International News Bulletin — October 12, 2026

Politics

• Trump declares Russia-Ukraine energy ceasefire that Kyiv says it never heard of – President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday that “effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine”, but neither Kyiv nor Moscow confirmed an agreement, France 24 and the Kyiv Independent reported. Volodymyr Zelensky told Axios the announcement was “news for me” and said Ukraine would agree if Russia did, while Ukraine’s Presidential Office confirmed that Russia struck a power plant in Kharkiv shortly after the announcement. Separately, the Financial Times reported, citing European officials, that Washington had threatened to suspend the PURL mechanism through which Ukraine buys US weapons unless Kyiv stops hitting Russian energy sites, a report the White House declined to comment on, according to the Kyiv Independent.
• Pakistan suspends Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government run by Imran Khan’s party – Pakistan’s federal government imposed emergency rule on Sunday in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the northwestern province governed by Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), after President Asif Ali Zardari approved a cabinet recommendation, Al Jazeera and Nikkei Asia reported. The prime minister’s office cited the provincial government’s “deliberate disengagement from the fight against terrorism”, and Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar said the measure would initially last six months, with the governor taking charge alongside an advisory council. PTI spokesperson Zulfikar Bukhari called it “more of a coup disguised as emergency”, and a party lawmaker told Al Jazeera that Chief Minister Sohail Afridi had been arrested.
• North Korea fires several ballistic missiles towards the Sea of Japan – North Korea launched several ballistic missiles from the Pyongyang area towards the sea off its east coast at about 09:20 local time on Monday (00:20 GMT), South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said, according to France 24 and Nikkei Asia. Japan’s defence ministry confirmed at least one suspected ballistic missile, and neither government gave a flight distance at the time of reporting. The launch follows weeks of friction since a landmine blast in the Demilitarised Zone on 21 September wounded three South Korean soldiers, which a joint Seoul-UN investigation blamed on Pyongyang.
• Slovenian voters reject Jansa’s law expanding parliamentary inquiry powers – About 51% of voters rejected an amendment that would have strengthened parliamentary inquiry commissions in Sunday’s binding referendum in Slovenia, with more than 99% of ballots counted, France 24 and public broadcaster RTV Slovenia reported. The bill would have obliged people summoned to testify to appear immediately, without the right to challenge the summons in court until the inquiry ended, and opponents of Prime Minister Janez Jansa had described it as creating a “political police”. Turnout was about 54%, and RTV Slovenia reported that a separate consultative question on abolishing the public broadcasting fee passed with 50.13% in favour.
• UK prime minister Burnham says Russia interfered in Brexit vote – Andy Burnham became the first British prime minister to publicly acknowledge Kremlin involvement in the 2016 Brexit referendum, saying that when he asked about it after taking office in July he got “the clear answer that, yes, there was”, the Kyiv Independent reported, citing The Observer. The remarks were recorded for the podcast The Rest Is Politics, due to air on Monday, and France 24 reported that Burnham framed them as a warning to French voters about Russian political influence. He said such facts should be on the record so that voters in Germany and France understand that some politics is “instigated via our enemies, namely Russia”.

