International

Russia's Vladimir Putin on Saturday apologised to Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, for a "tragic incident" which happened in Russian airspace involving an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane that crashed on Wednesday.

Afghan Taliban forces targeted "several points" in neighbouring Pakistan, Afghanistan's defence ministry said on Saturday, days after Pakistani aircraft carried out aerial bombardment inside Afghanistan.

Gaza health officials said on Saturday that Israeli forces detained the director of a hospital in the north, which the World Health Organization said was put out of service by an Israeli raid. 

Turkey has decided to allow parliament's pro-Kurdish DEM Party to hold face-to-face talks with PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan on his island prison, the party said on Friday, setting up the first such visit in nearly a decade.

Huge crowds demonstrated in Yemen's capital on Friday, a day after Israeli jets pounded Houthi rebel targets in response to missile and drone attacks by the Iran-backed group.

Israeli forces raided the Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of only three medical facilities on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip, on Friday, ordering dozens of patients and hundreds of others to evacuate the compound, officials said.

The UN worker hurt in an Israeli air strike on Yemen's main international airport on Thursday suffered serious injuries and has been evacuated to Jordan for further treatment, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

NASA’s Parker solar probe is safe and operating normally after successfully completing the closest-ever approach to the sun by any human-made object, the space agency has said.

At least 69 people died after a boat headed from West Africa to the Canary Islands capsized off Morocco on December 19, Malian authorities said, as data showed deaths of migrants attempting to reach Spain surged to an all-time high in 2024.

 A majority of South Korea's parliament voted on Friday to impeach acting president Han Duck-soo.

President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Friday dissolved Germany's lower house of parliament to pave the way for snap elections on February 23 following the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's three-way coalition.

Israel struck multiple targets linked to the Houthi movement in Yemen on Thursday, including Sanaa International Airport, while the chief of the World Health Organisation (WHO) was boarding a plane.

The Arab League has condemned Israeli far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s incursion into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Thursday alongside a group of settlers. 

Syria's new authorities on Thursday launched a security crackdown in a coastal region where 14 policemen were killed a day before, vowing to pursue "remnants" of the ousted Bashar al-Assad government accused of the attack, state media reported. 

The United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) called on Thursday for a timely Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon, citing what it called Israeli violations of a November 27 ceasefire agreement with Iran-backed Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.

Described as a "reluctant king" in his first stint as prime minister, the soft-spoken Manmohan Singh, who died on Thursday at the age of 92, was arguably one of India's most successful leaders.

The Azerbaijan Airlines flight that crashed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday was downed by a Russian air defence system, four sources in Azerbaijan with knowledge of the investigation told Reuters.

Survivors and families of victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami 20 years ago visited mass graves, lit candles and comforted one another across Southeast and South Asia in ceremonies on Thursday to mark the disaster that killed some 230,000 people.

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Thursday that it had foiled several plots by Ukrainian intelligence services to kill high-ranking Russian officers and their families in Moscow using bombs disguised as power banks or document folders.

Five Palestinian journalists were killed when their marked media van was struck by an Israeli airstrike in central Gaza's Nuseirat on early Thursday, the enclave's health authorities said. 

The Palestinian group Hamas and Israel traded blame on Wednesday over failure to conclude a ceasefire agreement despite progress reported by both sides in past days.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that Kurdish armed groups in Syria will either lay down their weapons or "be buried", amid hostilities between Turkey-backed Syrian fighters and the group members since the fall of Bashar al-Assad this month.

Lebanon's state media said an Israeli air strike targeted the Baalbek region in the east of the country before dawn on Wednesday, branding it a "violation" of the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

Bombardment by the Pakistani army in Afghanistan's eastern Paktika province on Tuesday killed at least 46 people, most of whom were children and women, said the Afghan Taliban, vowing to retaliate against their neighbour.

A passenger jet flying from Azerbaijan to Russia crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, killing 38 people while 29 survivors received hospital treatment, Kazakh authorities said.

Russia attacked Ukraine's energy system and cities in its eastern region with cruise and ballistic missiles on Wednesday morning, Ukraine's energy minister and local officials said.

Israeli troops forced the evacuation of the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza and many patients, some of them on foot, arrived at another hospital miles away in Gaza City, the territory's health ministry said on Tuesday.

The United Nations has raised urgent concerns over the deteriorating food security situation in Sudan, where ongoing conflict has led to widespread hunger and famine conditions.

