MOSCOW, November 2. /TASS/: The Ukrainian shelling attack on Donetsk, which affected journalists from TASS, Izvestia and the Zvezda TV channel, provides direct evidence of the Kiev regime’s terrorist logic, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli troops advanced toward Gaza City on Thursday, as the Palestinian death toll rose above 9,000. With no end in sight after weeks of heavy fighting, U.S. and Arab mediators intensified efforts to ease Israel’s siege of the Hamas-ruled enclave and called for at least a brief halt to the hostilities in order to aid civilians.

ISTANBUL, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- Turkish authorities have arrested 37 people suspected of being part of an Australia-based international crime syndicate, Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on Thursday.

The gang, known as Comanchero, is involved in drug trafficking, murder, kidnapping, and other crimes, Yerlikaya said in a post on the social media platform X.

The minister said the gang tried to smuggle drugs from different countries and launder the money they made from illegal activities in Türkiye, without revealing when or where the arrests took place.

BEIJING, Nov 2 (APP): Pakistan looks forward to further strengthening exchanges with China, accelerating the high-quality joint construction of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), deepening economic, trade, cultural, and sub-national exchanges, and pushing bilateral relations to a higher level, Pakistan Ambassador to China, Moin ul Haque said.

The friendship between Pakistan and China is iron-clad and unbreakable. It is the inevitable trend of history and the aspiration of the people, he said while addressing at a farewell reception.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said Wednesday he is sending the armed forces to boost security at some of the country’s most important airports, ports and international borders as part of a renewed effort to tackle organized crime in Latin America’s largest nation.

The decision comes days after members of a criminal gang set fire to dozens of buses in Rio de Janeiro, apparently in retaliation for the police slaying their leader’s nephew.

NOVO-OGAREVO, November 2. /TASS/: Russian business shows interest in working in Africa in general and in Equatorial Guinea in particular, President Vladimir Putin said at expanded format talks with Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The former street gang leader charged with orchestrating the 1996 drive-by killing of Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas is expected to plead not guilty Thursday to murder, amid questions of whether he’ll hire a defense lawyer or a judge appoints a public defender.

Duane Keith “Keffe D” Davis, who is described as the only person still alive who was in the vehicle from which shots were fired that night, killing Shakur, is due for arraignment in a Nevada courtroom despite losing his bid to hire local defense attorney Ross Goodman.

JERUSALEM (AP) — The latest Israel-Hamas war has quickly become the deadliest and most destructive of the five wars fought between the sides since Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 from the Palestinian Authority.

The fighting erupted Oct. 7 when Hamas carried out a bloody attack in southern Israel. Since then, Israel has relentlessly pounded the Gaza Strip with airstrikes that have wrought unprecedented destruction, flattening entire neighborhoods.

01 November 2023; MEMO: The Israeli military has said that it has deployed missile boats in the Red Sea a day after Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement revealed that it had launched missile and drone attacks on Israel and vowed to carry out more. Images disseminated by the Israelis showed Saar-class corvettes patrolling near Eilat port in the Red Sea.

Israel sees this as a new front as its war in Gaza draws retaliation from Iran-aligned, pro-Hamas forces elsewhere in the region.

31 October 2023; MEMO: Belgian transport workers’ unions, on Tuesday, called on their members to refuse to handle military equipment being sent to Israel to battle Hamas gunmen, Reuters reports.

The ACV Puls, BTB, BBTK and ACV-Transcom unions said in a joint statement that airport workers have seen arms shipments.

01 November 2023; MEMO: Israeli forces have paid a “heavy price” during their ground operation in the Gaza Strip despite making “significant” achievements, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, Anadolu has reported. Gallant made his comments on Tuesday during a meeting at Palmachim Air Base in central Israel with troops of the Air Force’s elite Shaldag and 669 units, said Israeli Army Radio.

01 November 2023; MEMO: Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Organisation for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said 70 per cent of the Palestinian martyrs who have been killed by the ongoing Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip since 7 October are children and women, warning that there is no safe place in Gaza.