KRAMATORSK, Ukraine (AP) — In a city where damaged buildings are everywhere, a destroyed pizzeria stands out as a painful reminder of lives and livelihoods dashed in an instant.

A Russian ballistic missile struck the popular eatery in eastern Ukraine in June, killing 13 people including an award-winning Ukrainian writer and several teenagers. Seven of the victims were staff.

Today, fresh flowers and notes have been placed where the entrance once was. A T-shirt, part of the waitstaff’s uniform, hangs near the makeshift memorial with the inscription “We will never forget.”

MANILA, Oct 26 (NNN-PNA) – Four people died in a landslide that hit a remote village in Quezon province of the Philippines, a Philippine Air Force spokesperson said, today.

Colonel Ma. Consuelo Castillo, chief of the Philippine Air Force Public Affairs Office, said, bodies of the four buried alive by the landslide that struck the village on Tuesday night were retrieved yesterday.

Local and military officials in the province confirmed the incident, saying the landslide buried five houses at the foot of the mountain.

KYIV, Oct 26 (Reuters) - Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov denied on Thursday reports by Ukrainian and British firms that the new Black Sea export corridor had been suspended.

"The information regarding the cancellation or unscheduled stoppage of the temporary #Ukrainian_corridor for the movement of civilian vessels from and to the ports of the Big Odesa (region) is false," Kubrakov said on X, formerly Twitter.

"All available routes established by the Ukrainian Navy are valid and being used by civilian vessels."

MINSK, October 26. /TASS/: Russia is compelled to resort to compensatory measures given the actions of the United States with respect to European security, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in Minsk at the plenary session of a high-level international conference titled "Eurasian Security: Reality and Prospects in a Transforming World."

MOSCOW, October 26. /TASS/: The Copenhagen meeting on Ukraine set to take place in Malta will be counterproductive, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

"On October 28-29, Malta will host another meeting of the so-called Copenhagen platform, which will involve national security advisors to the leaders of participating countries Clearly, such get-togethers will lead nowhere as they are simply counterproductive," the diplomat noted.

KHARTOUM, Oct 26 (NNN-XINHUA) — The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) announced that their delegations had arrived in Saudi Arabia’s port city of Jeddah to resume a new round of negotiations.

HARARE, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabweans took to the streets on Wednesday to protest against the sanctions imposed on their country by the United States and other Western nations more than two decades ago.

During a campaign in the capital of Harare marking Anti-Sanctions Day, which falls on Oct. 25, Zimbabwean Vice President Constantino Chiwenga said sanctions have significantly hindered Zimbabwe's economic development.

LIMA, Oct 26 (NNN-XINHUA) — At least four people were killed and dozens injured after two passenger buses collided head-on in early morning Wednesday in the southern Peruvian department of Cusco, authorities said.

The accident occurred around 1:30 a.m. local time at kilometer 60 of the Espinar-Cusco roadway in Espinar province, the Superintendence of Ground Transportation of People, Cargo and Goods (Sutran) said in a statement.

One of the buses was traveling the Cusco-Arequipa route and the other was going in the opposite direction when they collided head on.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban have freed an Afghan activist who campaigned for the education of girls, a local nonprofit organization said Thursday. Matiullah Wesa was arrested seven months ago and spent 215 days in prison, according to the group, Pen Path.

Wesa has been outspoken in his demands for girls to have the right to go to school and repeatedly called on the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan to reverse its bans on female education.

BEIJING, Oct 26 (Reuters) - The youngest-ever crew of Chinese astronauts departed for China's space station on Thursday, paving the way for a new generation of "taikonauts" to advance the country's space ambitions in the future.

The spacecraft Shenzhou-17, or "Divine Vessel", and its three passengers lifted off atop a Long March-2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northwest China.

Leading the six-month mission was former air force pilot Tang Hongbo, 48, who was on the first crewed mission to the space station in 2021.

MOSCOW, Oct 26 (Reuters) - A delegation from Hamas visited Moscow on Thursday for talks on the release of foreign hostages including Russian citizens that the militant group is currently holding in Gaza, Russian news agencies reported, citing the foreign ministry.

Senior Hamas member Abu Marzouk was among those attending the talks, TASS reported.

BRATISLAVA, October 26. /TASS/: Newly installed Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said that he will not vote for any new EU sanctions against Russia if they harm Slovakia, the pravda.sk portal reported.

"Fico stressed that he will not vote [for the EU to introduce] any sanctions against the Russian Federation until there is a [documented] analysis of their impact on Slovakia on the table," the portal noted.

"If sanctions bring us [Slovakia] harm, then I don’t see any reason to support them," Fico said, before departing for the EU summit in Brussels.