Syria's de facto leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa reached an agreement on Tuesday with former rebel faction chiefs to dissolve all groups and consolidate them under the defence ministry, according to a statement from the new administration.

Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets in Christian areas of Damascus on Tuesday to protest the burning of a Christmas tree near Hama in central Syria, AFP journalists witnessed.

An engine room explosion sank a Russian cargo ship called 'Ursa Major' in the Mediterranean Sea between Spain and Algeria and two of its crew are missing, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

A powerful blast on Tuesday ripped through an explosives plant in northwest Turkey killing 12 people and injuring three others, the local governor said.

A SWISS Airbus flying from Bucharest to Zurich made an emergency landing in Graz, Austria, on Monday due to engine failure and smoke in the cabin and cockpit.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz admitted on Monday for the first time publicly to Israel's killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran in July, further risking tensions between Tehran and its arch-enemy Israel in a region shaken by Israel's war in Gaza and the conflict in Lebanon.

South Korea's main opposition party plans to "immediately" take steps to impeach acting president Han Duck-soo, the party's floor leader said on Tuesday.

France unveiled a new government on Monday composed of former ministers and senior civil servants that Prime Minister Francois Bayrou will hope can oversee the passage of a 2025 budget and prevent a deepening of the country's crisis.

The Sudanese government has suspended its participation in the global hunger-monitoring system on the eve of a report that’s expected to show famine spreading across the country, a step likely to undercut efforts to address one of the world’s largest hunger crises.

Major General Aroldo Lázaro Sáenz, Head of Mission and Force Commander of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), has underscored the urgency of accelerating the Israeli army’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon and advancing the deployment of the Lebanese army in the area.

Luigi Mangione, the man accused of fatally gunning down health insurance executive Brian Thompson on a Manhattan street, pleaded not guilty on Monday to New York state murder charges that brand him a terrorist.

Bangladesh has told neighbour India that it wants former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who fled to New Delhi in August, back in the country for "judicial process", the acting head of the country's foreign ministry said on Monday.

Jordan stands ready to help Syria rebuild, its foreign minister said after meeting Syria's new de facto ruler Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus on Monday, the highest-level contact by an Arab state with Syria's new administration.

Israel ordered the closure and evacuation on Sunday of one of the last hospitals still partly functioning in a besieged area on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip, forcing medics to search for a way to bring hundreds of patients and staff to safety.

A Russian delegation arrived in Tehran for a visit that includes a meeting with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Russian state news agency TASS reported on Monday, as the two countries prepare to sign a comprehensive cooperation agreement. 

President-elect Donald Trump threatened to reassert US control over the Panama Canal on Sunday, accusing Panama of charging excessive rates to use the Central American passage and drawing a sharp rebuke from Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino.

Two weeks after seizing power in a sweeping offensive, Syria's new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa said weapons in the country, including those held by Kurdish-led forces, would come under state control.

Police arrested a man who reportedly set a woman on fire while she appeared to be asleep on a New York City subway train on Sunday morning, killing her.

A bridge connecting two states in Brazil's northern and northeastern regions collapsed on Sunday as vehicles were crossing, killing at least one person and spilling sulfuric acid into the Tocantins River.

Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 17 Palestinians, eight of them at a school sheltering displaced families in Gaza City, medics said, as the Israeli military ordered the evacuation of a hospital in the north.

A man suspected of driving a car into a German Christmas market in an attack that killed at least five people and injured scores of others faces charges of murder and attempted murder, police said on Sunday, after the man was remanded in custody.

Four people were killed in southwest Turkey on Sunday when an ambulance helicopter collided with a hospital building and crashed into the ground.

Mozambique's death toll from Cyclone Chido has risen to 94, the country's disaster management agency said on Sunday.

The US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said five of its fighters had been killed on Saturday in attacks by Turkish-backed forces on the city of Manbij in northern Syria.

The US military said it conducted precision airstrikes on Saturday against a missile storage facility and a command-and-control facility operated by Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen's capital, Sanaa.

Syria's new rulers have appointed a foreign minister, the official Syrian news agency (SANA) said on Saturday, as they seek to build international relations two weeks after Bashar al-Assad was ousted.

Russia's Kazan airport has temporarily halted flight arrivals and departures, Russia's aviation watchdog Rosaviatsia said via the Telegram messaging app on Saturday, following a Ukrainian drone attack on the city.

A driver rammed a car into a large crowd of revellers at a Christmas market in central Germany on Friday evening, killing at least two people and injuring more than 60 before he was arrested, authorities said.

