US envoy to meet Putin in Russia as Zelensky says intelligence sharing 'works now'

By Jaroslav Lukiv, ST. PETERBOROUGH, Russia 

US special envoy Steve Witkoff is set to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg on Wednesday to discuss proposals on ending Russia's years-long conflict with Ukraine.

Steve Witkoff, the special envoy of US President Donald Trump, was in Oslo to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky

The talks come one day after Witkoff's meeting with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky in Oslo, which a US official described as "constructive".

Kyiv previously accused the US of withholding key intelligence - a claim rejected as "scandalous" by Washington - but on Tuesday, Zelensky said that intelligence sharing with the US on Russian missile attacks "works now".

Zelensky and his European allies said it was now up to Russia to respond to the proposals agreed in Oslo when Witkoff meets Putin on Wednesday.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb, who also took part in the talks, said "genuine progress" was made on proposals to achieve peace but gave no details and warned that patience would be needed.

Witkoff was not present at the joint press conference after Tuesday's talks in the Norwegian capital. Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, another key envoy, took part in the meeting via video link.

A US official later described the talks as "very productive and constructive", saying there was a "strong alignment at the working level" among the US, Ukraine and Europe on "the next steps".

The official confirmed that Witkoff is due to meet President Vladimir Putin in Russia tomorrow to discuss the proposals and that Kushner will again participate virtually.

Putin is yet to publicly comment on the latest developments, but Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov earlier said the Kremlin would listen to what Wiktoff would offer, while ruling out "any political concessions".

Relations between Ukraine and the US have soured in recent weeks to the extent that Trump has said it is time for Ukraine to get a new president, and most recently "for somebody else to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine".

Ahead of next month's US midterm elections, Trump has also sought to blame Ukraine's attacks on Russian oil refineries for fuel prices which have been rising since the start of the US-led war on Iran.

Speaking after Zelensky's news conference in Oslo, Trump again told reporters at the White House he wanted Kyiv to "make a deal". He said Russia would like to "get it done" and it was "time for Ukraine to end this war".

Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and Moscow currently controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory.

Russian drone attacks have continued this week. Ukrainian officials said at least 10 people were killed on Tuesday - four in Kyiv and the capital region, another four in the eastern Donetsk region, and two in the central city of Dnipro. Another attack overnight on Wednesday killed two more people near Kharkiv, the country's second-largest city.

Addressing the issue of US intelligence sharing after Tuesday's talks, Zelensky said he was "thankful that intelligence works now".

"Speaking about early warning, which is very important for our people, our children, adults, civilians because we can hear when ballistic[s] is coming - so we are thankful to American side, now it works, it's great," the Ukrainian president said.

He said he also hoped for a good result on SpaceX's Starlink satellite access as well, after Ukraine's military had reported in recent days speed restrictions on the US platform used by Kyiv to carry out drone strikes against Russia.

Before the Oslo talks, Zelensky said he had had a "constructive discussion" with Rubio about the need for US early warnings, missile interceptors and Starlink.

Last week, a bipartisan group of US senators called for an urgent investigation into speed restrictions to the Starlink network in Ukraine.

And Zelensky also restated that Ukraine was "ready for negotiations" to end the war.

"Of course, we are not losing this war, but we are losing people because Russia attacks," he said.

The Ukrainian leader added that "strong" security guarantees for Ukraine were also discussed in Oslo, as well as energy ceasefire proposals.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, who also took part in the talks, stressed that Europe "needs to be at the table" during any discussions about how to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

Egypt road crash leaves 13 dead and 34 injured after a bus collides with a truck

CAIRO, Egypt 

A large truck crashed into a tour bus west of the Egyptian capital on Tuesday, killing 13 people and injuring 34, state media reported.

The Al-Ahram newspaper said "13 individuals were killed and 34 others injured in the tragic collision between the bus and the truck on the Cairo-Asyut Western Desert Road".

The paper reported that authorities were clearing the highway. A crane lifted the large bus, the entire front section of which was ripped off, leaving behind mangled steel and debris.

Passenger seats were scattered by the roadside, while debris from the bus was visible on the rear of the truck.

Al-Ahram reported that the injured were receiving treatment at a hospital in Giza, and an investigation was underway to determine the cause of the crash.

Road accidents are common in Egypt and are often blamed on reckless driving, poor maintenance and uneven law enforcement.

Last year, nearly 6,000 people were killed in road accidents across the country, according to Egypt's state statistics agency.

Last month, a bus crash in Sinai killed 22 people, including 10 Jordanian tourists.

In August, at least 18 people, many of them children, were killed in northern Egypt when two pick-up trucks carrying agricultural day-labourers crashed.

Nigeria records first Ebola case of Africa's latest outbreak

ABUJA, Nigeria 

Nigeria has recorded its first Ebola case of Africa's latest outbreak, in a woman who had travelled from Uganda to the capital Abuja, the government confirmed on Tuesday.

Since a major Ebola outbreak was declared in the Democratic Republic of Congo in May, the deadly viral haemorrhagic fever has spread to several countries across the continent, including to neighbouring Uganda.

