Reuters World News Summary

Following is a summary of current world news briefs.

Allies unite behind Saudi Arabia as more Iranian flights curtailed

Saudi, Turkish and Pakistani military chiefs are to discuss help for Saudi Arabia as it faces attacks by Yemen's Houthis, while Iraq further curtailed Iranian flights on Friday in line with US pressure, and an Iranian official threatened retaliation. The Houthis have launched strikes on the Saudi-backed government in Yemen and repeatedly fired into Saudi Arabia, ​disrupting oil flows from the world's largest energy exporter, as part of a wider Middle East war that began with US and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28.

US-sanctioned oil tanker Sibu 1 rescued from Somali pirates

A US-sanctioned oil tanker, Sibu 1, has been ​freed after being hijacked by Somali pirates in August, the maritime police force in Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region said on Friday. "It was a counter-piracy operation that was carried out by our forces from two ‌days ago and it's ​still going on. The ship is free and the pirates are all in the hands of our forces," Mohamed Jama, a commander in the Puntland Maritime Police Force, told Reuters.

Explainer-What is 'Taiwan independence' and what does that mean for Trump and Xi?

China's Xi Jinping told President Donald Trump on Thursday that he hoped the US will adhere to the "correct position" of opposing Taiwan independence, and that the Chinese stance on "reunification" is clear-cut. Below are some questions and answers about what is meant by the term "Taiwan independence" and the positions of the Chinese, US and Taiwanese governments.

In West Bank art centre, Palestinian children paint hopes beyond checkpoints

On the outskirts of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, a Palestinian woman has transformed her home into an art centre where children use drawing to process their experiences of settler violence and Israeli military raids. Artist Sarah Abu Madi says she founded the centre - Rommana, meaning pomegranate in Arabic - in 2020 to give local ‌children a place to express their feelings and talk about what they had experienced.

Number of Sudanese fleeing to Chad surges 20-fold as aid runs dry, UN says

There has been a sharp increase in the number of people fleeing from Sudan to Chad to escape fighting and dire conditions, and aid funding is failing to keep up with needs, the United Nations refugee agency said on Friday. More than 400 people a day have been crossing into eastern Chad over the past week, a 20-fold increase from the numbers seen in recent months, UNHCR said.

Kremlin hails election of nearly 50 Ukraine war veterans to Russian parliament

The Kremlin on Friday hailed the election of 46 veterans of Russia's war in Ukraine to the 450-seat lower house of parliament, the State Duma, saying they would be heavily involved in the lawmaking process. Ella Pamfilova, the head of Russia's Central Election Commission, announced the full and final results of this month's three-day election on Friday, saying veterans would account for over 10% of the new Duma, a figure which Russian media have suggested is a record in post-Soviet Russia.

Man appears in London court accused of providing Russian intelligence with drone factory details

A British man will go on trial next year accused of providing information about factories which manufacture drones and offering to sabotage them on behalf of ‌Russian intelligence, a London court was told on Friday. Joshua Cammidge, 31, is charged with assisting a foreign intelligence service and preparing an act of sabotage after contact with the GRU Volunteer Corps, which prosecutors said was controlled by Russia's GRU military intelligence agency.

Analysis-How Trump's diplomatic week exposed the limits of his power

From his high-profile address to the UN General Assembly to his high-stakes White House summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, US President Donald Trump this week was looking to reassert himself on the world stage. But Trump’s diplomatic flurry has done little to dispel the view among many analysts of a president ‌beset by problems at home and abroad. Those include a widening Iran war that has driven up US gasoline prices and cratered his approval ratings, while his relations with allies worsen and the AI challenge from China intensifies.

Fifth candidate enters race to lead WHO as nominations close

A fifth candidate has entered the race to lead the World Health Organization, the agency's website showed as the deadline for nominees closed overnight. Spain's Maria Neira joined the competition on the last day for submissions on September 24, the WHO website showed.

Internet and phone network disrupted in Ethiopia's war-hit Tigray region

Internet and phone networks were disrupted in the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray on Friday, after fighting broke out this week between the federal military and Tigrayan forces in the most serious escalation of violence since a 2020-2022 war. Four people with knowledge of the matter, including a diplomatic source, told Reuters that Tigray's ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front, had ordered private operator Safaricom and state-owned Ethio telecom to cut off access to phone and internet networks in the region.

Desolate Arctic outpost likely to host US troops under new Greenland deal

At a windswept gravel airstrip in eastern Greenland, a small Danish military detachment has quietly kept watch for decades. Now, under a new US defence agreement signed this week, the outpost at Mestersvig could soon become a key American military foothold in the Arctic.

Explosion fells building in heart of touristic Athens, three injured

An explosion caused a residential building to collapse in the crowded touristic centre of Athens on Friday, injuring three people and damaging houses, shops ⁠and cars across a historic neighbourhood. It was ​not immediately clear what caused the blast in the two-storey building in Plaka near some of Athens' most popular sites including the Acropolis and the Temple of Zeus, sending ⁠rocks and broken glass as far as three blocks away.

Pope Leo warns in France that AI is creating 'paradise of machines'

Pope Leo urged the world to reconsider the development of artificial intelligence, opening his four-day visit to France on Friday with a fervent warning that AI could create a future where "a paradise of machines" takes control of the Earth. The first US pope, who has made sounding the alarm about the risks of AI a central part of his 16-month papacy, put the issue at the heart of his visit to France, the first by a pope in nearly 20 years.

