Wednesday 21 October 2026

American military veteran Stephen Hubbard, who was arrested by Russian authorities in 2022 during the Battle of Izium, is released from custody during the meeting between Putin and Witkoff.

Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele announces the start of a military operation to rescue four Air Force technicians. The technicians, attached to the international Gang Suppression Force, were taken hostage after gangs attacked their armored vehicle on 18 October.

Indonesia, Pakistan, Qatar, and Turkey jointly sign the Badr Memorandum of Understanding, a major agreement to deepen their defence industry cooperation. The agreement aims to support joint military production projects and strengthen cooperation in technical training, research, and development.

Two people are killed and two others are injured by debris after a suspected Houthi drone is shot down near Shaybah oil field in Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Shin Bet say that they have killed Musa Abd Muhammad Hamouda, a Hamas Nukhba forces militant that took part in planning the killing of four IDF soldiers in September 2025.

Two people are killed and eight others are injured in a Houthi attack on King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, Saudi Arabia.

The U.S. Department of State orders non-emergency employees at its embassy in Riyadh to leave the country as Houthi attacks ramp up.

Ireland's Dáil Éireann approves legislation removing the requirement for United Nations authorization before deploying more than 12 Defence Forces personnel overseas for peacekeeping missions, while retaining approval by the government and parliament.

Thousands of students and teachers march through Athens, Thessaloniki, and Patras in Greece to protest against the rising cost of living, calling for affordable student housing and more state investment in education.

South Africa cuts fuel levies by R3.00 (US$0.18) per litre of diesel and R1.50 ($0.09) per litre of petrol from November 4 to December 1 after fuel prices reach record highs.

Over 80 Americans, British citizens, and Israelis are detained by Israeli soldiers in the Israel-occupied West Bank, including U.S. House of Representatives candidate Brad Lander.

A Tunisian military court sentences politician and businesswoman Olfa Hamdi to four years in prison on state security charges linked to social media posts, including accusations of inciting military personnel to disobey orders.

Taiwanese prosecutors indict five people for allegedly accepting money and planning to injure Huang Yihao, an anti-Chinese Communist Party comedian in New Taipei City.

A district judge in New Mexico, United States, orders Meta to pay $25 billion after a jury found it guilty of misleading Facebook users about privacy violations, marking its largest fine ever.

A foreign national is beaten to death by a crowd in Durban, South Africa.

Node.js releases three security updates to 10 different vulnerabilities, including 4 deemed high-severity, which affect how it handles DNS resolution, TLS handshakes, and Brotli decoding.

Open-source artificial intelligence gateway LiteLLM is compromised by attackers, who push a malicious version of LiteLLM to the Python Package Index.

A critical security flaw, allowing for remote code execution, in 12 years of GitLab versions is disclosed, requiring updates.

In association football, St. Louis City SC defeats Columbus Crew in a penalty shoot-out to win the U.S. Open Cup, earning the club its first trophy since beginning play in 2023.