This afternoon's briefing covers 30 stories selected from issue 22 of Biguan (毕观天下), weighted towards Asia. A magnitude 7.0 deep quake struck west of Japan's Ogasawara Islands, Typhoon Champi's moisture flooded Wakayama roads as South Korea faced its first October typhoon in 12 years, Kim Jong-un returned from a one-day China visit, and South Korea's Q2 current-account surplus topped Germany and Japan combined. Elsewhere, Brazil holds its presidential runoff, Trump said the US could strike Iran as soon as Sunday or reach a deal, Israel plans to seal the West Bank on election day, and the Brewers took a 2–0 World Series lead.
A strong deep earthquake struck the Pacific west of Japan's Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands at about 11:10am on Sunday, Oct 25. The USGS measured magnitude 7.0; GDACS initially gave 6.5, with a depth of about 490 km and its lowest alert level, saying no one lived within 100 km of the epicentre. NHK said intensity 3 was recorded in the Ogasawara Islands and intensity 2 to 1 across a wide area from Tohoku to the Tokai region. Because the quake was so deep, there was no risk of abnormal waves; a magnitude 4.8 aftershock was recorded in the same area about 25 minutes later.
After Typhoon Champi (Typhoon No. 30) passed Taiwan on Oct 24, it moved north-east over the East China Sea. NHK said warm, moist air around the storm fed a front near Honshu and brought heavy rain to many areas; around 10am on Sunday, Oct 25, roads outside NHK's Wakayama station in Wakayama City flooded like a river and traffic cones were washed away. South Korean media said a typhoon warning was issued for waters off Jeju on Oct 25 — the first October typhoon to affect South Korea since 2014 — with rain in the south and on Jeju lasting until the morning of Oct 26, and central temperatures expected to fall below freezing on Wednesday. The first Samsung–Kia KBO playoff game scheduled for Oct 25 in Daegu was cancelled because of rain and moved to 6:30pm on Oct 26.
Queensland police said multiple shots were fired outside Fitzy's on Bryants Road in Loganholme, south of Brisbane, at about 8:15pm on Saturday, Oct 24, while a boxing event was under way. A 19-year-old woman from Jimboomba was hit in the head and neck; police said she appeared to be an innocent bystander and was in a critical condition at Princess Alexandra Hospital. Three men aged 38, 37 and 27 were shot in the abdomen and were stable. NSW police said several shots were fired into a home on Shoreline Road in Moorebank, south-west Sydney, at about 2:30am on Sunday, Oct 25, and a car on the driveway was set alight; a 32-year-old woman and seven children aged 3 to 10 inside were unhurt. The gunman fled in a white car and police are searching for him.
South Korean media reported on Sunday, Oct 25, that a man in his 40s from Daejeon was arrested in Gangneung, Gangwon province, 18 hours after fleeing the scene of the alleged murder of his former girlfriend. Police found that the woman had reported stalking and harassment by the man a year earlier, and that emergency protective measures had been taken against him at the time. The case has again drawn attention to protection for stalking victims after they report to police.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visited Dandong in Liaoning province via the New Yalu River Bridge on Saturday, Oct 24, and returned to North Korea the same day. KCNA reported on Oct 25 that Kim toured the Memorial Hall of the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea in Dandong and laid a wreath at the memorial tower, saying the North Korean people would pass down their gratitude to the Chinese people for generations; Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui and Workers' Party Central Committee department director Kim Yo-jong accompanied him, and Politburo Standing Committee member Wang Huning received him. Before the China trip he also paid respects at a Chinese People's Volunteers martyrs' cemetery in Hoechang County, South Phyongan province; KCNA said a volunteers' cemetery in Sinphyong County, North Hwanghae province, had been expanded into a martyrs' park with a completion ceremony on Oct 24 attended by a Chinese Ministry of Veterans Affairs delegation. NHK said the visit may have been aimed at coordinating with China ahead of possible renewed talks with the United States.
IMF data in the Bank of Korea's economic statistics system show South Korea's second-quarter current-account surplus was $116.3 billion, second among 36 major economies with available data after China's $193.72 billion. Germany ranked third at $52.28 billion and Japan fourth at $50.62 billion; their combined $102.89 billion was $13.74 billion less than South Korea's. It is the first time since comparable quarterly data began in the first quarter of 1996 that South Korea's single-quarter surplus has exceeded the sum of Germany's and Japan's, driven mainly by higher semiconductor prices and strong exports.
