Alberta has voted, and it isn’t close: roughly three in four said stay in Canada; Volodymyr Zelenskyy flew to Oslo to try to patch things up with Donald Trump’s envoys; and France says soldiers will help free up police for this Saturday’s protests. Ten stories as of Tuesday morning, October 20.
1. Edmonton and Calgary / Alberta, Canada. Albertans overwhelmingly rejected starting the legal process toward a binding vote on leaving Canada: with more than 1.5 million votes counted, 76% chose to remain and close to 24% backed beginning the process, according to unofficial Elections Alberta results reported by NPR/AP. Late-opening polls pushed results back by more than two hours, and the nine other questions on the ballot could take days to count, per The Guardian. “Albertans made a clear choice… Above all, Albertans chose Canada,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said. Premier Danielle Smith, who called the vote but opposed separation, said “Albertans have voted for a stronger Alberta in a united Canada” and will address the province Tuesday evening. Separatists say they aren’t done: Jeffrey Rath told the BBC the movement “isn’t stopping” and wants Smith pushed out as leader of her United Conservative Party, BBC News reported. Carney said Tuesday morning that he’d called Smith:
2. Oslo / Norway, and Kyiv / Ukraine. Zelenskyy met U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff in Oslo on Tuesday, with Jared Kushner joining by video link, after first sitting down with Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and Finland’s President Alexander Stubb, BBC News reported. Støre said the aim is to put diplomacy on “a more constructive path.” Speaking in India, Secretary of State Marco Rubio called claims that Ukrainians are dying because the U.S. is withholding intelligence “scandalous,” and said “there’s nothing being deliberately denied to Ukraine,” though he allowed that Patriot interceptors may not have arrived yet, per ABC News. Zelenskyy called his own call with Rubio “substantive.” Back home, Russian attacks killed at least seven people across Ukraine on Tuesday and caused power outages in almost half the country’s regions. The Kremlin says it hopes to see Witkoff soon too.
3. Paris and Marseille / France, and Milan / Italy. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu told the National Assembly that the security deployment for this Saturday’s planned protests “will be massive,” said last weekend’s operation was “too static,” and accused small far-left groups of an “insurrectionary plan,” DW reported. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez confirmed soldiers from the Sentinelle force will be deployed “mostly to free police and gendarmes” to keep order, per The Guardian. Monday night passed without major incidents, and more curfews will be set locally with mayors, Al Jazeera reported. In Marseille, business leaders say more than 500 premises were damaged, most of them looted, and a curfew for minors starts in parts of the city Tuesday evening, per BBC News. Italy is sending 500 soldiers to Milan, where police detained 271 young people over the weekend, The Guardian reported.
4. Shabwa / Yemen, and Riyadh / Saudi Arabia. The toll from Monday’s Houthi missile strike on the al-Alam training camp near Ataq has risen to 73 security recruits, local authorities say, the deadliest attack since the war flared up again, BBC News reported. Britain will send RAF Typhoon jets to help defend Saudi cities and infrastructure from Houthi missiles and drones; Defence Secretary Wes Streeting said they “will not conduct offensive strikes,” per BBC News. A strike on Riyadh’s airport on October 10 killed 13 people. The UN refugee agency says more than 250,000 Yemenis have been displaced since July, three-quarters of them from the besieged city of Taiz, Al Jazeera reported.
5. West Kordofan / Sudan, and Abyei. Drone strikes blamed on Sudan’s army have killed more than 200 people since Sunday evening, BBC News reported. The Sudan War Observatory says 150 died in West Kordofan, most of them when a truck carrying about 200 mourners was hit as it arrived in Al-Dabab. On Monday, drones hit the Amiet market near Abyei town, in the disputed area Sudan and South Sudan jointly administer, killing 73, the region’s information minister said; a military source told the BBC the army carried out that attack, calling the market an RSF fuel supply site. South Sudan summoned Sudan’s ambassador. The army says it doesn’t target civilians.
6. Wangaratta / Victoria, Australia. Victoria Police charged Brendan Nugent, 43, with dangerous driving causing serious injury, intentionally causing serious injury, and the federal offence of causing harm to a Commonwealth public official, which carries up to 10 years, and will allege the attack on independent MP Helen Haines was targeted, ABC News reported. Haines, 65, has lost one leg and surgeons are fighting to save the other; Nugent allegedly did a U-turn and struck her twice, per The Guardian. His father and partner said Haines has been their friend for more than 20 years and called it a “shocking and horrific crime,” BBC News reported. He’s due in Wangaratta Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday.
7. Tehran / Iran, and Doha / Qatar. Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, arrived in Tehran on Tuesday evening, his fifth trip since Islamabad brokered the April ceasefire, a day after Russia’s Sergey Lavrov was there, Al Jazeera reported. Analysts say the diplomacy is about heading off another round of fighting; the U.S. has sent an additional aircraft carrier toward the region. CENTCOM’s Adm. Brad Cooper claimed the U.S. blockade has kept at least $25bn in Iranian crude off the market and left the Revolutionary Guards unable to pay their troops; Tehran denies it is near collapse but admits financial strain, per Al Jazeera. In Doha, U.S. envoy Tom Barrack said Washington is moving away from oil-for-security but “we’re not leaving,” and Qatar said talks to end the war go on, Al Jazeera reported.
8. London / United Kingdom. A “power event” at a Google Cloud data centre in London knocked out services across Britain and parts of Europe for hours on Tuesday, starting shortly after 6 a.m. U.K. time (10 p.m. Monday Pacific), ABC News reported. Customers of Revolut and Halifax had trouble getting into their accounts, and the video platform used for remote court hearings went down, along with live streams of trials. Google says the problem has been mitigated for most customers and it will publish an analysis once its internal investigation is done.
9. Tshwane / South Africa. Residents in about five townships east of Pretoria were told not to drink or cook with tap water after 408 people, mostly children under four, fell ill between October 7 and 18, BBC News reported. Tests found high levels of E. coli plus norovirus, campylobacter and shigella, traced to a local water treatment plant; officials found local authorities hadn’t warned residents. No deaths have been reported, and tankers are bringing in clean water. A cholera outbreak in nearby Hammanskraal killed 29 people in 2023.
10. Across Brazil. With the runoff on Sunday, the race between President Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro is a dead heat: PoderData now has them at 50% each, after three polls last week gave Bolsonaro a razor-thin lead, DW reported. Bolsonaro won the first round with 47% and led by up to six points the week after, but Lula has gained with mass rallies and a promise of a shorter workweek, and Bolsonaro is back holding big rallies of his own.
Coming Up
Confirmed dates for the week ahead (full board on The Watch): October 23, Brazil’s second and final 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). Alberta’s referendum is now marked done on The Watch.
