The Aga Khan IV was laid to rest on Sunday at a private ceremony in Aswan, Egypt.

The death of Prince Karim – the 49th hereditary imam of the Shiite Ismaili Muslims – was announced Tuesday by the Aga Khan Development Network and the Ismaili religious community. His son, 53-year-old Rahim Al-Hussaini, has been named as the Aga Khan V, the spiritual leader of the world’s millions of Ismaili Muslims, in according with his father’s will.

On Saturday, a private funeral service took place at the Ismaili community center in Lisbon attended by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Spain’s King Emeritus Juan Carlos and Portugal’s President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.

The Aga Khan is considered by his followers to be a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad and is treated as a head of state.

The governor of Aswan welcomed Prince Karim’s family at the southern Egyptian’s provinces airport on Saturday.

“When his will was opened, it was found that he had requested to be buried in Aswan near his grandfather, Sultan Muhammad Shah, and his grandmother, Om Habiba,” said Maj. Gen. Ismail Kamal.

Ismaili mourners marched as bells rang during the burial ceremony in the country’s southern Aswan province, as Prince Karim’s body was taken in a van.

They carried his body, draped in a white shroud, and placed it on a yacht on the Nile River.

Prince Karim, 88, was given the title of “His Highness” by Queen Elizabeth in July 1957, two weeks after his grandfather, the Aga Khan III, unexpectedly made him heir to the family’s 1,300-year dynasty as leader of the Ismaili Muslim sect.

The late Aga Khan evolved over decades into a business magnate and a philanthropist, moving between the spiritual and the worldly with ease.

He was a defender of Islamic culture and values, but also widely regarded as a builder of bridges between Muslim societies and the West.

The Aga Khan Development Network deals mainly with issues of health care, housing, education and rural economic development.

It says it works in over 30 countries and has an annual budget of about $1 billion for nonprofit development activities.

Ismailis lived for many generations in Iran, Syria and South Asia before also settling in east Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East, as well as Europe, North America and Australia more recently.

They consider it a duty to donate up to 12.5% of their income to the Aga Khan as steward.

Two rare black wolves, likely siblings, were spotted on camera crossing a stream in a Polish forest, a conservation organization said Sunday.

The unusual sighting, captured last year on a video camera set up by SAVE Wildlife Conservation Fund Poland project coordinator Joanna Toczydłowska, has prompted the organization to collect scat (droppings) in the forest in the hopes of learning more about the black wolves’ genetics.

“It’s something new and unusual,” Toczydłowska told The Associated Press.

Toczydłowska initially placed the camera to study beavers. When she noticed she was recording wolves instead, she kept the camera there and collected the black wolf footage a few weeks ago.

In one clip, a black wolf and a gray wolf slowly crossed a stream in the forest, the water nearly up to their bellies, before they leap onto the bank. A second clip, taken last fall, records two black wolves and a gray wolf fording the same stream.

Most of the 2,500 to 3,000 wolves in Poland are gray with red or black accents. Black fur comes from a genetic mutation that was likely in domesticated dogs thousands of years ago. The dark fur is rare in Europe due to a reduced genetic diversity, but at least half of the wolf population has black fur in Yellowstone National Park in the United States.

Because wolves travel in families and both black wolves were around 30 kilograms (66 lbs) — roughly the size of a German shepherd — Toczydłowska said they were likely siblings and roughly a year old. At least one is male.

The conservation organization, which has been monitoring wolves in Poland for 13 years, is not disclosing the forest’s location to keep the wolves safe from poaching and prevent misinformation about wolves from spreading.

Wolves were essentially extinct in Poland by the 1950s, but the population has returned in recent years, especially in central part of the country in the early 2000s. Toczydłowska and her colleagues teach other the public how to safely live in areas inhabited by wolfpacks.

“For people, it is a new phenomenon,” Roman Gula, head of the organization’s wolf monitoring project, told the AP. “Education is one of our major, major goals.”

The conservation fund announced the sighting last week on Facebook and asked for financial support to pay for the scat’s genetic testing to learn more about the black-fur mutation.

At least 31 suspected Maoist rebels and two police officials were killed on Sunday in the deadliest combat so far this year in central India, police said.

Hundreds of police and paramilitary soldiers launched an operation in the forests of the Indravati area of Chhattisgarh state based on intelligence that large number of rebels had gathered there, said state police Inspector General Pattilingam Sundarraj.

