Top News Stories –

Facebook launches music sharing app called Music Stories –
Facebook has announced a new post format which allows people to listen to the first 30 seconds of a song shared on the site. It will be called Music Stories and Facebook says it is aimed at “enabling better music discovery and sharing”. The previews will be streamed from Spotify and Apple Music and fans can link through to buy or save the music. [BBC Newsbeat]
Facebook Music share tweet

Facebook ‘takes on Apple’s News with news app Notify’ –
Facebook will launch its own news aggregator app featuring stories drawn from numerous media partners next week, according to reports. The standalone new app, reported to be called Notify, will act as a direct rival to Apple’s News app, which recently launched in the UK. The social network has partnered with publishers including the BBC, the New York Times and NBC, according to the Financial Times. Users can subscribe to specific news organisations and receive notifications once stories are published. Reports first emerged the social network had been testing the app over the summer. [Daily Telegraph]

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Armed conflicts and attacks

• Syrian Civil War
  • Syrian Kurdish–Islamist conflict (2013–present)
    • Canada‘s Department of Foreign Affairs says it’s aware of reports that a Canadian national, John Robert Gallagher, has died while fighting in Syria. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, John Robert Gallagher was killed while fighting alongside the Syrian Democratic Forces against Islamic State militants in the northeast Al-Hasakah Governorate. (CBC News)
  • Syrian rebels seize control of Murak, a town located north of the city of Hama on a strategic highway that is crucial to control of western Syria, following clashes with pro-government forces. Murak was the scene of heavy fighting last year when government forces took control of the town in October 2014. (Reuters)
  • Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War
    • Russia sends antiaircraft missile systems to Syria, where more than 50 Russian aircraft are stationed and its bombing campaign in support of the Assad regime has been in progress since late September. (Radio Free Europe)
• Military intervention against ISIL
  • British Prime Minister David Cameron, under pressure from Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and the Foreign Affairs Committee, will not ask for a vote by Parliament to join the U.S. airstrikes in Syria. (Military.com)
  • France announces that it will deploy its aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle to the eastern Mediterranean to boost its efforts against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Iraq and Syria. (Independent)

Disasters and accidents

• Minas Gerais dam disaster
  • An iron ore tailings dam bursts in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais flooding a valley, causing mudslides in the nearby village of Bento Rodrigues and causing up to 17 deaths and 45 missing. The dam is operated by Samarco Mineração, a joint venture between BHP Billiton and Vale. (Bloomberg), (Reuters via SBS Australia), (AFP via Yahoo! News), (Al Jazeera English)

Law and crime

• European migrant crisis
  • Greek police say they came under fire on the country’s northeastern border with Turkey during the arrest of two suspected migrant smugglers who had just ferried 22 people across the Evros river that runs along the Greek-Turkish border. (AP via New Europe)
• NetCracker and Computer Sciences Corporation agree to pay fines amounting to over $12 million, settling a Justice Department investigation into the firms’ sub-contracting of computer coding work to Russian sources. The programs were subsequently installed on secure U.S. government computer networks. (The Daily Beast)
• University of California, Merced stabbing attack
  • The Merced County Sheriff identifies the attacker of four students at the University of California, Merced as freshman Faisal Mohammad. (Merced Sun Star)

Politics and elections

• Belizean general election, 2015
  • Belizean Prime Minister Dean Barrow wins a record third term in Wednesday’s snap general election in the Central American nation as his United Democratic Party (UDP) gains a clear majority in parliament. The UDP won 19 constituencies and Francis Fonseca’s People’s United Party (PUP) took 10, with two constituencies yet to report. Belize is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy with Queen Elizabeth II, the symbolic head of state. (Reuters) (Newsweek)
• The President of the Maldives, Abdulla Yameen, declares a state of emergency suspending civil rights and giving sweeping powers to security forces. (The Guardian)
  • The United States, Amnesty International, and the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), the country’s main opposition party, sharply criticize the state of emergency, concerned it might lead to a new crackdown on dissent. MDP had scheduled a protest rally for this Friday, demanding the release of its jailed leader, and former Maldivian President, Mohamed Nasheed. The government order cancels that action. (Washington Post) (AP via U.S. News & World Report)
• Myanmar general election, 2015
  • Myanmar opposition leader and Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi says she would be “above the president” if her National League for Democracy party (NLD) gets the expected win in the Sunday, November 8, 2015, election. The 2008 constitution, drafted by the military without NLD participation, bars her from becoming President. (Reuters) (Time)

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