Following is a summary of current world news briefs.

Ukraine demands action as separatists keep OSCE monitors prisoner in hotel

Europe’s main security watchdog said its monitors of the conflict in eastern Ukraine were prevented from leaving their hotel by Russian-backed separatists who are seeking the release of an officer held by Kyiv’s forces. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said late on Sunday that the vehicle gates of its patrol base in the separatist-controlled town of Horlivka had been locked with a chain and padlock.

Tigrayan forces accuse government of air strikes in Ethiopia’s Mekelle

Media controlled by rebellious northern Ethiopian forces said the government launched air strikes on the capital of Tigray region on Monday, though the government denied the reports. Tigrai TV, controlled by the northern region’s Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), said the attack on the city of Mekelle killed several civilians. An aid worker and a doctor in the region also said there had been a attack on the city.

Lebanon’s Amal group says goal of violence was to revive internal strife

Lebanon’s Shi’ite Amal movement said on Monday last week’s street violence in Beirut aimed to reignite internal strife and threaten civil peace. On Thursday, seven people were killed in Beirut as crowds headed for a protest called by Amal and its Iranian-backed ally Hezbollah.

Thousands of migrant workers in Kashmir moved to secure locations, hundreds flee

Indian authorities have moved thousands of migrant workers in Kashmir to safer locations overnight, while hundreds have fled the Himalayan valley after a wave of targeted killings, two security officials said on Monday. Suspected militants have killed eleven civilians, including five migrant workers, in Kashmir since early October despite a widespread security crackdown in the heavily militarised region.

U.S. watching China’s weapons development, Austin says, after hypersonic missile report

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Monday Washington was closely watching China’s development of advanced weapons systems, while declining to comment directly on a report that Beijing had tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile. The Chinese foreign ministry denied the report in the Financial Times newspaper, which said Beijing had launched a rocket in July carrying a hypersonic glide weapon. Beijing said it was a space vehicle, not a missile.

U.S. missionaries kidnapped in Haiti as gangs grow more brazen

A U.S. Christian aid organization on Sunday said a group of its missionaries had been kidnapped in Haiti, a further sign the Caribbean nation’s gangs are growing increasingly brazen amid political and economic crises. The group was in Haiti to visit an orphanage when their bus was hijacked on Saturday outside the capital Port-au-Prince, according to accounts by other missionaries, amid a spike in kidnappings following the murder of President Jovenel Moise.

Russia shuts mission to NATO in row over spying

Russia said on Monday it would halt the activities of its diplomatic mission to NATO after the Western military alliance expelled eight Russians in a row over spying. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that in return, staff at NATO’s military mission in Moscow would be stripped of their accreditation from Nov. 1, and that the alliance’s information office in the Russian capital would be shuttered.

Olympics-Protest disrupts Beijing Games torch-lighting ceremony

Human rights activists unfurled a banner reading “No Genocide Games”, waved a Tibetan flag and called for a boycott of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics during the torch-lighting ceremony on Monday. Two women and a man sneaked past a tight police cordon and entered the archaeological site of the ancient Greek stadium and temple where the Olympic flame is traditionally lit and which had been sealed off for days.

Analysis-Echoing the opposition, Japan’s Kishida woos voters with Abenomics critique

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is seeking to steal opposition thunder at this month’s general election by mimicking their criticism of predecessor Shinzo Abe’s “Abenomics” , promising to shrink income gaps and bolster the middle class. Kishida, who served as foreign minister under Abe, could help his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) limit losses in the Oct. 31 poll by blurring differences to the opposition by calling for a “new capitalism” that would spread the benefits of growth.

EU has exported over 1 billion COVID-19 vaccines, von der Leyen says

More than a billion COVID-19 vaccines produced in the European Union have been exported since December 2020, making the bloc the biggest exporter of the shots, European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen said on Monday. The vaccines had gone to more than 150 countries, and the EU had exported as many doses as it had distributed to its own citizens, von der Leyen added in a statement.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)