António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, condemned the killing of three World Food Programme (WFP) staff members in Sudan on 19th December, when the agency’s field office in Yabus, in Blue Nile State, was hit by aerial bombardment.

Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), described Sweden's decision to stop funding the agency in 2025 as disappointing, stating that it comes at the worst time for Palestinian refugees.

Louise Wateridge, Emergency Officer for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in Gaza, stated on Friday that more than two million people remain trapped in dire conditions in Gaza, deprived of their basic needs.

US diplomats visiting Damascus were expected on Friday to hold Washington's first in-person official meetings with Syria's new de facto rulers led by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), hoping to gauge what plans the former Al Qaeda affiliate has for the country.

A seven-year-old child was killed by a knife-wielding assailant who attacked a teacher and pupils at a Zagreb primary school on Friday.

The United Nations General Assembly voted on Thursday to ask the International Court of Justice for an opinion on Israel's obligations to facilitate aid to Palestinians that is delivered by states and international groups including the U.N.

A court in France found Dominique Pelicot guilty on Thursday of repeatedly drugging and raping his wife for almost a decade, and inviting dozens of strangers to rape her unconscious body in a case that has horrified the world.

Human Rights Watch said on Thursday that Israel has killed thousands of Palestinians in Gaza by denying them clean water which it says legally amounts to acts of genocide and extermination.

The U.S. reported its first severe human case of bird flu on Wednesday in a Louisiana resident who is hospitalised in critical condition after suspected contact with an infected backyard flock.

Eleven people died in a fire in a cafe in Hanoi on Wednesday night and police have arrested a man suspected of starting the blaze, Vietnam's Ministry of Public Security said on Thursday.

Five French judges will deliver their verdicts on Thursday in a mass physical abuse case against 51 men that has appalled the world and transformed the victim, Gisele Pelicot, into a stirring symbol of courage and resilience.

Emergency services in Italy have rescued a cave explorer after she was injured and trapped underground for more than three days following a fall, bringing relief to Italians who have been following her fate.

Russia said on Wednesday it had detained a citizen of Uzbekistan who had confessed to planting a bomb which killed Lieutenant General Igor Kirillovin Moscow a day earlier on the instructions of Ukraine's security service.

A ceasefire between Turkey and the US-backed Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) around the northern Syrian city of Manbij has been extended until the end of this week, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Tuesday.

Moscow has intensified its attacks on Ukrainian forces battling to hold an enclave in Russia's Kursk region and increased pressure in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, Ukraine's top army commander said on Tuesday. 

Ukraine's SBU intelligence service on Tuesday claimed the bomb attack that killed a top Russian general in Moscow, who they accused of using chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops.

Rescuers in Vanuatu searched on Wednesday for people trapped under rubble a day after a 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck the Pacific nation's capital Port Vila, killing 14 people and damaging commercial buildings, embassies and a hospital.

South Korean investigators probing President Yoon Suk Yeol's short-lived martial law declaration failed to gain entry to his office to seek evidence on Tuesday after presidential office security staff denied them entry, Yonhap news agency reported.

A bomb hidden in an electric scooter killed a senior Russian general in charge of nuclear protection forces in Moscow on Tuesday, Russia's investigative committee said.

A 15-year-old girl opened fire at a Wisconsin school on Monday, fatally shooting a fellow student and a teacher and wounding six other people before killing herself with the handgun, police said. 

The US military said it conducted an airstrike on Monday against a command and control facility operated by the Houthis in Yemen.

The head of a US-based Syrian advocacy organization on Monday said that a mass grave outside of Damascus contained the bodies of at least 100,000 people killed by the former government of ousted President Bashar al-Assad. 

Istanbul-born founder and owner of fashion empire Mango Isak Andic died on Saturday in a mountain accident, aged 71.

Israeli strikes in Gaza killed at least 53 Palestinians, including a journalist and rescue workers, medics said, and the Israeli military said its air and ground forces in the north of the enclave killed dozens of militants and captured others. 

Israel said on Sunday it would close its Dublin embassy due to the Irish government's "extreme anti-Israel policies" including the recognition of a Palestinian state and support for international legal action against its war in Gaza. 

Several hundred people and possibly even thousands may have been killed when the most powerful cyclone in nearly a century hit the French Indian Ocean archipelago of Mayotte, a senior local French official said on Sunday.

