If a second Gaza ceasefire extension holds, it will have been well over a week since the respite began for the daily pounding of the Gaza Strip. Pressure from hostages' families has forced Israel’s government to prioritise the return of loved ones above revenge for the bloodiest day in the country’s history. What has happened since the guns have gone quiet?

The planet is burning up, humanity's addiction to fossil fuels is to blame and the host of a crucial UN climate summit is the United Arab Emirates, a Gulf petromonarchy whose stated aim is a 25 percent ramping up of activity at its state oil company ADNOC.

Peace is most certainly not breaking out. Still, after seven weeks of war in Gaza, a first four-day truce has been extended to six. What to make of it? What is on the table between Israel and Hamas? Will more hostages be freed, and in exchange for how many Palestinian prisoners? We listen to what families on both sides are saying and weigh the options.

There has been a delay in the expected release of some 50 Israeli hostages. The deal is still being finalised in Qatar, where senior Hamas leadership is based. A high-ranking member of Israel's Mossad secret service is there talking to Hamas. The deal, as publicised thus far, involves 50 hostages being swapped for 150 Palestinian prisoners. Described as terrorists by Israel, they are mainly women and youngsters aged between 16 and 18. The hostages to be freed are also women and children.

We examine the deal that will bring home at least 50 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. Those who are set to be released are women and children. The agreement includes a four-day truce and humanitarian aid for besieged Gaza residents after weeks of all-out war.

It's been one month and one day since Hamas last released hostages. Many a hope has been raised and dashed since. And until a deal is done, Israel continues its pounding of the Gaza Strip, where an estimated half of the buildings in the north are either damaged or destroyed. So what would a release look like? Hamas badly wants a truce, Israel the return of more than 200 civilians abducted on October 7. We ask about the mediators and the players.

There's an old adage about politics: you campaign in poetry and you govern in prose. Even though Javier Milei, the winner of Sunday’s presidential runoff in Argentina, did not wield a chainsaw like he did on the campaign trail, the free market absolutist did again promise in his acceptance speech to drain the swamp. How radical will he be?

To paraphrase Joe Biden, one is a communist, the other is not. Can these rivals together get a handle on a world of growing conflicts? Amid fears that at any moment, superpowers could find themselves dragged into major wars in Ukraine and now the Middle East with Cold War-like standoffs in the Pacific over Taiwan and the South China Sea, the US and Chinese leaders met for the first time in over a year.

For the Israelis, the root of all evil runs through the alleged tunnels below the Al Shifa Hospital where Israeli soldiers penetrated on Wednesday. But for Palestinians, the hospital now represents a violated sanctuary as it becomes a symbol of civilian suffering.

San Francisco’s a long way from Gaza City or Avdiivka, but as warring sides in the Middle East and Ukraine dig in for the long haul, could an Asia-Pacific summit offer the venue where superpowers dial down the rhetoric of confrontation?