The US Treasury on Thursday, Oct 22, published an updated outbound investment security proposal that adds biotechnology to restricted sectors and expands coverage of high-performance computing and hypersonic systems. China's Commerce Ministry said in a statement on Saturday, Oct 24, that it urged the United States to stop expanding investment restrictions on China, calling the proposal a discriminatory widening of China-related curbs that would harm bilateral economic ties and go against consensus reached by the two countries' leaders. The ministry said it firmly opposed the move and reserved the right to take countermeasures, without specifying what those would be.
Indonesia began reducing natural gas exports to Singapore on Saturday, Oct 24; upstream regulator SKK Migas told CNA the cut was to shift more supply to domestic power generation. Singapore's Energy Market Authority said the reduction of 31 million standard cubic feet a day is less than 2% of demand. Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said at the People's Action Party conference on Sunday, Oct 25, that Singapore expects all parties that signed commercial gas supply contracts to 'honour their commitments', and that Singapore's gas importers would take necessary steps to protect their rights and interests under the contracts.
At the biennial People's Action Party conference at the Singapore Expo on Sunday, Oct 25, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong told about 3,000 members that in the coming years the government would continue to ease cost-of-living pressures, help Singaporeans secure better jobs and strengthen support across life stages from education to retirement, including for those who hit setbacks. He noted that after the National Day Rally package for families with children in August, some had asked what support other groups would receive. The Straits Times reported that the recommended slate of 19 for the Central Executive Committee election that day included three new faces: the transport minister, the acting manpower minister and the acting minister-in-charge of Muslim affairs, two of whom first entered parliament only at last year's general election — named in the paper as Jeffrey Siow and Jasmin Lau among the new ministers.
The Gyeonggi regional automobile union under the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions said on Oct 25 that of 9,420 members at 29 bus companies in the province, 9,001 voted (95.6% turnout) and 8,792 backed a strike (97.7%). Final mediation is set for 3pm on Oct 29 at the Gyeonggi Regional Labor Relations Commission; if no deal is reached, 4,130 buses on 854 routes at the 29 companies would stop from the first service on Oct 30. The union wants the tripartite pledge of Seoul-level bus pay from Jan 1, 2026, fulfilled, seeking 21.56% rises on quasi-public routes and 30% on private routes, plus a 4.5-day week on quasi-public routes; employers cite Gyeonggi's fiscal strain and want a pay freeze on private routes.
South Korea's Financial Supervisory Service said on Oct 25 it has built an AI analysis system to mine about 380,000 accumulated tips on illegal private lending for links between cases that once looked unrelated, to help investigate organised crime. Using the system, the FSS said the 'Manager Lee' case — loans at 6,800% annual interest to people in urgent need of cash, followed by illegal collection from their families — was more than twice as large as when a consumer alert was issued in March; the system also found signs that registered lenders were involved in illegal lending. In the past, victims reported through different channels at different times and cases from the same network were often treated as separate incidents. The FSS said it would share leads with relevant agencies.
Seoul city government said on Sunday, Oct 25, that Jamsu Bridge would be closed to all vehicles from midnight Monday, Oct 26, for conversion works, while pedestrians and cyclists could still cross. The 795-metre bridge linking Yongsan-gu and Seocho-gu previously restricted cars only for special events; after completion planned for August next year it is to become Seoul's first pedestrian-only bridge across the Han River, with 22 riverside rest spots and transparent decking overlooking the water at two points. Bus routes 740 and 405 will be diverted both ways via nearby Banpo Bridge.
Singapore was under haze from the evening of Saturday, Oct 24, with elevated hourly PM2.5 readings. At 10am on Sunday, Oct 25, PM2.5 across the five regions had fallen to a normal 31–48 (0–55 normal; 56–150 elevated). The 24-hour Pollutant Standards Index remained in the 'unhealthy' range of 107–132 in all regions except the south, which was at 100 ('good to moderate'). PM2.5 is measured hourly and reflects current air quality.
Independent MP Helen Haines was seriously injured outside her Wangaratta electorate office in Victoria this week in a suspected deliberate attack and had both legs amputated; she is in a serious but stable condition at Melbourne's Alfred Hospital. Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett told ABC's Insiders on Sunday, Oct 25, that the threat environment facing politicians had clearly changed, that her first task each morning was to read a summary of threats reported to the AFP in the previous 24 hours — 'some days several pages long' — and that she linked politicians' rhetoric directly to threats against MPs. She said she did not intend to police free speech or intervene in political debate. A Nationals MP said his children had previously received violent threats.