Sundarraj said as the troops conducted a search operation fighting erupted in the forest, killing at least 31 insurgents and two police officials. Two other police were injured. He said search operations were continuing in the area and the troops had recovered some arms and ammunition, including automatic rifles.

There was no immediate statement from the rebels.

Sunday’s fighting is the biggest so far this year and the second major clash in less than a month in Chhattisgarh, according to police officer Jitendra Yadav.

At least 16 rebels were killed in the state’s Gariband district on Jan. 23. According to Indian officials, the government had issued a bounty for 12 of them totaling about $345,000. Eight rebels were killed in a gunbattle with troops in the Bijapur district on Jan. 31.

Indian soldiers have been battling the Maoist rebels across several central and northern states since 1967, when the militants, also known as Naxalites, began fighting to demand more jobs, land and wealth from natural resources for the country’s poor indigenous communities. The insurgents are inspired by Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong.

Years of neglect have isolated many locals, who face a lack of jobs, schools and health care clinics, making them open to overtures by the rebels. The rebels speak the same tribal languages as many villagers and have promised to fight for a better future especially in Chhattisgarh, one of India’s poorest states despite its vast mineral riches.

The rebels have ambushed police, destroyed government offices and abducted officials. They’ve also blown up train tracks, attacked prisons to free their comrades and stolen weapons from police and paramilitary warehouses to arm themselves.

The number of new marriages recorded in China fell to a record low last year, despite sweeping government efforts to encourage young people to tie the knot and have babies to halt demographic decline in the world’s second-largest economy.

Some 6.1 million couples registered their marriages in 2024, a plunge of 20.5% from the previous year, according to data released Saturday by China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs. It marks a record low since the ministry started releasing the statistics in 1986.

Plummeting marriages – and births – pose a severe challenge to Beijing, as it grapples with the pressure of a shrinking workforce and rapidly aging population on the country’s slowing economy.

The sharp drop in the number of marriages in 2024 resumed the decade-long decline since 2013, after a brief rebound in 2023 following the lifting of stringent Covid restrictions.

Last year’s figure was less than half of the 13 million marriages registered at the peak in 2013.

The data released on Saturday also showed a slight increase in the number of divorces. Last year, nearly 2.6 million couples registered for divorce, an increase of 28,000 from 2023.

China has mandated a 30-day “cooling-off” period for people filing for divorce since 2021, despite criticism that it could make it harder for women to leave broken or even abusive marriages.

China’s population has shrunk for three years in a row despite a slight increase in the birth rate last year.

The working population, classified as those between the ages of 16 and 59, also declined by 6.83 million last year, adding to an ongoing contraction. The population of those over 60, meanwhile, continued to expand, to account for 22% of the total population.

Chinese officials see a direct link between fewer marriages and falling births in the country, where social norms and government regulations make it challenging for unmarried couples to have children.

To reverse the decline, Chinese officials have rolled out a raft of measures, from financial incentives to propaganda campaigns, to nudge young people to tie the knot and have children.

Officials have organized blind dating events, mass weddings, and attempted to curtail the tradition of large “bride price” payments from the groom to his future wife’s family that put marriage out of reach for many poor men in rural areas.

Some local governments have even handed out cash incentives for young couples to get married.

Since 2022, China’s Family Planning Association has launched programs to create a “new-era marriage and childbearing culture,” enrolling dozens of cities to promote the “social value of childbearing” and encouraging young people to get married and give birth at an “appropriate age.”

But so far, these policies have failed to convince Chinese young adults who are grappling with high unemployment, the rising cost of living and the lack of robust social welfare support amid the economic slowdown.

Many are postponing marriage and childbirth – and a growing number of young people even choose to eschew them entirely.

“Life is so exhausting, how could there be the courage to get married? Sigh,” said a top comment on Chinese social platform Weibo on Sunday, in response to news of the record-low marriages.

The decline in both marriages and births is partly due to decades of policies designed to limit China’s population growth, which resulted in fewer young people of marriageable age, according to Chinese officials and sociologists.

In 2015, China announced an end to its decades-long one-child policy, allowing couples to have two children, then increased that to three children in 2021 – but both marriage and birth rates continued to drop.

The stubborn downward trend is also a result of changing attitudes to marriage, especially among young women who are becoming more educated and financially independent.

