A gathering of dozens of young people called for by social media in the center of Barcelona (northeast Spain) has led this afternoon to looting of shops, burning of containers, damage to urban furniture and clashes with the Mossos d’Esquadra, whom they have thrown stones and blunt objects at.
The protest, which has circulated on social media encouraged by the slogan “Institut Indignats” -a translation of the “Lyceés Indignés” movement, which is behind the student mobilizations of recent weeks in France- has gathered dozens of young people in Plaza de Cataluña, most of them dressed in black.
La protesta "contra el sistema" al centre de Barcelona s'estén a la Ronda Universitat.
According to sources from the Catalan police, the protesters began to cause material damage to urban furniture and street disturbances, which forced the riot police to deploy and intervene to stop the incidents.
As a result of the police intervention, the demonstrators dispersed in groups around Plaza Cataluña, pursued by riot officers, who charged against some of them.
All this, among a large influx of citizens and tourists who were in the city center this Saturday afternoon and meters from the encampment for the right to housing that has been installed for weeks in Plaza Cataluña in Barcelona.
The incidents have worsened as the afternoon progressed and isolated groups of demonstrators, with their faces covered, have attempted to loot shops in the area and have broken some shop windows while setting fire to urban furniture and terrace awnings.
The temporary ceasefire to allow the evacuation of the town of Oleshki, which was announced yesterday by the office of the US First Lady, Melania Trump, will begin on October 27, Ukrainian authorities announced this Saturday.
“As head of the Ukrainian negotiating team, I have just held an online meeting with Yana Lantrátova, the head of the Russian negotiating team. The purpose of the meeting was to address the humanitarian mission in Oleshki,” reported the Ukrainian ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, on social media.
“I informed the Russian side that the ceasefire will come into force on October 27 at 03:00 AM, Kyiv time (01:00 GMT). The Russian Commissioner for Human Rights confirmed that, on the Russian side, the ceasefire will begin on October 27 at 04:00 AM Moscow time. This means that the ceasefire will begin at the same time,” he added.
Ukraine confirmed preparations for a local ceasefire in the Kherson region as part of the humanitarian mission in Oleshky.
Verkhovna Rada Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets said the process will be step-by-step:
Lubinets noted that he has discussed with Lantrátova other issues related to the agreement to allow the evacuation of civilians and the entry of humanitarian aid to the southern town under Russian occupation and that he has been able to confirm that preparations are currently progressing in line with the existing preliminary agreement.
The humanitarian truce, which Pope Leo XIV himself had requested from Russian President Vladimir Putin, was announced on Friday by the office of the US First Lady, who supposedly helped mediate the agreement, although according to this source the start was scheduled for October 29.
According to the White House, the First Lady “initiated conversations with both countries and, in her official role as Exclusive Intermediary, managed to get the parties to agree on the objectives, technical procedures, timetable, processes and conditions” of the localized ceasefire.
Oleshki, located on the eastern bank of the Dnieper River opposite the provincial capital of Kherson, under Ukrainian control, has been going through a difficult humanitarian situation for months.
Peru’s accumulated mining investment from January to August totaled 4.813 billion dollars, a 42.7% increase compared to the same period in 2025, with a greater incidence in infrastructure and development, which concentrated close to half of the investment in that period, as reported this Friday by the Ministry of Energy and Mines.
The Mining Statistical Bulletin (BEM), prepared by the General Directorate of Mining Promotion and Sustainability of the ministry, indicated that, in August alone, the mining subsector registered an investment of 696 million dollars, a year-on-year increase of 30.4%, the second highest monthly level of 2026.
In turn, in the Infrastructure sector, accumulated investment until August registered 1.308 billion dollars, exceeding by 65.7% the figure registered in the same period last year.
With this result, Infrastructure concentrated 27.2% of the total mining investment, which makes it the main destination of accumulated investment resources in the subsector.
⛏️ Perú suma S/ 13.310 millones en transferencias mineras en 2026. El canon concentra S/ 9.588 millones, según el Minem.
