At least twenty people have been killed in two assassination attacks by US unmanned aerial vehicles in central Yemen, where al-Qaeda militants have been locked in deadly clashes with fighters from the Shia Houthi Ansarullah movement. ● Tribal sources and witnesses said on Tuesday that the overnight drone raids targeted suspected al-Qaeda positions near the town of Rada’, situated 130 kilometers (85 miles) southeast of the capital, Sana’a. The US military launched a similar attack in the same area on October 26, killing at least a dozen people. On October 25, three people were killed when a US drone fired several missiles at "suspected al-Qaeda militants" in the Manasseh area of Yemen’s central province of al-Bayda.

Tomas Hirst ■ Last week, Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's deputy prime minister in charge of the defence industry and prominent nationalist, released a letter on Twitter purportedly from French arms industry company DCNS regarding the sale of the Mistral class ships. The letter states that the handover ceremony of the Vladivostok would take place on 14 November in Saint-Nazaire and includes:

• Signing of the transfer of ownership and delivery act.
• Hoisting of the Russian Federation colours.
• A military ceremony on the flight deck.

You might have thought that this would be the end of the saga. The invitation to the ceremony had gone out, and been made public. Yves Destefanis, a project director responsible for delivering the Mistral helicopter carrier to Russia, may even have had similar thoughts. Instead, Destefanis lost his job after Michel Sapin, the French Finance Minister, reasserted that the "conditions today have not been met to deliver the Mistral". So where are we now? Frankly, we have no idea. The EU and the US are going to continue to pressure France to hold onto the ships. France is going to continue to claim that it's allowed to sell them but do nothing about it. Russia is going to get increasingly angry that they've paid for them, are technically allowed to receive them and yet are having to view their ship from afar. And the Vladivostok is going to extend its quiet stay in Saint-Nazaire.

Latandra Ellington had weathered some of Lowell Correctional Institution’s harshest and most primitive realities, and was just seven months shy of freedom — and being reunited with her four young children. But on Sept. 21, Ellington wrote a chilling letter to her aunt telling her she feared she wouldn’t make it out alive. One of the officers at the prison — she identified him as “Sgt. Q” — had threatened to beat and kill her, she wrote.

“He was gone [sic] beat me to death and mess me like a dog,’’ she wrote. “He was all in my face Sqt. Q then he grab his radio and said he was gone bust me in my head with it...’’

Ten days later, on Oct. 1, Ellington, 36, was dead. Corrections officials said Ellington, who had been serving 22 months for grand theft, was in confinement — separated from the general population — at the time of her death because the agency had taken her family’s concerns about the alleged threats “seriously.’’ Still, with no answers about how the death happened, the family hired an attorney and paid for a private autopsy. The autopsy, their lawyer said Monday, showed that Ellington suffered blunt-force trauma to her abdomen consistent with being punched and kicked in the stomach.

An American political commentator has described the United States as a corporate propaganda state, which has been taken over by corporations. ● Michael Zezima, famously known as Mickey Z., who is a writer, editor, blogger and novelist living in New York City, made the remarks in a phone interview with Press TV on Monday. “There’s much debate in this country about whether the media is liberal or conservative, and many believe it’s liberal. I say that the media are as liberal or as conservative are the corporations that own them, because the major media outlets are either large corporations in and of themselves or they are owned by and aligned with other large corporations,” Mickey Z. said. He added that media outlets “represent the interests of these corporate owners, and it would not be in their best interests to present information that challenges the dominant narrative.”

A new shocking video has emerged online showing the ISIL Takfiri terrorists negotiating about the price of captured girls from Iraq’s minority Izadi community at a “slave market.” ● “Today is the slave market day,” an ISIL terrorist tells the audience during the video clip, adding that each militant will get “his share.” The footage also shows Takfiri terrorists, who are believed to be Saudi nationals because of their accents, discussing how much an Izadi girl with green or blue eyes is worth.

The Independent: Isis fighters barter over Yazidi girls on 'slave market day' - the shocking video
PressTV: ISIL militants to face defeat in Syria: Nasrallah

Two Air Force nuclear commanders have been fired, with a third facing disciplinary measures, after the service cited a “loss of confidence” in their ability to lead their units, once again drawing attention to troubles within the US nuclear corps. ● The terminations come as the Air Force continues to reckon with leadership problems. Earlier this year, nine nuclear commanders were fired in connection to a test-cheating scandal, which implicated dozens of missile launch officers. Col. Carl Jones, the No. 2 commander of the 90th Missile Wing at F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming, was the most high-profile of the two commanders to be dismissed on Monday. Jones was responsible for 150 Minuteman 3 nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles – the Air Force has 450 total – but his superiors determined there was “a loss of trust and confidence in his leadership abilities." According to Air Force Global Strike Command spokesman Lt. Col. John Sheets, Jones displayed conduct unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman, as well as mistreatment of those below his rank.