Hamas tells BBC it has approved Gaza ceasefire deal as Qatar to hold news conference
Hamas has approved ceasefire, official tells BBC
A Hamas official has told the BBC it has told Qatari and Egyptian mediators that Hamas has approved the ceasefire agreement.
The official spoke to the BBC as Israeli media reported Hamas had introduced last-minute demands to the ceasefire deal - moments before Qatar was due to hold a news conference on the state of the talks.
The reports in Israeli media said it had issued fresh demands about the Philadelphi Corridor - a strategically important strip of land along Gaza's southern border with Egypt.
Qatar is about to hold a news conference as Israel and Hamas make a final push to seal a Gaza ceasefire in Doha
A Hamas official tells the BBC it has told Qatari and Egyptian mediators that the group has approved the ceasefire agreement
It comes after there were reports of a breakthrough earlier today, with unnamed Israeli officials cited as saying that Hamas had agreed to the latest draft presented by Qatari, US and Egyptian mediators
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office however swiftly denied the reports. There was also no immediate comment from Hamas
Last night, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said they were "on the brink" of an agreement and awaiting "final word from Hamas"
South Korea’s Yoon Suk Yeol arrested and questioned for hours
Impeached president questioned over martial law declaration last month after standoff at his residence
South Korea’s impeached president, Yoon Suk Yeol, was arrested and questioned for hours over his ill-fated declaration of martial law last month, handing himself in after an early-morning standoff outside his official residence in Seoul.
His detention on Wednesday makes him the first sitting president in the country’s history to be arrested.
“I decided to respond to the CIO’s investigation – despite it being an illegal investigation – to prevent unsavoury bloodshed,” Yoon said in a statement, referring to the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) that is heading the criminal inquiry.
Survivors, corpses pulled from Stilfontein mine in ongoing operation
Continued efforts to clear illegal miners from the abandoned gold mine in Stilfontein, North West, led to 60 bodies and 106 survivors being brought to the surface after two days of intensive operations, police confirmed on Wednesday.
“On day two of operations, a total of 106 illegal miners were retrieved alive and arrested for illegal mining. Fifty-one were certified dead,” police said.
Nine bodies were recovered the previous day.
Authorities remain uncertain how many miners are still trapped underground but estimate the number to be in the hundreds.
Cuba to release more than 550 prisoners after being cleared from US terror list
Cuba said Tuesday it would release 553 prisoners in response to Washington removing the communist country from its list of terror sponsors in a deal hailed by relatives of jailed protesters.
The White House said President Joe Biden was removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism in one of his last official acts before Donald Trump is sworn in next Monday.
The move will likely be overturned by Trump, who reinstated Cuba's terror designation in the final days of his first term of office in 2021
NGO: 6 Japanese held captive in ‘crime hub’ in east Myanmar
By SHIN KASAHARA/ Correspondent
January 15, 2025 at 16:00 JST
Six Japanese nationals are being held captive in a “crime hub” for special fraud in eastern Myanmar near the border with Thailand, according to a nongovernmental organization.
The Civil Society Network for Victim Assistance in Human Trafficking, a Thai NGO, said in a report on Jan. 7 that more than 6,000 people from 21 countries are believed to be in captivity in the region.
A representative of the NGO said the Japanese nationals being held are five men and one woman.
“It is difficult to immediately rescue them” because their passports may have been taken away, the representative said.
‘We’re not pirates’, say hijackers who seized Chinese ship off Somali coast
After seven-week hijack, Puntland locals say they are victims of foreign trawlers. But China calls the attack ‘vicious’.
Liban Hassan* has spent most of his adult life fishing off Somalia’s northeast coast – often finding himself with a net in hand navigating waters near the town of Eyl in Puntland state, where he grew up.
But late last year, the 32-year-old traded a net for a gun when he and a group of other locals seized a Chinese fishing trawler and took its crew hostage off Puntland’s coast.
After a seven-week siege at sea, the ship and hostages were safely released this week.
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