Radio Free Europe

Iran said it has opened the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping traffic for the remainder of a 10-day cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon, and US President Donald Trump again suggested that Washington and Tehran could reach a deal to end the US-Israeli war with Iran in the near future.

Prayers for peace, cease-fires, and an ongoing energy crisis dominated the seventh week of the conflict in the Middle East. 1 A propaganda billboard in Tehran photographed on April 15 references the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz. 2 General Dan Caine, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, displays a map of the Strait of Hormuz during a press briefing at the Pentagon on April 16.

Several dozen Turkmen citizens who visited Balkanabat's only Christian church to celebrate Catholic and Orthodox Easter were detained before entering the church premises, according to several eyewitnesses.

Talks between several countries around the Middle East are heating up amid a diplomatic push to clinch peace deals around the region. US President Donald Trump said the leaders of Israel and Lebanon will hold talks on April 16 -- the first such negotiations since 1993 -- as they seek a cease-fire to end more than six weeks of war with Iran-backed Hezbollah.Hezbollah is both a militant group and political party that controls much of southern Lebanon.

As US President Donald Trump says the war in Iran could be over "very soon" and Pakistani mediators in Tehran to meet with officials, another nearby conflict has been drawing Beijing's attention. Since late February, fighting between Afghanistan and Pakistan has intensified, with Islamabad declaring an "open war" with its neighbor. Strikes have killed hundreds and displaced hundreds of thousands, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Afghanistan.

KYIV -- Russia fired hundreds of drones and missiles at Kyiv, Dnipro, and other Ukrainian cities, killing at least 15 people across the country in one of the largest bombardments in months. Emergency workers struggled on April 16 to douse fires and locate survivors in high-rise apartment buildings in the Ukrainian capital. As many as 45 people had been injured in Kyiv, Mayor Vitaly Klitschko said, while another official said the wounded toll was at least 58.

Iranian officials are set on April 16 to meet with Pakistani mediators to discuss new US proposals and decide on a possible second round of talks a day after US President Donald Trump asserted that the end of the war could come “very soon.” “After today's meeting of the Pakistani delegation headed by Pakistani Army Chief Asim Munir with Iranian officials, the Iranian team will conduct the necessary review and then a decision will be made about the next round of negotiations between Iran and...

As Ukraine prepares to mark the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, a new report from Greenpeace warns that failure to fully repair the protective shell around the crippled nuclear plant could lead to a "catastrophic" release of radioactive dust. A Russian drone punctured a hole in the external shield in 2025. Strikes near the site cause vibrations that could lead to a catastrophic collapse of an internal shell, the sarcophagus, that covers nuclear debris.

SLOVYANSK, Ukraine -- Russian shelling destroyed a children's sports facility and an administrative building in the center of Slovyansk in the Donetsk region, while Moscow also targeted Ukrainian regions with hundreds of drones. "The attack happened today, on April 15, at 5 a.m. The children's sports facility, which was a historical landmark of the city, has been completely destroyed," Slovyansk Major Vadym Lyakh reported on Telegram.

US President Donald Trump suggested that peace talks with Iran could resume in a day or two as the US military chokes off the country's maritime trade in a move to get Tehran to the negotiating table. Trump ordered a naval blockade targeting vessels headed to or from Iranian ports after US-Iranian peace talks in Islamabad on April 11-12 failed to produce an agreement to end the war, which began with US and Israeli air strikes on Iran on February 28.