Regarding the Development and Preparation sector, accumulated investment until August 2026 amounted to 1.031 billion dollars, exceeding by 106.7% the amount reported in the same period of 2025.
This execution represented 21.4% of the total accumulated mining investment nationwide, highlighted the Peruvian ministry.
Meanwhile, in the Beneficiation Plant sector, accumulated investment from January to August amounted to 839 million dollars, a figure 22.4% higher than that achieved in the same period last year.
Performance in the Exploration sector was 476 million dollars of accumulated investment, which meant a minimal rise of 1.2% compared to the same period of 2025, while in the Other sector (construction of dams, resettlement, intangibles, land purchase), accumulated investment totaled 579 million dollars, an increase of 69.5% compared to last year.
The southern Andean region of Arequipa is the main destination for mining investment in the country between January and August 2026 with 789 million dollars, equivalent to 16.4% of the national total.
It is followed by the also southern Ica with 648 million dollars (13.5%) and Moquegua with 479 million dollars (10%), respectively.
Cyclone Vance intensified this Friday to a Category 2 hurricane, south of the coast of Guerrero state, in the Mexican South Pacific, and is expected to cause rainfall in Michoacán, Guerrero, and Oaxaca, indicated the National Meteorological Service (SMN).
In its most recent report, the SMN specified that at 3:00 p.m. (9:00 p.m. GMT), the meteor was located 685 kilometers south-southwest of Acapulco, Guerrero (south), and 895 kilometers south-southeast of Manzanillo, Colima (west).
Furthermore, it is moving northwest at seven kilometers per hour and presented sustained winds of 165 kilometers per hour and gusts of 205 kilometers per hour.
According to forecasts, Vance could grow to a Category 3 hurricane in the early hours of Saturday.
Due to the circulation of the meteor, the SMN forecasts heavy rains in Michoacán and Guerrero, as well as showers in Oaxaca, and waves of up to three meters high are also expected on the coast of Guerrero.
Given this data, the authorities asked the general population, located in the areas of the states affected by Vance, to take extreme precautions and follow the recommendations issued by the authorities.
Vance formed on Wednesday south of Guerrero and, according to the forecast released then, could reach Category 3 during Saturday, although its predicted trajectory would keep it over the sea, without making landfall in Mexico.
Guerrero registered impacts from intense hurricanes in recent years, such as in October 2023, when Otis made landfall near Acapulco as a Category 5, the highest scale, with sustained winds of 270 kilometers per hour.
While on September 23, 2024, John entered south-southwest of Marquelia, also in Guerrero, as a Category 3 hurricane, with sustained winds of 195 kilometers per hour.
The 2026 tropical cyclone season in the Mexican Pacific began on May 15 and will officially extend until November 30.
According to the balance of the National Water Commission (Conagua), the Pacific has accumulated 20 cyclones: 10 tropical storms, two Category 1 or 2 hurricanes, and eight Category 3 to 5 hurricanes.
The eight major hurricanes, including the last one, Trudy, exceed the five predicted by the authorities, although the total remains within the forecast of between 18 and 21 cyclones.
The Government of Kenya announced a second Ebola death, after the detection of at least nine infections in the country so far, including the index case, a Kenyan citizen who also died and who had traveled from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a country that declared an outbreak last May.
As detailed in a statement late Friday by the Kenyan Ministry of Health, the deceased patient was a 65-year-old woman who was the third confirmed case in Kenyan territory.
“She was a direct contact and close family member of the first (deceased) case and was in quarantine when she developed symptoms on October 13, 2026,” the Ministry explained.
After being admitted to a hospital infectious disease unit and receiving care from specialized medical teams, the woman succumbed to the disease on Friday afternoon.
The Ministry of Health mourns the death of a 65-year-old woman who was receiving care for Bundibugyo Ebola and extends heartfelt condolences to her family, friends and community. Seven patients continue to receive care. All nine cases remain within one cluster, with no evidence… pic.twitter.com/HSWQcC0mck
The Ministry assured that it would facilitate a “safe and dignified burial” for the patient, in accordance with public health protocols.
