CAIRO, Oct 29 (NNN-MENA) – Egyptian President, Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, received a phone call from United Nations (UN) Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, yesterday, during which they discussed ways to protect civilians of the Palestinian Gaza Strip, facing an ongoing Israeli siege and bombardment.

The talks focused on “the ongoing diplomatic efforts to stop the escalation in the Gaza Strip,” said the Egyptian presidency in a statement.

COLOMBO, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Maldives will work to return Indian military personnel from its shores "as soon as possible," President-elect Mohamed Muizzu told Reuters on Sunday, insisting it was the top foreign policy priority for the tiny Indian Ocean island chain.

Muizzu won Maldives' presidential election last month, beating incumbent President Ibrahim Solih in a second-round runoff.

Solih had followed an "India first" policy but Muizzu in his election campaign promised to remove a small Indian military presence of some 75 personnel in Maldives.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Asa Hutchinson said Saturday that the campaign manager for his beleaguered bid for the Republican presidential nomination is departing, but the former Arkansas governor said he is not dropping out of the crowded race.

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 28 (Xinhua) -- The UN General Assembly on Friday adopted a resolution that calls for a humanitarian truce in Gaza.

The resolution calls for "an immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities," including protection of civilians and civilian subjects, protection of humanitarian personnel and facilities, and "immediate and unconditional release" of all civilians being illegally held captive.

The resolution was adopted with 120 votes in favor, 14 votes against, and 45 abstentions.

TEL AVIV, October 29. /TASS/: Israeli army units continue to expand ground operations in the Gaza Strip, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Spokesman Daniel Hagari said.

"Overnight, IDF units expanded ground operations in the Gaza Strip. Additional ground forces joined the units. We are continuing the military operations as planned," he said.

TEHRAN, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- Iran and Saudi Arabia have reached a preliminary agreement on removing visa requirements for the two countries' traders, said Mohammad-Sadeq Qanadzadeh, deputy head of Iran's Trade Promotion Organization (TPO) on Saturday.

Qanadzadeh stressed that the efforts by the TPO, Iran's apparatus responsible for trade diplomacy, are in line with preparing the ground for Iranian traders and businessmen to establish connections with their foreign counterparts.

CAIRO, Oct 29 (NNN-MENA) – At least 35 people were killed and 53 others injured, yesterday, in multiple vehicle collisions on a desert road, in Egypt’s Beheira governorate, state-run Ahram newspaper reported.

Security investigations showed the accident was caused by an oil leak from a car travelling on the Cairo-Alexandria desert road near Beheira, which led to many vehicles colliding with each other.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The wife of a former Alaska Airlines pilot who prosecutors say tried to cut the engines of a Horizon Air flight while riding in the cockpit jump seat said Thursday she knew her husband was struggling with depression but that she was in a state of shock over his arrest.

“This is not my Joe,” Sarah Stretch told reporters after attending her husband Joseph Emerson’s first appearance in federal court in Portland, Oregon.

Oct 29 (Reuters) - Russia and Ukraine are locked in a stalemate on the frontlines of their war and the two sides need to sit down and negotiate an end to the conflict, Alexander Lukashenko, the authoritarian leader of Belarus and an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said over the weekend.

"There are enough problems on both sides and in general the situation is now seriously stalemate: no one can do anything and substantively strengthen or advance their position," Lukashenko said.

"They're there head-to-head, to the death, entrenched. People are dying."

JERUSALEM, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Thousands of Gaza residents broke into warehouses and distribution centres of the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) grabbing flour and "basic survival items", the organisation said on Sunday.

"This is a worrying sign that civil order is starting to break down after three weeks of war and a tight siege on Gaza," the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said in a statement.

DUBAI, October 29. /TASS/: Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said that Israel had crossed ‘red lines’ that could force everyone to take action.

"Zionist regime’s crimes have crossed the red lines, which may force everyone to take action. Washington asks us to not do anything, but they keep giving widespread support to Israel. The US sent messages to the Axis of Resistance but received a clear response on the battlefield," the president said in a statement on his X (formerly known as Twitter) page.

DETROIT (AP) — Jeep maker Stellantis reached a tentative contract agreement with the United Auto Workers union on Saturday as it escalated strikes against General Motors by adding a plant in Tennessee.

The Stellantis deal, which still must be ratified by members, leaves only GM without an agreement with the union. But the union walked out Saturday night at a GM factory in Spring Hill, Tennessee, in an effort to increase pressure on the company to reach a deal.