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1266 articles · page 7 of 27
A fifth foreign company has pulled out of a plan to build a cable car connecting West and East Jerusalem, a project critics say threatens Palestinian homes and heritage in occupied territory, while Israeli authorities insist the scheme is proceeding as planned.
According to a Wall Street Journal report published Tuesday, Elon Musk ordered the slowdown of a military-grade version of SpaceX's Starlink satellite service used by Ukraine, capping speeds and rendering some drones virtually inoperable. The report, citing U.S. officials and people familiar with the matter, stated that Musk discussed the decision with President Donald Trump soon after it became public.
· 6 sourcesRussian drone attacks overnight on Oct. 20–21 killed two elderly residents in Kharkiv Oblast and struck a university building in Poltava Oblast, causing injuries and damage, local authorities reported.
President Donald Trump has granted a sanctions waiver for Russian diesel supplies, throttled Ukraine's access to battlefield satellite systems, and called for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's ouster, moves the Kremlin is celebrating as a decisive shift in the war. Ukrainian officials say the decisions send a wrong signal to the aggressor and threaten Ukraine's survival.
· 7 sourcesTaiwan has deported a Chinese exchange student who posted a video making it appear he was pinching President Lai Ching-te during a speech at National Taiwan University. The National Immigration Agency revoked the student's entry permit on October 16 and banned him from Taiwan for five years.
King Charles III has welcomed Oman's Sultan Haitham bin Tariq for a state visit marked by high praise for the Gulf state's mediation role, as the monarch lauded Muscat's 'noble efforts' to keep the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz open amid the ongoing US-Iran war. The first state visit by an Omani sultan in 44 years featured a lavish Windsor Castle banquet where both leaders spoke of diplomacy and friendship.
· 4 sourcesUkrainian forces struck energy infrastructure in the occupied city of Chystiakove in Donetsk Oblast, a telecommunications site in Luhansk, and drones sparked blackouts in Crimea's Krasnoperekopskyi district overnight on Oct. 20-21, according to monitoring channels.
Ukraine hit Saint Petersburg with a large-scale drone attack overnight, setting fire to an oil refinery and depot in what state media said was the largest strike on the Russian city since the start of the 2022 war. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the strikes were fair retribution for Russian attacks that have left tens of thousands of Ukrainian families without power.
· 2 sourcesUS Secretary of State Marco Rubio will visit Reliance Industries' Jamnagar refinery on Wednesday and push the Indian conglomerate to process more Venezuelan crude, saying he wants to "see what the holdup is" as Washington looks for short-term relief in global energy markets.
· 2 sourcesUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with White House special envoy Steve Witkoff in Oslo on Tuesday in an urgent bid to repair deteriorating ties with the Trump administration, hours after U.S. President Donald Trump said Russia has been 'fine' on Ukraine and suggested Kyiv should find 'somebody else to negotiate.' The Oslo talks, which also included Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner attending virtually, touched on allegations that Washington is withholding critical intelligence from Kyiv and on Ukraine's need for more Patriot missiles.
Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukraine is again receiving early warnings of Russian missile attacks after a phone call with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, following days in which strikes came without notice and killed at least nine people. The Ukrainian president spoke before meetings in Oslo with Nordic leaders as Washington's envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in the Norwegian capital.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday that US intelligence sharing on Russian ballistic missile attacks was working again, after days of disruptions that left Kyiv without early warnings of incoming strikes. Confirmation came after talks in Oslo with US envoy Steve Witkoff, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and Finnish President Alexander Stubb.
· 3 sourcesUS special envoy Steve Witkoff will propose a three-way leaders’ summit between President Donald Trump, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy as part of a renewed diplomatic push to end the war in Ukraine. Witkoff is set to travel to St. Petersburg on Wednesday to present the plan after holding talks with Zelenskyy in Norway.
· 2 sourcesNATO is deploying additional military assets to the Black Sea, including maritime patrol aircraft, radar systems, and intelligence personnel, the alliance announced on Tuesday, after a surge in suspected Russian drone attacks on cargo vessels that has left at least 23 seafarers dead or missing and pushed the conflict to NATO's borders.
· 4 sourcesThe Turkish government has formally submitted the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to parliament for ratification, advancing a trilateral defence pact signed in August. The move, announced on October 20, comes as the three countries activate deterrence measures against Yemen's Houthis and could face parliamentary debate before approval.
Ukraine's military intelligence agency (HUR) has reported that its special forces killed 108 Russian soldiers, captured another 29, and struck more than 1,100 targets during a seven-week operation in Sumy Oblast, though the claims could not be independently verified.
Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War reported on Oct. 20 that 45,959 foreigners from 151 countries and unrecognized territories have signed contracts with the Russian Armed Forces since the full-scale invasion began in 2022. The Ukrainian agency said recruitment has accelerated sharply this year, with 16,168 individuals identified in the first nine months of 2026, already surpassing the total for all of 2025.
Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) said on Oct. 20 that it had notified Artem Sharlai, a Russian occupation official previously investigated by the Kyiv Independent, of suspicion of war crimes in absentia over his alleged involvement in persecuting religious communities in occupied Melitopol.
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has accused the United States of pressuring Ukraine to capitulate on terms favourable to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Speaking to the European Parliament on Tuesday, she said American negotiators have been trying for nearly two years to push Kyiv into surrender, and that only European support had prevented that outcome. Kallas spoke as a new round of peace talks opened in Oslo, Norway, with senior officials from the EU, NATO, and several European nations.
Oil prices climbed Wednesday as the standoff in the Strait of Hormuz escalated, with Brent crude gaining 1.22% to $110.13 a barrel after Iran's Revolutionary Guards said naval mines had set two tankers ablaze, and Yemen's Houthis claimed strikes on Saudi Arabian energy facilities.
· 2 sourcesLibya's eastern-based parliament has voted unanimously to approve the 2019 maritime boundaries deal between Turkiye and Libya, reversing the rejection it issued in 2020 and deepening Ankara's alignment with military commander Khalifa Haftar's camp.
· 2 sourcesThe United Nations has warned that the Houthi siege on Yemen's Taiz is placing civilians at grave risk and blocking humanitarian aid, as the death toll from a Houthi missile attack on a military base in Shabwa governorate rose to 73. The UK announced it would deploy fighter jets to protect Saudi Arabia from Houthi rocket and drone attacks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has met with senior US envoys in Norway amid deepening tensions with Washington over allegations that the Pentagon is withholding interceptor missiles and deliberately limiting intelligence sharing, as Russia continues deadly strikes across Ukraine.
· 2 sourcesA data center operated by Ugletelecom and Elecom, the main telecom provider in the Russian-occupied Donetsk region, was destroyed in an overnight attack on October 20, according to Ukrainian and Russian proxy sources.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has acknowledged a possible delay in a shipment of Patriot missile interceptors to Ukraine but denied any deliberate political decision to harm Kyiv, as tensions between the two countries escalate over a U.S.-Russia diesel deal and public criticism between Presidents Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky. Speaking to reporters during a trip to India on Oct. 20, Rubio said the U.S. was managing a limited interceptor stockpile and balancing its own needs against those of other allies.
· 2 sourcesRussian President Vladimir Putin is intensifying drone attacks near European Union member states bordering the Black Sea in an effort to limit Ukrainian export routes and drive up global food prices, the EU's top foreign affairs official warned on Tuesday. Addressing the European Parliament in Strasbourg, EU High Commissioner Kaja Kallas said two drones were shot down in Romania over the weekend and that there had been six such attacks in 10 days, marking what she called a 'dangerous and unacceptable escalation in the Black Sea.'
The European Union presented its revamped Arctic strategy on Tuesday, placing security at the core of its approach for the first time and announcing plans for a maritime security hub, an expanded icebreaker fleet and a submarine cable linking Greenland directly to Europe. The shift comes as Russia rebuilds its military footprint in the High North and after US President Donald Trump's demands to take control of Greenland.
· 7 sourcesPoland will demand an explanation from Ukraine over a drone that allegedly crossed Polish airspace before exploding in Lithuania, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Oct. 20, an incident that has again put the spillover of Russia's war against Ukraine at the centre of NATO's eastern security concerns.
US envoy Steve Witkoff travelled to St Petersburg on Wednesday carrying Western proposals to end the war in Ukraine, hours after an Oslo summit ended with Volodymyr Zelensky declaring himself 'ready for negotiations' and European leaders hailing a 'good day for peace'.
· 7 sourcesUS President Donald Trump has deepened his rift with Ukraine by repeating calls for Kyiv to ‘get a new president’ and expressing openness to meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, while the US has reportedly cut back on intelligence sharing and frozen the transfer of Patriot missile interceptors, drawing an angry response from Ukraine.
A Russian military satellite has manoeuvred to within metres of a US-registered radar satellite believed to provide intelligence to Ukraine, according to space-tracking data. Cosmos 2612, one of six satellites the Russian military launched in April, closed in from more than 320 kilometres to about 4.8 kilometres last week, then spent the weekend moving between positions ahead of and behind its target, at times coming within roughly 500 metres.
Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport reopened on Sunday, but most scheduled flights have been cancelled this week as airlines remain wary of Saudi airspace in the wake of last week's attacks, which damaged six aircraft and prompted Saudi carriers to evacuate aircraft worth billions of dollars.
At least four Palestinians, including a married couple and a 17-year-old boy, were killed in Israeli air strikes and gunfire across Gaza on Tuesday, according to Gaza health officials, in attacks that residents say have continued despite a ceasefire in force since October 2025.
