Russia on Tuesday returned the bodies of what it said were 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers, five of whom died while in captivity, a Ukrainian government agency said.

Ukraine returned the bodies of 19 Russian soldiers in exchange, a Russian official said.

Tens of thousands of soldiers have been killed on both sides since Russia invaded its neighbour in February 2022, though neither side regularly publishes data on their own casualties.

The exchange of prisoners of war and repatriation of war dead has been one of the few areas of cooperation between the two countries since the war began.

READ ALSO: Russia, Ukraine War: Trump Rules Out Immediate Ceasefire, Pushes For Peace Deal

The two sides have intensified these efforts in recent months during talks in Istanbul.

“According to the Russian side, 1,000 bodies belonging to Ukrainian military personnel have been returned to Ukraine,” Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said in a statement on Telegram.

“Unfortunately, among those repatriated are the bodies of five Ukrainian servicemen who died in captivity,” it added.

READ ALSO: Russia, Ukraine War: Trump Rules Out Immediate Ceasefire, Pushes For Peace Deal

It said law enforcement would begin the process of identifying the soldiers.

The exchange was carried out by agreements reached between the two sides in Istanbul, Russian negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said.

Kyiv initially said the two had agreed to “exchange” the bodies of 6,000 Ukrainian soldiers for as many Russians, though Moscow has always presented the deal as a unilateral decision to repatriate Ukrainians.

AFP

Google has agreed to pay a fine of 55 million Australian dollars (US$36 million) after admitting to anticompetitive agreements with the country’s two largest telecommunications firms, Telstra and Optus.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission announced the penalty on Monday in a statement obtained from its website , saying the arrangements between the tech giant and the two telcos reduced search competition and consumer choice in Australia.

According to the ACCC, Google’s Singapore-based Asia Pacific division entered into contracts with Telstra and Optus between late 2019 and early 2021.

Under the agreements, the telcos were banned from installing rival search engines on Android smartphones sold to customers.

READ ALSO:US Envoy, Minister Address Visa Policy Changes, Urge Compliance

The deals, which ran for about 15 months until March 2021, ensured that Google Search was the sole pre-installed option on Android devices. In return, Telstra and Optus received a share of advertising revenue generated from users’ searches.

The regulator said Google had accepted that the agreements were likely to “substantially lessen competition.”

Proceedings have been launched in the Federal Court, which will decide whether the AU$55 million penalty is appropriate.

In addition to the fine, Google has signed a court-enforceable undertaking requiring it to remove restrictions on pre-installation and default search engine options from future contracts with Android phone manufacturers and telecommunications operators.

READ ALSO:Google Drops Pledge Not To Use AI For Weapons

ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb welcomed the outcome, stressing that anti-competitive conduct directly harms consumers.

“Conduct that restricts competition is illegal in Australia because it ully means less choice, higher costs or worse service for consumers.

“Today’s outcome, along with Telstra, Optus and TPG’s undertakings, have created the potential for millions of Australians to have greater search choice in the future, and for competing search providers to gain meaningful exposure to Australian consumers,” she said.

Cass-Gottlieb also noted that the changes come at a critical time. “Importantly, these changes come at a time when AI search tools are revolutionising how we search for information, creating new competition,” she said.

READ ALSO: Google Shares Slide On Spending Plans Despite Sales Jump

Under the new arrangements, Telstra, Optus and TPG are allowed to configure search services on a device-by-device basis, even in ways that may not align with Google’s default settings.

The telcos may also enter into pre-installation agreements with other search providers.

“With AI search tools becoming increasingly available, consumers can experiment with search services on their mobiles,” Cass-Gottlieb said.

The case follows a lengthy ACCC investigation, which began after concerns were raised during the regulator’s Digital Platform Services Inquiry into search defaults and choice screens.

READ ALSO:Google Doodle Celebrates Mexican Archaeologist On 128th Birthday

“Co-operation with the ACCC is encouraged.

“It can avoid the need for protracted and costly litigation and lead to more competition.