"The patient, a woman who recently arrived in Nigeria on an international flight from Uganda, was admitted to a private hospital... where she received care for several days before the diagnosis was confirmed," Nigerian health minister Muhammad Ali Pate said in a statement.

"She is currently in isolation and receiving medical care.

"Contact tracing has commenced with 44 close contacts identified presently," the statement added, "with public health teams identifying and monitoring people who may have been exposed, including healthcare workers, patients, caregivers and travel contacts".

In several months, the DRC's Ebola epidemic has become the deadliest in the country's history, killing 4,381 people out of more than 9,000 confirmed cases, according to the health authorities.

On Tuesday, Kenya's health ministry reported its ninth Ebola case of the recent outbreak.

EAST AFRICA NEWSPAPERS 21/10/2026

 

French cities calm overnight after curfews imposed to quell violence, PM says

PARIS, France 

Targeted curfews across France contributed to a quiet night following a weekend of riots and looting across the country, the Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has said.

Curfews were introduced across parts of central Paris, including Place de la République, where protesters had gathered over the weekend, and the Les Halles shopping area.

Other measures restricting the movement of young people and gatherings were introduced in cities such as Marseille, Bordeaux, Nice and Lyon in the south, as well as Lille and other towns in the north.

Lecornu thanked police officers and gendarmes for enforcing the measures, adding that further curfews on Tuesday night would be decided depending on where they are necessary.

Writing in a post on X, he said decisions would be made "on the ground" by French regions and local mayors.

Earlier Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez admitted police had "lost control" in some cities.

He had been strongly criticised by opposition politicians over the preparedness for the disorder, leading him to offer his resignation on Monday, which was rejected by President Emmanuel Macron.

More than 2,500 people have been arrested since the disorder broke out, officials said. One demonstrator's hand was blown off by a police crowd-control grenade, according to the our reporter. About 1,000 police officers were injured.

Protests first began last month with students demanding better school conditions but they have escalated to take in a broader range of concerns with numbers at demonstrations bolstered by trade unions and various protest groups.

Exiled critic of Rwandan president found beheaded in Uganda

KAMPALA, Uganda 

An exiled vocal critic of the Rwandan government has been found decapitated near Kampala, south-central Uganda, according to a police spokesperson, in a case which remains under investigation.

Ugandan police said on Monday they were investigating the “murder of a male adult (around 50), whose head was cut off, and up to now, the head has not yet been recovered”, spokesperson Kituuma Rusoke told reporters, adding that the body had been identified by relatives as Robert Kabera.

The body was found in Luwala, a village near Kampala, and the killing likely took place late on October 16 or early on October 17, police added.

Robert Kabera, a former sergeant who fled Rwanda several years ago, was living in Uganda. The former soldier was not critical of the government during his time with the military, but grew increasingly opposed to Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

Kabera had a YouTube channel, “Major Robert TV”, with 144,000 subscribers. He featured a song praising opposition figure Victoire Ingabire, a rare voice of dissent in Rwanda who had been repeatedly imprisoned.

In Uganda, “Robert had no issues with anyone”, his brother, Victor Agaba, told the our reporter.

“Our problem comes from home… The army created a criminal case against him. It was a witch-hunt,” he said.

Kabera was declared a fugitive after leaving Rwanda and accused of corrupting a minor, charges he denied.

Rwandan authorities have been accused of assassinating opponents of President Kagame, who has governed the country since coming to power in 2000.

The Rwandan president took the reins in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide in which 800,000 people were killed, primarily from the minority Tutsi community.

Kabera is not the first opposition figure in exile to be assassinated.

In 2021, a former lieutenant in the Rwandan army, Revocat Karemangingo, was shot dead in Mozambique, where he was suspected of secretly supporting an opposition force.

Outspoken opponent Seif Bamporiki was shot dead in South Africa the same year, while a former Rwandan intelligence chief turned critic, Patrick Karegeya, was strangled in his South African hotel room in 2014.

Former general Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, who co-founded the Rwanda National Congress (RNC) opposition party with Karegeya and lives in exile, has survived several assassination attempts.

Kenyan court finds cult leader responsible of 191 starvation deaths

By Our Correspondent, MOMBASA Kenya 

A self-proclaimed Kenyan preacher and his associates were on Monday found guilty of murdering 191 people, mostly children, in an infamous starvation cult.

Hundreds of bodies have been discovered since 2023 at the cult base inland from the Kenyan beach resort of Malindi, in what became known as the "Shakahola Forest Massacre".

Self-proclaimed pastor Paul Mackenzie was alleged to have incited his acolytes to starve to death in order to "meet Jesus".

He was impassive in the Mombasa courtroom as he and 28 others were found guilty of murder.

"I am satisfied that the prosecution has proved the case against all the 29 accused persons for the murder of 190 children and one adult," the judge said.

In the three years since the grisly discovery, more bodies of children, women and men have been unearthed, bringing the total to well over 400.

Mackenzie has also denied charges of manslaughter and terrorism in separate cases.

