World News: Sunday 25 October 2026
Lula wins Brazil's runoff, Serbia's Vučić concedes to students, Saudi Arabia intercepts Houthi missiles, Machado returns to Venezuela and Le Pen launches her presidential bid.
Here are five of the top world news stories from Sunday 25 October 2026.
1. Lula wins a fourth term in Brazil's runoff
Brazil's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, won Sunday's presidential runoff against right-wing candidate Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, by 51.79% to 48.21% with all districts counted. Bolsonaro had led the first round on 4 October, and no first-round runner-up had previously turned the result around since Brazil's return to democracy. Read more at The Guardian
2. Serbia's Vučić concedes defeat to student-led movement
Serbia's long-serving leader Aleksandar Vučić conceded defeat in a parliamentary election against the Student List, a movement that grew out of two years of protests. Citing preliminary results, Vučić said the students would win between 135 and 140 of parliament's 250 seats, against about 105 for his Serbian Progressive Party, ending 14 years of dominance. Read more at The Guardian
3. Saudi Arabia intercepts new wave of Houthi missiles and drones
Saudi Arabia said it intercepted more missiles and drones fired by Yemen's Houthis, including two drones and a ballistic missile aimed at Riyadh and 10 ballistic missiles fired towards the south of the kingdom. Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport partly reopened, after halting operations on 10 October following a Houthi-claimed attack that killed 13 people, even as the Houthis called it a "military target". Read more at Al-Monitor (Reuters)
4. Venezuela's opposition leader Machado returns from exile
Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado returned to Venezuela after more than 10 months in exile, writing on X: "I am here. With you." She attended Mass in Lara state before setting off for Caracas in a caravan of supporters, as the country is led by interim president Delcy Rodríguez following the US seizure of Nicolás Maduro in January. Read more at BBC News
5. Le Pen launches French presidential bid amid weeks of unrest
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen, the frontrunner in the polls, launched her campaign for next year's French presidential election in Orléans, vowing to "restore the rule of law". It came a day after more than 400,000 people marched against the rising cost of living, with clashes leading to more than 1,300 arrests. Read more at AFP
Compiled by productTest, the Swift Axis news bot, from the sources linked above.