1. Philippines declares battle over in Marawi The Philippines announced on Monday the end to five months of military operations in a southern city held by pro-Islamic State rebels after a fierce and unfamiliar urban war that has marked the country’s biggest security crisis in years. Offensive* combat operations were terminated* after troops prevailed in what was the last stand against rebel gunmen who clung* on the inside of several buildings in the heart of Marawi and refused to surrender. 2. 54 Egyptian policemen killed in ambush At least 54 policemen, including 20 officers and 34 conscripts, were killed when a raid on a militant hideout* southwest of Cairo was ambushed*, officials said on Saturday. The ensuing firefight was one of the deadliest for Egyptian security forces in recent years. The Security Council underlined the need to bring perpetrators*, organizers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible* acts of terrorism to justice. 3. Malaysian construction site landslide kills 11 Eleven foreign workers were killed in a landslide at a construction site in northwest Malaysia on Saturday, authorities said. Estimates had put the George Town death toll at 14, but three workers had managed to escape said Ervin Galen Teruki, deputy operations head of the Fire and Rescue Department in Penang state. A seventh body was found on Sunday morning. Fire officials earlier identified the victims as foreign workers from Indonesia, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Pakistan. The construction site supervisor, a Malaysian, remains missing. 4. Thaksin’s son charged The only son of fugitive former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has been formally charged with money laundering, the country’s Department of Special Investigations said on October 18. Panthongtae Shinawatra is accused of receiving a 10 million baht* (US$300,000) check in 2004 related to an earlier corruption case involving 9.9 billion baht of fraudulent loans extended by the state-owned Krungthai Bank when his father was prime minister. 5. Forces take Syria’s largest oil field from IS U.S.-backed fighters captured Syria’s largest oil field from the Islamic State (IS) on Sunday, marking a major defeat for the extremists in an area coveted* by pro-government forces. With IS in retreat, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and the Syrian Government have been in a race to secure parts of the oil-rich Deir el-Zour province along the border with Iraq.(SD-Agencies) ? | 