France’s prime minister wants partial curfews after police admitted they “lost control” over the weekend; Russia knocked out power across Kyiv again, and Ukraine says its partners gave no warning; and an Australian MP is in critical condition after being run down outside her office in what the prime minister calls “a deliberate act.” Ten stories as of Monday morning, October 19.
1. Paris, Marseille and Lyon / France. After an emergency cabinet meeting Monday, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said he’d asked regional authorities to impose “local and partial” curfews where needed, and that a state of emergency is possible “if needed,” though not for whole cities like Paris, The Guardian reported. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez conceded police “lost control” in places, blaming a “lack of anticipation”: intelligence predicted 200,000 marchers and more than 500,000 showed up. He offered to resign; Emmanuel Macron refused and ordered a review of the “failures in anticipation and intelligence,” per DW. Nearly 2,400 people have been arrested and almost 1,000 police and gendarmes hurt; another 350 people were arrested overnight into Monday, Marseille banned gatherings from noon to 8 p.m. Monday, and student protesters kept the Louvre shut. Markets noticed: the 10-year French bond yield jumped as much as 16 basis points to 4.94%, near a 24-year high, The Guardian reported. Next door, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni called an emergency security meeting after clashes in Milan, where more than 200 people were detained, 80% of them minors, per BBC News.
2. Kyiv / Ukraine, and Moscow / Russia. Russia fired 16 ballistic missiles at Ukraine’s energy system overnight, 10 of which hit, cutting power to about 550,000 households and killing at least one person; the air force also counted 269 Shahed drones, DW reported. Zelenskyy said “once again, there was no early warning from our partners,” and an air force spokesman said no warning came before the 11 p.m. strike on Kyiv’s power plants, though one did before a 3 a.m. wave, per The Guardian. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking in Uzbekistan, said “there’s been no pause” in intelligence sharing, pointed to “a software problem” with the early-warning system a few nights ago, and said Zelenskyy should “focus” on ending the war. Trump says Friday’s sanctions waivers are meant to keep Russia at “the bargaining table,” BBC News reported. In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a Putin–Xi–Trump meeting has “indeed been mentioned,” since all three could attend next month’s APEC summit in China, but that no concrete proposals exist, France 24/AFP reported. By Monday afternoon in Kyiv, Zelenskyy put the damage at 28 substations:
3. Wangaratta / Victoria, Australia, and Aitutaki / Cook Islands. Independent MP Helen Haines, 65, is in critical condition at The Alfred hospital in Melbourne after a white Toyota LandCruiser hit her outside her electorate office in Wangaratta on Monday afternoon local time, ABC News reported. Passers-by held the 43-year-old driver, from nearby Tarrawingee, until police arrived, and officers found a knife in the vehicle. “This wasn’t an accident. This was a deliberate act,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said; the joint counterterrorism unit has been activated, but he said it’s too early to talk about motive, per BBC News. Out in the Cook Islands, Cyclone Wati left Aitutaki’s newly upgraded Arutanga harbour causeway underwater, Mayor Nick Henry told RNZ Pacific; no injuries had been reported as the storm moved on toward the other southern islands.
4. Shabwa / Yemen, and Cairo / Egypt. Three Houthi ballistic missiles hit the al-Alam training camp in southern Yemen as recruits lined up in formation, killing at least 53 and injuring more than 200, the biggest single loss of life since the civil war reignited in September, The Guardian reported. The Houthis said they targeted “the Saudi enemy’s mobilisations.” Rashad al-Alimi, head of the Presidential Leadership Council, vowed a “firm response,” per DW, and has asked UN Secretary-General António Guterres to classify the Houthis as a terrorist organisation. In Cairo, Egypt’s parliament put off its vote on letting the military help defend Saudi Arabia again, this time to October 26, Reuters reported via Dawn.
