Axios reports US presidential envoy Witkoff will deliver a peace plan to Russian President Putin after meeting with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy.

China's National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) on Oct. 19 met to advance its AI + drug regulation agenda, directing regulators to set rules, steady expectations, enhance services and build an AI-enabled ecosystem to support pharmaceutical innovation. The NMPA said it will draft special plans to back priority tracks, shift review services upstream toward innovators, and create an innovation-encouraging yet prudently risk-aware regulatory environment; it called for using AI to improve drug-safety governance—making reviews smarter, inspections and enforcement more precise, risk controls more sensitive and coordinated supervision more efficient—and for establishing a full-lifecycle, continuously iterated AI application management mechanism, centralizing resources, training specialist talent, promoting technology-for-good and safeguarding AI security standards.

Sources say Oman will offer LNG on DES (direct export) terms for delivery to Asian destinations in late Nov–early Dec; tender deadline Oct 20.