Economy

• Oil eases in Asian trade as markets weigh energy ceasefire claim – Brent crude fell about 1.6% to $103.01 a barrel in Asian trade on Monday after touching $105.63, and US crude lost 1.9% to $90.11, Investing.com reported, while investingLive also described oil as easing; both linked the move to Trump’s unconfirmed energy-ceasefire announcement and said weekend Houthi attacks limited the losses. Trading was thin, with Tokyo’s stock market shut for the Sports Day holiday and US Treasury cash trading closed for Columbus Day, both outlets said. Nikkei Asia reported that the premium for physical Brent cargoes over futures had reached its widest ever, which it attributed to supply disruption in the Strait of Hormuz.
• Yandex suspends a third Russian data centre after drone attack – Russian technology group Yandex said operations at its data centre in Vladimir, east of Moscow, had been “completely suspended” after a drone attack on Sunday, advising users to activate disaster-recovery plans, Al Jazeera and TASS reported. Several Yandex services were unavailable and no injuries were reported, according to Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera and the Kyiv Independent described it as the third Yandex data centre put out of action in a week, after strikes on a hub in Sasovo on Thursday and a facility in the Kaluga region on Friday.
• EU to pay Ukraine about €3bn in defence funding this week – European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on X that roughly €3bn in defence support would be disbursed to Ukraine this week to “strengthen Ukraine’s defences and protect its skies”, after a call with Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday, the Kyiv Independent reported. The money comes under the EU’s €90bn support loan approved in April, which earmarked €28.3bn for defence in 2026, according to the same report. The previous disbursement, of €1.24bn, was made on 7 October.
• IMF and World Bank annual meetings open in Bangkok – The IMF and World Bank annual meetings began in Bangkok on Monday, the first time Thailand has hosted them since 1991, with the programme running until 18 October, according to Nikkei Asia and a joint statement by Thai authorities and the IMF. Nikkei Asia said finance ministers and central bankers are expected to focus on inflation, artificial intelligence and climate change, with energy prices and bond yields hanging over the talks.
• Redeveloped Huanggang crossing between Shenzhen and Hong Kong opens – The rebuilt Huanggang Port linking Shenzhen and Hong Kong began operating on Monday after a launch ceremony on Sunday, offering round-the-clock clearance for passengers and vehicles under a co-location arrangement, Xinhua reported. Officials expect overall clearance time to fall from about 30 minutes to roughly five, and the agency described the 689,700-square-metre complex as the world’s largest land port complex. Separately, China’s commerce ministry said on Monday that Premier Li Qiang will open the 140th Canton Fair in Guangzhou, which runs from 15 October to 4 November.

World News

• Djibouti migrant shipwreck toll rises to 139 dead – At least 139 people, including 15 children, died and 84 are missing after an overcrowded boat carrying more than 300 people from Djibouti towards Yemen capsized in the Gulf of Aden, the International Organization for Migration said on Sunday, according to Al Jazeera and France 24. The IOM raised its earlier toll of 109 after 30 more bodies were found, and said more than 80 people survived, all of them Ethiopian. Survivors told the agency the boat went down overnight from Thursday into Friday, and the IOM said its count only includes those buried by Djiboutian authorities.
• Fresh projectile strike hits Riyadh airport a day after deadly attack – A projectile hit a terminal at Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport on Sunday and started a fire, the Saudi-led coalition said, and the civil aviation authority reported injuries, France 24, Xinhua and Bernama reported, while Xinhua and investingLive said an airport near Dammam was also attacked. The aviation authority put the toll from Saturday’s attack on the Riyadh airport at 12 killed and 309 injured, a figure carried by all three outlets, and the coalition called it “a full-fledged war crime” and vowed to respond decisively. Houthi media reported Saudi strikes around Sanaa on Sunday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned Saturday’s attack, and France 24 said Donald Trump was considering joining Saudi strikes on the Houthis.
• Pope Leo XIV to have surgery to remove early-stage lung nodule – Pope Leo XIV told pilgrims at the Angelus in St Peter’s Square on Sunday that doctors had found a small nodule in his lung during recent checks, and that “it was detected at a very early stage and is well-localized”, Vatican News and France 24 reported. Vatican press office director Matteo Bruni said the operation would take place at Rome’s Gemelli hospital in the first days of this week, with an estimated recovery time of about one week. The pope is 71, according to France 24.
• Copernicus reports record Pacific heat as El Niño strengthens – Monthly sea surface temperature in the Niño 3.4 region of the equatorial Pacific reached an all-time high of 29.70°C in September, with an anomaly of 2.99°C above the 1991-2020 average that beats the previous record set in December 1997, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said in its monthly bulletin, reported by France 24 on Monday. Copernicus also recorded a September record of 21.05°C for average sea surface temperature outside the polar regions, and put September’s global air temperature 1.63°C above the pre-industrial average. The agency said it could not yet say the current El Niño is the strongest on record, and its director Carlo Buontempo said a strong event “is likely to last into 2027”.

Bulletin automatically generated on October 12, 2026.