World Dispatch · September 24, 2026 · 9 min read
World News Since August 23: Iran Talks, a Tigray War, and a Swedish Power Shift
Five weeks of international news, from the UN General Assembly to a Himalayan flood, checked against multiple sources. Where the figures are disputed, this article says so.
The five-week ledger
Colour marks the type of event:conflictpolitics and diplomacydisaster and crime
- Flash floods hit Nepal's Rasuwa district, damaging hydropower plants and trapping workers underground.
- Iran attacks US bases across the Gulf after US strikes; Reuters calls it the biggest exchange since July.
- US envoys Witkoff and Kushner meet Putin in Moscow, then Zelensky in Kyiv, the first such visit since 2022.
- Sweden votes. The centre-left bloc edges out the governing right.
- Ukrainian officials say Russia launched about 200 drones across the country.
- Russia holds its first Duma election since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
- The TPLF announces a seven-group alliance aimed at overthrowing Ethiopia's government.
- Trump addresses the UN; US and Iranian officials hold mediated talks in New York.
- Gunmen kill 11 at a house party in KwaMakhutha, near Durban, South Africa.
- Tigrayan forces seize airports; Ethiopia's Tigray war reignites. Russia hits Kyiv in a rare daytime attack.
The dominant story since late August has been a slow, stop-start effort to end wars rather than any single breakthrough. The Iran war is now in its seventh month, Ukraine's is in its fifth year, and a third conflict, Ethiopia's, has just reopened. Meanwhile, ballot boxes in Stockholm and Moscow produced very different kinds of results, and a disaster in the Himalayas raised hard questions about hydropower. Here is what happened, and what remains uncertain.
Iran: Talks at the UN, Oil Near $100 a Barrel
September began with escalation. On September 2, Reuters reported that Iran struck US bases across the Gulf after a wave of US strikes, the biggest exchange between the two countries since July. By September 7, Brent crude was near $97, with tanker strikes reported in and around the Strait of Hormuz; the IRGC and US forces each claimed hits, and those claims are not independently verified.
Then came the UN General Assembly. On September 22, President Trump told delegates he was weighing whether to "annihilate" Iran without a deal. Hours later, US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner sat down with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi for about three hours, with Qatar mediating. On September 23, President Masoud Pezeshkian told the Assembly Iran would not seek nuclear weapons but insisted on its right to peaceful nuclear technology.
Iranian state media said Tehran's conditions for reopening Hormuz include lifting the US naval blockade, releasing frozen assets and ending fighting on allied fronts. Trump said another meeting was expected soon. Washington's optimism has not been matched by any public Iranian signal of a breakthrough.
The energy picture is why this matters far beyond the Gulf. An Iranian official told Reuters and Kyodo that Hormuz could reopen within seven days if the US eased pressure and lifted its blockade; Iran's Fars news agency denied it. Saudi Arabia has restarted its East-West pipeline at a low rate, but restoring pre-attack flow could take six to eight weeks. The real squeeze is in refined products: diesel prices hit records in the US and other markets.
Ukraine and Russia: An Energy Ceasefire in Search of a Partner
Witkoff and Kushner met Vladimir Putin in Moscow on September 5, then travelled to Kyiv the next day, the first visit there by US envoys since the full-scale invasion. Both sides pledged not to strike each other's capitals for three days around the visit. Fighting continued elsewhere.
The diplomacy resumed in New York. Volodymyr Zelensky met Trump for about 40 minutes on September 22 and said Ukraine is ready for an "energy ceasefire" if Russia stops hitting Ukrainian infrastructure. He also urged Trump to bring Xi Jinping into the effort. According to Axios, Washington is pushing three steps: an energy truce, reopening the Black Sea grain corridor and a trilateral summit, possibly in Abu Dhabi. The Financial Times reported that Trump also pressed Zelensky to halt strikes on Russian refineries because of their effect on global diesel prices. The Kremlin said this week that conditions are not ready for resuming peace talks.
On the ground, the war did not pause. Ukrainian officials said Russia launched about 200 drones on September 15, and on September 23 a rare daytime attack on Kyiv with jet-powered drones killed at least two people and injured more than 30, according to local officials.
Russia's Duma election
Russia voted September 18–20 in its first parliamentary election since the invasion. The Central Election Commission's preliminary count gave United Russia 355 of 450 seats, its highest ever and 31 more than in 2021. The anti-war party Yabloko was barred by the Supreme Court in August. The EU called the vote a "sham" in occupied Ukrainian territories and said it would sanction those who facilitated it.
