France’s school revolt pulled a quarter of a million people or more into the streets on Tuesday, and a police officer now faces charges over a 14-year-old’s shattered jaw; the head of the World Health Organization pressed Russia for straight answers on a Siberian lab worker’s death as President Trump said he has a call lined up with Vladimir Putin; and Haiti shelved what would have been its first elections since 2016. Ten stories as of Tuesday evening, October 6.
1. Paris / France. The protests that began with leaking ceilings in Seine-Saint-Denis spread to parents, university students and unions on Tuesday, BBC News reported. The government counted more than 250,000 demonstrators and disruption at 891 high schools, almost a quarter of all lycées; students’ unions said 450,000 marched and 1,800 schools were blockaded. Police used tear gas in Paris and Marseille and water cannon in Rennes and clashed with marchers in Lyon, but there was less serious trouble than on earlier days. A police officer who fired a tear-gas grenade at a 14-year-old at a lycée in Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône last week was charged with violence causing mutilation or permanent disability, France 24 and the BBC reported; the boy’s lawyer says his jaw was fractured and teeth broken. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu accused France Unbowed of trying to “sow chaos” seven months before the presidential election, and the interior ministry said 6,547 people have been stopped or arrested since September 28. President Emmanuel Macron was to meet ministers at the Élysée on Tuesday evening, and the CGT union says more protests are being planned for Thursday.
2. Irkutsk / Russia. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Russian health authorities told the agency that no case of plague had recently been registered in Irkutsk oblast, after a 28-year-old technician at the Irkutsk Antiplague Research Institute, Darya Shipilova, died on October 2 with severe pneumonia. He said the WHO has asked Moscow to clarify the cause, the pathogen that prompted the public health measures, and media reports of a second employee with pneumonia of undetermined cause. A WHO spokesperson put the risk at “moderate to low” for Irkutsk, “low” for the rest of Russia and “very low” for Europe, The Guardian reported. Russia’s health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor has denied reports of anti-plague measures, DW said. In Washington, Trump told reporters, “I have a call scheduled, yes,” with Putin to discuss the case, and the U.S. CDC said it is “aware of and closely monitoring” it but sees little risk to the United States, Al Jazeera reported.
3. Kfar Aza / Israel. Israel marks the third anniversary of the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Wednesday, three weeks before its general election, France 24 reported, citing AFP. A tribute is set for 6:29 a.m. at Kibbutz Kfar Aza near the Gaza border, the minute the attack began, with another at the Nova festival site and a gathering of bereaved families in a Tel Aviv park in the evening. The defence minister said Tuesday he had put the military on high alert over intelligence that Hamas may try to attack troops in Gaza on the anniversary. The 2023 attack killed 1,221 people, by an AFP tally of official Israeli figures, and 251 hostages were taken. Gaza’s health ministry says Israel’s offensive has killed more than 74,200 people, and more than 1,430 since the ceasefire began last October.
4. Merowe / Sudan. Army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan vowed to retake “every inch” of territory held by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and rejected negotiations, telling a gathering in Merowe that the “military option” would continue until the RSF is gone, Al Jazeera reported, citing the Sudan News Agency. A local charity said an RSF attack killed at least 10 civilians in Abu Ajal village in West Kordofan, where the army is advancing toward En Nahud, and the International Organization for Migration said more than 5,500 people were displaced in Blue Nile state over three days. The war, now three and a half years old, has displaced around 13 million people.
5. Port-au-Prince / Haiti. Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council has postponed indefinitely the first round of presidential and legislative elections set for December 13 and the February 21 runoff, saying the timetable “will be made public as soon as possible,” France 24 reported, citing AFP. Haiti has not voted since 2016, and its last president, assassinated in 2021, was never replaced. Only 769,000 voters have registered since July 20; some gang-held towns have no registration centres. The UN says gang violence has left at least 5,700 people dead or wounded this year, and the UN-backed Gang Suppression Force has about 1,500 of a planned 5,500 personnel.
6. Los Angeles / United States. Paramount Skydance closed its $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros Discovery on Tuesday, putting HBO, CBS, CNN, DC Studios, Nickelodeon and the Harry Potter and Game of Thrones franchises under one company, renamed Skydance Corporation, BBC News reported. Chief executive David Ellison called it “historic”; Trump called the deal “great.” Under a settlement with state attorneys general, the company has 180 days to set up an independent editorial board for CNN and CBS News, Al Jazeera reported. The combined company carries about $80 billion in debt, and its shares, trading as SKYD, had slipped 2.5 percent after Tuesday’s open.
7. Nashville / United States. Christa Pike, the Tennessee death-row prisoner who survived two lethal injections of pentobarbital last Wednesday, is “conscious, speaking, and continues to receive critical medical care,” her lawyers said, as reported by BBC News and Al Jazeera. They called her recovery “medically unprecedented” and said she is still handcuffed and shackled to her hospital bed. Pike, 50, was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer. Governor Bill Lee has suspended executions for the rest of the year, and the state’s prisons chief says he plans to resign. Her lawyers are due in court in Nashville on Wednesday.
8. Muswellbrook, New South Wales / Australia. In Australia’s first High Court case to consider climate change, the court ruled 3–2 that the approval of MACH Energy’s Mount Pleasant coal mine expansion in the Hunter Valley was invalid, Guardian Australia and the ABC reported. The majority found the state’s planning commission had to consider ways to cut the emissions from burning the mine’s coal overseas — 98 percent of its projected emissions — and failed to. The expansion would have doubled output to 21 million tonnes a year until 2048. “We cannot dig up coal, ship it overseas, watch it drive climate change, and then pretend the consequences have nothing to do with us,” said Wendy Wales of the community group that brought the case. MACH said it accepts the decision and will review it.
9. Buenos Aires / Argentina. Lionel Messi played his last match for Argentina, scoring a 71st-minute penalty and setting up Nicolás Otamendi’s opener in a 3–0 win over Benin before 85,000 fans at the Monumental, France 24 reported, citing AFP. It was his 126th international goal in a record 208th appearance. The game stopped in the 10th minute for a minute-long ovation, and a drone show lit the sky at the final whistle. The 39-year-old led Argentina to the 2022 World Cup and remains under contract with Inter Miami until 2028.
10. Cosmonauts Sea / East Antarctica. China is proposing its own 127,000 square-kilometre marine protected area in the Southern Ocean, according to documents attributed to the Chinese delegation and seen by Daily Maverick. The South African paper says the plan would still allow commercial krill fishing for weeks at a time each year, would expire after 20 years unless renewed by consensus, and comes with proposed rule changes that would strike climate resilience from the listed purposes for new protected areas, though broader climate language stays elsewhere in the draft. China and Russia have blocked other Antarctic marine park proposals for nearly a decade. The documents are due before the 27-member Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources when it meets in Hobart from October 19 to 30.
Coming Up
Confirmed dates on The Watch: October 7 — Israel marks three years since the October 7 attack; Nobel Prize in chemistry. October 8, 9 and 12 — Nobel Prizes in literature, peace (Oslo) and economics. October 8 — New Zealand candidate nominations close at noon. October 12–18 — IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings in Bangkok. October 15–16 — European Council in Brussels.
Sources: BBC News; France 24; AFP; The Guardian; Guardian Australia; DW; Al Jazeera; ABC News (Australia); Daily Maverick; World Health Organization (Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on X); U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Sudan News Agency and International Organization for Migration (as cited by Al Jazeera); Haiti Provisional Electoral Council (as cited by France 24).
