• Port Sudan and St Petersburg: The Wali of Red Sea State, Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Mohamed Nour Mahmoud, and the Governor of St Petersburg, Alexander Beglov, signed today, Friday, in St Petersburg a twinning agreement between the two cities covering economic and trade cooperation and infrastructure - ports, roads, airports and hospitals - and mining, agriculture, tourism and health, and scholarships for students from Red Sea State, days before the third Russia-Africa summit in Moscow, to which the Sudanese delegation is headed by the Chairman of the Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan (Source: Sudan News Agency - SUNA) • Darfur and Kordofan: New field reports published today tallied the toll of Thursday's drone attacks: at least six civilian dead, including a child, and at least eleven injured, in two attacks on a market in the Arab neighbourhood in El Daein and the Abu Jabra market in East Darfur - two were killed in Abu Jabra and five were injured in the two attacks - and an attack on the Al-Taqula mine in Talodi locality in South Kordofan in which two were killed and six injured, and an attack on a house in central El Rahad in North Kordofan in which two were killed; it was not possible to independently verify the party that carried out the attacks, as local sources attributed the East Darfur attacks to the army while others suggested the Rapid Support Forces were responsible for the El Rahad attack (Source: Darfur24 via eyewitnesses and local sources) • New health funding: The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria approved today emergency funding of $3.47 million to provide diagnostic tools and tuberculosis and malaria medicines in eight Sudanese states affected by the conflict, with a focus on Darfur and Kordofan, including medicines for drug-resistant tuberculosis, 20 portable tuberculosis testing devices, and malaria tests and medicines, to be implemented by the United Nations Development Programme, complementing $1.6 million allocated last March (Source: The Global Fund, October 23) • The United Nations: Secretary-General Antonio Guterres travels today, Friday, to Egypt, where he will discuss with Egyptian officials the situations in neighbouring countries, including Sudan and Libya, and said on the eve of the visit that his message is to stop the expansion of the war, protect civilians and allow space for diplomacy, and stressed, in response to a question about the Geneva consultative meeting on Sudan, the need for countries - those surrounding Sudan or farther away geographically - to stop supplying weapons to those who kill civilians (Source: UN News) • Blue Nile: The Governor of the region, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Al-Omda Badi, visited the command of the Fourth Infantry Division in Damazin and congratulated it on recapturing the Bakori and Aklili areas in Geissan locality and areas in Geissan and Kurmuk localities, and renewed the support of the region's government and its citizens for the Armed Forces, and said: "Soon we will be in Kurmuk, Geissan and Yabus" (Source: Al-Nawras News) • South Kordofan: The Sudanese Mineral Resources Company announced the closure of the last active sites of random fermentation ponds at the Al-Taqula mine in Talodi locality, as part of a campaign to remove mining violations and reduce environmental and health risks, and the head of the company's environment and safety department in the state, chemical engineer Al-Sadiq Sandal, said monitoring will continue to protect the environment and citizens' health, and that the closure paves the way for a transition to organised mining and preparing the area for company investments (Source: Sudanese Mineral Resources Company via Sudan Now) • South Sudan: The Council of Political Parties announced the registration of four pre-election alliances comprising 25 political parties, in preparation for the general elections scheduled for December 22, the first elections since independence (Source: Xinhua News Agency via the Council of Political Parties in South Sudan)

— Editorial Team