The United States is moving away from its traditional security-for-oil relationship with the Middle East and no longer seeks to dominate the region, senior US diplomat Tom Barrack said on Tuesday, while insisting Washington is not abandoning the Middle East. His comments came as US-Iran negotiations continue in Qatar amid a stalled seven-day proposal to end the war on Iran.
The UK will deploy RAF Typhoon fighter jets on defensive missions over Saudi Arabia, the government announced on Tuesday, as a surge in Houthi missile and drone attacks threatens the kingdom's cities and critical infrastructure. Prime Minister Andy Burnham authorised the move, which also includes an Atlas A400M transport aircraft and military advisers, following strikes that killed 13 people at Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport.
· 12 sourcesPolish military police have detained a 31-year-old dual Polish-Ukrainian citizen serving in the reserve forces on suspicion of espionage, the latest in a surge of spy cases that officials say has risen dramatically over the past two years.
At least 14 people were killed and 71 injured in Russian strikes across Ukraine over the past 24 hours, with two young children killed by a drone while sitting in a stroller in a Kharkiv Oblast park, local authorities reported on Oct. 19–20. The attacks drew international outrage after U.S. President Donald Trump said almost simultaneously that 'Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine.'
· 2 sourcesUkraine has carried out what its military calls the world's first aerial evacuation of a wounded soldier from the frontline using an unmanned drone. The successful extraction of an injured infantryman from a heavily mined area behind Russian lines near Kharkiv on October 19 is being hailed not as a one-off success but as the beginning of a systematic shift in how casualties are recovered on the modern battlefield.
· 2 sourcesRussian attacks on energy infrastructure have left 12 of Ukraine's regions facing power outages as of October 20, state-owned operator Ukrenergo reported, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accusing Moscow of seeking to plunge the country into a blackout as the fifth wartime winter approaches.
· 2 sourcesMyanmar’s military-backed administration has released two photographs of detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi receiving books and sealed correspondence reportedly sent by Britain’s King Charles III, in a rare public glimpse of the 81-year-old as Naypyidaw seeks to improve regional relations.
Iran’s parliament approved veteran defence official Mehrdad Akhlaqi Ketabchi as defence minister on October 18, elevating a figure sanctioned by the United Nations and the United States over his links to the country’s ballistic missile programme.
President Volodymyr Zelensky and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed tensions in US-Ukraine relations during a phone call on Oct. 20, as Kyiv accuses Washington of using military aid and access to technology as leverage to pressure Ukraine to halt strikes on Russian oil refineries.
Myanmar's military government has released rare photographs of imprisoned former leader Aung San Suu Kyi receiving gifts from Britain's King Charles, an act critics argue is a calculated bid by the junta to gain international legitimacy. A presidential spokesperson confirmed that home ministry officials handed over two gardening books, a sealed envelope, and a diplomatic pouch from the monarch. The images show the 81-year-old Nobel Peace laureate smiling in a wood-panelled room at an undisclosed location in the capital, Naypyidaw, where she is serving multiple sentences under house arrest.
Russia has said it is “ready in principle” to resume US-mediated peace talks with Ukraine after President Vladimir Putin met US special envoy Steve Witkoff in St Petersburg on Wednesday. Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov suggested a new round could be held around 10 November in Abu Dhabi, and a US official said a proposed trilateral technical-level meeting had been accepted by both Kyiv and Moscow.
· 14 sourcesAustralian business columnist Stephen Bartholomeusz has argued that China's record export boom, sustained by state subsidies and a stagnant domestic economy, is leaving the country dangerously exposed to a European backlash. Writing for Nine's metropolitan newspapers, he said France and Germany are pushing for new European Commission powers to shut off EU market access to Chinese goods, a move that could threaten the export-led model Beijing relies on for growth.
· 3 sourcesUS President Donald Trump said the United States continues to strike Iran hard both economically and militarily, while China’s Premier Li Qiang condemned the US-Israeli attacks as ‘blatant aggression’ and Iran threatened undersea communication cables in response.
The EU is seeking to strengthen its position in trade negotiations with China after European capitals recently won a cap on Beijing's hybrid vehicle imports, with analysts arguing the bloc is finally developing the backbone to confront China's trade surplus, even as others warn the tools may go unused.
Qatar has proposed a comprehensive energy program for Lebanon, offering to build two gas-fired power plants within three years and supply liquefied natural gas (LNG) for 20 years through a pipeline crossing Syria, according to a draft program seen by Reuters. The plan, which also includes solar, wind and battery storage components, comes as Lebanon's state utility delivers only a few hours of electricity per day and private diesel generators cover roughly half of demand. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said Qatar would finance, run and operate the project, with QatarEnergy and TotalEnergies jointly developing a solar plant as the first stage.