Interfax cited the Russian Defence Ministry as saying Russian forces struck a cargo ship at Ukraine's Pivdennyi port.

Joey Hood, former director of the U.S. Iran Affairs Office, said GCC leaders meeting Trump at next Tuesday's UN General Assembly should present a unified stance to influence U.S. policy. Citing repeated Iranian attacks in Omani waters, Qatari territory and on Saudi oil pipelines, he proposed linking the Mecca agreement with an existing naval coalition to deploy a force to the Gulf and the northern Arabian Sea to monitor maritime traffic and deter threats; "this would not be a military operation, but a peace-monitoring task," he said.

China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism released its 15th Five-Year Plan for cultural industry development, directing policy to expand and upgrade outbound cultural trade by prioritizing cultural services and digital cultural trade and raising the share of high-value-added cultural products and services in foreign trade. The plan backs internationalization of cultural firms—brand building, production capacity and overseas sales channels—and targets export growth in digital culture, performing arts, animation, creative design and homegrown 'Guochao' cultural products, while lifting value-add on exports of arts & crafts, stage equipment and gaming/amusement devices. It also calls for combining outbound promotion with selective inbound introduction of high-quality foreign cultural products and services.