BANGKOK, Thailand -- Thailand's government has been given assurances by Hamas that 25 of its nationals held hostage by the Palestinian armed group are "safe", a member of the kingdom's hostage release negotiating team said Thursday. The hostages could be released in days if a ceasefire is agreed...
KIBBUTZ BEERI, Israel -- EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Thursday called for Gaza hostages to be immediately freed, but asked Israel "not to be consumed by rage" in its battle with Hamas militants in the Palestinian territory. "I ask for their immediate and unconditional release," Borrell...
GENEVA, Switzerland -- The UN human rights chief on Thursday decried allegations of serious rights violations in the Israel-Hamas war and suggested an international investigation was needed. Volker Turk said "extremely serious allegations of multiple and profound breaches of international...
SAINT PETERSBURG, Russia -- Russia sentenced artist Alexandra Skochilenko to seven years in prison on Thursday for spreading disinformation about the army after she swapped supermarket price tags with slogans criticising Russia's offensive in Ukraine. Russian artist Alexandra Skochilenko, 33,...
ANKARA, Turkey - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday called Israel a "terror state", stepping up his condemnation of the spiraling civilian toll of its war against Hamas militants in Gaza. Erdogan's latest -- and one of the most heated -- verbal attacks against Israel came two...
KYIV, Ukraine - Russia said Wednesday for the first time that some Ukrainian troops had established positions on the Moscow-held side of the Dnipro river, the vast waterway that splits the frontline in southern Ukraine. The admission came as President Volodymyr Zelensky said it had been a...
BRUSSELS, Belgium - European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will visit Egypt and Jordan, her spokesman said Wednesday, amid fighting between Israel and Hamas that has raged for more than five weeks. The EU chief will on Saturday meet with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi...
ANKARA, Turkey - More than two dozen Palestinian cancer patients, who had crossed from Gaza into Egypt, arrived in Turkey for treatment in the early hours of Thursday, Turkey's Anadolu agency reported. Two planes carrying the patients, many of them children, landed at Ankara airport...
MADRID, Spain - Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Wednesday urged Israel to end the "indiscriminate killing of Palestinians" in Gaza, in his sharpest criticism of Israel since war against Hamas broke out over a month ago. Spanish acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez listens as Partido...
PARIS , France - The joint China-US climate declaration is "a significant moment" in the build-up to COP28, the climate summit's president said Wednesday, but some experts criticised the lack of concrete commitments. "The consensus reached between the US and China is a significant moment ahead...
KYIV, Ukraine -Ukraine said Wednesday that two rescue workers were killed and seven people were injured by Russian shelling in the southeast region of Zaporizhzhia. "The Russians shelled civilian infrastructure once again. A fire broke out," Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said on social...
BRUSSELS, Belgium - The EU's executive has proposed banning the import of Russian diamonds and liquefied petroleum gases in a new round of sanctions over the war in Ukraine, according to a document seen by AFP Wednesday. The package of sanctions -- which needs to be approved unanimously...