Faced with widespread workplace discrimination and patriarchal traditions – such as the expectation for women to be responsible for childcare and housework – some women are growing disillusioned with marriage.

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returns from a week-long trip to Washington, toting a fantastical and radical Gaza plan from the American president, he finds a country at a crossroads.

Will Israel return to war in Gaza? Or will the ceasefire hold, and more Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners see freedom?

US President Donald Trump wants America to control Gaza and for the 2.1 million Palestinians who live there to leave. The gaunt appearance of three Israelis released from Hamas captivity has traumatized the nation. A month-old ceasefire expires in just over two weeks and talks to extend it have barely begun, if at all.

Memories and images of the Holocaust have always loomed over the Israeli psyche. But now, at a critical time in the 16-month-long Gaza war, a battle to define the lessons of that slaughter is being played out across Israeli society.

‘Holocaust survivors’

On Saturday, Israelis gathered around their televisions as they have every weekend for a month, to see their compatriots released from more than a year of captivity in Gaza.

Hamas’ highly staged handover ceremonies are fraught. Just a week ago, many Israelis got flashbacks to the scenes of October 7, 2023, as militants pushed Arbel Yehoud through a jostling crowd.

But the nation was not prepared for the image of three skeletal figures – Ohad Ben Ami, Eli Sharabi and Or Levy – as Hamas militants led them from a van in Deir al-Balah this weekend. Emaciated, with sunken faces, the three appeared barely able to walk on their own.

To many, the image drew immediate parallels to the survivors of Nazi death camps. “The three who returned today are Holocaust survivors,” Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan is still held in Gaza, said later that day.

When the prime minister expressed outrage at their appearance, the opposition leader Yair Lapid hit back: “Netanyahu, did you just now discover that the condition of the hostages is dire?”

Hamas and its allies continue to hold 73 hostages taken on October, of whom at least 34 are believed to be dead by the Israeli government.

Netanyahu has long been accused, with some evidence, of deliberately blocking previous ceasefire deals. In a tell-all interview with Israel’s Channel 12 on Thursday, the former defense minister Yoav Gallant – fired by Netanyahu last year after months of tension – agreed.

“This offer from early July that Hamas agreed to is identical to the offer now, only less good in some respects,” he said of the ceasefire agreement adopted in January. “There are fewer live hostages, unfortunately. More time has passed. And we are paying a heavier price here, because there are at least 110 more murderers who will be released in this process.”

Previous hostages have been freed in relative health – albeit, doctors say, malnourished and traumatized. With the release of the three gaunt men this weekend, Hamas appeared to be sending a message at a critical moment.

“Seeing the three hostages this morning as if they had been liberated from World War II concentration camps should compel us all to accelerate the release of all hostages,” the veteran Israeli negotiator-turned-peace activist Gershon Baskin said on Saturday.

It should be noted, of course, that many Palestinian prisoners who have been released from Israeli jails say that they were deliberately starved. Mohammad El-Halabi, an aid worker who was charged in 2016 with funneling money to Hamas in a case disputed by international human rights groups, was among those released earlier this month.

‘Total victory’

Just as some see in the Holocaust an argument to accelerate a deal for more hostages, others draw on a deep strain in Israeli culture – that, no matter what, Jews will never again be victims.

“We became a nation of victims – we were the perfect victim,” Netanyahu told Fox News this weekend. “I don’t seek wars – I seek to end wars. But if a war is foisted on me, like these monsters foisted on us, we will defeat them. And we will achieve total victory over them. No question about that.”

Speaking on Holocaust Remembrance Day last year, he said that “a straight line, as sinister as can be, connects the murderers of old to the murderers of today.”

Though his foreign minister, Gideon Saar, also drew the comparison between the Holocaust and the gaunt Israeli hostages released this weekend, Netanyahu has so far avoided their comparison.

His extremist finance minister is similarly skeptical. “The suffering of our hostages in Hamas’ brutal captivity is heartbreaking,” Bezalel Smotrich said this weekend. “But comparisons to the Holocaust are a grave mistake and are based on the contempt for the Holocaust.”

His opinions carry weight. Smotrich is at the height of his powers. After Itamar Ben Gvir quit his post as national security minister over the Gaza ceasefire, Smotrich’s right-wing Religious Zionism party became the keystone to Netanyahu’s ability to govern.

