US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have spoken by phone – in Biden’s final week in office – as momentum builds towards a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal. Israel and Hamas are understood to be making progress but uncertainty remains over key aspects of the potential agreement. The White House…
Dario Amodei, co-founder and CEO of artificial intelligence startup Anthropic. Chesnot | Getty Images Anthropic, the artificial intelligence startup founded by former OpenAI research executives, is in late-stage talks to raise as much as $2 billion at a $60 billion valuation, CNBC has confirmed. The funding round is being led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, according…
Hamas has posted a video showing a 19-year-old Israeli captive, as indirect talks between the group and Israel on a ceasefire and hostage release deal resume in Qatar. The footage shows Liri Albag calling for the Israeli government to reach a deal. She was taken hostage along with six other female conscript soldiers at the…
Austria’s Chancellor Karl Nehammer says he will resign in the coming days, both as chancellor and party leader, after talks about forming a coalition government collapsed. The chancellor said his party – the conservative People’s Party (ÖVP) – and the Social Democrats had failed to agree on key issues. The liberal Neos, another party involved…
Pope Francis has called for negotiations between Ukraine and Russia to end the war triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In his traditional Christmas Day address, the Pope said “boldness [was] needed to open the door” to dialogue “in order to achieve a just and lasting peace” between the two sides. His appeal…
Mauritius’s deputy prime minister has hinted that negotiations with the UK over the future of the Chagos Islands are being held up over the amount of money involved. Under the terms of the original agreement, which was announced in October, the UK would relinquish sovereignty to Mauritius over the archipelago but maintain a 99-year lease…
Vehicles are offered for sale at a Nissan dealership on December 18, 2024 in Libertyville, Illinois. Scott Olson | Getty Images Japanese automakers Nissan and Honda on Monday announced they had entered into official talks to merge and create the world’s third-largest automaker by sales. In a press conference on Monday, Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe said the…
Reuters A displaced Palestinian woman in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip Talks to reach a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas are 90% complete, but key issues remain that need to be bridged, a senior Palestinian official involved in the talks told the BBC. One of the main sticking…
The US Department of Justice is in talks with the office of special counsel Jack Smith over winding down the two federal cases he is overseeing against president-elect Donald Trump, according to US media reports. Last year, Mr Smith brought charges against Trump over the alleged mishandling of classified documents and his suspected role in…
