World roundup: September 30 2025
Stories from Israel-Palestine, China, Ukraine, and elsewhere
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TODAY IN HISTORY
September 30, 737: Fighters from the Turkic Türgesh confederation defeat an Umayyad army at what’s known as the “Battle of the Baggage” in what is now northern Afghanistan. The Umayyads recovered and wound up killing the Türgesh ruler, Suluk, in battle the following year, but the disruption caused by their defeat may have contributed to the emergence of rebel challengers to the caliphate within the wider Khurasan region. One of those, in the late 740s, eventually ousted the Umayyad dynasty in favor of the Abbasids.
September 30, 1938: The leaders of Britain, France, Italy, and Nazi Germany sign the Munich Agreement, giving the Nazis control of Czechoslovakia’s predominantly German Sudetenland region. Depending on your worldview you may regard British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s actions here as either the most vile act of appeasement in human history, a necessary evil (that Chamberlain may still have handled badly) given that Britain was in no shape for a war in 1938, or the germ of a plan Chamberlain had to ally with Hitler against the Soviet Union. You decide.
INTERNATIONAL
At The Conversation, Penn State engineering professor Li Li has some disturbing news about the impact of climate change on rivers:
When you think about heat waves, you might picture sweltering cities, shimmering asphalt and unbearable summer afternoons. These heat waves dominate the headlines because we feel them directly.
Rivers, on the other hand, are often seen as cool refuges, places to escape the heat of summer.
Yet rivers are heating up, too. In fact, they’re heating up faster than the air.
New research from my team shows that riverine heat waves – periods of abnormally high water temperatures in rivers – are becoming more common, more intense and longer-lasting than they were 40 years ago. Their frequency, intensity and duration are also increasing at rates more than twice as fast as heat waves in the atmosphere.
The increased heat puts more stress on aquatic ecosystems, water quality, energy production and agriculture, and it can threaten species that rely on cool streams.
MIDDLE EAST
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
At time of writing the Israeli military (IDF) had killed at least 59 people across Gaza on Tuesday. I note this to stress that there’s been no letup in the slaughter while everyone awaits Hamas’s response to the Donald Trump ceasefire framework. There’s no indication as to when that response might be coming or what it might be, though CBS News reported on Tuesday that “a source close to the process” had informed them that the group was “leaning toward accepting” the framework and could announce that as soon as Wednesday. I would take that with a grain of salt, though it does appear that Hamas is under considerable pressure from two of its closest regional acquaintances, as the Qatari government has brought a Turkish delegation to Doha to urge acceptance. They and the Egyptian government are leaning heavily on Hamas and that might make rejection politically impossible. Trump on Tuesday gave Hamas “three or four days” to respond before, presumably, he gives the Israelis a green light to do whatever they want in and to Gaza.
That said, there are degrees of acceptance and it’s possible that Hamas will offer a general thumbs up while arguing that there are many details that still have to be worked out in what is at present a pretty detail-free framework. That seems to be the Qatari position and it’s a reasonable one—as Al Jazeera has reported there are several massive open questions in Trump’s framework, including the structure and function of the “board of peace” that’s supposed to oversee it (led by Trump and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair) as well as any timeframes for political transition or the IDF’s eventual withdrawal from the territory. These are major issues that are only vaguely stated in Trump’s document.
Assuming Hamas’s response is something like a conditional acceptance there’s every reason to anticipate that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will treat it as a rejection and Trump will back him up on that. Netanyahu is already telling domestic audiences that there won’t be any IDF withdrawal from Gaza, which seems to run counter to the framework. He may be trying to provoke a negative or hedging response from Hamas. In this case Trump’s “peace” framework will instead function as a framework for continued violence, as The American Prospect’s Harold Meyerson has noted. Drop Site’s Jeremy Scahill and Jawa Ahmed were more scathing:
While Trump praised his own plan as a landmark opportunity for “eternal peace in the Middle East,” the exclusion of all Palestinians from the process is an extension of decades of Western colonial dominance of decision-making surrounding the future of Palestine. At the heart of Trump’s plan is a thinly-veiled ultimatum to Palestinians: bend the knee to Israel, renounce the right of armed resistance, and agree to indefinite subjugation by foreign actors.
“This plan is a malicious attempt to achieve through politics what the war of extermination could not achieve on the ground,” said Sami Al-Arian, a prominent Palestinian academic and activist and the director of the Center for Islam and Global Affairs at Istanbul Zaim University. “This includes ending the resistance, withdrawing weapons, releasing [Israeli] captives without a complete withdrawal, maintaining security, political, and economic control over Gaza, and imposing international tutelage.” He said the Trump framework is aimed at “perpetuating the Israeli narrative that the challenge is a security one related to Israeli security needs, not to ending a military occupation, Israeli genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and ongoing aggression.”
