EGYPT – SAUDI ARABIA – YEMEN
From Cairo, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, the most significant centre of Sunni Islamic doctrine, calls for the ‘urgent’ establishment of a mediation committee to end the fighting in the Arab region. The intervention by the Sunni Islamic authority comes as hostilities between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis in Yemen intensify. The appeal from the world’s leading Sunni institution comes at a time when hostilities between Saudi Arabia and the Iran-aligned Houthi militias are escalating, with Egypt moving towards direct intervention alongside Riyadh. Imam Ahmed Al Tayeb has urged Arab and Muslim leaders “to uphold the spirit of brotherhood and the bonds of religion, blood and language, to prioritise wisdom and to embrace reason and dialogue”.
VIETNAM – NORWAY – SWITZERLAND – ICELAND – LIECHTENSTEIN
Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein have signed a free trade agreement with Vietnam, as announced on Sunday by the governments of Norway and Vietnam. The Vietnamese Ministry of Trade stated that it had signed the agreement in Hanoi with members of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). Around half of Norway’s exports to Vietnam will be duty-free when the agreement comes into force, whilst over 98 per cent will be duty-free within seven years, the Norwegian government said in a statement. The free trade negotiations, which were concluded in July, were resumed last year against the backdrop of global tensions over US tariffs.
BANGLADESH
Bangladesh is struggling to contain the world’s worst measles outbreak, with 202,000 suspected cases of measles recorded from mid-March to 9 October, according to the WHO. This is a higher number of suspected cases than recorded in any other country in 2026. 1,147 people have died from this highly contagious disease: 94 per cent of the reported deaths were among children under the age of five. Bangladesh’s experience highlights the difficulty of containing an outbreak when vaccination coverage is below 95 per cent – a threshold necessary to prevent outbreaks. Bangladesh had almost reached this threshold in recent years, but coverage fell in 2025.
INDONESIA
Indonesia is considering extending trials using dry ice to combat haze and induce rainfall to other regions affected by forest fires, following a ‘fairly effective’ trial conducted in South Sumatra. The new head of Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), Kristomei Sianturi, stated that the weather modification technology, which has already been trialled twice in South Sumatra province, has proved “quite effective”. Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto has instructed the BNPB to continue assessing the technology’s effectiveness in inducing rainfall and supporting fire-fighting operations.
CHINA
On 8 October, the Chinese authorities published a draft regulation governing pay, rest periods and other protections for delivery riders, couriers and other platform workers – part of an estimated 84 million-strong group that Beijing describes as “new forms of employment”. The proposals represent a step forward in strengthening protections for gig workers, but according to analysts, financial pressures, differences in working arrangements and difficulties in enforcing the rules could limit their impact. The draft also aims to curb the algorithms that govern much of the work on these platforms.
RUSSIA
The Russian authorities continue to seek ways to step up the fight against VPN services that allow users to bypass internet blocks: the Ministry of Digital Development has proposed using artificial intelligence to achieve 95 per cent effectiveness in blocking VPNs, according to a well-informed source speaking to Kommersant. A similar measure is included in the draft national plan for the implementation of AI technologies by 2030, which will be used to block up to 70 per cent of VPN services.
ARMENIA – TURKEY
Turkey’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Berris Ekinçi, stated that Ankara is pursuing the normalisation of bilateral relations with Armenia: “The recent increase in high-level visits between our countries has contributed significantly to strengthening bilateral dialogue”, and concrete steps have been taken in the transport, energy and cultural sectors, as well as towards the resumption of direct trade, with the view that all this offers grounds for optimism for the future of the entire region.