He has also threatened to quit, if Israel doesn’t return to war in Gaza. It is little surprise that Netanyahu waited until this weekend – a week after a deadline for further ceasefire talks – to send a delegation to Qatar. Israeli media is rife with speculation that he is simply running out the clock until phase one of the deal expires on March 1.

“We’re going to get 75% of the living hostages out,” he told Fox News, before hastening to add: “Which – and I intend to get all of them out.”

If Netanyahu does return Israel to war in Gaza, Trump’s desire for Palestinians to leave will become unavoidable.

Trump’s plan is radical. If Palestinians were forced to leave – or encouraged, by prolonging dire humanitarian conditions – it would almost certainly constitute ethnic cleansing under international law. But Trump has recognized, in the simplistic way of a populist, that paying lip service to the two-state solution has only entrenched the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“We’re going to finish Hamas off,” Netanyahu said in that interview. “And what happens then? Do we leave the people there with all that devastation? Do you say, ‘Well, they have to stay in, confined?’ Because nobody lets them leave. Everybody describes Gaza as the biggest open-air prison in the world. You know why? Because they’re not allowed to leave.”

Never one to waste an opportunity, Ben Gvir – a far-right politician who carries a conviction of incitement to racism and supporting a terror organization – also seized on the hostages’ appearance. “This is a holocaust,” he said. “Encourage voluntary immigration now.”

Abeer Salman, Lauren Izso, Dana Karni and Eugenia Yosef contributed to this report.

Three male Israeli hostages are in the custody of the Israeli military in the fifth round of exchanges between Israel and Hamas, as uncertainty looms over the next stage of the Gaza ceasefire agreement as well as the enclave’s long-term future.

Ohad Ben Ami, Eli Sharabi, and Or Levy – all taken hostage during the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel – were handed to the Red Cross in the central city of Deir al-Balah on day 491 of their captivity in Gaza. Although the transfer was orderly the three appeared thin and pale when they were led onto a makeshift stage.

Both Ami and Sharabi were dressed in brown. The hostages were seen delivering speeches in Hebrew while standing on the stage, before being led to the three Red Cross vehicles waiting to take them back to Israel. It is unclear whether they were speaking under duress.

The Red Cross then passed the hostages to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Gaza.

The images during Saturday’s handover were described as “disturbing” by Israel’s Hostages and Missing Families Forum. Levy – who was released as he was considered a humanitarian case – appeared particularly frail.

Ben Ami, 56, and Sharabi, 52, were both taken from their homes in Kibbutz Be’eri, about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) from the Gaza border.

Ben Ami’s wife, Raz Ben Ami, also taken captive that day, was freed during a short-lived truce in November 2023.

Sharabi’s wife and daughters were killed in the October 7 attack, according to the kibbutz. His brother Yossi Sharabi, who was taken captive, died in Gaza, where his body remains, according to the Israeli military.

Levy, 34, was attending the Nova music festival on October 7 when he was kidnapped. His wife Eynav was killed in the attack. Levy also has a three-year-old son who he’ll be reunited with on his return to Israel.

Hamas has now released a total of 16 Israeli hostages as part of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement, of a total of 33 promised at staggered intervals during this stage. Eight of those 33 are dead, according to the Israeli government.

Following the release of the three hostages on Saturday, Hamas and its allies still hold a total of 73 people taken from Israel on October 7, 2023, of 251 initially taken. Three additional hostages, held captive since 2014, are still in Gaza.

Hamas has said it expects Israel on Saturday to release 183 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the three Israelis. Israel is yet to confirm the numbers and names of the prisoners expected to be released.

Eighteen of the Palestinian prisoners expected to be released Saturday are serving life sentences, while 54 have lesser sentences and 111 were detained in Gaza after October 7, Hamas said in a statement. The charges against the 111 were not clear.

As well as taking hostages, Palestinian militants killed more than 1,200 people during the October 7 attack. Israeli bombardment of Gaza since then has killed more than 40,000 people, reduced much of the enclave to rubble, and led to a humanitarian catastrophe for surviving residents. The war has spilled over into the wider region, putting Israel in conflict with key Hamas backer Iran, as well as Tehran proxies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.

Saturday’s release follows the freeing of three Israeli hostages – Keith Siegel, Yarden Bibas and Ofer Kalderon – on February 1. The three men were handed over by Hamas in two orderly handover ceremonies that stood in stark contrast to scenes earlier that week.

