Far East

According to reports, while 117 of the 251 hostages held in Gaza have so far been freed, 64 people are still in Hamas' captivity.

The heart of the matter is that Iran - along with its proxies and Israel - has taken a maximalist position on the negotiating table. This makes it far more difficult to arrive at a negotiated settlement.

A group of Russian rescuers and volunteers have saved four killer whales stranded for hours off the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia's far east after leading them to deeper waters, the SHOT Telegram channel reported on Wednesday.

Israel killed a top Hezbollah commander in an airstrike on Beirut's southern suburbs on Friday, the Israeli military and security sources in Lebanon said, escalating a year-long conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed group.

While Lebanon was still reeling from the shock of yesterday's pager blasts that killed 12 people, the country has been shaken with a fresh series of nationwide walkie-talkie explosions, which have killed nine people so far and has injured hundreds.

Hundreds of pagers used by Hezbollah members exploded across Lebanon today, killing eight people and wounding Tehran's ambassador in Beirut in blasts the Iran-backed militant group blamed on Israel. There was no comment from the Israeli military.

Crowds of Palestinians gathered at medical centers in the south of the embattled Gaza Strip on Thursday to have their children vaccinated against polio, the start of the second stage of a campaign that has so far seen 187,000 youngsters inoculated.

A helicopter with 22 people aboard, most of them tourists, has gone missing in Russia's Kamchatka peninsula in the far east, regional authorities said Saturday.

US President Joe Biden said on Friday that no party in the Middle East should undermine efforts to reach a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal that he claimed was now in sight, but he warned that it was "far from over."

A helicopter with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian onboard has crashed in the mountains of the Jofa region of the western province of East Azerbaijan, reports said.

Russian emergency workers on Monday ended a rescue operation at a mine in the country's Far East where 13 workers have been trapped for two weeks, state media reported.

A drone flies low over a snow-covered shipyard in Russia's Far East, where workers toil in subzero temperatures to maintain the hulking vessels during the bitter Siberian winter.

A Soviet-era Antonov-24 aircraft carrying 30 passengers landed on a frozen river near an airport in Russia's far east on Thursday because of pilot error, transport prosecutors said.

Amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri on Friday said that there is no expectation of any disruption in supply lines for crude oil so far.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was visiting an aeronautics factory in Komsomolsk-on-Amur city on Friday as part of his trip to Russia's far east, Russian news agencies reported.

According to reports, while 117 of the 251 hostages held in Gaza have so far been freed, 64 people are still in Hamas' captivity.

The heart of the matter is that Iran - along with its proxies and Israel - has taken a maximalist position on the negotiating table. This makes it far more difficult to arrive at a negotiated settlement.

A group of Russian rescuers and volunteers have saved four killer whales stranded for hours off the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia's far east after leading them to deeper waters, the SHOT Telegram channel reported on Wednesday.

Israel killed a top Hezbollah commander in an airstrike on Beirut's southern suburbs on Friday, the Israeli military and security sources in Lebanon said, escalating a year-long conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed group.

While Lebanon was still reeling from the shock of yesterday's pager blasts that killed 12 people, the country has been shaken with a fresh series of nationwide walkie-talkie explosions, which have killed nine people so far and has injured hundreds.

Hundreds of pagers used by Hezbollah members exploded across Lebanon today, killing eight people and wounding Tehran's ambassador in Beirut in blasts the Iran-backed militant group blamed on Israel. There was no comment from the Israeli military.

Crowds of Palestinians gathered at medical centers in the south of the embattled Gaza Strip on Thursday to have their children vaccinated against polio, the start of the second stage of a campaign that has so far seen 187,000 youngsters inoculated.

A helicopter with 22 people aboard, most of them tourists, has gone missing in Russia's Kamchatka peninsula in the far east, regional authorities said Saturday.

US President Joe Biden said on Friday that no party in the Middle East should undermine efforts to reach a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal that he claimed was now in sight, but he warned that it was "far from over."

A helicopter with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian onboard has crashed in the mountains of the Jofa region of the western province of East Azerbaijan, reports said.

Russian emergency workers on Monday ended a rescue operation at a mine in the country's Far East where 13 workers have been trapped for two weeks, state media reported.

A drone flies low over a snow-covered shipyard in Russia's Far East, where workers toil in subzero temperatures to maintain the hulking vessels during the bitter Siberian winter.

A Soviet-era Antonov-24 aircraft carrying 30 passengers landed on a frozen river near an airport in Russia's far east on Thursday because of pilot error, transport prosecutors said.

Amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri on Friday said that there is no expectation of any disruption in supply lines for crude oil so far.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was visiting an aeronautics factory in Komsomolsk-on-Amur city on Friday as part of his trip to Russia's far east, Russian news agencies reported.