Hamas launches 3 frail-looking Israeli hostages for Palestinian detainees under Gaza ceasefire

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) - Hamas-led militants released three gaunt, frail-looking Israeli captives and Israel freed nearly 200 Palestinian detainees Saturday in the latest exchange of a ceasefire that has stopped briefly 16 months of war in Gaza.

The hostages ´ condition and scenes of Hamas forcing them to speak in a handover ceremony sparked outrage in Israel and might increase pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to extend the ceasefire beyond its existing six-week stage.

Netanyahu has signified he would resume the war, even if that suggests leaving dozens of captives in captivity. "President Trump totally concurred with me: We will do whatever to return all the captives, but Hamas will not exist," Netanyahu said after the exchange.

Civilians Eli Sharabi, 52; Ohad Ben Ami, king-wifi.win 56; and Or Levy, 34, were amongst about 250 individuals taken during the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that triggered the war.

Israelis' happiness turned to shock and tears when they saw their emaciated state.

Released Thai captives go back to Bangkok after being held for over a year in Gaza

BANGKOK (AP) - Five Thai employees launched after being held hostage for over a year in Gaza showed up in Bangkok on Sunday.

Sarusak Rumnao, 32, Watchara Sriaoun, 33, Sathian Suwannakham, 35, Pongsak Thaenna, 36, photorum.eclat-mauve.fr and Bannawat Saethao, 27, were released on Jan. 30 as part of an exchange plan.

They were accepted by relative, some of whom sobbed, in the arrivals hall at Suvarnabhumi airport. Thai Foreign Minister Maris Sagniampongsa and the Israeli Ambassador to Thailand Orna Sagiv were both at the airport to welcome home the released captives.

"We are all extremely grateful and extremely happy that we get to return to our homeland. We all would really like to thank you. I put on ´ t know what else to state," Pongsak informed a news conference at the airport.

Maris said the Thai federal government "never provided up hope and here is the outcome today. The tears of delight are our motivation." He added that Bangkok would continue working to protect the release of the remaining Thai .

Trump says some white South Africans are oppressed, might be resettled in the US. They say no thanks

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) - Groups representing a few of South Africa's white minority reacted Saturday to a strategy by President Donald Trump to provide them refugee status and resettlement in the United States by saying: thanks, but no thanks.

The strategy was detailed in an executive order Trump signed Friday that stopped all aid and financial assistance to South Africa as punishment for what the Trump administration said were "rights infractions" by the federal government against a few of its white citizens.

The Trump administration implicated the South African government of allowing violent attacks on white Afrikaner farmers and introducing a land expropriation law that enables it to "take ethnic minority Afrikaners' agricultural property without settlement."

The South African government has actually rejected there are any collective attacks on white farmers and has said that Trump's description of the brand-new land law has lots of misinformation and distortions.

Afrikaners are come down from mainly Dutch, however likewise French and German colonial settlers who first arrived in South Africa more than 300 years earlier. They speak Afrikaans, a language obtained from Dutch that developed in South Africa, and stand out from other white South Africans who come from British or other backgrounds.

Trump's 3rd week saw more executive orders, a trade war that wasn't and a Mideast jolt

WASHINGTON (AP) - Three weeks in, President Donald Trump keeps cranking out executive orders developed to remake the government while billionaire Elon Musk looks for more methods to upend the federal labor force.

Trump likewise provoked - then aborted - trade wars with Canada and Mexico but permitted one with China to move forward. He apparently played down potentially tough political issues while insisting he was severe about the United States taking Gaza, clearing out its residents and redeveloping the location into "the Riviera of the Middle East." It was an idea that pal and opponent alike all over the world turned down.

Here are some Week 3 takeaways:

Trump has actually spent 20 days in workplace, and on nearly every one of them, he has signed executive orders - typically a number of.

Similar To Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden before him, Trump utilized Inauguration Day to put pen to paper on actions suggested to erase great deals of his predecessor's policies. Trump likewise released Day 1 orders to pardon most members of the mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate accord and keep TikTok functioning.

31 thought Maoist rebels and 2 policemans are killed in forest fight in main India

PATNA, India (AP) - A minimum of 31 suspected Maoist rebels and two police officials were eliminated on Sunday in the deadliest battle so far this year in main India, police said.

Numerous cops and paramilitary soldiers introduced an operation in the forests of the Indravati location of Chhattisgarh state based upon intelligence that a great deal of rebels had actually collected there, said state cops Inspector General Pattilingam Sundarraj.

Sundarraj said as the troops performed a search operation combating emerged in the forest, eliminating a minimum of 31 insurgents and 2 authorities authorities. Two other police were injured. He said search operations were continuing in the location and the soldiers had actually recovered some arms and ammo, consisting of automatic rifles.

There was no instant statement from the rebels.

Sunday's battling is the greatest up until now this year and the second major clash in less than a month in Chhattisgarh, according to policemans Jitendra Yadav.

2 mass graves with bodies of almost 50 migrants discovered in southeastern Libya

CAIRO (AP) - Libya authorities revealed nearly 50 bodies today from two mass graves in the country ´ s southeastern desert, officials said Sunday, in the newest tragedy involving people seeking to reach Europe through the chaos-stricken North African country.

