Armenia, Azerbaijan ink peace deal to normalize relations

The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a peace agreement here at the White House on Friday, ending a decades-long border conflict.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev witnessed the initialing of the agreement by their foreign ministers. The two countries will take further steps to eventually sign and ratify the agreement, the declaration said.

"The conditions have been created for our nations to finally embark on building good neighborly relations on the basis of the inviolability of international borders and the inadmissibility of the use of force for the acquisition of territory after the conflict that brought immense human suffering," it said.

Trump says to meet Putin on Aug. 15 in U.S. state of Alaska

U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday on social media that his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin will take place on Aug. 15 in the U.S. state of Alaska.

Trump said on Truth Social that further details will follow.

Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov confirmed that Putin and Trump will focus on options for achieving a long-term peaceful settlement of the Russia-Ukraine conflict at the upcoming summit, RIA Novosti reported.

China launches new satellites from sea

A Smart Dragon-3 (SD-3) rocket lifted off on Saturday morning from east China's Shandong Province, sending the Geely-04 constellation of 11 satellites into planned orbit.

The rocket blasted off from sea at 12:31 a.m. (Beijing Time) near the city of Rizhao. The Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center conducted the offshore launch mission.

It was the 6th flight mission to use an SD-3 rocket, according to the launch center.

With a total length of 31 meters and a weight of 140 tonnes, the SD-3 is part of China's Dragon rocket family. Unlike the Long March rockets, which form the backbone of the country's space-launch vehicles, the Dragon series has been developed specifically to meet the growing market demand for launches of small commercial low-orbit satellites and satellite networks.

Israeli plan to occupy Gaza City to take at least 6 months

The Israeli army's planned takeover of Gaza City is expected to take at least six months, Israel's state-owned Kan TV News reported on Saturday evening.

Citing senior security sources, the channel detailed the army's timetable following the Security Cabinet's approval of the operation on Friday.

The channel said that in two weeks, the army will begin evacuating more than 800,000 residents of the Strip's largest city to the humanitarian zone of Al-Mawasi in southern Gaza.

In a month, a reserve division will be recruited to join the five divisions already operating in the Strip, ahead of an intense military operation in Gaza City set to begin in about two months.

Hezbollah member killed in Israeli drone attack in S. Lebanon

An Israeli drone attack targeted a vehicle in southern Lebanon on Saturday, killing one Hezbollah member, according to sources and reports.

A Lebanese security source told Xinhua that the person killed in the Israeli strike was a Hezbollah member, identified as Hadi Ali Khnafer from the village of Ainata.

Meanwhile, the National News Agency reported that the drone strike targeted with four missiles the vehicle between the villages of Aitaroun and Ainata in the Bint Jbeil district in southern Lebanon.