“This loss raises the number of deaths to two among the nine confirmed cases. The seven remaining patients continue to receive care in the two isolation facilities,” the Executive specified, reiterating that “all cases are part of the same group of known contacts and there is no evidence of community transmission.”
“Her death is a painful reminder that Ebola is a serious disease that can be fatal and that the condition of patients can change suddenly,” the Ministry concluded.
Kenya confirmed its first imported Ebola case on October 5, corresponding to a forty-year-old man who had lived the last seven years in the DRC.
Patient zero received treatment in several Congolese hospitals before traveling by road to Kampala (Uganda’s capital) and, subsequently, flying to Nairobi, where he landed on October 3 and died two days later.
Iran’s President, Masoud Pezeshkian, will travel to Russia to participate next Tuesday in the Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF), which will be held in Moscow, where he will also meet with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
“The President of Iran, during his trip to Russia, in addition to participating in the Summit of Heads of State of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, will meet with his Russian counterpart,” stated this Saturday the Iranian ambassador to Russia, Kazem Yalali, to the Tasnim agency.
According to the diplomat, both presidents will exchange views on geopolitical, international, and political issues. Also, according to Yalali, they will address economic and trade cooperation, energy security, food security, and the development of trade relations.
🇮🇷🇷🇺 Iran’s Pezeshkian to meet Putin in Moscow to discuss economic and trade cooperation, envoy says. pic.twitter.com/T94coAfgX6
“Never in our history have Iran and Russia worked as closely as they do now,” said last Tuesday the Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araqchi, a day after the visit of his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, to Tehran.
During that visit, both ministers addressed, among other issues, the situation in the Middle East and advocated for diplomacy as a way out of the war that began last February 28 between Iran and the United States and Israel.
The last bilateral meeting between Pezeshkian and Putin took place last October 8 in the city of Avaza, in western Turkmenistan, within the framework of the summit of leaders of the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
Iran and Russia have strengthened their relations in recent years, especially after the start of the war in Ukraine, and in 2025 they signed a strategic partnership agreement.
At least one person died this Saturday due to a fire that ravaged five temporary businesses in the city of Noida, a major industrial and residential area bordering New Delhi, police reported.
“Firefighters responded quickly, evacuated the stores, and completely extinguished the fire with six vehicles. During the incident, one person was found unconscious and immediately sent to the hospital for treatment, where doctors declared them dead,” the Gautam Buddh Nagar Police Headquarters (district to which Noida belongs) stated in a post on X.
— POLICE COMMISSIONERATE GAUTAM BUDDH NAGAR (@noidapolice) October 24, 2026
Police officials went to the scene of the incident, located in the Raipur area, to begin investigations and take appropriate legal action.
Images released through social media show a dense column of smoke rising from the scene and how flames quickly engulfed the structures, spreading from one business to another.
Although initial reports from local media mentioned the sound of gas cylinders exploding during the blaze, this detail has not yet been confirmed by authorities, who currently do not know the exact cause of the fire or the full extent of the damage.
The European Union has continued its scientific cooperation with Israeli firms and institutions implicated in genocide and apartheid throughout Israel’s three-year old assault on Gaza. Such complicity must stop.
Israel has been associated with the €95.5bn Horizon Europe research and innovation programme (2021-2027), and, according to the European Commission’s detailed Horizon dashboard, the EU’s net contribution to Israel amounts to €1.02bn.
While much of the funding supports legitimate research, the programme also channels substantial resources to Israeli universities and companies, some closely connected to Israel’s military and security apparatus.
Pointing to just such EU-Israel collaboration, Francesca Albanese’s UN report “From economy of occupation to economy of genocide” published last year, estimated EU research funding to Israeli entities at over €2.12bn since 2014.
Horizon Europe funds collaborative projects and European Research Council grants.
