World News Roundup: U.S. to impose visa bans soon on Israeli extremist settlers for West Bank violence; War resumes in Gaza after truce collapses and more

The fighting is reminiscent of a battle for another eastern city, Bakhmut, which fell to Russian forces last May after months of brutal urban combat. UN chief, COP28 president clash over future of fossil fuels U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres urged world leaders at the COP28 climate summit to plan for a future without fossil fuels, saying there was no other way to curb global warming.

Following is a summary of current world news briefs.

U.S. to impose visa bans soon on Israeli extremist settlers for West Bank violence

The Biden administration has informed Israel that Washington will impose visa bans in the next few weeks on Israeli extremist settlers engaged in violence against Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank, a senior State Department official said. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet have let them know that the United States will take its own action against an undisclosed number of individuals.

War resumes in Gaza after truce collapses

Israel's warplanes pounded Gaza, sending wounded and dead Palestinians into hospitals and residents into the streets to flee, as its war against Hamas resumed after talks to extend a week-old truce broke down. As the deadline lapsed, Reuters journalists in Khan Younis in southern Gaza saw eastern areas come under intensive bombardment, sending columns of smoke rising into the sky. Residents took to the road with belongings heaped up in carts, fleeing for shelter further west.

Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny says he has been handed new criminal charges

Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said on social media on Friday that he had been informed of new criminal charges against him. Navalny, 47, is already serving sentences in a penal colony totalling more than 30 years on charges including extremism, which he denies, and has spent much of the last two years in solitary confinement for a range of alleged misdemeanours.

How alleged India plots to kill Sikh separatists in the US and Canada unfolded

The alleged plot to assassinate a Sikh separatist on U.S. soil began in May, with a text message between what the American indictment says was an Indian security official and an alleged drugs trafficker. "Save my name," the official wrote to a man named Nikhil Gupta over an encrypted messaging application on May 6, according to U.S. prosecutors.

Explainer-What do we know about China’s respiratory illness surge?

A request by the World Health Organization for more information on a surge in respiratory illnesses and clusters of pneumonia in children in China has attracted global attention. Health authorities have not detected any unusual or novel pathogens, the WHO later said, and doctors and public health researchers say there is no evidence for international alarm.

For eastern Ukrainians, the ordeal of war is entering its second decade

Yevhen Tkachov, a volunteer aid worker and devout Pentecostal from Ukraine's eastern Donbas region, spent much of his life travelling to the world's war zones helping civilians in need. Nearly 10 years ago, his own homeland erupted into conflict, and the war never went away.

Exclusive-China lures hundreds of Taiwan politicians with cheap trips before election - sources

Beijing has sponsored cut-price trips to China for hundreds of Taiwanese politicians ahead of key elections on the island, according to Taiwan sources and documents, unnerving officials with a broad campaign that one called "election interference". President Tsai Ing-wen and other Taiwan officials have warned that China might try to sway voters toward candidates seeking closer ties with Beijing in the elections, which could define the island's relations with China. But the scale of the Chinese activity has not previously been reported.

Explainer-What's at stake in Russia's assault on Avdiivka?

Russian forces are intensifying attacks on the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka, seeking to encircle Kyiv's troops there as Moscow's war in Ukraine grinds on. The fighting is reminiscent of a battle for another eastern city, Bakhmut, which fell to Russian forces last May after months of brutal urban combat.

UN chief, COP28 president clash over future of fossil fuels

U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres urged world leaders at the COP28 climate summit to plan for a future without fossil fuels, saying there was no other way to curb global warming. Speaking a day after COP28 president Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber proposed embracing the continued use of fossil fuels, Guterres said: "We cannot save a burning planet with a fire hose of fossil fuels."

Philippines builds new coast guard station on island in South China Sea

The Philippines has built a new coast guard station on the contested island of Thitu in the South China Sea, boosting its ability to monitor movements of Chinese vessels and aircraft in the busy disputed waterway. As tension mounts over territorial claims in the area, the Philippine coast guard had early this year spotted a Chinese navy ship and dozens of militia vessels around the island, one of nine features Manila occupies in the Spratly archipelago.