Hamas said Wednesday that "new conditions" imposed by Israel had delayed the finalisation of a ceasefire agreement in Gaza, but acknowledged that negotiations were still proceeding.

The suicide by a train driver on the job has caused widespread delays in France's rail traffic, operator SNCF said Wednesday.

Thirty-eight people were killed when an Azerbaijan Airlines plane with 67 on board crashed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, a senior Kazakh official said.

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The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Wednesday that 23 people had been killed in the Palestinian territory in the past 24 hours, taking the overall war death toll to 45,361.

A Russian court slightly reduced prison sentences Wednesday on a playwright and a theatre director convicted of "justifying terrorism" in a play.

Pope Francis denounced the "extremely grave" humanitarian situation in Gaza and appealed for the freeing of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in his traditional Christmas address in Rome.

Pope Francis called Wednesday for an end to the war in Ukraine and for talks for a just peace as the country was pummelled by 170 Russian missiles and drones on Christmas morning.

Syria's new authorities torched a large stockpile of drugs on Wednesday, two security officials told AFP, including one million pills of the amphetamine-like stimulant captagon, whose industrial-scale ...

An undersea power cable linking Finland and Estonia broke down Wednesday, Finland's prime minister said, the latest in a series of incidents involving telecom cables and energy pipelines in the Baltic ...

Desi Bouterse, the former dictator of Suriname who was a fugitive from justice for the murder of political opponents four decades ago, has died at age 79, the government said Wednesday.

NATO member Romania said Wednesday it had not detected any Russian missile passing through its airspace to target Ukraine as claimed by Kyiv.