World News

Hundreds of forest fires in Indonesia, the nation’s worst in years, have caused haze to reach areas of Malaysia where it has worsened air quality, officials said Saturday.

At least 52 people were killed on Friday in an apparent suicide attack at a religious gathering in southwest Pakistan, officials said, the latest sign of the country’s deteriorating security situation and growing Islamic extremism.

Taiwan revealed the island’s first domestically built submarine on Thursday, a major breakthrough in its defense capabilities as tensions with China continue to rise.

The self-declared Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh leader warns it will cease to exist in the new year. Samvel Shahramanyan made the announcement Thursday as an exodus of desperate Armenians continued. The region, which Armenians had controlled for three decades, was seized by Azerbaijan last week, leading to tens of thousands fleeing their homes.  

At least three people including a 14-year-old girl have died following twin shootings in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam, authorities said late Thursday.

Iran claimed on Wednesday that it has successfully put an imaging satellite into space. The state-run IRNA news agency, quoting the country’s Communication Minister Isa Zarepour, said the Noor-3 satellite had been put in an orbit 450 kilometers (280 miles) above the Earth’s surface.

Russia has released video footage showing the Black Sea Fleet’s commander despite Ukraine claiming to have killed him in one of its deadliest strikes.

North Korea has freed U.S. soldier Travis King, who is “happy” to be heading home, officials said, though he still faces prosecution for alleged misbehavior while serving in the U.S. army. King is in “good health” nearly three months after he ran across the border from South Korea, according to U.S. sources familiar with the case.

Armenia says some 42,500 Armenians have now fled Nagorno-Karabakh, about a third of the population of the wartorn enclave that neighboring Azerbaijan recaptured last week. They are hungry and exhausted.

There was political turmoil Wednesday after the speaker of Canada’s House of Commons resigned for inviting a man who fought for a Nazi military unit during World War II to Parliament to attend a speech by the Ukrainian president.

Tensions remained Wednesday after a Budapest court sentenced a captain to five and a half years in prison for his role in an accident in which his cruise ship hit and sank a smaller boat on the River Danube in Hungary, killing at least 27 people.

African leaders delivered an unequivocal message to the UN General Assembly last week that Africa is a global power that deserves to be treated by the West as an equal partner and not sidelined as a charity case, the Associated Press reports.

Lethal violence against women in Mexico has steadily increased in recent years, and experts believe that the phenomenon is directly related to Mexican militarization and organized crime, Global Citizen reports. According to data released by Mexico’s National Public Security System, 43,000 women were killed in the country between 2006 and 2021.

The UN-backed international commission of human rights experts on Ethiopia reported this week that the recent conflict in the country’s Tigray region has left at least 10,000 survivors of rape and sexual violence, the Associated Press reports. The commission added that all sides in the war had committed atrocities, including mass killings, rape, starvation, and destruction of schools and medical facilities.

At least 20 people were killed and hundreds injured in an explosion at a fuel depot in the volatile South Caucasus enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, authorities confirmed Tuesday.

Turkish state media and the pro-Iranian Al-Mayadeen both highlighted new tensions in Syria this week. They reported on increased attacks by tribal fighters against the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán warned Monday that his country isn’t in a hurry to ratify Sweden’s membership of the NATO military alliance because the Nordic nation criticized Hungary’s perceived rule of law violations.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Monday condemned a Belarusian court for sentencing journalist Vyacheslau Lazarau to 5.5 years imprisonment for “facilitating extremism.”

Volatile Kosovo edged closer to civil war late Sunday after at least four people were killed following a raid by Kosovan security forces on a monastery held by dozens of heavily armed men near the border with Serbia.

The Netherlands has urged Pakistan to respect the conviction of a Pakistani former cricket player who was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment for death threats against outspoken Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders.