Russian strikes kill at least 26 in Ukraine as US-Iran talks and US midterms dominate
Russian strikes killed at least 26 people in a southern Ukrainian village on Monday, hours after a six-day ceasefire in the Kherson region expired. Elsewhere, indirect US-Iran talks continued alongside a reported US strike, and voting in the US midterm elections began on Tuesday.
Russian strikes on a village in southern Ukraine on Monday killed at least 26 people, including civilians collecting humanitarian aid, emergency workers and police officers. The attack came hours after the six-day ceasefire, described as the longest of the war, expired. On Sunday Kyiv said at least nine 3,000kg aerial bombs hit a village and killed 18 people at an aid centre, with local officials saying 27 people were missing.
Al Jazeera reports the Bundibugyo-strain Ebola outbreak has killed more than 5,300 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo and has spread to Kenya and Uganda. Two suspected cases in Nigeria tested negative. Separately, a Washington state resident died of avian influenza on Monday, the first such death in the United States in a year.
The US reportedly struck Iran's Qeshm Island on Monday, described as the latest in a series of limited secret strikes, while President Trump signalled progress in talks to end the eight-month conflict. Iran says it is in intensive indirect talks and that the US must lift its naval blockade and meet its demands in full. Brent crude fell more than 6.5% to as low as $105.55 a barrel on hopes of a breakthrough.
Voting in the 2026 US midterms began on Tuesday, with the first polls opening in Vermont. On Monday the Supreme Court ruled against the Trump administration's attempt to force California to set aside about 20,000 ballots that the Justice Department says come from non-citizens. Lower courts had already sided with California officials, who said the federal government was interfering in state elections.
Fresh drone attacks further disrupted electricity supplies in Sudan, according to Al Jazeera, and the army reports new defections from the paramilitary RSF. Khartoum says one-way drone attacks have killed or wounded 484 civilians since February and has lodged UN complaints against Ethiopia. Displaced people face a worsening food crisis amid famine warnings.
Four Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in Gaza and a fifth died of wounds. Nearly 1,600 Palestinians have reportedly been killed since the US-brokered ceasefire took effect in October last year. Hebron's governor says Israeli forces withdrew after a ten-day siege, and Al Jazeera says Israeli troops arrested its correspondent Montaser Nassar during a raid there.
The WHO says renewed fighting between Tigray rebels and the government in Addis Ababa is pushing the health system in the north toward collapse. The fighting has shattered the 2022 peace deal.
The RBA lifted its rate from 4.6% to 4.85%, the highest since 2008, to curb inflation of 4.3% in the year to September. The bank cites the global oil shock from the Middle East war.