Rubio calls Iran peace deal 'extremely difficult' as Hormuz attacks continue

US envoy Steve Witkoff met Putin in St Petersburg and said there was a basis for a ceasefire. Putin freed US citizen Stephen Hubbard, 74; Trump said there was no swap. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said Russia was ready to resume three-way talks in mid-November, possibly in Abu Dhabi, but found little useful in new EU and Ukrainian ideas; Moscow still rejects an energy truce. Zelensky told Fox News he would freeze the front if Ukraine keeps 75% of its territory.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu met trade unions on Wednesday, but the CGT's Sophie Binet said he offered "no measure or acknowledgement" of their demands, and she called for strikes. Curfews applied in central Paris and Lyon. After admitting the security response fell short, Lecornu promised a "massive" police deployment, backed by troops, for Saturday's new demonstrations. More than 3,000 businesses were damaged, and France's 10-year borrowing cost passed 5% for the first time in 24 years.

Saudi Arabia cancelled its 'Davos in the Desert' investor conference over Houthi strikes as Britain sent fighter jets, and Macron made a surprise 'solidarity' stop in Riyadh. Debris from an intercepted drone killed two people at the Shaybah oilfield, and an attack on King Fahd airport in Dammam killed one and hurt eight. The US ordered non-emergency embassy staff and families to leave Saudi Arabia, and Fox reported Trump was weighing strikes on the Houthis.

A massed overnight attack on Korotych in Kharkiv oblast killed an 81-year-old woman and an 83-year-old man, governor Oleh Syniehubov said. Across Ukraine, 186 drones and Iskander-K missiles killed at least nine and wounded 45, including one dead in a Kyiv high-rise. In the evening ballistic missiles hit Kyiv again, and strikes on a Naftogaz gas facility and Dnipro left 30,000 consumers without power. Lockheed Martin officials met Ukrainian officials in Kyiv amid a severe Patriot shortage.

PHP released emergency patches for two critical unauthenticated remote code execution flaws, dubbed PHP2Shell, found with OpenAI models and affecting up to 70% of websites. The NSA urged organisations to take sites offline if they cannot fix them immediately, and several government, school and hospital websites in Europe went dark as organisations rushed to protect themselves. Cloudflare says it deployed default protections for all customers ahead of disclosure.

Nigeria confirmed an Ebola case in its capital, in a woman who arrived from Uganda and is reportedly a diplomat; tests identified the Bundibugyo strain. Nigeria is the fourth African country affected and the most populous yet. Her symptoms began on October 7 and she was admitted to hospital four days later. Health Minister Muhammad Ali Pate said she was stable and in isolation, and authorities were tracing 44 contacts.