The escalation in fighting in Syria has displaced around 280,000 people in just over a week, the United Nations said on Friday, warning that numbers could swell to 1.5 million. “The figure we have in front of us is 280,000 people since November 27,” Samer AbdelJaber, head

Mask-wearing arsonists set a synagogue ablaze in a pre-dawn attack Friday in the Australian city of Melbourne, police said, sparking widespread condemnation. The fire broke out at 4:10 a.m. (1710 GMT) in the Adass Israel Synagogue when some congregants were already inside, police said,

Gunfights erupted in Jenin in the north of the occupied West Bank on Thursday between militants and Palestinian security forces following the theft of vehicles belonging to the Palestinian Authority, according to AFP journalists in the city. The intense exchanges of fire began around

The French government has collapsed after Prime Minister Michel Barnier was ousted in a no-confidence vote. MPs voted overwhelmingly in support of the motion against him - just three months after he was appointed by President Emmanuel Macron. Opposition parties had tabled the motion

Iran has released Nobel Peace laureate Narges Mohammadi, jailed since November 2021, for three weeks on medical grounds, her lawyer posted on social media. “Based on the advice of the examining doctor, the public prosecutor suspended the jail sentence against Narges Mohammadi for

A landmark defense pact between North Korea and Russia, signed by its leaders in June, has gone into effect after the two sides exchanged ratification documents, North Korea’s official KCNA news agency said Thursday. The formalization of the treaty comes as the United States and

French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Tuesday that he and Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, would co-chair a conference on the establishment of a Palestinian state in June. "We have decided to co-chair a conference for the two states in

In a courtroom in Munich, Nora sat across from the person who had bought her as a slave, abused her and murdered her five-year old daughter. Nora and Reda were being held captive in Iraq by the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) in 2015, the year after IS began what the UN says was a

Israeli military strikes killed at least 23 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, most of them in the town of Beit Lahiya on the northern edge, medics said, as the army issued new evacuation orders in the south of the small enclave. Medics said eight people had been killed in

President of South Korea Yoon Suk Yeol declared emergency martial law on Tuesday, accusing the opposition of "anti-state activities plotting rebellion." "The martial law is aimed at eradicating pro-North Korean forces and to protect the constitutional order of

Vietnamese property tycoon Truong My Lan has lost her appeal against her death sentence for masterminding the world’s biggest bank fraud. The 68-year-old is now in a race for her life because the law in Vietnam states that if she can pay back 75% of what she took, her sentence

The future of the planet is at stake during hearings at the top United Nations court, a representative for Vanuatu said on Monday, opening a historic case that aims to set a legal framework on how countries should tackle climate change. More than 100 countries and organisations are set

Nearly 50,000 people have recently been displaced in Syria, where an Islamist-led militants alliance has wrested swathes of territory from control of President Bashar Assad’s government, the UN’s humanitarian agency reported Monday. “The displacement situation remains

US President Joe Biden has issued an official pardon for his son Hunter, who was facing sentencing for two criminal cases, despite previously ruling it out. In a statement, the president said his son had been "singled out" and called his cases "a miscarriage of

Palestinian militant group Hamas published a video of an Israeli-American hostage on Saturday, in which he pleads for US President-elect Donald Trump to secure his release from captivity. The family of hostage soldier Edan Alexander, 20, declined to comment but permitted the 3-1/2

US President-elect Donald Trump has picked a former aide, Kash Patel, to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation, an agency Patel has often criticised. A former US defence department chief of staff in the first Trump administration, Patel has been a steadfast supporter of the incoming

Heavy rains lashed India’s south and a major airport shut operations as cyclone Fengal made landfall on Saturday. Cyclones — the equivalent of hurricanes in the North Atlantic or typhoons in the northwestern Pacific — are a regular and deadly menace in the northern

At least 15 Palestinians, including three World Central Kitchen employees, were killed and several others injured on Saturday as Israeli forces intensified their strikes across various areas of the Gaza Strip. Medical sources told Anadolu that seven Palestinians, including three

More than 122,000 people have been forced out of their homes as massive floods caused by relentless rains swept through Malaysia’s northern states, disaster officials said Saturday. The number surpassed the 118,000 displaced during one of the country’s worst floodings in

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in Florida to meet Donald Trump as Canada seeks to head off the president-elect's threat to impose a 25% tariff on Canadian goods, a source has confirmed to the BBC. Canadian media reported that Trudeau landed in Palm Beach International Airport on