The very first mass tomb with 19 bodies was discovered Friday in a farm in the southeastern city of Kufra, the security directorate said in a declaration, adding that authorities took them for autopsy.

Authorities published images on its Facebook page showing policeman and medics digging in the sand and recovering dead bodies that were wrapped in blankets.

The al-Abreen charity, which assists migrants in eastern and southern Libya, said that some were apparently shot and eliminated before being buried in the mass grave.

A different mass grave with a minimum of 30 bodies was likewise discovered in Kufra after raiding a human trafficking center, according to Mohamed al-Fadeil, head of the security chamber in Kufra. Survivors said nearly 70 individuals were buried in the grave, he included. Authorities were still searching the area.

Rescuers hunt for 28 individuals still missing after a landslide in southwest China; 1 body recovered

BEIJING (AP) - Emergency teams in China's southwestern Sichuan province fought against time Sunday to locate 28 people missing out on after a rain-triggered landslide eliminated a single person and users.atw.hu buried homes.

Nearly 1,000 personnel, including armed authorities, firefighters and medical specialists, continued to operate in the rescue operation following the landslide in the village of Jinping in Junlian county on Saturday. Some officers navigated through the remains of collapsed buildings, utilizing drones and life-detection radars to locate any signs of life with the aid of local authorities who recognized with the area, state broadcaster CCTV said.

They saved 2 injured individuals and left about 360 other individuals after 10 homes and a manufacturing structure were buried, CCTV reported.

At a press conference Sunday, authorities said preliminary evaluations associated the catastrophe to recent heavy rainfall and regional geological conditions. They said these aspects transformed a landslide into a debris circulation, leading to a build-up of debris stretching about 1.2 kilometers (more than half a mile) in length, with an overall volume surpassing 100,000 cubic meters (3.5 million cubic feet).

Chinese Vice Premier Liu Guozhong was at the site to direct the rescue operation and went to the impacted homeowners. He urged authorities to make every effort to look for the missing people, according to main news agency Xinhua.

Kosovo votes for brand-new parliament as foreign aid diminishes and talks with Serbia are stalled

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) - Kosovars cast their votes Sunday in a parliamentary election thought about an essential test for Prime Minister Albin Kurti as talks on normalizing ties with competing Serbia remain stalled and foreign financing for one of Europe's poorest nations in question.

Kurti ´ s left-wing Vetevendosje!, or Self-Determination Movement Party, is viewed as the front-runner but is not anticipated to win the necessary bulk to govern alone, exposing the possibility the other two contenders join ranks if he fails to form a Cabinet.

The other challengers are the Democratic Party of Kosovo, or PDK, whose main leaders are detained at a global criminal tribunal at The Hague accused of war criminal activities, and the Democratic League of Kosovo, or LDK, the earliest celebration in the country that lost much of its assistance after the death in 2006 of its leader, Ibrahim Rugova.

The parties made big-ticket pledges to increase public incomes and pensions, enhance education and health services, and fight hardship. However, they did not explain where the cash would originate from, nor how they would attract more foreign investment.

Kurti has been at chances with Western powers after his Cabinet took numerous actions that raised stress with Serbia and ethnic Serbs, including the restriction on making use of the Serbian currency and dinar transfers from Serbia to Kosovo ´ s ethnic Serb minority that depends upon Belgrade ´ s social services and payments. The U.S., the European Union and the NATO-led stabilization force KFOR have urged the government in Pristina to refrain from unilateral actions, fearing the revival of inter-ethnic dispute.

Here's what we understand about a commuter airplane crash in Alaska that eliminated 10 individuals

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) - Authorities are working to recover the wreckage of an airplane crash in western Alaska that killed 10 people while detectives are attempting to identify what triggered the small commuter aircraft to go down in the icy Bering Sea.

The single-engine turboprop airplane was traveling from Unalakleet to the center community of Nome when it disappeared Thursday afternoon. The Bering Air airplane was found the next day after an extensive search. Nine guests and the pilot were eliminated.

Crews on Saturday prospered in recuperating the remains of those eliminated in the crash from a drifting ice floe before the awaited onset of high winds and snow.

Here are things to understand about the airplane crash, which is among the deadliest airplane crashes in the state in 25 years.

Officials said contact with the Cessna Caravan was lost less than an hour after it left Unalakleet on Thursday. Authorities said the flight was a frequently set up commuter trip, and the aircraft went missing about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southeast of Nome.

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Trump's AI aspiration and China's DeepSeek eclipse an AI top in Paris

PARIS (AP) - The geopolitics of artificial intelligence will remain in focus at a major top in France where world leaders, executives and experts will hammer out promises on directing the development of the quickly advancing innovation.

It's the most recent in a series of global discussions around AI governance, however one that comes at a fresh inflection point as China's buzzy and economical DeepSeek chatbot shakes up the industry.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance - making his first trip abroad given that taking office - will participate in the Paris AI Action Summit beginning Feb. 10, while China's President Xi Jinping will be sending his special envoy, signaling high stakes for the meeting.

Here's a breakdown:

Heads of state and leading federal government authorities, tech managers and scientists are gathering in Paris for the two-day top cohosted by French President Emmanuel Macron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The event aims to attend to how to harness artificial intelligence ´ s potential so that it benefits everybody, while containing the technology ´ s myriad risks.