Latest news for 6 October 2026

NIGERIA

Crash.

President Bola Tinubu has declared three days of national mourning after a military aircraft reportedly crashed, killing 32 passengers and crew. Authorities have launched an investigation. (Punch)

Comment: Coming after the 2021 crash that killed Nigeria’s army chief, it’s another wobble for a military that really needs to inspire national confidence as it grapples with Islamist insurgencies and kidnapping gangs.

UNITED STATES

Firing squad?

Following presidential approval, the US is now preparing its first military firing squad execution since WWII. The inmate is Nidal Hasan, the US Army major and physician who shot dead 13 unarmed US soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009. (NBC)

CANADA

Referendum, rebooted.

The pro-independence Parti Québécois has finished Monday’s Quebec provincial election in first place, returning the separatists to power for the first time in over a decade. (Le Monde)

Comment: The party leader (rocking the incredibly French name of St-Pierre) is pledging to hold an independence referendum after Trump 2.0, reopening the constitutional headache Ottawa thought it’d buried back in 1995. Courtesy of a fragmented opposition, the PQ only needed a record-low ~28% of the vote to secure a minority government, but (together with Alberta’s own sovereignty vote later this month) it still presents a multi-front threat to Canadian unity amid unprecedented challenges from south of the border.

AUSTRALIA

Unfriendly skies.

Australian counter-terrorism police have confirmed they’re now investigating amid word the Omani co-pilot who tried to hijack last week’s FlyDubai flight to Israel actually studied in Melbourne, attended a hardline mosque, and might’ve even had a local intelligence file on him. (DW)

Comment: Not only do the Emiratis now need to explain how an extremist barred from his own country’s national carrier instead ended up flying for a UAE state airline, but now Australia (already managing rocky Israel ties) needs to examine whether the same radicalisation problem that culminated in last year’s Bondi massacre might’ve also had a hand in this FlyDubai near-miss. It comes just as Australia’s conservative opposition pledges Australia’s biggest migration cut in history.

TAIWAN

Crossing the line.

The presidential office in Taipei has condemned what it’s calling a “typical case of transnational repression” after the FBI arrested California real-estate agent Heather Zhang at LAX, about to depart for Shanghai. The US indictment accuses her of travelling to Seattle — at Beijing’s direction — to follow and surveil the US-based son of Taiwan’s president. (Taipei Times)

Comment: Coming soon after the US indictments against Russian intelligence officers seeking to assassinate a dissident in DC, it all hints at a blurring of what long seemed to be red lines.

SRI LANKA

Death row diplomacy.

Colombo has sent an urgent delegation to Saudi Arabia seeking clemency for a 24-year-old migrant worker now facing the death penalty for blasphemy over something he wrote on Facebook. (BBC)

Comment: Aside from the horror of beheading someone over a tweet, there’s the delicate balancing acts at play: Sri Lanka needs to be seen defending its citizens abroad, without jeopardising foreign remittances from the Gulf. Meanwhile, Riyadh’s ruling Saud family seeks religious cred to maintain its legitimacy both as a monarchy but also more broadly as the custodian of Islam’s Two Holy Mosques, even as it requests international help against the Houthis and relies on 10 million foreign workers back home. The new Mecca Alliance (Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey) did just agree to “immediately implement” its collective defence commitments amid Houthi hits, but it’s still unclear if this entails anything beyond a few deployments within Saudi borders.

FINLAND

Vladimir poopin’.

Finnish authorities are investigating mysterious break-ins at the homes of around 20 lawmakers, with nothing stolen, but the occasional unflushed “deposit” left in the toilet. (The Telegraph)

Comment: We have (Western diplomat) friends who’ve returned home to their Moscow pad to find a steaming turd on their couch or dining table. It’s a classic Cold War intimidation tactic (operational psychology) aimed at proving they can breach your space at will.