Desi Bouterse, the former dictator and later elected president of Suriname, who became a fugitive of justice for the killing of political opponents, has died at 79, the government 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.

The incoming head of the world's Anglicans urged the Church of England to "kneel in penitence" in a Christmas Day sermon as its leadership faces criticism over the handling of sexual abuse scandals.

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 Ukrainian strike on Wednesday killed four people and injured five in the Russian town of Lgov in the Kursk region flanking Ukraine, the regional governor said.

Hundreds of students protested on Wednesday in Serbia's capital Belgrade demanding that the authorities take responsibility for the collapse of a train station roof that killed 15 people last month.

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

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.

Kazakhstan's emergency situation ministry on Wednesday said 25 people had survived the crash of a passenger jet with 67 people on board in the west of the country.

Pakistan air strikes in an eastern border province of Afghanistan killed 46 people, the Taliban government spokesman told AFP on Wednesday.

An Azerbaijan Airlines passenger jet flying from the capital Baku to Grozny in Russia crashed on Wednesday in western Kazakhstan, the Kazakh transport ministry said on Wednesday.

Yoon banned ...