UNITED STATES: President Joe Biden said it’s important for Ukraine’s Western allies to “sustain our resolve” in supporting the country as he held meetings today with European partners.

The US president met Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, Ukraine’s second-biggest military supplier after the US. They were joined by French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer for discussions that were also addressing the conflict in the Middle East.

FRANCE: French Prime Minister Michel Barnier said today that firefighters and other rescuers have been involved in about 2,300 operations, some of them lifesaving, in what appears to be the biggest flooding in 40 years in central France.

Mr Barnier said there hadn’t been such violent rain in many people’s memory. Over 1,000 people had to be evacuated from their homes. 

PAKISTAN: Authorities in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province shut all schools and universities for two days today in an attempt to contain the spread of protests by students over an alleged on-campus rape. 

Tensions have been high on college campuses since reports of the alleged rape in the eastern city of Lahore spread on social media, and protests have broken out in four cities. 

KOREAN PENINSULA: South Korea’s spy agency said today that North Korea has dispatched troops to support Russia’s war in Ukraine. 

The National Intelligence Service said in a statement that Russian navy ships transferred 1,500 North Korean special operation forces to the Russian port city of Vladivostok from October 8 to October 13. 

Earlier this week the Russians dismissed a similar claim by the Ukrainians as “false news.”