World

European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos, in an official portrait from December 2024.

EU opens two more accession clusters for Ukraine as Hungary lifts its veto

A view of Chitré, capital of Panama's Herrera province, where the epicentre of the 9 October quake was located, in an archive photograph.

Panama earthquake

Panama reopens schools in phases after the earthquake: 35 destroyed and 656 damaged

Kaja Kallas, the European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, in an official portrait from November 2024.

EU blacklists 1,569 companies and executives in Russia's military industry, its largest listing since 2022

Official portrait of Kaja Kallas, the European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, taken in November 2024.

EU sets up a support mission in Lebanon with a three-year mandate, 80 days before UNIFIL ends

The interior of Terminal 3 at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, in a 2008 photograph. The complex housing terminals 3 and 4 was hit in the attacks of 10 and 11 October 2026.

Riyadh airport stays shut for a third day as 46% of Saudi flights are cancelled

Volodymyr Zelensky and Ursula von der Leyen speaking to the press at the European Commission's headquarters in Brussels in August 2025.

EU and Ukraine say 2026 budget and defence spending is covered, and target €45 billion next year

US airmen change an engine on a B-1 Lancer bomber at RAF Fairford, England, in November 2023.

UK prime minister sees "strong indications" of Iranian involvement in the Fairford air base case, but offers no evidence

Meskel Square and the Addis Ababa skyline, in Ethiopia's capital, in 2021.

Explosions hit Addis Ababa, and a rebel alliance says it struck Ethiopia's military headquarters with drones

British Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood at the Five Country Ministerial in London in September 2025.

UK ends its "one in, one out" deal with France after 1,400 returns at £56,000 each

The Roholam and Landigal valley in Kunar province, north-eastern Afghanistan, in 2003. Kunar was one of the two provinces hit by the Pakistani air strikes.

Pakistan bombs Kunar and Helmand: Islamabad says it killed 22 fighters, Kabul reports 9 civilians

Norwegian and US coalition troops during medical evacuation training at Al Asad air base in western Iraq in December 2024.

US-led coalition leaves Erbil air base, ending 23 years of foreign military presence in Iraq

An Indian Navy ship on anti-piracy patrol in the Gulf of Aden, off the coast of Somalia, in November 2018.

Somali pirates killed five of a tanker's 17 crew before losing the ship to Puntland forces

Hurricane Polo moving north off Mexico's Pacific coast on 28 September 2026, a day before it made landfall in Sonora, in this GOES satellite image.

Hurricane Polo makes landfall at Guaymas as a Category 1 and floods the Sonoran port's downtown

Terminal E of Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, in 2017. It is Thailand's largest airport.

Floods in Thailand kill 23 and throw Bangkok's biggest airport into disarray after 320 mm of rain in three days

A Tupolev Tu-95MS strategic bomber, the same model that crashed, on display at the MAKS air show in Russia.

Nuclear-capable Tu-95 bomber crashes in Russia's Far East, killing six of seven crew

The John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse in Boston, seat of the First Circuit Court of Appeals, in September 2024.

Appeals court ban on third-country deportations takes effect, and the administration runs to the Supreme Court

South Korean President Lee Jae-myung during a visit to the White House, in August 2025.

South Korea and Ukraine

Seoul demands an apology from Kyiv after Zelenskyy revealed the transfer of two North Korean POWs

RAF Fairford, in Gloucestershire, western England, pictured in 2003.

Five men arrested over suspected plot against RAF Fairford, the US Air Force's bomber base in Britain

A South African Police Service (SAPS) patrol van, photographed in South Africa in 2016.

Two mass shootings kill 27 people in South Africa in under five hours

Maracaibo without electricity in the early hours of 31 January 2026, during one of the blackouts that keep recurring in Zulia state.

Blackouts of up to 16 hours spark protests in four Venezuelan states