Ethiopia: The Tigray War Reopens
This is the most dangerous new development of the period. On Sunday, September 20, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) announced it had joined a seven-group alliance, including Amhara Fano militias, aimed at overthrowing Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and installing a transitional administration. On September 22, Tigray's government said federal forces bombarded the region with aircraft, drones and artillery, including strikes on two schools in Alamata that reportedly killed at least 14 civilians. That claim could not be independently verified by AFP.
On September 23, TPLF forces seized airports at Mekelle, Shire and Axum, taking the few federal police guarding them prisoner, and attacked federal positions in Afar and Amhara. Ethiopian Airlines suspended flights to all three airports. TPLF vice president Amanuel Assefa told AFP, "It is the beginning of the war." Abiy's adviser Getachew Reda, himself a former TPLF official, called it an "all-out offensive." The federal government had not issued a full statement when AFP reported. The African Union called for immediate de-escalation.
The stakes are high. The 2020–2022 Tigray war killed roughly 600,000 people, by African Union estimates, and the Pretoria Peace Agreement that ended it has now effectively collapsed. Ethiopia also faces insurgencies in Oromia and Amhara, and the government has accused the TPLF of allying with Eritrea, which the TPLF denies. The federal side has a major advantage in drones. What happens in Afar, a corridor for Ethiopia's trade and a border with Eritrea and Djibouti, will show how far the conflict spreads.
Sweden: The Right Loses Power by a Whisker
Sweden's September 13 election ended four years of right-wing government. The Social Democrats under Magdalena Andersson remained the largest party, and the far-right Sweden Democrats lost ground. What decided it was the bloc arithmetic: the centre-left alliance, which includes the Left, Greens and Centre parties, won a narrow parliamentary majority over Ulf Kristersson's Tidö coalition, with only around 50,000 votes separating the two sides nationally, per Euronews.
Kristersson resigned as prime minister on September 17 and stays on in a caretaker role. On September 18 the Speaker asked Andersson to form a government, which may take weeks given ideological gaps inside her bloc. The result could halt Sweden's tightening of migration policy under the Tidö Agreement.
Nepal: The Flood and the Missing
In late August, flash floods and mudslides tore through Rasuwa district, near the Tibet border, smashing hydropower plants including Chilime, Trishuli 3A, Langtang and Rasuwagadhi. NPR quotes a relative calling it a "Himalayan tsunami." The Nepal Electricity Authority said damage removed an estimated 431 megawatts from the grid. Two workers were pulled alive from a Trishuli 3A tunnel after about nine days underground, and Nepal observed a national day of mourning on September 7.
Families have protested in Kathmandu, demanding faster searches. Experts are also asking whether the Himalayas' hydropower building boom, on glacier-fed rivers in an unstable climate, is safe. That question will outlast the rescue effort.
Venezuela and South Africa
Venezuela. Acting President Delcy RodrÃguez, who took charge in January after a US raid captured Nicolás Maduro, addressed the UN on September 23 and promised elections at the "right moment," giving no date. A day earlier she met Trump on the sidelines. Weeks earlier, Washington announced what it called the biggest oil deal in history, with majority US control of about 65 billion barrels of reserves; that is the US administration's description. A Meganálisis poll reported by Just Security found nearly 80% of Venezuelans reject the deal.
South Africa. On the night of September 22, three gunmen killed 11 people, including a woman believed to be pregnant, at a house party in KwaMakhutha township, 30 kilometres south of Durban. Police said some victims were known to them from criminal investigations and did not rule out a feud between rival groups. The acting police commissioner ordered a 72-hour manhunt. It follows a June attack in Johannesburg that killed 12, and the discovery of ten women's bodies in Johannesburg in recent weeks. Official figures show about 58 murders a day in the first quarter of the year.
What to Watch Next
Iran. Whether a second round of talks happens, and whether the US blockade and Hormuz are traded against each other. Oil around $100 says markets are hopeful, not convinced.
Ukraine. Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev is expected to meet Witkoff and Kushner. An energy truce before winter is the realistic prize; a trilateral summit is a long shot.
Ethiopia. Watch Afar, Amhara and any Eritrean involvement. Humanitarian access to Tigray, already fragile, is the immediate risk.
Sweden and Nepal. Can Andersson hold together a four-party bloc, and will Nepal's final toll ever be reconciled?
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