Day News Recap: Ukraine hit by fresh Russian strikes as UN tensions, Houthi escalation and AI calls dominate

Russia launched overnight missile and drone strikes across several regions of Ukraine, killing at least three people and damaging industrial and energy infrastructure, in the latest attack on the country’s power and production network.  🔗

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In Russia, preliminary results showed Vladimir Putin’s United Russia winning a record supermajority in the State Duma, while separate reports said Russian voters abroad backed the liberal New People party by a wide margin and Moscow is quietly modernising bomb shelters in the capital and St Petersburg.  🔗  🔗  🔗

At the United Nations in New York, Donald Trump used his General Assembly speech to threaten Iran with possible annihilation if it moved toward a nuclear weapon, even as he signalled that post midterm deal talks could still follow.  🔗 Iran sent President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to New York to press grievances over its conflict with the United States, while Washington said it was open to a UN meeting and also moved to shut Iranian airlines out of international operations from Wednesday.  🔗  🔗  🔗

Regional tensions around Iran also widened elsewhere, with Trump saying the US was working on a possible potash deal with Belarus, and Russia saying its vice foreign minister Alexander Alimov had been denied a US visa ahead of the UN gathering.  🔗  🔗

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The Houthi conflict escalated further after strikes on Saudi Arabia and civilian shipping drew condemnation from the G7, which urged the group to stop its attacks and called on Iran to end support. The UK said it would provide limited defensive air to air refuelling for Saudi jets, while reports from Yemen said Houthi forces were pushing into the Kahboub Mountains near Red Sea routes and the UN warned renewed fighting could uproot more than 230,000 people.  🔗  🔗  🔗  🔗  🔗

In the Middle East, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir entered the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem under heavy police protection as hundreds of settlers also visited the site, adding to holiday tensions.  🔗 In Iraq, authorities said they would press ahead with a plan to collect about 6 million weapons held outside official institutions, even as militia resistance forced some softening of deadlines, and a Baghdad trial opened for six French Islamic State suspects.  🔗  🔗

Security concerns also surfaced in Europe, where Manchester police said they had disrupted a suspected terrorist plot targeting the city’s Jewish community after arresting two men, and Polish intelligence arrested a 17 year old over an alleged plot to attack a school and a mosque.  🔗  🔗 Sri Lanka’s High Court convicted 15 men over the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings, with sentencing still to come, while the UK brought its first Rwanda genocide charges against a London based doctor.  🔗  🔗

Elsewhere, Typhoon Dujuan left at least four dead near Tokyo and six people missing, while North Korea said Kim Jong un oversaw a test of a new weapon system after recent missile launches. Lithuania said it already has evacuation plans in place amid Russian threats and drone incursions, and that a new rotation of US troops is on the way.  🔗  🔗  🔗  🔗

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On the diplomatic and policy front, world leaders and a separate group of 20 countries plus the EU called for stronger global guardrails on artificial intelligence, including the idea of a global oversight body, as the UN warned the world was getting worse and the Security Council remained paralysed.  🔗  🔗  🔗 The US also criticised Australia’s proposed digital duty of care law as a possible route to censorship, while the UK and US test fired a heavyweight torpedo from an uncrewed underwater vessel in an AUKUS first.  🔗  🔗

In business and politics, Paramount settled with California and 11 other US states, clearing a major obstacle to its planned 110 billion dollar takeover of Warner Bros Discovery, while Ineos said it would mothball three chemical sites in Hull because of high UK gas prices. Brazil’s presidential race tightened further, with Lula and Flavio Bolsonaro now statistically tied in new polls, and Berlin was reacting to a historic result that put The Left ahead in the capital as the AfD gained elsewhere.  🔗  🔗  🔗  🔗

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