SERBIA: Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic denounced a “campaign of lies” against his country today when denying reports of a military build-up along the border with Kosovo.

Kosovo’s government said on Saturday that it was monitoring the movements of the Serbian military from “three different directions” and urged Serbia to immediately pull back its troops and demilitarise the border area.

But Mr Vucic said: “They have lied a lot about the presence of our military forces.”

NIGERIA: Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu increased the wages of some government workers in last-minute efforts to appease unions planning to take strike action this week.

Low-grade workers will in the next six months be paid an additional 25,000 naira (around £26.60) a month, President Tinubu said today in a nationwide broadcast to mark Nigeria’s 63rd independence anniversary.

UNITED STATES: The threat of a federal government shutdown was lifted late on Saturday as President Joe Biden signed a temporary funding Bill to keep agencies open with little time to spare after Congress rushed to approve the bipartisan deal.

The package, which funds the government until November 17, drops aid to Ukraine, opposed by a growing number of Republican lawmakers, but increases federal disaster assistance by $16 billion (£13bn). 

POLAND:  Opposition leader Donald Tusk told supporters at a huge rally in the Polish capital Warsaw today that political “change for the better is inevitable” as he attempted to boost his political coalition’s chances of unseating the country’s conservative government in the October 15 parliamentary election.