security deal with the US and Denmark – Greenlandic lawmakers approved the trilateral agreement on Tuesday by 16 votes to none, with seven abstentions, according to Al Jazeera and Anadolu. The deal, signed in September, opens the way to more US bases on the island and expanded activity at Pituffik Space Base. Denmark’s parliament is due to debate it from November 12 to 19, Anadolu reported.

Economy

• Wall Street ends mixed as the Nasdaq rises and the Dow slips – The S&P 500 rose 0.4% to 7,568.92 on Tuesday and the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.8% to 25,372.01, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.4% to 51,786.72, according to AP and Yahoo Finance data. After the close AMD reported third-quarter revenue of $13.4 billion, with data center sales up 97% to $8.5 billion, and forecast about $17 billion for the fourth quarter. Its shares rose more than 7% after the report, Yahoo Finance said.
• Asian stocks and the dollar fall as Democrats gain in Congress – Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 was down 3.6% around 0230 GMT on Wednesday, according to AFP, and Nikkei Asia later reported Japanese and South Korean stocks down more than 4%, citing the Democrats’ gains as a weight on the outlook for tech investment. The dollar slipped to 158.06 yen from 158.75 on Tuesday, AFP said. Brent crude traded near $103 a barrel in AFP and Yahoo Finance quotes.
• Senegal’s parliament rejects the revised budget, clouding an IMF deal – Senegal’s National Assembly voted down the revised 2026 budget on Tuesday by 109 votes to 20, with three abstentions, AFP reported via France 24 and Africanews. The Pastef party of Assembly speaker Ousmane Sonko, who is in a public feud with President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, holds the majority and had already rejected the bill twice in committee. The vote puts in doubt a $2.2 billion IMF programme announced in September that still awaits board approval.
• EU court adviser says Gemini may infringe press publishers’ rights – First Advocate General Maciej Szpunar advised the EU Court of Justice on Tuesday that Google’s Gemini chatbot may infringe publishers’ rights when it retrieves and reuses news content, in a case brought by Hungary’s Like Company, Anadolu and RTÉ reported. He said infringement could arise when a chatbot gets around paywalls or reproduces a publication’s expression in a recognisable way, while training models on copyrighted material falls under the text and data mining exception. The court’s ruling is due in the coming months, and its judges usually follow such opinions, which are not binding.
• Mitsui Chemicals plans to buy JSR from Japan’s state fund, Nikkei reports – Mitsui Chemicals plans to acquire the semiconductor materials maker JSR from Japan Investment Corp., a state-backed fund, Nikkei Asia reported on Wednesday. Sources cited by Nikkei put the deal at more than 1.3 trillion yen, about $8.2 billion, which would make it the largest acquisition in Japan’s chemicals sector.

World News

• Hoax bomb threats disrupt flights across Europe – Ryanair, Wizz Air, SAS and LOT flights were targeted by bomb threats on Tuesday, and every aircraft landed safely with no explosives found, Al Jazeera and RTÉ reported. Italian fighter jets escorted a Ryanair flight from Dublin into Rome Fiumicino, Warsaw Chopin airport closed a runway for an inspection, and a cruise ship bound for Haifa was evacuated off the Greek island of Syros. No one has claimed responsibility.
• South Africans vote in municipal elections after a party organiser’s killing – South Africa holds local elections on Wednesday, with the ANC expected to lose more support amid water outages that have left taps dry for at least 10 days in parts of Johannesburg, AFP reported via Africanews. In KwaZulu-Natal, the uMkhonto weSizwe Party said its organiser Lastborn Shazi was shot dead at home late on Monday, and police opened a murder investigation, Al Jazeera reported. President Cyril Ramaphosa had ordered more than 500 soldiers to the province to support the police.
• King Charles calls slavery a monstrous injustice at the Commonwealth summit – Opening the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Antigua and Barbuda on Tuesday, King Charles III said the slave trade filled him with “horror” and “the most profound personal sorrow”, AFP reported via Africanews. Prime Minister Andy Burnham said he was open to calls for a formal apology but ruled out financial reparations, which some Caribbean states demand. A palace spokesperson said it would not be appropriate for the king to announce a change in government policy.
• Haitian gang leader asks the UN for talks with international forces – Wilson Joseph, leader of the 400 Mawozo gang, wrote to Secretary-General António Guterres asking for dialogue and a UN delegation, saying he had “officially raised the white flag”, UN News reported. UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said receiving the letter on Monday evening “does not constitute an endorsement of its contents”. El Salvador sent more than 2,000 troops at the end of October to search for four of its soldiers missing since an October 18 attack near Port-au-Prince, according to media reports cited by UN News.
• UN peacekeeping chief in Congo meets Kabila’s rebel coalition in Goma – James Swan, head of the MONUSCO mission, met former president Joseph Kabila, leader of the Front for the Refoundation of the Nation coalition that includes M23, in Goma on Tuesday to discuss the mission’s mandate, which expires next month, AP reported via Africanews. Coalition vice president Bertrand Bisimwa said “one more mandate would change absolutely nothing”.

Bulletin automatically generated on November 4, 2026.