Global Express | Oct 29, 2026: Spain Train Crash Kills 69 as Three Days of Mourning Begin

1. Spain train crash: at least 69 dead, three days of mourning begin

Three days of official mourning began in Spain on Oct. 29 for the high-speed train collision in Toledo province. The government says at least 69 people died when one train ran into the back of another on the Madrid-Seville line on the morning of Oct. 28, the country's second high-speed rail disaster this year after a derailment in the south killed 46 in January.

The crash happened at 08:53 local time between Mora and Orgaz, about 140km (100 miles) south of Madrid. A privately run Iryo train was stationary on the tracks when a state-run Renfe train hit it from behind at high speed, sending some carriages down an embankment. More than 540 people were on board: 146 passengers and one baby on the Iryo train and 397 on the Renfe train.

Transport Minister Oscar Puente said a computer failure at about 08:30 halted six moving trains, and the control centre then allowed trains to resume "under inexplicable circumstances" without speed restrictions. Audio recordings obtained by Spanish media appear to show one high-speed train was cleared to run at normal speed even though another had stalled about 25km ahead. Fifty people remain in hospital, 15 of them in critical condition.

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2. North Korea fires about 10 short-range ballistic missiles

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said North Korea fired about 10 short-range ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan at about 12:30pm local time on Oct. 29 from an area around Wonsan on its east coast. Japan's Defence Ministry confirmed the launch and said the missiles may have fallen outside the country's Exclusive Economic Zone.

The launch came less than a week after Seoul proposed military talks. Tensions stem from a landmine explosion in the Demilitarized Zone on Sept. 21 that injured three South Korean soldiers; a joint South Korea-UN investigation concluded this month that the North had planted the mines more than a year earlier, and Seoul demanded an apology.

Pyongyang rejected the finding and sent a letter to the UN Security Council this week accusing Seoul of shifting blame, warning that violations of its sovereignty could trigger self-defence. Kim Yo Jong, the sister of leader Kim Jong Un, called the demand for an apology "despicable" and rejected medical equipment offered by Seoul.

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3. Moscow hit by 613 drones overnight as three airports restrict flights

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said 613 drones were launched towards the Russian capital overnight on Oct. 28-29, 231 of which were downed while approaching Moscow. Air defence units began repelling the attack before 10:30pm local time and reported several waves of dozens of drones through the night.

Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency restricted flights at three of the region's four major airports: Vnukovo, Domodedovo and Zhukovsky. TASS reported that two flights from Istanbul to Moscow turned back because of the restrictions. Authorities reported no casualties or damage, and Sobyanin did not identify any targets.

The independent Russian Telegram channel Astra reported explosions near Naro-Fominsk, about 50km southwest of the capital. Ukrainian drone strikes have repeatedly disrupted Moscow aviation in October: an overnight attack on Oct. 23 grounded flights at all four main airports, and a strike the previous night hit a weapons plant in Moscow Oblast.

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4. Israel coalition talks: Liberman cuts contact with opposition

A day after Israel's election, N12 News reported on Oct. 28 that Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman had cut ties with the opposition bloc, stopped taking calls from former prime minister Naftali Bennett and Yashar party chairman Gadi Eisenkot, and is pushing for a unity government with Benjamin Netanyahu.

Current tallies project seven seats for Liberman's party, short of pre-election polls that expected as many as nine, with some votes going to Bennett's party. His strategy relied on Likud fracturing from within, but official results show Likud remains the largest faction in the Knesset.

Liberman still insists he will not join Netanyahu's coalition, and has asked the attorney-general to open a criminal probe into Netanyahu over allegedly trying to draw the IDF into a military confrontation to delay the election. Maariv reported on Oct. 29 that Netanyahu is considering forming a unity government with Eisenkot.

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5. Lagarde to step down as ECB president in February

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde announced on Oct. 29 that she will step down on Feb. 7 next year, nearly nine months before her term expires. "It has been a source of great pride to serve this institution," she said, and the Governing Council gave her a standing ovation.

Lagarde has led the bank since July 2019, steering its response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war and energy price shocks that pushed euro-area inflation above 11%. Her term was due to end in October 2027. European Council President Antonio Costa thanked her for her "steady and determined stewardship" and said the process of appointing a successor will begin immediately.

The announcement came ahead of the ECB's rate decision later on Oct. 29, with rates expected to be held after inflation hit a three-year high in September. Former Dutch central bank chief Klaas Knot and former Spanish central bank chief Pablo Hernandez de Cos are seen as top contenders; chief economist Philip Lane and board member Isabel Schnabel also leave next year.

