While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, Oct 10, 2025
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Hamas is expected to release the 20 living hostages together, 72 hours after the ceasefire begins.
PHOTO: AFP
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Trump says Gaza hostages should be released on Monday or Tuesday
US President Donald Trump said on Oct 9 that the Gaza hostages should be released on Monday or Tuesday and that he hopes to attend a signing ceremony in Egypt.
Mr Trump opened a White House Cabinet meeting by discussing a deal reached on Oct 8 under which the hostages held by Hamas militants are to be released in the first phase of a broader Gaza plan. He said he believed it will lead to “lasting peace.”
Mr Trump said under the plan Gaza is going to be “slowly redone,” a reference to plans to rebuild the Palestinian enclave. He did not provide details.
Trump and Finland’s Stubb approve deal for icebreaker ships
EPA
US President Donald Trump and Finnish counterpart Alexander Stubb sealed an agreement on Oct 9 for the US Coast Guard to acquire up to 11 icebreaker ships to bolster US national security in the Arctic.
Mr Trump and Mr Stubb have established friendly ties since Mr Trump regained power in January, and the two met in March at the president’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida and played a round of golf.
The two leaders approved a memorandum of understanding on icebreaker cooperation that is intended to lay the foundation for commercial agreements between the US Coast Guard and Finnish companies.
French appeal court increases sentence of man convicted of raping Gisele Pelicot
REUTERS
A French court on Oct 9 rejected the appeal of a former construction worker found guilty last year of the aggravated rape of Gisele Pelicot, and increased his prison sentence by a year to 10 years, France Info reported.
A lawyer for Husamettin Dogan did not respond to a request for comment on her client’s failed appeal.
Pelicot returned to court this week to face the only man, out of 51, who appealed his guilty verdict.
US imposes sanctions on China refinery, others for Iran oil purchases
REUTERS
The US imposed sanctions on about 100 individuals, entities and vessels, including a Chinese independent refinery and terminal, that helped Iran’s oil and petrochemicals trade, the administration of US President Donald Trump said on Oct 9.
The Treasury Department sanctioned the Shandong Jincheng Petrochemical Group Co, which it said is an independent teapot refinery in Shandong Province that has purchased millions of barrels of Iranian oil since 2023.
It also sanctioned China-based Rizhao Shihua Crude Oil Terminal Co, which operates a terminal at Lanshan Port. Treasury said it has accepted more than a dozen of Iran’s so-called shadow fleet vessels that evade the sanctions.
Italian athlete gets three-year ban for spying on Olympic champion Jacobs
REUTERS
The brother of Filippo Tortu, a member of Italy’s 4x100m relay team that won Olympic gold in Tokyo, was suspended for three years on Oct 9 by the Italian Athletics Federation (Fidal) for spying on two-time Olympic champion Marcell Jacobs.
Giacomo Tortu, himself a former athlete and current president of the Milan Raptors club, received two suspensions after he attempted to access Jacobs’s personal data with the help of a private detective agency, hoping, according to the Italian press, to demonstrate doping.
The first suspension, imposed by Fidal, for 30 months, was for “violation of respect for and compliance with federal statutory and regulatory rules, as well as the principles of loyalty, integrity, fairness in sport, and discipline that constitute the foundations of sport”.
