ISLAMABAD, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- At least six terrorists and a soldier were killed on Saturday during a clash between security forces and terrorists in North Waziristan district of Pakistan's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the military said.

The security forces conducted an intelligence-based operation in the Mir Ali area of the district, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media wing of the Pakistan Army, said in a statement on Saturday night.

ISLAMABAD (AP) — A powerful 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck western Afghanistan on Sunday, just over a week after strong quakes and aftershocks killed thousands of people and flattened entire villages in the same province.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the latest quake’s epicenter was about 34 kilometers (21 miles) outside Herat, the provincial capital, and eight kilometers (five miles) below the surface.

TEHRAN Oct 14 (Reuters) - Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh met with Iran's foreign minister on Saturday in Qatar, where they discussed the Palestinian militant group's deadly attack in Israel "and agreed to continue cooperation" to achieve the group's goals, Hamas said in a statement.

During their meeting in Qatar's capital Doha, Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian praised the rampage as a "historic victory" that had dealt a setback to Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Frightened by unprecedented violence on the streets and within prisons, Ecuadorians have a universal demand for the president they are choosing Sunday — safety.

The runoff election in the South American country pits an heir to a banana empire, Daniel Noboa, against an attorney, Luisa González. Both have limited governing experience and will undoubtedly have their work cut out.

MOSCOW/BEIJING, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet Xi Jinping in China this week in a bid to deepen a partnership forged between the United States' two biggest strategic competitors.

Putin will attend the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing on Oct. 17-18, his first trip outside the former Soviet Union since the Hague-based International Criminal Court issued a warrant for him in March over the deportation of children from Ukraine.

WASHINGTON, Oct 15 (APP): Pakistan has established the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) as a ‘single-window’ platform to facilitate investors, forge cooperation among government ministries and departments, and fast-track project development, Ambassador Masood Khan has told a U.S. forum.

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Women, children and older adults hiding in safe rooms gunned down mercilessly. Homes set ablaze with terrified residents still inside them. Children, some bound, forced into a room and slaughtered. Jews, helpless.

For many Israelis and Jews around the world, the horrors committed by Hamas militants during their stunning onslaught on southern Israeli communities is triggering painful memories of a calamity of a far greater scale: the Holocaust.

NEW DELHI, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- As many as seven members of a family, including a woman and two children, died in a road accident in India's southern state of Tamil Nadu on Sunday, confirmed a local government official.

The car carrying the victims collided head-on with a truck in Tamil Nadu's Tiruvannamalai district, when the family was returning to their home in Bengaluru, capital of adjoining state Karnataka, after offering prayers at a temple.

There were a total of eight people in the car. One person was injured and was admitted to a local government hospital.

MOSCOW, October 15. /TASS/: A Russian Su-27 jet has stopped a US RQ-4B Global Hawk surveillance drone from crossing into Russian airspace over the Black Sea, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

According to the ministry, Russian airspace surveillance equipment detected an air target approaching the Russian state border over the Black Sea on October 15. A Su-27 fighter jet was scrambled to prevent it from entering Russian airspace, it said.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has raised his nation’s flag over the capital city of a former breakaway region in a ceremony reaffirming Baku’s control over it.

The Azerbaijani leader delivered a speech and raised the flag over the city, which is known as Khankendi by Azerbaijan and Stepanakert by Armenians, the presidential office said Sunday.

BISHKEK, Oct 15 (NNN-KNA) – Members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), signed 16 cooperation agreements, to increase interaction within the organisation, after a summit was convened here under the chairmanship of Kyrgyz President, Sadyr Japarov.

LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — Children take their places at folding tables on a church patio several miles from where their school burned down. Plastic tubs hold brand new textbooks quickly shipped from a publisher. Recess is on the resort golf course across the street.

The wind-driven wildfire that leveled the historic Maui town of Lahaina this summer displaced many pupils not just from their homes, but from their schools, forcing their families and education officials to scramble to find other ways to teach them.