But it is the European Innovation Council (EIC) and schemes which include the EIC Accelerator, the EIC STEP Scale-up and the Scaleup Europe Fund which are especially relevant to the question of EU complicity in Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza.
Horizon Europe is formally limited to civilian research, but Israeli companies with links to Israel’s military and security establishment have received funding through these schemes.
In March 2026, for example, members of the European Parliament tabled a written parliamentary question asking the European Commission specifically about such companies including Sightec, an Israeli drone-navigation firm that received almost €2.5m through the EIC Accelerator and whose chief executive has described its technology as “combat-proven and deployed on over 3,000 drones in critical missions”.
The issue is not confined to overtly military applications. EU-funded civilian technologies can also serve Israel’s settler-colonial project.
Should European public money finance, for example, orange-harvesting robots that help Israel manage what it euphemistically calls a “labour shortage” in settlements built on occupied Palestinian land?
The EIC also goes beyond grants. Through the EIC fund, the EU can take equity in companies it supports; the new Scaleup Europe Fund is explicitly designed to make direct equity investments in strategic technology firms, and is open to companies based in countries associated with Pillar III of Horizon Europe, including Israel.
The EU can therefore not only subsidise Israeli technology firms but also acquire a financial stake in them and potentially profit from their future growth.
And it could get worse.
The EIC’s 2026 work programme expands the type of projects that can be funded by including ‘dual use’ applications that are both civilian and military.
This opens the door for the EU to fund nuclear-related Israeli projects although Israel is not a member of the European Atomic Energy community (Euratom).
But none of this is inevitable.
Next EU budget and credibility at stake
Israel’s association with the current Horizon Europe programme runs only until 2027 and the shape and scale of the EU’s next Horizon programme will be decided during ongoing negotiations on the bloc’s seven-year Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF).
There are also clear signs that Israel is likely to participate in the next Horizon programme (2028-2034).
Only a few weeks ago, Ekaterina Zaharieva, European commissioner for startups, research and innovation, met with the head of the Israel Space Agency, Shimrit Mama.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and her team must ask themselves if the EU should be building an innovation architecture in which Israeli firms and state institutions, which are already deeply integrated into Israel’s military-industrial ecosystem, could receive European support for technologies explicitly framed as dual-use or defence-related.
Are they comfortable with funding companies that help develop the type of violent technologies described in the award-winning documentary NAZA, which exposes the systems and AI technology used during the military campaign in Gaza?
Audience members hold signs supporting Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor’s documentary Naza after it wins the European Film Audience Award at the 74th San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain, 26 September 2026 (Source: EPA/JUAN HERRERO)
Last year, under public pressure, von der Leyen proposed a partial suspension of Israel’s participation in Horizon Europe by specifically excluding Israeli entities from new EIC Accelerator grants and investment support.
The proposal was modest: it would have affected future funding only, not existing agreements, and covered roughly 20 percent of EU financial flows to Israel under the programme.
It required a qualified majority in the Council but did not secure the necessary votes. It is, however, technically “still on the table”, according to commissioner Zaharieva.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Navi Pillay concluded in 2025 that Israel’s actions have “consistently pointed toward a singular, harrowing objective – the destruction of Palestinian life in Gaza”.
The EU has done little so far to stop the genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in the occupied West Bank, and arguably – through trade and weapons’ exports – is actually contributing to it.
Now the EU faces a clear choice. It can continue to fund, co-invest in and deepen research ties with an Israeli innovation sector increasingly oriented towards dual-use and defence technologies.
Or it can stand with the winner of the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize, draw a line and decide that there will be no Israeli participation in the next Horizon programme, no EU equity in Israeli firms, and no public money for technologies that may be used to sustain genocide, occupation, surveillance and war.
The credibility of the EU and the values it proclaims depends on the choice it makes.
Lisboa, Porto, Braga e Aveiro atraem centros tecnológicos e de serviços partilhados de multinacionais. Mas parte da nossa proposta de valor depende de fazer por menos o que outros fazem por mais.
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