“More competition in markets drives economic dynamism, but the reverse is true when markets are not sufficiently competitive,” Cass-Gottlieb said.

She said ACCC remains committed to addressing anti-competitive conduct like this, as well as cartel conduct.

Last year, Telstra, Optus, and rival TPG agreed to court-enforceable undertakings with the ACCC, pledging not to renew or enter into similar arrangements with Google that would limit search engine options.

Hamas has accepted a new ceasefire proposal for Gaza without requesting amendments, a source from the group told AFP Monday, after a fresh diplomatic push to end more than 22 months of war.

Mediators Egypt and Qatar, backed by the United States, have struggled to secure a lasting truce in the conflict, which has triggered a dire humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.

But after receiving a new proposal from mediators, Hamas said it was ready for talks.

“Hamas has delivered its response to the mediators, confirming that Hamas and the factions agreed to the new ceasefire proposal without requesting any amendments,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Israel has yet to respond.

A Palestinian source familiar with the talks said mediators were “expected to announce that an agreement has been reached and set a date for the resumption of talks”, adding that guarantees were offered to ensure implementation and pursue a permanent solution.

READ ALSO:Israel Threatens To Do To Iran What It Has Done To Hamas

Another Palestinian official earlier said mediators had proposed an initial 60-day truce and hostage release in two batches.

The proposal comes more than a week after Israel’s security cabinet approved plans to expand the war into Gaza City and nearby refugee camps, which have sparked international outcry as well as domestic opposition.

– ‘Confronted and destroyed’ –

An Islamic Jihad source told AFP the plan envisaged a 60-day ceasefire “during which 10 Israeli hostages would be released alive, along with several bodies”.

Out of 251 hostages taken during Hamas’s October 2023 attack that triggered the war, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27, the Israeli military says, are dead.

The Islamic Jihad source said “the remaining captives would be released in a second phase”, with negotiations for a broader settlement to follow. They added that “all factions are supportive” of the Egyptian and Qatari proposal.

READ ALSO:Gaza Talks: Pick A Side Between Us Or Hamas — Israeli PM Tells Qatar

US President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social: “We will only see the return of the remaining hostages when Hamas is confronted and destroyed!!!”

“The sooner this takes place, the better the chances of success will be.”

Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel “will agree to an agreement in which all the hostages are released at once and according to our conditions for ending the war”.

Meanwhile, in a now familiar scene in Gaza, AFP footage from the southern city of Khan Yunis showed crowds of mourners kneeling over the shrouded bodies of their loved ones who were killed seeking aid the day before.

– ‘Beyond imagination’ –

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, visiting the Rafah border crossing with Gaza on Monday, said Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani was visiting “to consolidate our existing common efforts to apply maximum pressure on the two sides to reach a deal as soon as possible”.

READ ALSO:Israeli Strike On Gaza’s Only Catholic Church Kills Two

Alluding to the dire humanitarian conditions for the more than two million people living in the Gaza Strip, where UN agencies and aid groups have warned of famine, Abdelatty stressed the urgency of reaching an agreement.

“The current situation on the ground is beyond imagination,” he said.

Egypt said on Monday it was willing to join a potential international force deployed to Gaza, but only if backed by a UN Security Council resolution and accompanied by a “political horizon”.

– ‘Deliberate’ starvation –

On the ground, Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed at least 11 people across the territory on Monday, including six killed by Israeli fire in the south.

Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it was “not aware of any casualties as a result of IDF fire” in the southern areas reported by the civil defence.

READ ALSO:Gaza Civil Defence Says Israeli Strikes Kill 30

Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties accessing swathes of the Palestinian territory mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency or the Israeli military.

Rights group Amnesty International, meanwhile, accused Israel of enacting a “deliberate policy” of starvation in Gaza and “systematically destroying the health, well-being and social fabric of Palestinian life”.

Israel, while heavily restricting aid allowed into Gaza, has repeatedly rejected claims of deliberate starvation.

Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Israel’s offensive has killed more than 62,004 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which the United Nations considers reliable.

AFP