Ukraine battles to reconnect millions in the cold and dark

Ukraine battled to get water and power to millions of people cut off after Russia launched dozens of cruise missiles that battered the country's already crippled electricity grid.

The energy system in Ukraine is on the brink of collapse and millions have endured emergency blackouts over recent weeks.

The World Health Organization has warned of "life-threatening" consequences and estimated that millions could leave their homes as a result. "The situation with electricity remains difficult in almost all regions," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said. "However, we are gradually moving away from blackoutsevery hour we return power to new consumers."

More than 24 hours after Russian strikes smashed Kyiv, mayor Vitali Klitschko said that 60 percent of homes in the capital were still suffering emergency outages. Water services had been fully restored however, said city officials.

But the shelling had killed seven people at Vyshgorod, on the outskirts of the city, said Oleksiy Kuleba, head of the Kyiv Regional Military Administration. And a fresh round of strikes killed at least four people in the southern city of Kherson, recently recaptured by Ukraine, said a senior official there.

The latest attacks on the power grid come with winter setting in and temperatures in the capital hovering just above freezing.

The western region of Khmelnytsky was one of the worst affected by power outages, with just 35 percent of its normal capacity, but that was enough to connect critical infrastructure, according to Serhii Hamaliy, the head of the regional administration.

About 300,000 residents in the eastern Kharkiv region, near the border with Russia, were still without power evening, but electricity supply had been restored for nearly 70 percent of consumers, said Oleh Synehubov of the regional military administration.

South Korea's corporate bond sale almost halved last month due to higher interest rates and lingering worries about credit crunch, financial watchdog data showed.

The issuance of corporate bonds amounted to 8.3 trillion won (6.1 billion U.S. dollars) in October, down 49.5 percent from the previous month, according to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS). The sharp slide was driven by rapid interest rate hikes. The country's central bank has hiked its key rate since August last year from a record low of 0.5 percent to 3.25 percent.

Concerns lingered over credit crunch following the belated pledge to repay bonds, sold by a local insurer and a local governmentbacked real estate developer. Bonds, sold by financial companies, dropped 54.7 percent from a month earlier to 6 trillion won (4.4 billion dollars) in October, while industrial companies-issued bonds gained 21.7 percent to 1.39 trillion won (1 billion dollars).

Colombia's government and the National Liberation Army (ELN), the last recognized rebel group in the country, resumed formal peace talks in Venezuela Monday for the first time since they were suspended in 2019.

The talks are a push by President Gustavo Petro, who in August became Colombia's firstever leftist leader, and has vowed a less bellicose approach to ending violence wrought by armed groups, including leftist guerrillas and drug traffickers. In their first meeting, the parties agreed to "resume the dialogue process with full political and ethical will," according to a joint statement.