WORLD

The United Nations named an outgoing Dutch minister its humanitarian coordinator for Gaza on Tuesday following last week's watered-down Security Council resolution which called for aid to be delivered to the strip "at scale."

French police on Tuesday arrested a 33-year-old man with a history of psychiatric illness on suspicion of murdering his wife and their four children, a prosecutor said.

The Kremlin on Tuesday acknowledged a Ukrainian attack had damaged a warship in the occupied Crimean port of Feodosia in what Ukraine and its Western allies called a major setback for the Russian navy.

North Korea has opened a year-end ruling party meeting attended by leader Kim Jong Un, state media said Wednesday, with key policy decisions for 2024 expected to be unveiled.

A plane that had been grounded in France for days over concerns its roughly 300 mostly Indian passengers were part of a human trafficking scheme landed in Mumbai early Tuesday.

The Turkish parliament was Tuesday set to resume debate on approving Sweden's bid to join NATO, a thorny issue that was further complicated after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan linked it to Ankara's request for F-16 fighter jets from its ally the United States.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted peace can only be achieved in Gaza if Hamas is destroyed, the territory demilitarised and Palestinian society "deradicalised", after warning the war is set to intensify.

An Israeli strike in Syria has killed a senior general with Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the military force said, with Tehran vowing retribution.

On a countryside road in battle-ravaged Sudan, the hum of a passing vehicle turns villagers' blood cold, fearing the arrival of paramilitaries plundering their way south in their war against the army.

Armed groups have killed at least 160 people in central Nigeria in a series of attacks on villages, local government officials said on Monday.

Demonstrators set up roadblocks in the Serbian capital Belgrade Monday, to protest what they say was electoral fraud in Serbia's recent parliamentary and local elections.

Japan's SLIM space probe entered the Moon's orbit on Monday in a major step towards the country's first successful lunar landing, expected next month.

Turkish air strikes killed eight civilians in Syria's Kurdish-held northeast Monday, a war monitor and local media said, as Ankara launched operations in Iraq and Syria following deadly attacks on its soldiers.

World Health Organization staff visited Monday a Gaza hospital receiving casualties from deadly strikes on a refugee camp, hearing distressing stories of entire families killed and seeing dying children.

Sadness over the war in Gaza subdued the holiday cheer in Bethlehem on Christmas Eve, when the biblical town would usually be decked out in festive finery.

A joint US-Canadian military monitoring agency continued this year its decades-long Christmas tradition of tracking Santa's whereabouts, helping children around the globe find out when his reindeer-powered, present-filled sleigh would be coming to town.

Austria on Sunday said three people were detained for suspected involvement in an "Islamist network", as Vienna and Cologne step up police controls citing heightened security concerns during Christmas.

At least 13 people were killed and 38 injured in eastern Indonesia on Sunday in an explosion at a Chinese-funded nickel-processing plant, the owner of the industrial park that hosts the facility said.

Israel said its armed forces were increasingly focused on Hamas targets in south Gaza Sunday, as the United States again pressed its ally to do more to protect Palestinian civilians.

The United States on Saturday voiced deepening concern over the fate of imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who has not been heard from since early December.

Nearly three years after President Joe Biden took office vowing "America is back," the country's international image is taking a beating as his administration backs Israel in its war with Hamas.

Ukrainian Orthodox Christians attended services on Sunday as the country for the first time celebrated Christmas on December 25, after the government changed the date from January 7, when most Orthodox believers celebrate, as a snub to Russia.

A deal has been reached to end an hours-long strike by ground staff at Geneva airport, which had caused numerous flight delays and cancellations during the holiday rush.

Top US military officer General Charles "CQ" Brown spoke with China's General Liu Zhenli on Thursday, a spokesman said, after a more than year-long halt to high-level defense talks between the two countries.

Britain and Switzerland unveiled a post-Brexit financial services agreement on Thursday, aimed at making it easier for corporate and wealthy people in both countries to do business together.

The White House said Thursday it was preparing a new proposal to Russia to seek the release of two imprisoned Americans after Moscow rejected an earlier attempt.

Protesting youths and security forces clashed in Guinea's capital Conakry on Thursday as demonstrators demanded petrol be restored at service stations whose supplies were suspended after a deadly explosion at the country's main fuel depot.

Queen Elizabeth II was persuaded to step back from making decisions about her own funeral after mentioning that it would be "more difficult" if she died in Scotland, her daughter told a forthcoming documentary.

The United Nations Security Council was expected to vote Friday on a resolution to boost aid to Gaza, as the world body warned the Israel-Hamas war was pushing the Palestinian territory towards famine.