Five takeaways from Trump's summit with Xi in Washington

US President Donald Trump welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping to the White House on Thursday, with talks on trade and artificial ⁠intelligence and the growing strategic rivalry between the countries all in the spotlight during an elaborate state visit. Here are some major takeaways from the talks:

Britain warns Iran it will not tolerate hostile activity on UK soil

Britain's foreign minister met his Iranian counterpart on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York and told him his country would "not tolerate intimidation, threats or hostile activity on UK soil" from groups linked to Iran. British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi also discussed the war in the Middle East, the importance of reopening the Strait of Hormuz and Britain's "unwavering resolve to combat threats from Iranian-linked groups on UK soil," a Foreign Office statement said.

Explainer-What has turned the Afghan ​Taliban and Pakistan from partners to foes?

Pakistan's air force struck 10 locations in Afghanistan on Thursday, its second round of strikes in four days after three months of relative quiet along the two countries' 2,600-km (1,600-mile) border. Islamabad said it struck militant hideouts in retaliation for drones launched from Afghanistan. Kabul denied sending the drones and said the seven Afghan fatalities in strikes this week were all civilians.

Russian strikes shut Ukraine's biggest steelmaker

Steelmaker ArcelorMittal said on Friday it could not restart production at Ukraine's largest steel plant after a series of missile strikes, the latest ⁠economic setback from Russia's escalating air campaign. The Luxembourg-based firm said it had informed the Ukrainian government that "safe and sustainable" operations were not possible after four strikes in five weeks caused extensive damage and killed five workers at the southeastern plant.

US proposes trilateral meeting with Ukraine, Russia in UAE, Zelenskiy says

The United States has proposed that the United Arab Emirates host a trilateral meeting with Ukraine and Russia to discuss efforts to end their four-and-a-half-year war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday. "The American side has proposed... meeting at a technical level in a three-way format," Zelenskiy told reporters in a briefing via WhatsApp.

ICC deputy prosecutor says court insulated against US sanctions, FT reports

The International Criminal Court has insulated itself against potential court-wide US sanctions, its deputy prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan told the Financial Times in an interview published on ⁠Friday. "We have ​done a lot of work to ensure that the court is buffered from the impacts of any potential sanctions in the future," she told the FT.

Pope Leo voices alarm on assisted dying laws in France

Pope Leo firmly set out the Catholic Church's opposition to assisted dying initiatives in a speech in France on Friday, two months after the country created a legal right to die for those with incurable illnesses after years of intense debate. The first US pope did not specifically mention France's new law, which drew heated opposition from local Catholic bishops, but criticized assisted dying alongside surrogacy and genetic manipulation, which he suggested could be promoted for profit.

Separated by war, a Ukrainian family faces danger at the front and far away

"When are you coming?" two-year-old Snizhana asked her father, a soldier serving with an artillery unit in eastern Ukraine. Smiling into his smartphone hundreds of miles away, Yevheniy Borysenko started to reply when three loud explosions nearby forced him to cut the conversation short.

Rising sea destroys homes, erases beaches in California. Is worse to come?

In Malibu, the Pacific Ocean opened a sinkhole near the home of movie star Nicolas Cage and wreaked havoc on beachfront property. Along Beach Road in the city of Dana Point, waves destroyed one home and ⁠forced the city to vacate or restrict occupancy to 16 others. Such damage up and down Southern California this summer was provoked by a series of Eastern Pacific cyclones and hurricanes, enhanced by the weather phenomenon known as El Niño. Although the hurricanes did not make landfall in California, they generated swells that slammed into the coast, denuding beaches of sand and transforming a coastline that is as much a part of California's identity as Hollywood or Silicon Valley.

Pact with Saudi and Pakistan could expand to Muslim world, Iran, Turkish speaker says

A defence pact between Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and ⁠Pakistan could turn into a broader pact "for the Muslim world" that includes Iran, Turkey's parliament speaker said on Friday, adding that it is expected to be submitted for ratification from next month. The ⁠regional powers signed the "Mecca Joint Defence Agreement" in August, weeks before Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis launched attacks against Saudi Arabia, in reaction to the wider Iran war. Similar to NATO's Article 5, the pact stipulates that an attack on one ally constitutes an attack on all. The signatories have been meeting to lay out the parameters of the accord and assess Riyadh's needs.

Founder of UK anti-migrant group denies criminal damage by slashing small boat

The founder of the British anti-migrant Patriot Platform group, which has mobilised hundreds of protesters in recent weeks, on Friday denied criminal damage by slashing a small boat which had taken dozens of migrants from France. Daniel Thomas, widely known as "Danny Tommo", has built a large online following and recently founded Patriot Platform, a group focused on people arriving in Britain across the Channel on small boats.

East German town bans future Holocaust memorial plaques

An East German town has approved a motion by the ‌far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and ruling centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) to reject future installation of brass plaques commemorating victims of ‌Nazi persecution. The "Stolpersteine" are a prominent feature of Germany's Holocaust remembrance culture.

Explainer-Why the court fight over the White House media ban isn't over

US President Donald Trump's administration complied on Thursday with a judge's order to restore White House access to three media outlets he had banned last week — CNN, Politico, and MS NOW — but ​litigation over the ban is not over yet. Here is what to know about the next steps in the lawsuit filed by the three media outlets.