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6. Alphabet and Microsoft earnings show surging AI demand

Quarterly results from Alphabet and Microsoft on Oct. 28 showed AI demand still surging, with both companies pouring tens of billions of dollars into the infrastructure needed to support it.

Alphabet reported third-quarter revenue of $127.6 billion, up 25% from a year earlier, while Google Cloud revenue more than doubled to $30.7 billion, a 103% increase. The company expects capital expenditure of $195 billion to $205 billion this year and a significant increase in 2027; it spent about $51.4 billion on capex in the third quarter alone, more than double a year earlier.

Microsoft posted fiscal first-quarter revenue of $92.3 billion, up 19%, with Azure growing 48% and Microsoft Cloud revenue up 30% to $63.9 billion. Its commercial remaining performance obligation rose 73% to $677 billion. Alphabet's finance chief warned that Google Cloud could face near-term margin pressure because it relies on third-party computing capacity to meet demand.

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7. Congo Ebola cases pass 10,000

The World Health Organization said on Oct. 28 that confirmed Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have passed 10,000. Data from the Congolese health ministry showed 10,141 cases and nearly 5,000 deaths as of Monday.

The outbreak is caused by the rarer Bundibugyo virus, for which no vaccine or treatment is approved. It is the country's 17th Ebola outbreak and its largest ever, and globally the second largest after the 2014-2016 West Africa epidemic. It has spread to eight provinces, including some with limited access.

The WHO says response efforts have made progress: more than 2,600 people have recovered, testing and treatment capacity is improving, and clinical trials of candidate vaccines have begun. A trial named "Hope" uses ring vaccination with Ervebo, previously approved against the Zaire strain, for contacts of confirmed cases. Neighbouring Kenya has reported nine cases, two of them fatal.

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8. West Bank: activists say they were assaulted by Israeli settlers

Russian activist Adele Shoko said on X that she and two colleagues were attacked by Israeli settlers in the Palestinian village of Umm al-Khair in the Masafer Yatta area of the occupied West Bank. She said US journalist Jasper Nathaniel and Israeli-Russian activist Andrey X were beaten and threatened by armed settlers who stole equipment and personal items.

Shoko said she and Nathaniel were also beaten, and that Nathaniel was pepper-sprayed and taken away. Andrey X lost consciousness several times but was denied hospital treatment, she said: he was put in an ambulance but taken to a police station instead, where he remains arrested and without medical care. Video she posted showed several men, some armed, beating the two.

The assault follows an Oct. 16 incident in Abu Falah, northeast of Ramallah, where masked settlers attacked Palestinian farmers harvesting olives, setting trees on fire and throwing stones with slingshots. Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine, who was covering the attack, was beaten, robbed and hospitalised, while a Palestinian man was shot in the leg by Israeli soldiers.

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9. Palo Alto management interfaces exploited via PHP2Shell flaws

Palo Alto Networks warned on Oct. 28 that attackers are exploiting recently patched PHP2Shell vulnerabilities against management interfaces exposed to the internet. The flaws, tracked as CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619 with a CVSS score of 9.2, allow unauthenticated remote code execution.

The issues were patched upstream by the PHP Foundation on Oct. 21 in versions 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36 and 8.2.35. Israeli cybersecurity firm Dream said a suspected China-nexus threat actor chained the flaws with a Linux kernel privilege-escalation bug called Fragnesia to root 25 servers in the US, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, three of them in a US government-affiliated environment.

CISA has added Fragnesia to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalogue, requiring federal agencies to apply fixes by Oct. 31. Palo Alto said the issue strictly affects the management web interface, including the HTTPS web UI and XML API service, with the highest risk when the management interface is reachable from external IP addresses.

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10. Partial ceasefire in Oleshky as Putin speaks to Finnish and Norwegian leaders

US first lady Melania Trump said on social media on Oct. 27 that a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine in Oleshky, in the Kherson region, took effect at 4am Moscow time that day, two days early, and was expanded beyond the town to give humanitarian convoys a safe corridor. Russian human rights commissioner Lantratova said the truce would last until 10:59pm Moscow time on Nov. 1.

The same day, Putin spoke for about 90 minutes with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store and Finnish President Alexander Stubb in a call initiated by Oslo and Helsinki, his first with leaders of Ukraine-supporting European states in more than a year. Store said afterwards that the two sides had "huge disagreements" on Ukraine, while Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he heard "nothing new".

Oleshky lies on the left bank of the Dnipro river opposite Ukrainian-held Kherson city; the White House says 1,700 to 2,000 residents remain, mostly elderly people and children unable to leave. Ukrainian MP David Arakhamia called the truce the biggest de-escalation since 2022, while The Guardian described it as "important but limited". Trump said on Oct. 28 that a meeting between Putin and Zelensky would be arranged "soon".

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