On January 30, Israeli and Thai hostages were released in chaotic fashion, with a crowd of thousands jostling and cheering as they were handed over to the Red Cross in the central Gazan city of Khan Younis. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described that handover as “shocking” and demanded guarantees from those who mediated the ceasefire deal – Qatar, Egypt and the United States – that the incident would not be repeated.

Uncertainty looms over the future of the ceasefire and hostage agreement between Israel and Hamas. Negotiations on extending the Gaza ceasefire – which expires on March 1 – are in doubt.

Netanyahu has been deeply wary of phase two of that deal, which would see the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and the return of the remaining hostages there. His finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has pledged to quit the government if the ceasefire continues.

Fueling more uncertainty, in remarkable comments on Tuesday evening, US President Donald Trump proposed that the US “take over” Gaza, relocate its residents to neighboring countries, and redevelop the war-torn enclave. His comments were welcomed by Israeli far-right ministers and condemned by Hamas.

A Hamas official slammed Trump’s proposal as a “recipe for creating chaos and tension in the region.”

“Our people in the Gaza Strip will not allow these plans to pass, and what is required is to end the occupation and aggression against our people, not expel them from their land,” Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri said.

US President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday aimed at freezing assistance to South Africa over a controversial law that allows the government to seize farmland from ethnic minorities — namely White farmers — without compensation, as well as the country’s stance against Israel and its war in Gaza.

Trump said in the order the United States would no longer support South Africa with foreign aid if such policies, which he claims highlight a “shocking disregard for its citizens” and amount to “human rights violations,” continue, ordering US agencies to stop providing any aid to South Africa unless deemed necessary.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has previously denied that South African authorities were “confiscating land” and said his country was looking forward to working with the Trump administration “over our land reform policy.”

Trump’s order also directs the United States to assist Afrikaners — an ethnic group descended from European settlers — who are fleeing South Africa due to discrimination, including helping them resettle through refugee programs.

“It is the policy of the United States that, as long as South Africa continues these unjust and immoral practices that harm our Nation, the United States shall not provide aid or assistance to South Africa; and the United States shall promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation,” read the order.

South Africa’s foreign ministry called the order a “great concern” and said it “(lacked) factual accuracy and fails to recognize South Africa’s profound and painful history of colonialism and apartheid,” adding that the move seemed “to be a campaign of misinformation and propaganda aimed at misrepresenting our great nation.”

“It is ironic that the executive order makes provision for refugee status in the US for a group in South Africa that remains amongst the most economically privileged, while vulnerable people in the US from other parts of the world are being deported and denied asylum despite real hardship,” the foreign ministry added in a statement Saturday.

In the past, racist policies forcefully removed Black and non-White South Africans from land for White people to use. There has been a land redistribution and restitution provision in the country’s constitution since South Africa emerged from its apartheid era and held its first democratic elections in 1994.

Unemployment and poverty, however, remain acute among Black South Africans, who make up around 80% of the population, yet own a fraction of the land. In January, Ramaphosa signed a bill into law that sets forth new guidelines for land expropriation, including enabling the government to expropriate land without compensation in some cases.

According to the US Foreign Assistance website, the country said it would send nearly $440 million in assistance to South Africa in 2023, including more than $270 million just from the Agency for International Development (USAID).

The executive order comes as the Trump administration has already frozen almost all foreign assistance and made moves to dismantle USAID.

Trump also said in his order that South Africa had taken an aggressive stance against the United States and its allies through its position on Israel and reinvigorating ties with Iran.

South Africa accused Israel of committing genocide in an unprecedented case at the United Nations’ top court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ). It said Israel’s leadership was “intent on destroying the Palestinians in Gaza” and called for the court to order a halt to Israel’s military campaign in the enclave.

Trump has previously said he would halt funding until there was a full investigation into allegations that “South Africa is confiscating land and treating certain classes of people very badly,” without citing evidence.

Ramaphosa also spoke to Trump’s “first buddy” and South African-born Elon Musk earlier this week “on issues of misinformation and distortions about South Africa,” emphasizing South Africa’s constitutionally embedded values of the respect for the rule of law, justice, fairness and equality,” a government statement at the time read.

During his annual state of the nation address, Ramaphosa said South Africa “will not be deterred.”

“We are, as South Africans, a resilient people, and we will not be bullied,” he said.