World News Roundup: Ukrainian forces burst through Russian lines in major advance in south; Iran's leader backs police over Mahsa Amini protests, may signal tougher crackdown and more

Paabo, director at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, won the prize for "discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution," the Award committee said. Bosnian splits remain after elections but foreign policy tips West Elections in Bosnia entrenched splits between the fragile country's three ethnic groups at a time of deep political crisis but looked set to tip its foreign policy towards the West rather than Russia, preliminary results showed on Monday.

Following is a summary of current world news briefs.

Ukrainian forces burst through Russian lines in major advance in south

Ukrainian forces achieved their biggest breakthrough in the south of the country since the war began, bursting through the front and advancing rapidly along the Dnipro River on Monday, threatening supply lines for thousands of Russian troops. Kyiv gave no official confirmation of the gains, but Russian sources acknowledged that a Ukrainian tank offensive had advanced dozens of kilometers along the river's west bank, recapturing a number of villages along the way.

Iran's leader backs police over Mahsa Amini protests, may signal tougher crackdown

Iran's supreme leader on Monday gave his full backing to security forces confronting protests ignited by the death of Mahsa Amini in custody, comments that could herald a harsher crackdown to quell unrest more than two weeks since she died. In his first remarks addressing the 22-year-old woman's death after being arrested for wearing clothes deemed un-Islamic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said her death "deeply broke my heart" and called it a "bitter incident" provoked by Iran's enemies.

Tense runoff vote looms as Brazil's Bolsonaro outperforms polling

The second round of Brazil's presidential election campaign kicked off on Monday after far-right President Jair Bolsonaro outperformed polling and robbed leftist ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of outright victory in the first round of voting. The unexpectedly strong showing by Bolsonaro on Sunday dashed hopes for a quick resolution to the deeply polarized election in the world's fourth-largest democracy. It also revitalized the president's campaign, setting the stage for a highly competitive and tense run-off on Oct. 30.

Two textbooks, two stories as Palestinian parents protest Israeli curriculum

Outside an East Jerusalem school, the trestle tables were piled high with textbooks that Palestinian parents protesting what they call an Israeli censorship campaign handed out to arriving students. The books, covering several subjects, contained passages removed from the edited texts mandated by Israeli authorities that the students, growing up in the mainly Arab part of the city, are given in class.

Forty-one million in Arab world exposed to food insecurity - IMF's Georgieva

The managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, said on Monday that 48 countries are exposed to the global food crisis, and half of them are vulnerable. Georgieva, speaking at a conference in Riyadh, also said that 41 million people across the Arab world are exposed to food insecurity. She said that the IMF will add its voice to fight food trade restrictions in order to ease the situation.

Four bodies recovered, 29 missing from boat rescued off Spain's Canary Islands

The bodies of four migrants, who died on the Atlantic Ocean in an inflatable dinghy with 34 people on board, and a survivor were brought to Spain's Canary Islands, the local maritime rescue service and an NGO said on Sunday. "The ship Miguel de Cervantes has recovered the bodies of the four dead people found yesterday 150 miles southwest of Gran Canaria in a dinghy, from which a survivor was also rescued," the maritime rescue service said on Twitter.

UK's Truss forced into U-turn on tax after week of market turmoil

British Prime Minister Liz Truss was forced on Monday into a humiliating U-turn after less than a month in power, reversing a cut to the highest rate of income tax that helped spark turmoil in financial markets and a rebellion in her party.

Finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng said the decision to scrap the top rate tax cut had been taken with "some humility and contrition", after his party's lawmakers reacted with alarm to a move that favoured the rich during an economic downturn.

Nobel medicine prize goes to explorer of ancient DNA

Swedish geneticist Svante Paabo won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday for discoveries that underpin our understanding of how modern-day humans evolved from extinct ancestors. Paabo, director at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, won the prize for "discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution," the Award committee said.

Bosnian splits remain after elections but foreign policy tips West

Elections in Bosnia entrenched splits between the fragile country's three ethnic groups at a time of deep political crisis but looked set to tip its foreign policy towards the West rather than Russia, preliminary results showed on Monday. Nationalist parties from all three groups were expected to dominate the national and regional parliaments, based on 70% of ballots counted, according to partial results of a range of elections held on Sunday issued by the election commission.

Indonesia to probe soccer stampede; police use of tear gas in focus

Indonesia on Monday set up an independent team to investigate a stampede at a soccer stadium that killed 125 people, including 32 children, as the country's human rights commission questioned the police use of tear gas. Panic-stricken spectators were crushed as they tried to escape the overpacked stadium in Malang, East Java, on Saturday after police fired tear gas to disperse fans from the losing home side who ran onto the pitch at the end of the domestic league match.

(With inputs from agencies.)