A group of 61 migrants picked up by a cargo ship from a crippled vessel in the central Mediterranean have safely reached Crete hours after a severely ill child on the freighter died while being airlifted to the Greek island, authorities said Wednesday.

It was unclear whether these were the same people who had earlier been reported stranded for days without provisions on a leaking fishing boat near Malta, after trying to sail from Lebanon to Italy.

The Higher Judicial Council has agreed to a proposal from caretaker Justice Minister Henri Khoury to name an alternate investigator in the Beirut port blast case, sparking political and judicial controversy after the move was seen as illegal and politically motivated.

Dozens of relatives of the victims of the blast protested Wednesday against the decision, calling the move an attempt by the country's political class to prevent justice into one of the world's largest non-nuclear explosions.

International human rights groups have condemned acts of torture in Lebanese prisons following the death of a Syrian refugee in detention and urged authorities to transfer the investigation into his death from a military to a civil court.

Photos surfaced last week of the battered body of a Syrian who had been held for questioning. The grisly visual made headlines in Lebanon and was followed by a video of a coroner assessing the body, which was covered in gashes and bruises. The body was later identified as that of Bashar Abdel-Saud, 30, a Syrian refugee who fled the war-torn country in 2014.

North Korea is apparently moving to sell millions of rockets and artillery shells — many of them likely from its old stock — to its Cold War ally Russia.

Russia has called a U.S. intelligence report on the purchasing plan "fake." But U.S. officials say it shows Russia's desperation with the war in Ukraine and that Moscow could buy additional military hardware from North Korea.

Suspected al-Qaida militants on Tuesday attacked a security post in southern Yemen, sparking clashes that killed at least eight troops and six militants, officials said.

The early morning attack in Ahwar, in the province of Abyan, targeted a post manned by troops from the Security Belt, a security force loyal to the secessionist Southern Transitional Council.

Activists and relatives of migrants aboard a fishing boat taking on water near the island of Malta in the Mediterranean Sea said Tuesday they lost contact with the vessel overnight.

The roughly 60 Lebanese and Syrian migrants on board had told their relatives and volunteer groups by satellite phone earlier that they have been without food, water, and baby formula for several past days.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday attended sweeping war games in his country's far east involving troops from China and other nations, in a show of military muscle amid the tensions with the West over Moscow's action in Ukraine.

The weeklong exercise that began Thursday is intended to showcase growing defense ties between Russia and China and also demonstrate that Moscow has enough troops and equipment for the massive drills even while its forces are engaged in fighting in Ukraine.

Israeli troops killed a Palestinian man during a firefight Tuesday in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. The violence erupted after Israel demolished the home of a Palestinian who killed three Israelis in an attack earlier this year.

The military said it demolished an apartment in the West Bank city of Jenin belonging to Raed Hazem, the gunman who opened fire at a Tel Aviv bar in April.

Europe's largest nuclear plant was knocked off Ukraine's electricity grid Monday, its last transmission line disconnected because of a fire caused by shelling, the facility's operator and the U.N. atomic watchdog said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said it was informed Monday by Ukrainian authorities that the reserve line "was deliberately disconnected in order to extinguish a fire."

The Russian Ministry of Defense is in the process of purchasing millions of rockets and artillery shells from North Korea for its ongoing fight in Ukraine, according to a newly downgraded U.S. intelligence finding.

A U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the intelligence determination, said Monday that the fact Russia is turning to the isolated state of North Korea demonstrates that "the Russian military continues to suffer from severe supply shortages in Ukraine, due in part to export controls and sanctions."