5. Edmonton, Calgary and Wainwright / Alberta, Canada. Albertans are voting today on whether the province should stay in Canada or start the constitutional process toward a binding separation referendum; polls opened at 9 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. Mountain time (7 p.m. Pacific), DW reported. Polls suggest most will vote to stay, and Premier Danielle Smith, who opposes separation, has said a binding vote could come as soon as 2027 if Albertans vote to move ahead, per BBC News. The campaign ended in the shadow of Saturday’s fire at CFB Wainwright. The military now confirms four soldiers dead and 39 people in hospital, 19 of them critical. Maj.-Gen. Wade Rutland said a grass fire on a training range moved a kilometre “in 30 to 60 seconds,” and investigators don’t believe oil or gas infrastructure caused any explosions, walking back early reports of a struck gas line, BBC News reported.
6. Gaza, and Abu Falah / occupied West Bank. The World Food Programme has had to drop more than half a million people a month in Gaza, scaling aid back to 1.1 million as its funding fell by more than half from 2025 levels, The Guardian reported. “These are very fragile gains, easily reversed, and the situation is still brutal,” said Shaun Hughes, WFP’s Palestine director; 200,000 people are at emergency hunger levels, one step short of famine. In the West Bank, Israeli police arrested 10 suspects over last week’s settler attacks on Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine near Abu Falah and on European diplomats in Taybeh, BBC News reported. Levine has four broken vertebrae; U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee called the arrests “a very positive development.”
7. Tehran / Iran, and the Strait of Hormuz. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met Iran’s Abbas Araghchi in Tehran, his first visit since February 2025 and a day after Gulf states in Bahrain urged him to help reopen the strait, Al Jazeera reported. Araghchi blamed the “insecurity around the Strait of Hormuz” on the US-Israeli war, and Lavrov said Russian specialists will gradually return to the Bushehr nuclear plant. On the water, Iran has hit at least 15 container ships in the past 10 days, and Brent crude was near $108 a barrel Monday morning, The Guardian reported. The UK Maritime Trade Operations centre logged 254 transits in the week to October 14, about 70% below pre-war levels.
8. Mombasa / Kenya. A Kenyan court found Paul Mackenzie, leader of the Good News International Ministries doomsday cult, guilty of murdering 191 people, all but one of them children, whom he ordered starved so they could “meet Jesus,” BBC News reported. Twenty-nine other cult leaders were convicted too. More than 400 bodies were found in shallow graves in the Shakahola forest, and Monday’s ruling in Mombasa is the first judgment in the case, per Al Jazeera. Separately, Kenya’s Ebola count rose to eight on Sunday after a 49-year-old patient attendant tested positive in quarantine; officials say there’s no community transmission yet, AP reported.
9. Al-Dibab / West Kordofan, Sudan. A drone strike on a transport hub near a market killed 80 people Sunday evening, most of them people catching rides home after market day, The Guardian reported. It’s one of the deadliest single strikes of the war. A witness said the drone struck twice, 10 minutes apart; a medic said 30 of the 80 died after being taken to al-Mujlad. The RSF-declared Tasis administration, which controls all of West Kordofan, blamed the army.
10. São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro / Brazil. Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro’s first runoff debate on Sunday night quickly turned personal: Lula called his rival “a habitual liar, a thug,” and Bolsonaro said he’d keep his distance “because my wallet could be stolen,” DW reported, after rival rallies in São Paulo and on Rio’s Copacabana beach. Analysts told BBC News Brasil there was barely any policy talk, though Lula did offer to open his financial and phone records and dared Bolsonaro to do the same, per BBC News. Bolsonaro won the first round 47% to 45.2%; the second and final debate is Friday.
Coming Up
Confirmed dates for the week ahead (full board on The Watch): Today, October 19, Alberta’s referendum, with polls closing at 8 p.m. Mountain (7 p.m. Pacific). Today at 12:41 p.m. Pacific (October 20, 4:41 a.m. in Japan), JAXA is set to launch its MMX mission to Mars’s moon Phobos from Tanegashima. October 23, Brazil’s second runoff debate. October 25, Brazil’s presidential runoff (Flávio Bolsonaro vs Lula). October 26, Egypt’s parliament is due to vote on military support for Saudi Arabia. October 27, Israel’s election for the 26th Knesset, and the Fed’s two-day meeting opens in Washington (October 27–28). We don’t reprint the whole list here.
