Author: Reuters News Agency

By Reuters News Agency. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has directed Israel’s military to take more of Gaza, initially by seizing 70 per cent of the Palestinian territory, where the population is already penned into a tiny strip of land along the coast. Israel effectively controls an estimated 64 per cent of Gaza, now bombarded to ruins by Israel’s two-year military assault that followed the 2023 Hamas attack on southern Israel. Under an October US-brokered truce that has failed to halt Israeli attacks or secure Hamas’s disarmament, Israeli troops were meant to withdraw to a Yellow Line demarcating the extent…

By Reuters Russian President Vladimir Putin has suggested that his country’s war on Ukraine may be “coming to an end” and expressed a willingness to meet his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a third country if a peace deal is finalised. Putin made the comments to reporters on Saturday, hours after promising victory in Ukraine at Russia’s most scaled-back Victory Day parade in years. The remarks came as Russia and Ukraine began a three-day ceasefire and agreed to exchange 1,000 prisoners, in developments that raised cautious hopes of renewed diplomatic progress. At the parade, Putin praised Russian troops fighting in Ukraine, framing…

Reuters The cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak is due to arrive in Tenerife, the largest of Spain’s Canary Islands, on Sunday, dropping anchor offshore rather than docking at port. Passengers will be taken from the MV Hondius to the port of Granadilla by smaller boats, as requested by the island’s local authorities, and then moved to the island’s main airport. Spain’s civil protection and emergencies chief Virginia Barcones said the passengers would be transferred straight to the airport’s runway by sealed-off buses, with drivers and emergency crews wearing protective gear. Evacuees will then board charter planes sent by…

By Rueters. An interim report into last year’s Bondi Beach mass shooting on Thursday advised increased security around Jewish public events and further gun reforms among 14 initial recommendations, but found Australia’s legal and regulatory frameworks did not hinder security agencies in preventing or responding to the attack. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said his government would adopt all the initial recommendations made by the Royal Commission, the nation’s most powerful inquiry, into the Dec. 14 shooting at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, which left 15 dead. While the report did not propose urgent changes, it outlined recommendations to strengthen Australia’s counter–terrorism capabilities, Albanese told reporters. “This is as the government envisaged – that the first…