Thailand plans to build the Khlong Wang Tanot reservoir in eastern Chanthaburi province, about a four-hour drive south-east of Bangkok, with a capacity of 99.5 million cubic metres to supply industrial water demand along the fast-growing eastern seaboard. CNA reported that the reservoir would flood thousands of hectares of forest, wildlife habitat and land used by rural communities, in an area with wild elephants and rubber plantations where novice monks also live on land that could be submerged. The project was first proposed decades ago; tension between water needs and protecting forests, elephants and communities is now intensifying.
Days of heavy rain have brought flood warnings across Queensland. The Mary River at Tiaro north of Gympie in the south-east has risen quickly past moderate flood level and may reach major flood level; more than 300 mm has fallen in parts of the Mary catchment over the past week and more than 400 mm in parts of the Sunshine Coast. Gympie's mayor said the river level was being watched closely. A 'watch and act' flood warning covers the Theresa Creek Dam catchment in the Central Highlands. An inland severe weather system is expected to move towards the south-east on Monday with more heavy rain.
AI chip company Cerebras published how it deploys trillion-parameter models on wafer-scale engines. A single WSE-3T wafer has 44 GB of on-chip memory, while frontier model weights alone need several terabytes, so Cerebras splits models across multiple wafers and runs multi-trillion-parameter models at 1,000 to more than 2,000 tokens per second. The open-source example Kimi K3 has about 3 trillion parameters, with 69 linear-attention layers and 24 dense layers; it scored 88.3% on Terminal-Bench 2.1, close to GPT-5.6 Sol's 88.8%, and 91.2% on BrowseComp versus 90.4%. Kimi K3 also trended on X in Singapore.
FC Seoul drew 1:1 with Gangwon FC at Seoul World Cup Stadium on Oct 24 to reach 67 points from 20 wins, 7 draws and 6 losses, locking up the K League 1 title with five rounds left — the club's first league championship in 10 years and its seventh including the Anyang LG era. The head coach, who took over in 2024 (fourth in the first season, sixth last year amid home fans chanting for his dismissal), said he had promised a title within three years and had now delivered. Seoul led the league with 61 goals scored and fewest conceded at 29.
Brazil holds its presidential runoff on Sunday, Oct 25, between incumbent President Lula and senator Flávio Bolsonaro, with pre-election polls showing them close. Reuters, citing 10 current and former US officials, reported that a Western Hemisphere affairs senior adviser and a deputy assistant secretary at the State Department worked behind the scenes to help the Bolsonaro family regain power and sought sanctions that could influence the race. Folha de S.Paulo reported that Meta employees acknowledged in internal messages that Lula's Instagram account was affected by restrictions and that the platform recommended Flávio's page and WhatsApp channel; Meta said the technical issues had long been public and that any claim Meta favoured one side was false. Figures in the Brazilian presidency worry that if Lula wins, Milei's government in Argentina might not recognise the result.
When the US deputy secretary of state visited Buenos Aires, Washington confirmed concern about clauses in Milei's 'Malvinas law' draft that would sanction oil companies operating in the Falklands/Malvinas, and did not hide its worry. La Nación reported that the Milei government then diluted the bill and made further changes. British Prime Minister Andy Burnham spoke with Chile's president on Saturday, Oct 24, about deeper defence, security, science and trade cooperation; a Downing Street statement said Burnham asked Chile to support ensuring Falkland Islanders keep the ability to exercise self-determination.
Four Salvadoran soldiers on a UN-backed Haiti anti-gang force went missing this month after a gang ambush, and El Salvador then sent troops to help locate them. The New York Times, citing multiple Haitian sources, reported that four sets of remains found in Port-au-Prince might be those soldiers. President Nayib Bukele replied on X that they were 'not our people', saying an NGO had brought remains to the airport claiming they were four aviation technicians, but that the remains belonged to a child and others.
In Game 2 of the best-of-seven MLB World Series at American Family Field in Milwaukee on Oct 24 (US time), the Milwaukee Brewers trailed 0:4 before coming back to beat the Tampa Bay Rays 5:4 and take a 2–0 series lead. The Brewers had swept the Los Angeles Dodgers 4–0 in the NLCS and won World Series Game 1 by 3:2.
