21 hostages, 27 off-duty soldiers killed; military say 33 militants eliminated

More than 340 train passengers taken hostage by a militant group were freed yesterday by Pakistani security forces after a 30-hour siege, an army official told AFP, confirming that 27 off-duty soldiers were shot dead by militants.

China will host Russia and Iran for trilateral talks on Tehran’s nuclear programme on Friday, Beijing’s foreign ministry said.

Portugal’s president was on Wednesday holding talks with political leaders on whether to call fresh elections, after Prime Minister Luis Montenegro’s government lost a vote of no confidence.

A Russian ballistic missile strike overnight on the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa killed four people and damaged a Barbados-flagged cargo ship, authorities said yesterday.

At least 1,383 civilians, the vast majority of them Alawites, were killed in a wave of violence that gripped Syria’s Mediterranean coast, a war monitor said yesterday.

Lawyers for former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, believed headed for The Hague to face the International Criminal Court over his deadly crackdown on drugs, filed a petition yesterday demanding his return to Manila.

The Doctors Without Borders (MSF) medical charity yesterday claimed that Israel had “instrumentalised humanitarian needs” in Gaza, with its decision to halt aid and cut electricity into the Palestinian territory.

Kyiv’s Western allies upped the pressure on Russia yesterday to respond to a US-proposed 30-day ceasefire plan, after Ukraine backed the proposal aimed at ending the three-year war.

Russia has made sweeping gains in its Kursk region in the past 24 hours, taking back control of five villages previously held by Ukrainian troops, the Russian military said

The meeting will be attended by China's Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi.

The EU executive said, however, that it remained open to negotiations and considered higher tariffs in no one's interest.

The call was the first such contact since US President Donald Trump assumed office vowing to end the three-year Ukraine conflict.

The European Commission said Wednesday it would impose "a series of countermeasures" from April 1 in response to the "unjustified trade restrictions" from the United States.

The centre-right opposition has won a surprise victory

The 79-year-old faces a charge of "the crime against humanity of murder", according to the ICC, for a crackdown that rights groups estimate killed tens of thousands of mostly poor men, often without proof they were linked to drugs.

The potential launch of Starlink, which provides high-speed internet access to remote locations by low Earth orbit satellites

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday that Tehran would not be bullied into negotiations

The move is the latest to roil the US federal government in the six weeks since the president returned to the White House

The unions said the directive "suggests a rapid destruction of agency records on a large scale"