International from Wednesday, December 11th, 2024

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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said on Tuesday they had taken the eastern city of Deir ez-Zur, while a war monitor confirmed Kurdish forces had withdrawn.

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