Al-Arian told Drop Site, “There is no negotiation here. There is an American plan. It was modified by some Israeli points and possibly some Arab points. And it’s given to the resistance as a ‘Take it or leave it’ thing.”
Elsewhere, the Israeli military is getting ready to intercept the Global Sumud Flotilla before it can bring its humanitarian cargo to Gaza. Its lead vessels are not far from Gaza at this point so the interception could happen at any time, even as soon as Wednesday. There is little reason to expect the Israelis to go easy here, so even though flotilla participants are trained to react nonviolently to an interdiction the potential for violence is at the very least too high for comfort.
IRAN
The Iranian government revealed on Tuesday that it will soon begin accepting deportation flights from the United States, with an initial flight of around 120 deportees due to arrive in the next few days. Upwards of 400 Iranians may be deported in total. There’s been no comment from the Trump administration though this is reportedly the result of “months” of negotiations on the subject. It’s unclear how many of these people may be facing legal or other sorts of jeopardy upon their return to Iran.
ASIA
AFGHANISTAN
Afghanistan’s self-imposed internet outage is likely to have devastating effects on women, which to be clear is the point. Many Afghan women have turned to online education and even employment as options now that Taliban authorities have more or less barred them from pursuing those avenues locally. Men whose livelihoods were tied to the internet have been impacted as well but their options are far more open than those for women. Afghan officials have been suggesting that they will create an “alternative route” for internet access that somehow addresses their supposed “immorality” concerns, but like their promises to restore women’s education this seems like empty rhetoric.
PAKISTAN
Militants assaulted a Frontier Corps police facility in the Pakistani city of Quetta on Tuesday, killing at least ten people and wounding more than 30. To my knowledge there’s been no indication as to responsibility. Jihadist groups and Baluch separatists are active in Quetta and the rest of Baluchistan province. Elsewhere, a shooting at a “peace rally” in the city of Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistani Kashmir, left one person dead and more than 20 wounded on Monday. Authorities are blaming the Awami Action Committee, a civil rights group that’s been agitating for more expansive public services, for the incident.
CHINA
According to The Wall Street Journal, the US military is trying to ramp up missile production in advance of World War III:
The Pentagon, alarmed at the low weapons stockpiles the U.S. would have on hand for a potential future conflict with China, is urging its missile suppliers to double or even quadruple production rates on a breakneck schedule.
The push to speed production of the critical weapons in the highest demand has played out through a series of high-level meetings between Pentagon leaders and senior representatives from several U.S. missile makers, according to people familiar with the matter. Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg is taking an unusually hands-on role in the effort, called the Munitions Acceleration Council, and calls some company executives weekly to discuss it, some of the people said.
The department summoned top missile suppliers to a June roundtable at the Pentagon to kick off the industry effort. The meeting, attended by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, drew executives from several weapons makers, new market entrants like Anduril Industries, and a handful of suppliers of important parts like rocket propellant and batteries.
There are potential funding issues here, as even the current over-bloated Pentagon budget probably can’t sustain the sort of production increases envisioned in this program. But something tells me the federal government will find the money somehow.
AFRICA
GABON
In a shocking upset, it looks like the party of Gabonese junta leader-turned-president Brice Oligui Nguema is headed to victory in the country’s first parliamentary election since the restoration of nominal democracy earlier this year. Oligui, who seized power in a 2023 coup, already won what I’m sure was a completely free and fair presidential election earlier this year and his Democratic Union of Builders (UDB) won 55 of the 145 National Assembly seats in Saturday’s first round. A runoff round will take place on October 11 in 77 districts where no candidate won an outright majority and UDB seems certain to win enough of those races to amass a majority. In any case most of those contests involve candidates from the UDB and Gabon’s former ruling party, the Gabonese Democratic Party, and the two parties are close enough that they fielded candidates jointly in a handful of races.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
A Congolese military court sentenced former President Joseph Kabila to execution in absentia on Tuesday for a litany of offenses “including treason, crimes against humanity, murder, sexual assault, torture and insurrection.” Kabila is in the DRC, having returned from self-imposed exile in 2023, but by all accounts he’s presently living in the eastern city of Goma under the protection of the M23 militant group. His support for that group is part of the basis for those treason and insurrection charges.
