Global Express | October 25, 2026: France Arrests More Than 1,300 as Protests Spread Across Europe

1. France: more than 1,300 arrested as protests sweep the country

Source: BBC

Hundreds of thousands of people joined another day of protests across France on Saturday over the cost of living and poor school conditions. The interior ministry estimated 410,000 participants nationwide, while unions put the figure at about 800,000. The marches were largely peaceful before clashes broke out in Paris, Marseille and Bordeaux, where police used tear gas and water cannon.

In Paris, a march from Porte d'Italie to Porte de Vincennes ended in confrontations: protesters built makeshift barricades and threw projectiles at officers, who charged masked youths smashing the windows of a car dealership. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said "several thousand radical activists" had gathered at the rear of the march, including around 500 people identified as rioters. Police made 142 arrests in the capital, less than half the number on the same day a week earlier.

More than 1,300 arrests were reported nationwide and 53 officers were injured. Two people were seriously hurt, one in Toulouse and one in Clermont-Ferrand; a 20-year-old protester in Toulouse lost several fingers when a nearby explosive went off. Bins were set alight in Marseille and boards torn from a shop in Bordeaux. Protests also took place in Barcelona, Tirana, Brussels and Milan.

President Emmanuel Macron decreed this week that only demonstrations organised by recognised trade unions would be permitted, and hundreds of people have been jailed after fast-track hearings. Last weekend's demonstrations drew about 550,000 people, with more than 2,500 arrests and over 2,000 businesses affected.

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2. Serbia votes in snap election as veteran leader faces student movement

Source: Al Jazeera

Serbia held snap parliamentary elections on Sunday, with polls opening at 7am local time and closing at 8pm. Longtime leader Aleksandar Vucic is facing the Student List movement born out of mass student protests. Vucic resigned as president in September to run again for prime minister, and his Progressive Party led in pre-election polling.

The election follows nearly two years of student-led demonstrations triggered by the deaths of 16 people when a train station canopy collapsed in Novi Sad in 2024. The movement's 250 candidates are mostly university professors, actors and farmers, led by cardiologist Ilija Srdanovic, and campaign on rooting out corruption and rebuilding institutions.

The country has about six million people. A defeat for Vucic would mark a profound political shift in the Balkans, reminiscent of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's loss in April. About 150,000 supporters of the student movement rallied in Belgrade on Thursday, and analysts say turnout will be decisive.

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3. Houthis strike Saudi Arabia and Aden as fighting escalates around Taiz

Source: Al Jazeera

Yemen's transport ministry on Saturday condemned Houthi attacks on Aden international airport with two ballistic missiles, calling it the fourth such attack this month and warning of the threat to civil aviation and to civilians who rely on the airport. Authorities said the coastguard headquarters and a second building were also hit.

The Saudi-led coalition said on Sunday it intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile launched toward Riyadh. A day earlier, Saudi civil defence said it had intercepted two missiles fired toward Mecca and Medina and warned of falling shrapnel. The Houthis denied targeting the two holy cities, saying their targets were three Saudi airports, oil infrastructure and an airbase.

Riyadh's international airport said flights would resume on Sunday after a two-week closure caused by Houthi strikes. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree responded that the airport remains "unsafe" and a "military target".

In Taiz, Yemen's army said it carried out more than 700 "targeting operations" in 24 hours and "neutralised" 300 Houthi fighters, figures Al Jazeera could not independently verify. Houthi fighters have been attacking from the western, eastern and southern fronts in an effort to capture Yemen's third-largest city.

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4. Fire engulfs Hitler's Eagle's Nest; 33-year-old suspect arrested

Source: Fox News

A fire broke out at the Kehlsteinhaus, known as the Eagle's Nest, in the Bavarian Alps on Friday evening, and firefighters battled the flames in strong winds. Police arrested a 33-year-old German suspect who showed signs of mental illness and was taken to a psychiatric facility. Authorities have not ruled out a political motive.

The suspect was reportedly seen heading down the mountain on a motorcycle. The building sits more than 6,000 feet above sea level, is reached by an elevator during the day and has operated as a seasonal restaurant and tourist attraction since 1952, with an exhibit on its history. No injuries were reported.

Bavaria's interior minister, Joachim Herrmann, said at the site: "We're not going to leave a ruin there," adding that "it is important that we continue to do the work of remembrance." The Eagle's Nest was built in 1938; Hitler rarely used it, and his Berghof residence in the same area was blown up after the war.

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5. Trump announces Audi will build a $4 billion plant in Georgia

Source: DW

Speaking at a campaign rally in Perry, Georgia, on Saturday, US President Donald Trump announced that German automaker Audi will build a $4 billion (€3.77 billion) assembly plant in the state, producing 200,000 SUVs a year. He credited his tariff policies for the decision, noting that tariffs cost Audi €1.2 billion ($1.4 billion) last year.

Audi confirmed the plan but said construction will begin next year, with production starting in the early 2030s. A US official told Reuters the plant will assemble the Audi Q7, Q8 and Q9 SUVs, and the company said the investment will create about 4,500 jobs.

The announcement comes as Trump tries to boost Republican candidates in the battleground state ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. Republicans are bracing for losses amid rising prices and the ongoing war in Iran.