Relatives of the victims were in court, many making their way to Mombasa from rural communities along the coast.

Francis Wanje, 62, lost eight family members, including his daughter and two grandchildren, in Shakahola.

"This day, to me, is a very, very important day," he told our correspondent before the session started.

"We are expecting a ruling that will be a lesson to the whole public, so that such kinds of things will not happen again," he said, expressing anger over the initial government inaction.

There have been calls in Kenya for tougher regulations on religious organisations after it emerged that Mackenzie had been arrested twice in the past but released.

The mass-grave site at the cult compound run by Kenyan self-proclaimed preacher Paul Mackenzie

The prosecution said Mackenzie "initiated and directed" extreme fasting at his 800-acre (325 hectare) ranch in Shakahola Forest, claiming there was a "structured hierarchy of death" which said children should die first, followed by teenagers, women, and then men.

The children mostly died from starvation, but also from "asphyxia, neck compression and traumatic head injury", prosecutors said, based on post-mortems and police reports.

Mackenzie was arrested in April 2023, after a rights group tipped off authorities and some followers were rescued.

The subsequent police operation exposed hundreds of shallow mass graves, with a soaring death toll that required a pause in excavations as local morgues ran out of space.

The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights said in 2024 that the death toll was 429. Some victims are still unidentified.

In January, Mackenzie was charged over a further 52 bodies found at a nearby village.

The self-styled pastor has a history of extremism and evaded law enforcement for years.

He established the Good News International Church in 2003, and set up branches in Nairobi and along Kenya's coast that attracted thousands of devotees, though he claimed it closed in 2019.

He was arrested in 2017 over charges of "radicalisation" but was acquitted. He was arrested again in 2019 in relation to two child deaths at Shakahola, but released on bail.

EAST AFRICA NEWSPAPERS 20/10/2026

 

Albania's Prime Minister Edi Rama ignores calls to resign

By Kieran Burke, TIRANA Albania 

Student-led protests continued in Albania for a sixth day with continued demands for Prime Minister Edi Rama to resign.

Despite those calls, Rama is refusing to step down, saying the demonstrations were not a threat to government but rather a threat to Albania's ambition of accession to the European Union.

"I ​am not being challenged, the government is not being challenged, a government majority or a winning party in the elections is not being challenged but a path is being challenged, a mission is being challenged," Rama said in a live address on Facebook.

"Albanians need to think ​very clearly: Do they want this, do they want that, or do they want the EU?” Rama asked.

Rama ruled out resigning and said that the protests are the "work of an outside hand."

Earlier in the week Rama ruled out resigning, saying that governments were changed through elections.

Student-led demonstrations, spurred by discontent over alleged government corruption, unemployment and poor education standards, have rocked central Tirana and spread to other cities in the past week.

On Sunday, hundreds gathered outside the Education Ministry, chanting "Rama resign!" and threw rocks ​at riot police who responded with tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets.

The protests come at a difficult for Albania as it is among a group of Balkan states seeking to join the EU by 2030.

There have been calls for calm from Brussels amid the violent protests. The European Commission in Sunday condemned the use of ⁠violence ⁠in Tirana and othern cities.

The commission added that it welcomed the Albanian authorities' ​commitment that the right to protest will ​be protected.

"Developing nations need greater digital connectivity" - IMF

By Afolake Oyinloye,  BANGKOK, Thailand 

According to the International Monetary Fund's latest World Economic Outlook published Tuesday, global growth stands at 3.1 percent, while global inflation has spiked to 4.7 percent.

An AI boom is lifting technology-exporting economies, but developing and climate-vulnerable regions face a double hit from rising energy costs and climate disasters.

With over 60 percent of low-income nations in or near debt distress, leaders argue the path forward requires a clear two-part strategy: implementing fiscal consolidation to service high debt and protect social safety nets, while investing aggressively in digital connectivity to join the tech recovery.

At the World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings in Bangkok, delegates outlined the stakes.

Wayne Henry is Chairman and Director General of the Planning Institute of Jamaica:

"We are in a challenging environment as we are here because of geopolitical matters that that affect oil energy prices and that would affect all countries transportation fuel. And so they are strong inflationary impulses. And then we have, you know the climate, continent, climate vulnerabilities because of the intensities of events in terms of climate hazards. And a number of our developing countries in particular, are challenged and where we are vulnerable. And so I'm from the Caribbean region, and certainly we are the second most vulnerable"

"The head, though some of the positives we are hearing is the sort of AI boom, that technology boom. And a lot of those countries that are producers of technology and AI itself and, and members, you know, particularly in the supply chain of AI, we have seen optics in terms of revisions upward in terms of stronger growth, but certainly a number of our developing economies, and certainly in some of our regions we are not among them. We need to catch up in terms of to do more to to infuse greater, you know, digital connectivity to benefit in a greater way of technological advances."

By pairing debt discipline with digital investment, developing economies can safeguard vulnerable citizens while securing a foothold in the future economy.

EAST AFRICA NEWSPAPERS 19/10/2026