MADAGASCAR
Antigovernment protests continued in Madagascar on Tuesday despite President Andry Rajoelina’s decision to dissolve his cabinet the previous day. Rajoelina has expressed a desire to meet with organizers of what’s being called a “Gen Z” protest, similar to the one in Nepal earlier this month, but there’s no indication yet that they’re interested in meeting with him. The violence of the security response, which has contributed to casualty figures of at least 22 dead and over 100 injured, may now be fueling demonstrations that had previously been focused on economic concerns.
EUROPE
UKRAINE
The Financial Times is reporting that European Union officials will soon begin technical work on the Ukrainian and Moldovan membership processes, despite Hungarian opposition that could block their ultimate accessions. Both countries should be entering the “chapter” stage of the process, where the EU negotiates a set of areas in which the prospective members need to carry out reforms to align themselves with the bloc’s rules, but Budapest is blocking their progress (this is mostly due to poor relations between the Hungarian and Ukrainian governments, with Moldova caught in the proverbial crossfire). The European Commission wants to begin informal work on alignment anyway, which would allow them to move quickly through the process if/when the Hungarian government gives way. That may be easier said than done, as alignment is a politically fraught process and Moldovan and Ukrainian officials may be reluctant to engage in it without stronger assurances that their membership bids are advancing.
BULGARIA
Speaking of Hungary, it and Slovakia may be at risk of losing access to Russian natural gas by the end of next year. Bulgarian Energy Minister Zhecho Stankov told POLITICO on Monday that his government supports a European Union plan to phase out Russian gas imports to the bloc by January 1, 2028. The pipeline that carries Russian gas to Hungary and Slovakia, two countries that are heavily dependent on Russia for their energy supplies and that are decidedly opposed to the phase out idea, runs through Bulgaria. The EU is still debating this proposal so nothing is set in stone, but it’s likely to cause some new bitterness within the bloc.
AMERICAS
ARGENTINA
The Argentine government said on Tuesday that President Javier Milei will meet with Donald Trump in two weeks to discuss a potential US financial bailout of Milei’s ailing libertarian experiment. That bailout is suddenly looking a little shaky, as people within what Reuters called “Trump’s inner circle” are irritated that Milei is selling discounted soybeans to China, helping Beijing to replace the soybeans that it’s no longer buying from the US to the great detriment of American farmers. Trump may have something to say about that when the two meet.
HAITI
The United Nations Security Council voted on Tuesday to upgrade the Kenyan-led police assistance mission in Haiti to something called a “Gang Suppression Force.” This could bring in additional resources—it raises the force’s maximum deployment from 2500 personnel to 5550, for example—but the original assistance mission was already undermanned and undersupported so it’s unclear whether this upgrade is actually going to mean anything on the ground. There’s still no obligation for UN member states to contribute personnel, materiel, or funding to the cause.
UNITED STATES
A US federal district judge ruled on Tuesday that the Trump administration’s targeting of Palestine activists for deportation violates US law. Judge William Young found that the administration sought “to strike fear into similarly situated non-citizen pro-Palestinian individuals, pro-actively (and effectively) curbing lawful pro-Palestinian speech and intentionally denying such individuals … the freedom of speech that is their right.” US officials have openly said that they’re targeting these people, like Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil, for their Palestinian activism, so that part of the case isn’t in dispute. The test really is the administration’s contention that noncitizens don’t have free speech rights. Presumably it will appeal to the Supreme Court.
Finally, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth held his big rally for US generals and admirals on Tuesday, and according to The Intercept’s Nick Turse it was perhaps even dumber than you might have expected:
After a week of handwringing about the purpose of an unprecedented gathering of generals and admirals on Tuesday, the meeting in Quantico, Virginia, ended with standard fare from both President Donald Trump and his self-styled Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.
During the largest single gathering of top military brass in memory — and perhaps ever — Hegseth began with an unhinged address filled with confusing contradictions, wild-eyed cheerleading, and politically charged rhetoric.
Trump followed with a long, rambling address that only sporadically touched on military topics. At one point the president, who has used the troops to quell protests and occupy American cities, warned the assembled military leadership of “a war from within.”
Three different defense officials who spoke with The Intercept called Trump’s speech “embarrassing.” The same defense officials took Hegseth to task for gathering the military’s top commanders from around the world for a rant little different than his social media posts. One called Hegseth’s address “garbage,” using a term the war secretary used during his speech. Another said: “We are diminished as a nation by both Hegseth and Trump.”
Trump’s main consideration does seems to be getting the senior brass onside for his planned invasions of major US cities. He actually suggested that those incursions could be viewed as “training” opportunities for, I guess, operations overseas. I grant you that’s a somewhat unique inversion of the typical imperial boomerang but that doesn’t make the concept any more appealing. To be fair his meaning may have been difficult to parse given that the rest of his remarks seem to have been pretty incoherent.