TOKYO, Dec 16 (NNN-Bernama) — Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has reassured Japanese investors that, although the new Madani government is just one year old, it is stable, with very clear policies for Malaysia to forge a strong growth path.

Anwar said this at a roundtable meeting with captains of industries in Tokyo, after a one-to-one session with three Japanese corporations.

ISLAMABAD, Dec 15 (Reuters) - A Pakistan court has banned media from reporting on proceedings in a closed-door trial of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan on charges of leaking state secrets, raising concerns about transparency ahead of national elections in February.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli troops mistakenly shot three hostages to death Friday in a battle-torn neighborhood of Gaza City, and an Israeli strike killed a Palestinian journalist in the south of the besieged territory, underscoring the ferocity of Israel’s ongoing onslaught.

The deaths were announced as a U.S. envoy tried to persuade the Israelis to scale back their campaign sooner rather than later.

MOSCOW, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Russian Railways on Friday said Finland's state-owned railway company VR had acted unlawfully in seizing four trains co-owned through a joint venture.

"The transfer of trains ... was not agreed," Russian Railways said in a statement.

VR said on Thursday it had seized the Allegro trains that used to travel between the two countries after more than 18 months of negotiations without any result.

Passenger trains between Finland and Russia were suspended in March 2022, following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

MOSCOW, December 16. /TASS/: Russia launched the Soyuz-2.1b rocket carrying the country’s second meteorological satellite, Arktika-M, from the Baikonur spaceport on Saturday, Roscosmos reported.

The spacecraft should be orbited within the next 4.5 hours or so.

Russia launched its first weather satellite in February 2021. Last December, the Lavochkin design bureau announced that the fleet of Russian meteorological satellites will be expanded to four from two.

WASHINGTON, Dec 14 (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate will vote on military aid for Ukraine and Israel next week as negotiations continue over changes to U.S. border security policy that would be tied to the funding, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Thursday.

The Senate will delay its holiday break, which had been due to start Friday, and convene Monday to give negotiators time to reach an agreement, Schumer said.

"So much hangs on our success," Schumer said. "We know the world is watching."

GAZA, Dec 14 (NNN-XINHUA) – More than 18,600 people in Gaza have been killed in the war, so far, most of them women and children, according to authorities there, as the Zionist Israeli regime continues to intensify its firepower in the coastal enclave.

COPENHAGEN/BERLIN, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Seven people, including four suspected Hamas members, were arrested in Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands on suspicion of planning attacks on Jewish institutions in Europe, authorities in the three countries said on Thursday.

The arrests were made as Israel pressed on with its operation to destroy Hamas in the Gaza Strip, a war that was touched off by a cross-border Oct. 7 assault on Israeli towns by militants of the Palestinian Islamist movement.

DUBAI, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Iran's Defence Minister Mohammad Reza Ashtiani warned that a proposed U.S.-backed multinational task force to protect shipping in the Red Sea would face "extraordinary problems", official Iranian media reported on Thursday.

Ashtiani's comments came after the United States said last week it was in talks with other countries to set up a task force following a spate of attacks by the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen on ships in the Red Sea.

BAKU, December 14. /TASS/: Azerbaijan and Armenia are closer to a peace agreement than ever, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said at the press conference in Baku, where he is on an official visit.

BEIRUT, Dec 15 (NNN-NNA) – The Lebanese-Israeli confrontations continued yesterday, in the border area, killing a Hezbollah fighter and a civilian, Lebanese military sources said.

The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that, a Hezbollah fighter and a Lebanese civilian were killed, and another civilian was injured in Israeli airstrikes on the southern villages.

The sources said, Israeli helicopters, drones, and warplanes carried out a series of raids on the outskirts of the villages in southeast Lebanon, destroying eight houses and damaging 21 others.

PARIS, Dec 14 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The number of journalists killed in the line of duty fell this year, despite reporter deaths in Gaza in the past two months, media advocacy group Reporters Without Borders said Thursday.

In the first 11 months of 2023, 45 journalists were killed carrying out their work, down from 61 last year, according to the annual report by RSF.

It was the smallest number since 33 died in 2002, largely due to a major drop in Latin America.