Tunisia
Tunisia's net foreign currency reserves stood at 24.18 billion dinars on 23 October, equivalent to 93 days of import cover, just above the three-month minimum international institutions including the IMF treat as the threshold for balance-of-payments vulnerability, according to the central bank's own daily count. Kapitalis noted the comfortable benchmark is four to six months of cover, well above today's level. Reserves have hovered near the lower threshold for months: the central bank reported 92 days of cover on 28 July, after repaying a 700 million euro Eurobond.
Tunisia's electoral authority ISIE said at a council meeting on Friday that the next legislative elections are expected in November or December 2027, though spokesperson Mohamed Tlili Mnasri stressed the timeframe is indicative with no precise date set. Mnasri said the vote is a known constitutional deadline requiring advance preparation, and that municipal elections could also take place before March 2027 if the political authorities decide to proceed, though no date has been fixed for those either.
Source:
Webdo · Friday, 23 October 2026
Tunisia's state electricity and gas utility STEG took its website offline on 22 October, followed a day later by the Tunisian Technical Cooperation Agency (ATCT), after the disclosure of PHP2Shell, a set of critical vulnerabilities in the PHP programming language that millions of websites run on. Both agencies said the suspension was a precaution to protect user data and systems; neither reported a confirmed breach, and no restoration date has been announced. Similar precautionary shutdowns were reported at government sites elsewhere in the days after the vulnerability's disclosure.
Source:
Webdo · Friday, 23 October 2026
The European Union's delegation in Tunisia said on Saturday, in a statement on its official Facebook page, that it will soon sign a new 80 million euro agreement to support Tunisia's state budget, under a social inclusion programme. EU ambassador Giuseppe Perrone separately told a private radio station that European partners are ready for a "global dialogue and constructive negotiations" with Tunisian authorities to revise the trade rules in the association agreement signed in 1995. He called the EU a historic and reliable partner open to modernising that framework, and pointed to the ELMED power interconnection with Italy as a priority for energy cooperation.
Europe
A gunman opened fire from his car in the Paris suburbs of Trappes and La Verrière on Friday, killing one person and wounding five others, including a 12-year-old girl. The Élysée Palace called it a “racist, terrorist attack” and Trappes mayor Ali Rabeh said it was “objectively racist, probably Islamophobic”; prosecutors opened a terrorism investigation. A 39-year-old suspect was arrested nearby in Coignières carrying a submachine gun and tear-gas grenades.
Source:
Euronews · Friday, 23 October 2026
A drone struck the Comoros-flagged cargo ship Khoryv about 24 kilometres off Romania's Constanța port on Friday morning, setting it ablaze; it later capsized, leaving one of its 13 crew dead, three missing and nine rescued. Romania and the European Commission blamed Russia, with President Nicușor Dan calling it “a new example of the tragic consequences of Russia's aggression against Ukraine” and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen saying she was “deeply alarmed by yet another Russian escalation in the Black Sea.” EU Council President António Costa said such attacks off EU coastlines “are increasing as a consequence of Russia's war.”
Source:
Euronews · Friday, 23 October 2026
The European Union is pushing to turn planned Ukraine-Russia-US talks, expected in the first half of November in Abu Dhabi, from a trilateral format into a multilateral one that includes European representation. Commission deputy spokesperson Arianna Podestà said “there is an expectation that there will be a multilateral-level discussion with representatives at senior official level, and the EU will be present at these talks,” adding the bloc has “always worked to have Ukraine in a position of strength.” The Kremlin's Dmitry Peskov signalled resistance, saying the talks “will take place in a trilateral format,” with the broader peace process stalled since February after US military action against Iran.
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Euronews · Friday, 23 October 2026
A ceasefire covering the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky, on the Dnipro's eastern bank opposite Kherson, is set to begin on 29 October to allow humanitarian aid in and civilians out; before the war the city held some 24,000 people, now down to 1,700–2,000. US First Lady Melania Trump negotiated the terms directly with both sides as what the White House called an “exclusive intermediary,” saying “the situation in Oleshky is dire … a front-line war city on the brink of disaster.” City administrator Tetiana Hasanenko said the planned 25-kilometre evacuation route runs through mined territory, calling it “a road of death.”
Source:
Euronews · Friday, 23 October 2026
