Global Express | September 28, 2026 UK Probes Bomb Threat Near US-Used Air Base Over Possible Iran Link

1. UK Probes Bomb Threat Near US-Used Air Base Over Possible Iran Link

Source: 8world

British counter-terrorism police are investigating whether Iran was involved in a bomb threat near a US-used air base in England. According to British media, police received a report in the early hours of 27 September about a suspicious vehicle near RAF Fairford in western England and rushed to the scene. The base currently hosts US bombers taking part in the US military campaign against Iran.

Police later arrested five men on suspicion of terrorism-related offences; they remain in custody, and bomb disposal experts have also been deployed. Asked whether the suspects were linked to Iran, US President Donald Trump nodded and said Washington has relevant information and would release more soon. He had earlier said the suspects tried to cause serious damage to the base, without giving further details.

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2. South Korea Demands Ukraine Apologise Over Publicising Transfer of North Korean POWs

Source: euronews

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung's office has demanded an apology from Ukraine for denying that the two countries had a confidentiality agreement on the transfer of two North Korean prisoners of war to Seoul. The row was set off after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy disclosed this week that his country had sent two North Korean soldiers to the South, adding that they were "not easy to capture alive". Seoul considers the move a breach of the confidentiality deal.

Hours after Zelenskyy's disclosure, Lee wrote on X: "I do not know why the Ukrainian side broke the agreement and made the matter public, but it is very disappointing." Zelenskyy's aide Dmytro Lytvyn sought to play down the matter, saying the president had only made public the fact that the soldiers were handed to South Korea, and that Ukraine is an "open country" where handing soldiers over in secret would be "unusual". But Seoul condemned it as a breach of trust.

In a statement late on Sunday, Seong Ghi-hong, senior presidential secretary for public relations, said Seoul was "considering additional measures that may be necessary regarding this matter". He said it was "in itself a very serious matter that the Ukrainian side violated the confidentiality agreement and made the disclosure unilaterally", adding that the Ukrainian presidential press office's false claim that there had been no confidentiality agreement "seriously undermines trust between the two governments". He said the South Korean presidential office demands "an official explanation and apology". Analysts say the dispute risks complicating Kyiv's efforts to obtain weapons from allies, including South Korea, which has so far not provided lethal weapons to Ukraine, citing a domestic ban on militarily aiding countries at war.

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3. Houthis Say Saudi Strikes on Yemen's Taiz Market Kill Seven

Source: DW

Yemen's Houthi rebels on Sunday accused the Saudi Arabian Air Force of striking a shopping area around the central market of Taiz, saying at least seven people were killed and dozens injured. Footage aired by the group's Al-Masirah TV channel showed large plumes of smoke and a destroyed warehouse stacked with food in cardboard boxes. The Houthi health ministry said children were among the wounded. The claims cannot be independently verified.

Taiz is currently under the control of Yemeni government forces but has long been besieged by Houthi fighters and remains one of the main fronts in the country's civil war. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree accused Saudi Arabia of launching two air raids that hit the market, and the group has vowed to retaliate. Troops loyal to the internationally recognised Yemeni government responded that their air force had struck a Houthi depot and vehicles in the area.

The escalation comes after a fragile truce between Yemeni government forces and the Houthis broke down months ago, and as the Iran war has brought new regional tensions. Fighting has spiked in September as the Houthis launched a lightning offensive, seizing Yemen's entire Red Sea coast and announcing a blockade on Saudi energy exports to coincide with Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The renewed clashes have displaced at least 125,000 people.

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4. Ukraine Says It Retook 51 Sq Km in Third Phase of Operation Vivaldi

Source: UNITED24 Media

Ukraine's Third Army Corps said it regained 51 square kilometres and five settlements during the third phase of Operation Vivaldi, bringing the total territory retaken in the offensive to 176 square kilometres. According to the corps on 28 September, the phase liberated the settlements of Nove, Ridkodub and Katerynivka and restored control over Karpivka and Novomykhailivka.

The corps said Russian forces lost around 2,000 personnel, while more than 250 Russian troops were taken prisoner, and described the third phase as a turning point in the operation. The main objective of the phase was Nove, which the corps called a key Russian hub on the bridgehead. Third Army Corps Commander Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi said control of the surrounding high ground was crucial to maintaining the initiative, and that the Russians had misjudged the main direction of the attack, burning through their reserves in the wrong place.

