INDIA
Three contract workers died from asphyxiation at a Tata Electronics factory in southern India, where components for Apple’s iPhones are manufactured. The incident has triggered investigations by the companies involved and the Tamil Nadu government. It is the latest to hit Apple’s supply chain in India, which is crucial to the US tech giant’s strategy of diversifying production outside China. Since 2017, Apple has steadily increased iPhone production in the country.
TAIWAN – LITHUANIA
The Lithuanian government is working to restore diplomatic relations with Beijing, which have deteriorated since the opening of the Taiwanese office in 2021. It has now emerged that Deputy Foreign Minister Vidmantas Verbickas and diplomat Ričardas Šlepavičius presented an unofficial document to three representatives of the Taiwanese office, including its head, during a meeting held on 24 September. The document demanded that the name of the office be changed by 1 October, China’s National Day.
SAUDI ARABIA – YEMEN
The Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis in Yemen has announced that it has intercepted two missiles heading for Riyadh, and another heading for the southern region of the country. Meanwhile, the Houthi-run Saba news agency reported air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition on Sana’a, the Houthi-controlled Yemeni capital. The attacks were the latest in a series of clashes amid the ongoing violent fighting in Yemen between the Houthis and the internationally recognised Yemeni government, backed by Riyadh. The Saudi-led coalition has supported the Yemeni government’s offensive with air strikes.
VIETNAM – UNITED STATES
The United States has extended its trade investigation into the protection of intellectual property in Vietnam by three months, until the end of February, as announced on Tuesday by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). Launched in May to examine Vietnam’s alleged “persistent failure to address long-standing concerns regarding the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights”, the investigation was initially due to conclude at the end of this month, according to the USTR, which could have led to the imposition of new tariffs on Vietnam, one of the United States’ main sources of imports.
CHINA
China’s trade surplus exceeded one trillion dollars in the first 10 months of 2026, as the global race to build AI infrastructure boosted sales of high-tech products and helped offset weak domestic demand.
The figures highlight Beijing’s growing dependence on foreign demand. In October, exports rose by 35.2 per cent compared with the same month in 2025, a rate only slightly lower than the 36.3 per cent surge recorded in September, which exceeded forecasts.
RUSSIA
In the first nine months of 2026, Russian courts handed down at least 1,865 convictions against 2,013 people for offences related to ‘terrorism’. This represents a 5 per cent increase compared with the whole of 2025, according to the human rights project ‘First Department’. These charges include offences relating to terrorist attacks and their preparation, as well as the justification of terrorism, the financing of terrorism and membership of illegal organisations. In most cases, the convictions were for social media posts. Recently, there has been an increase in the number of people convicted of so-called ‘support for terrorist activities’, typically through donations.
UZBEKISTAN
For the first time in Uzbekistan’s history since independence, a cotton harvest exceeding 5 million tonnes has been recorded, as President Šavkat Mirziyoyev triumphantly announced, congratulating farmers on this record achievement. In recent years, the cotton yield has risen from 21 per cent to 56 per cent per hectare; this year, the average yield across an area of around 400,000 hectares was 70 per cent, whilst on a further 70,000 hectares it reached 100–110 per cent per hectare. Mirziyoyev announced the end of the practice of deploying teachers, students and public-sector employees to agricultural work: “An important result of our reforms, aimed at freeing people from hard labour, is that 85 per cent of this year’s harvest was gathered in 30–35 days using more than 3,000 cotton pickers, and in some regions the level of mechanisation reached 100 per cent”.
