remains

Hamas, Red Cross resume search in Gaza for body of last Israeli hostage, key to ceasefire talks Hamas officials said Tuesday that search operations have resumed in Gaza City for the remains of the last Israeli hostage in the enclave, a move Israel has tied to the start of talks on the second phase of a fragile ceasefire agreement. The Palestinian group’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, is working “accompanied by Red Cross teams” in the Zeitun neighborhood in southeastern Gaza City after a two-week pause caused…

Nicolas Maduro pleads not guilty in New York after U.S. raid; judge orders ex-Venezuelan leader held without bail Toppled Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking and other charges in a federal courtroom in Manhattan, days after he was taken into U.S. custody during a predawn raid in Caracas that officials said involved air and naval support. Maduro, 63, spoke softly through a Spanish interpreter but struck a defiant tone. “I’m innocent. I’m not guilty,” he told the judge. He said he is the…

Trump says Ukraine peace talks ‘very close’ as Donbas remains sticking point MAR-A-LAGO, Fla. — President Donald Trump said he and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky are “getting a lot closer, maybe very close” to a framework to end the war in Ukraine, while acknowledging the fate of the disputed Donbas region remains a key unresolved issue. Speaking at a joint news conference after talks at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, both leaders reported progress on two of the most contentious items in negotiations — long-term security…

Trump and Zelenskiy say they are closing in on a peace agreement to end the war in Ukraine, with security guarantees nearly settled but the fate of the Donbas region still unresolved after talks at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. At a joint news conference, the U.S. president said the two sides were “getting a lot closer, maybe very close,” while acknowledging that Donbas remains a “very tough issue.” Both leaders offered few specifics and set no deadline, though Trump said it should be clear “in a few weeks” whether negotiations…

NAIROBI, Kenya — Prosecutors on Wednesday told the High Court that a Nairobi man already linked to three killings in October 2024 murdered his girlfriend a week later, mutilated and boiled parts of her body, and tried to dump the remains at Lang’ata Cemetery. Appearing before Lady Justice Margaret Muigai on Dec. 3, 2025, Senior Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions Gikui Gichui said Hashim Dagane Muhumed — also known as Hashim Mohamed Khalif — killed Deka Abdi Noor Gorane on the night of Oct. 29–30, 2024, inside Valley…

Chilling Case in Nairobi: Man Kills Girlfriend, Boils Her Body and Dumps Remains at Cemetery NAIROBI, Kenya — A Nairobi court on Wednesday heard graphic testimony as prosecutors alleged that a man killed his girlfriend, mutilated and boiled her body and disposed of the remains at a city cemetery in an effort to conceal a series of earlier murders. Prosecutors said Hashim Dagane Muhumed, also known as Hashim Mohamed Khalif, killed his girlfriend, identified as Deka Abdi Noor Gorane, on the night of Oct. 29–30, 2024, at Valley…

Return of a body under the ceasefire exposes the fragility of a hard-won pause The slow handover of a single body from Gaza to Israeli custody this week read like a terse footnote in an unfolding diplomatic script — yet it carries disproportionate moral and political weight. Israeli military spokespeople confirmed to the Red Cross that a coffin containing the remains of a hostage was being transferred back to Israeli forces, part of commitments tied to the U.S.-brokered ceasefire plan. Hamas, meanwhile, said it had…

Bodies, borders and a bitter ceasefire: what the recent exchanges reveal about Gaza’s fragile pause The exchange of bodies and a single identified Israeli remains a grim marker of a ceasefire that is at once fragile and consequential. Over recent days, Israeli forces and Hamas have overseen the handover of human remains in a transaction that follows the contours of a wider, uneasy truce — one that has temporarily halted the fiercest fighting but has not ended the humanitarian catastrophe or the political tectonics that…

The Elusive Quest for Peace in the Congo In the heart of Africa, as the world turns its gaze elsewhere, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) remains locked in a cycle of violence and despair. As Bintou Keita, head of the UN mission in the DRC, poignantly stated, peace is still "a promise." Despite attempts at diplomacy and international agreements, the reality for many Congolese citizens has not significantly improved. Promises of Peace vs. Harsh Realities In June, an agreement between Rwanda and the DRC was heralded as…

Sub-Saharan Africa's Struggle Against Child Poverty: A Call to Action In a world that has seen significant strides in reducing extreme child poverty, one region remains starkly excluded from this progress: Sub-Saharan Africa. According to a recent report by the World Bank and UNICEF, this area has not only failed to improve over the past decade, but it has also allowed the specter of poverty to loom larger over its youngest inhabitants. Alarmingly, more than half of the region's children live below the poverty line,…