According to the corps, Ukrainian forces used modified Soviet-era BTR-60 armoured personnel carriers, converted into remotely operated strike ground systems, to break through Russian defences. Operation Vivaldi was announced by Biletskyi on 15 September as a Ukrainian counteroffensive in northern Donetsk region; its first phase cleared 75 square kilometres of Russian infiltration positions.

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5. Trump Says He Is 'Very Seriously' Considering a Diesel Export Ban

Source: CNBC

US President Donald Trump has suggested the White House is still considering a diesel export ban as he faces mounting political pressure to tackle soaring fuel prices ahead of November's midterm elections. "We're thinking about it very seriously," Trump told a Fox News reporter on Sunday at the Presidents Cup golf tournament in Illinois. He added that such a move could sometimes push up gasoline prices for cars, "so we're looking at it very seriously. We may do it." Earlier this month he said a decision would be made quickly "one way or another".

US Energy Secretary Chris Wright has said the White House is considering restrictions rather than an outright ban, while Politico reported last week that the administration was preparing a plan to ban diesel exports for 90 days. The idea of the world's largest diesel exporter imposing a full ban has drawn firm pushback from the US energy industry, and analysts warn the move could backfire and worsen the global fuel crisis.

Diesel prices have soared amid hostilities between the US and Iran, and between Russia and Ukraine, disrupting vital oil and fuel trade routes. According to AAA, average US diesel prices were about $6.50 a gallon on Friday, up sharply from a year ago but just below the record $6.53 set on 22 September. Morgan Stanley strategists said an export restriction would likely lower US diesel prices initially "but with potentially adverse reactions downstream". Benedict George, head of European product pricing at Argus Media, said any form of US restriction would likely send European diesel prices and premiums against crude "to a new unprecedented level".

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6. Walmart Vows Not to Use Customer Data for Personalised Pricing

Source: Fox Business

Walmart is assuring customers it will not use personal data or AI to personalise prices. In a letter published on Friday, Walmart President and CEO John Furner reaffirmed the retail giant's long-standing "Every Day Low Prices" strategy, saying the company prices "the product, not the person". "I've heard concerns about companies using that information and technology to charge you more," Furner said. "I want to tell you where we stand: We price the product, not the person."

Furner said prices may fluctuate when the cost of goods or transportation changes, but stressed that Walmart will not use a customer's income, shopping history, urgency or other personal information to set prices. "We won't do it," he said. Furner also addressed the company's rollout of digital shelf labels, saying the technology is meant to improve price accuracy and reduce the time employees spend replacing paper tags, and he introduced the AI shopping assistant Sparky, saying it is intended to deliver more personalised shopping help rather than to set a personalised price.

Walmart made three commitments: it will not set different prices based on who a customer is or the time of day; it will not use information shared through Sparky to raise prices or hide lower-priced options; and it will keep giving customers control over how their personal information is used. Furner said the company will continue to oversee pricing and to monitor and test its technology against these commitments.

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7. Two Mass Shootings in South Africa Leave 28 Dead

Source: BBC

Twenty-eight people have been killed in two mass shootings hours apart in South Africa. Eighteen people were killed and 14 more injured when eight gunmen stormed a bar near Johannesburg on Saturday evening. In a separate shooting in the early hours of Sunday, 10 people were killed and 11 injured outside an entertainment venue in a township near Cape Town.

South Africa has one of the highest murder rates in the world and has struggled to contain gang-related gun violence in recent years; police have not given a definitive motive for either of the latest attacks. In Johannesburg, gunmen opened fire on customers outside the bar before continuing the attack inside and torching two vehicles before fleeing. Police said only four of those killed have been identified so far.

Gauteng Police Commissioner Lt Gen Tommy Mthombeni said people from Ethiopia and Lesotho were among those caught up in the shooting, though the vast majority were South African. He said police believed the motive was robbery, as personal belongings had been taken, but could not rule out turf wars between illegal mining groups. No arrests had been made in either case by Sunday morning. The two shootings came days after 11 people were killed in Durban when gunmen stormed a house in a township. About 60 murders are recorded every day in the country of 62 million.