Belgorod's operational command said Belgorod city came under a large Ukrainian drone attack early on Sunday, Oct 25, killing one civilian and wounding 10, including one emergency worker; eight of the injured were taken to hospital and two women were treated on site then referred for outpatient care. The mayor said the city was badly damaged, 53 people had moved into temporary shelters and municipal crews were repairing heating networks. Le Monde reported that Russian strikes on Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions killed four people. TASS said multiple explosions occurred in the central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia on Oct 25, and yellow alerts were issued in several Ukrainian regions.
Bulgaria holds a presidential election on Sunday, Oct 25; polls put 61-year-old incumbent President Iliana Iotova and 50-year-old former caretaker Prime Minister Andrey Gyurov ahead among 27 candidates. Both have condemned recent Black Sea drone attacks that have killed about two dozen seafarers of various nationalities, but they differ on the broader Ukraine war. The Bulgarian presidency is largely ceremonial but is directly elected; the president commands the armed forces and can veto legislation, sign treaties and appoint ambassadors.
Protests in Albania since mid-October over poor school conditions and the rising cost of living entered a 12th day on Saturday, Oct 24, as thousands answered organisers' call to gather in the capital Tirana after Prime Minister Edi Rama had warned of a tough response. Police used water cannon, tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse crowds; several government buildings were attacked, dozens of protesters were arrested and authorities said more than 300 protesters and police were injured in Tirana's fiercest clashes in days, after quieter protests earlier in the week.
El País reported that about 500 young people summoned via social networks gathered in central Barcelona on Saturday, Oct 24, vandalising street furniture, bikes and scooters and looting 14 shops during an undeclared demonstration. More than 220 Catalan and city police officers repeatedly dispersed masked groups and arrested about 100 people, 25% of them minors. Many shops and restaurants closed around Plaça de Catalunya, La Rambla and Portal de l'Àngel, and the city blocked the area from Plaça Urquinaona to Plaça Universitat.
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham told the Sunday Times he wanted an 'honest', 'fact- and evidence-based' discussion with the public about the possibility of restoring freedom of movement between the UK and the EU. He has said a new deal could mean Britain 'going all the way' back into the EU, with other options including joining the single market or a customs union — both requiring acceptance of some EU rules, and single-market entry also requiring freedom of movement. He had previously pledged to keep Labour's 2024 manifesto red lines of no return to free movement and no joining the single market or customs union.
US Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton's Friday, Oct 23, memo said Iranian plots against US personnel had reached a 'late stage', and US embassies across the Middle East raised their alert level. Trump said on Saturday, Oct 24, that the US was considering an attack on Iran as soon as Sunday, that it might have to 'finish the job', or that a major deal with Tehran might be reached. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian blamed the US for collapsing interim-agreement talks, calling the US side 'cowards' who had 'messed everything up', while still arguing Tehran should push for a deal. An Iranian official told AP on Oct 24 that Tehran remained willing to negotiate with the US under the earlier framework. The same day a Saudi-led coalition said it had destroyed two ballistic missiles fired by Houthis towards Taif and Yanbu. The US this week ordered non-essential government employees to leave Saudi Arabia. The war is in its eighth month.
After two Palestinian gunmen killed two Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint near Hebron on Friday, Oct 23, Israel launched a large operation in Hebron. Israel's defence minister confirmed that about 2,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes there; the BBC reported bulldozers flattened at least an entire street and the city of some 200,000 people was locked down. The Israeli military said on Sunday, Oct 25, that with political approval, on Tuesday, Oct 27 — election day — Palestinian workers would be barred from entering or leaving the West Bank and Jordan Valley, including industrial zones, and all land crossings would close. Separately, thousands of Israelis rallied in Tel Aviv against Netanyahu, calling for a change of government and an independent inquiry into security failures in the Oct 7 attack.
Nigerian police said on Saturday, Oct 24, that a large group of gunmen on motorcycles attacked Binnari village in Taraba state on Oct 23 and that by that evening 10 bodies had been found; attackers also looted food from shops. Residents said the gunmen opened fire shortly after Friday prayers. Survivors told AFP at least 20 people were killed, and Le Monde also reported at least 20 dead; Amnesty International said in a statement on Oct 24 that the death toll was 40 and that more bodies were found the same day after police confirmed 10 deaths. Many parts of Nigeria have long faced attacks by armed gangs and bandits.