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6. Berkshire shares hit record highs as investors flee AI hype

Source: CNBC

Berkshire Hathaway shares set fresh record highs this week, fully erasing the losses suffered after Warren Buffett announced in May 2025 that he would step down as CEO at the end of that year. On Thursday, Class A shares closed at $820,500 and Class B at $546.97, both records, before slipping almost 1% on Friday.

On May 2, 2025, the A shares closed at $809,350 and the B shares at $539.80. On the next trading day after Buffett's announcement, the A shares fell 4.9% and the B shares 5.1%. The stock later dropped more than 14% from its highs for the year before rallying 18%.

Since the start of October, the B shares have gained almost 9%, far outpacing a 0.4% decline in the S&P 500 and a nearly 4.8% drop for the NYSE Fang+ index of 10 megacap tech names. With more than $350 billion in cash and equivalents and close to $50 billion in annual after-tax earnings, Berkshire has been described as "the ultimate anti-AI play".

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7. Aung San Suu Kyi 'sounds strong' but is isolated, her son says

Source: The Guardian

Kim Aris, son of Myanmar's ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi, said he spoke with his 81-year-old mother by phone at Myanmar's embassy in London on Thursday, the first such call in more than five years. "She still sounds certainly all there mentally, and physically she sounds strong," he said, but added that she appears to be in near-complete isolation, with only military or police around her.

Aris said he is still unsure exactly where she is held, believing it to be a fenced residence with a patch of scrubby land in Naypyidaw. He described the call as part of a "public relations" campaign by the military leadership. She was photographed during a Red Cross visit in August, and last week officials published images of her smiling as she received two gardening books sent by Britain's King Charles.

Myanmar's 2021 coup triggered a civil war that has killed more than 100,000 people, according to conflict monitors. Aris said his mother has been held for five years on "trumped-up, politically motivated charges" and "should be free". He also said international attention to her has "dwindled incredibly" since the Rohingya crisis, while the whole country suffers from a lack of global focus.

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8. Besieged Yemeni city of Taiz runs short of drinking water

Source: NPR

Taiz, Yemen's third-largest city, is under siege by Houthi rebels and its drinking water crisis has reached emergency levels in recent weeks. Aid groups say the needs of the city's more than one million residents are barely being met: access to wells is limited, desalination plants are short of fuel and water delivery trucks are largely prevented from entering.

Resident Hadil al-Shahid said that before the siege she and her two young children used about 10 liters of bottled water a day for drinking and cooking; now the same amount has to last about four days. "We stopped drinking coffee and tea," she said. Families are paying as much as 75% more for bottled water than a few weeks ago, and some have started buying on credit.

The siege has also sent food prices soaring, while fuel shortages make it hard to maintain hospitals and sanitation. Amnesty International has called on the Houthis to open roads into the city immediately, saying Taiz is being pushed to "the brink of a severe humanitarian disaster". Taiz has been a focal point of fighting since Yemen's civil war began in 2014.

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9. Personalized mRNA vaccine cuts melanoma recurrence risk by 42%

Source: WIRED

Merck and Moderna have released results from a Phase 3 trial showing that a personalized mRNA vaccine, combined with immunotherapy, reduced the risk of melanoma recurrence or death by 42% compared with immunotherapy alone. The trial, known as INTerpath-001, enrolled 1,137 people with high-risk melanoma that had been surgically removed.

Participants received either pembrolizumab alone or pembrolizumab plus the mRNA vaccine, called Intismeran Autogene. After an average follow-up of 24.6 months, the combination reduced the risk of the disease spreading elsewhere by 38%. At the end of the follow-up, 82.2% of patients on the combination remained recurrence-free, compared with 70% on immunotherapy alone.

The vaccine is tailored to each patient's tumor sample, with up to three molecular signatures selected per person. Reported side effects included fever, fatigue and injection-site pain. The companies stressed that the vaccine is designed to reduce the risk of recurrence and death, not to prevent melanoma, and it is still awaiting regulatory approval. Melanoma kills more than 50,000 people worldwide each year.

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10. Russia and Ukraine set synchronized ceasefire in Oleshky; talks planned for early November

Source: Hangzhou News (via CCTV News)

Russia and Ukraine announced on October 24 that they will observe a synchronized ceasefire in Oleshky, in the Kherson region, starting October 27 to support a humanitarian operation. Russia's truce begins at 4am Moscow time and Ukraine's at 3am Kyiv time, the same moment. Oleshky lies on the left bank of the Dnipro, across the river from the Ukrainian-held city of Kherson.

In a video address on October 24, President Volodymyr Zelensky said the sides had agreed on the humanitarian operation in Oleshky and wanted it implemented quickly to open corridors for aid deliveries and civilian evacuations. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed on October 23 that a new round of trilateral talks involving Russia, the United States and Ukraine is planned for early November in Abu Dhabi.

Positions on core political issues remain unchanged. Zelensky said Ukraine is ready to end the conflict as soon as possible but rejected a proposal to give up 25% of its territory, noting that Russian forces currently control about 19.3% of Ukrainian territory. In an interview broadcast on October 22, President Vladimir Putin stressed that any talks would focus on security arrangements after a final peace agreement, not a "short" ceasefire.

Sun Zhuangzhi, director of the Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the Oleshky area is not the current focus of fighting, but a durable truce there could serve as a reference for a wider ceasefire, although substantive breakthroughs on key issues remain unlikely.

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