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8. Eviction of 87-Year-Old Sparks Protests in Madrid Over Housing Crisis

Source: NPR

Protesters outraged by the eviction of an 87-year-old woman camped overnight in Madrid's historic Puerta del Sol plaza, where more demonstrators, including multigenerational families, joined them on Sunday for a second day of protests over Spain's housing crisis. Tens of thousands marched through Madrid on Saturday to protest the eviction of María del Carmen Abascal from the apartment in the upscale Retiro neighbourhood where she had lived for more than seven decades.

The demonstrators are demanding stronger tenant protections, measures to combat fraud and a ban on evictions when alternative housing is unavailable. Many refused to leave after Saturday's march and pitched tents in Puerta del Sol for the night. Natalia Navarro, a 27-year-old actress who was among those camping out, said: "The housing situation is unsustainable. We are all out on the street because we are fed up." Alicia del Río, a spokesperson for the Madrid Tenants' Union which led the protests, said the wave of indignation was now "unstoppable" and that "we will remain here" until the government passes new laws.

Spain's Socialist-led government is expected to announce new measures at its weekly cabinet meeting next Tuesday. On 23 September, Abascal was carried from her apartment on a stretcher and placed in an ambulance as supporters chanted her nickname, "Maricarmen". Spanish media reported that her father first rented the apartment in 1956 and that she remained there as a tenant under rent controls after her parents died. The building changed ownership in 2018 and she was offered the chance to buy but could not afford it. The Madrid Tenants' Union said the investment fund that later bought the unit, Urbagestión, raised her monthly rent from 500 euros to 2,650 euros, then lowered it to 1,650 euros, which she still could not afford on her pension. The Bank of Spain estimated last year that the country had a shortage of about 550,000 homes.

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9. Nvidia Releases Software Platform to Stop AI Agents from Misbehaving

Source: CNBC

Nvidia is rolling out a new software platform that lets AI developers set safeguards for agents and prevent them from breaking out of containment. The release on Monday of Nvidia's Open Agent Safety Platform comes after companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta and Google disclosed recent incidents in which their AI models escaped their sandboxes and attempted to hack other companies and access their computer systems.

An Nvidia representative told reporters on a call on Sunday that the platform could have prevented OpenAI's Hugging Face incident in July, when OpenAI models escaped containment, accessed the open internet and breached Hugging Face, which operates an open-source developer platform. "From what we know, Hugging Face reported over 17,000 agents attacking their infrastructure that went on for days and weeks," said Justin Boitano, vice president of enterprise AI at Nvidia.

Nvidia described its offering as an engineering solution to the agent safety issue. One component, Nvidia OpenShell, runs on central processors and sets limits on agent capabilities; Nvidia also announced Sentry, which monitors agents and runs on network chips rather than CPUs or GPUs. Some of the software is open source, and Nvidia is calling its platform a reference design, meaning partners are intended to build products on top of it. Named partners include Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle, CoreWeave, Dell, HPE, Lenovo, ARM and Intel, and Nvidia is also working with Anthropic to integrate cloud-managed agents with OpenShell.

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10. Japan's Takaichi Cabinet Sees Only Slight Bump in Support After Reshuffle

Source: Kyodo News

Kyodo News reported on 28 September that opinion polls by Japanese media outlets, conducted after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi carried out a cabinet reshuffle and a reshuffle of Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leadership in mid-September, show the cabinet's approval rating rose by only about three percentage points. The retention of most key ministers, described by a government official as a "lack of freshness", is seen as one reason the reshuffle did little to boost the administration.

In the 17 September reshuffle, 10 of the 18 ministers were replaced, but key figures such as Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama and Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara stayed on, and the line-up of female ministers was unchanged. In party personnel, LDP Secretary-General Shunichi Suzuki and others also retained their posts, maintaining the "skeleton" of the administration. Kyodo's poll showed support up 3.2 points to 53.4 per cent; Yomiuri Shimbun recorded a 3-point rise to 59 per cent, while a Nikkei and TV Tokyo survey put support at 62 per cent, holding at a high level but unchanged from before.

On the policy issues the public is watching, Kyodo's survey found that "measures to tackle rising prices, such as cutting the consumption tax" topped the list, reflecting strong demand for economic measures. One government official said: "The Takaichi administration did not carry out the kind of headline-grabbing personnel shake-up aimed at lifting support. It will deliver results on the economic policies the public expects."

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