Hamas will not release a captured Israeli soldier unless Israel meets its demand to free nearly 1,400 Palestinian prisoners, including 350 with life sentences, a leader of the Islamist group in Gaza said on Wednesday.

Behind concrete blast walls and battling a flickering power supply, Baghdad’s international film festival opened in a hotel on Wednesday in another sign of how improved security is bringing life back to the city.

Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto vowed to fight for workers’ rights on Wednesday as she took her campaign for January general elections to an industrial belt near the capital.