Seven tourists, including four Australians, were hospitalised in a suspected case of alcohol poisoning at a resort in Fiji, the Australian and Fijian governments said on Monday.

Israeli troops killed at least 20 Palestinians, most of them in the northern Gaza Strip, on Sunday airstrikes and other attacks on targets that included a school sheltering displaced Gazans, medics and residents said.

A Russian oil tanker carrying thousands of tonnes of oil products split apart during a heavy storm on Sunday, spilling oil into the Kerch Strait, while another tanker was also in distress after sustaining damage, Russian officials said.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol did not comply with a summons from prosecutors on Sunday, and they plan to issue another order as they investigate his short-lived martial law decree, Yonhap news agency reported.

At least 11 people were killed after a cyclone slammed into Mayotte, the most intense storm to hit the French Indian Ocean archipelago north of Madagascar in nearly a century, French weather forecasters and authorities said on Sunday.

Australia's government said on Sunday that five members of the "Bali Nine" drug ring have returned from Indonesia, after diplomatic efforts between the countries this month to strike a repatriation deal.

Two security agents and two migrants were killed in a shooting in Loon-Plage near the northern city of Dunkirk, French media reported on Saturday, citing security sources.

Georgian lawmakers elected Mikheil Kavelashvili, a hardline critic of the West, as the country’s new president on Saturday, setting him up to replace a pro-Western incumbent amid major protests against the government over a halt to the country’s European Union accession talks last month.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol vowed on Saturday to fight for his political future after he was impeached in a second vote by the opposition-led parliament over his short-lived attempt to impose martial law, a move that had shocked the nation.

Thousands of South Koreans flooded the streets of Seoul on Saturday in competing rallies, both supporting and opposing President Yoon Suk Yeol, just hours before a parliamentary vote on his impeachment.

French President Emmanuel Macron has named Francois Bayrou his third prime minister of 2024, tasking the veteran centrist with steering the country out of its second major political crisis in the last six months.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Turkey on Thursday for talks focused on establishing stability in Syria after clashes between forces backed by the US and Turkey erupted in the north.

An Israeli strike killed at least 30 Palestinians and wounded 50 others who were sheltering in a post office in central Gaza Strip, bringing the death toll on Thursday in the enclave to 66. 

Israelis and Palestinians are signalling new efforts to forge a ceasefire deal, even a limited one, for the first time in a year that would pause the fighting in Gaza and return to Israel some of the hostages still held in the Palestinian enclave.

Outgoing US President Joe Biden said on Thursday he was pardoning 39 people convicted of non-violent crimes and commuting the sentences of nearly 1,500 others who were serving long prison terms.

Russia will definitely respond to Ukraine's latest use of US-made ATACMS missiles to strike Russian territory, the Kremlin said on Thursday.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said he would "fight to the end" on Thursday as his own political party shifted closer to voting with the opposition to impeach him over his short-lived martial law order that threw the US ally into turmoil.

Syrian rebel leader Ahmad al-Sharaa - better known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani - told Reuters in a written statement on Wednesday that he would dissolve the security forces of the toppled regime of Bashar al-Assad.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will undergo a new procedure on Thursday morning to complement the surgery he went through this week to drain a bleed on his brain, the hospital said on Wednesday in a medical update that stressed he was doing well.

US President-elect Donald Trump has invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend his inauguration next month, CBS News reported on Wednesday, citing multiple sources.

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) overwhelmingly voted on Wednesday to demand an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the immediate release of all hostages.

The father and stepmother of Sara Sharif, a 10-year-old girl who was found dead in her home in Britain, were on Wednesday convicted of her murder after a trial which heard harrowing details of her treatment before her death.

The Afghan Taliban's acting minister for refugees, Khalil Rahman Haqqani, and six other people were killed in an explosion in the capital Kabul on Wednesday, his nephew said.

Israeli strikes in the northern and central Gaza Strip on Wednesday killed at least 33 Palestinians, most of them in Beit Lahiya town in the north of the enclave, medics said.

Syrian rebels backed by Turkey, who ousted president Bashar al-Assad, said on Tuesday they had taken the eastern city of Deir ez-Zur, while a war monitor confirmed Kurdish forces had withdrawn.

The death toll from a Russian missile strike that destroyed a clinic in the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia on Tuesday has risen to six, while four more people remain under the rubble, the regional governor and emergency services said on Wednesday.

Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte failed to appear on Wednesday for questioning over a purported threat to assassinate President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, choosing instead to send a letter denying an allegation she made a "grave threat" to his life.

Sudan, for the second year in a row, topped a 2025 watchlist of global humanitarian crises released by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) aid organisation on Wednesday, followed by Gaza and the West Bank, Myanmar, Syria and South Sudan.

Taiwan's defence ministry reported a spike in Chinese military activity around the island on Wednesday, including 53 military aircraft, with Taiwan on high alert over Beijing's latest pressure campaign. 

South Korean police have raided the presidential office over President Yoon Suk-yeol's martial law decalaration, Yonhap news agency reported on Wednesday.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was recovering in an intensive care unit on Tuesday after being rushed to a Sao Paulo hospital for emergency surgery to drain a bleed on his brain linked to a fall in October.

Syria's new interim leader announced on Tuesday he was taking charge of the country as caretaker prime minister with the backing of the former rebels who toppled President Bashar al-Assad three days ago.

Pakistan's former intelligence chief Faiz Hameed has been indicted on charges of engaging in political activities, misuse of authority and government resources and violation of the Official Secrets Act, the military said on Tuesday.

Israel pounded Syrian army bases on Tuesday in strikes it says aim to keep weapons from falling into hostile hands, but denied its forces had advanced into Syria beyond a buffer zone at the border.

Indian opposition parties moved on Tuesday to impeach Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, a spokesman said, accusing him of being partisan in his role as chairman of parliament's upper house, in a first such move in the country's history.

Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 34 Palestinians overnight and on Tuesday, medics said, as Israeli tanks pushed into areas in central and southern parts of the enclave.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's foreign intelligence chief said on Tuesday that Russia was close to achieving its goals in Ukraine with Moscow holding what he said was the strategic initiative in all areas in the war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the witness stand for the first time on Tuesday in his long-running corruption trial to give testimony that will likely force him to juggle for weeks between the courtroom and war room.

The man suspected of killing UnitedHealth executive Brian Thompson in a shooting outside a Manhattan hotel was charged with murder by New York prosecutors on Monday.

Qatari diplomats spoke with Syria's leading rebel faction, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, on Monday, an official briefed on the developments told Reuters, as regional states race to open contact with the group after its rapid offensive toppled Bashar al-Assad.

Syria's former President Bashar al-Assad is in Moscow with his family after Russia granted them asylum on humanitarian grounds, a Kremlin source told Russian news agencies on Sunday, while a deal has been made to ensure the safety of Russian military bases.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has been banned from leaving the country over a failed attempt at imposing martial law, a justice ministry official said on Monday, amid growing calls for him to step down and a deepening leadership crisis.

A volcano in the central Philippines erupted on Monday spewing an eruption column of up to 3,000 metres, the country's seismology agency said.

President-elect Donald Trump said in an interview that aired on Sunday he would act on his first day in office to pardon rioters involved in the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack, further building expectations for a broad granting of clemency.

At least 26 fighters were killed on Sunday as Turkish-backed Syrian forces launched an offensive in the Manbij region of northern Syria, days after seizing a Kurdish-held enclave, an NGO said.

At least 40 schools received a bomb threat by email in Delhi on Monday demanding $30,000, ANI news agency said, while police officials conducted initial searches on school premises.

The Arab League, on Sunday, reaffirmed Syria’s territorial integrity and sovereignty remain central pillars of the Arab consensus, effectively rejecting Israel’s further occupation of the Golan Heights.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he had ordered the Israeli military to "seize" a demilitarised buffer zone on the border with Syria after the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in Damascus. 

Syrian rebels declared President Bashar al-Assad ousted after seizing control of Damascus on Sunday, forcing him to flee and ending his family's decades of rule after more than 13 years of civil war in a seismic moment for the Middle East.

Palestinian health officials said on Sunday that Israeli forces had shelled the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, damaging electricity and oxygen pumps and disrupting urgent surgeries.

US President-elect Donald Trump said on Sunday that Russia's abandonment of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad led to his downfall, adding Moscow never should have protected him in the first place and then lost interest because of a war in Ukraine that never should have started.

The Kremlin said on Sunday that Russia was open to talks on Ukraine after US President-elect Donald Trump called for "an immediate ceasefire and negotiations".

Sir Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin Group, will be boarding Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity and blasting off to space on Sunday.

Singapore is reviewing penalties for violent offences following an outcry over a 12-day prison sentence for a student who strangled his girlfriend until she blacked out.