Azerbaijani government sources and survivors say a Russian surface-to-air missile caused the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, killing 38 of the 67 people on board. The United States also suggested that Russia was behind the crash, raising concerns about air safety in the region amid an ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia.

The United States said Friday that it has evidence suggesting Russian air defense systems may have shot down the Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed in Kazakhstan this week.

Russia’s aviation authority claimed Friday that the Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed on Wednesday “deviated” from its planned destination of Grozny “due to heavy fog and Ukrainian drones.”

The NATO chief announced Friday that the military alliance would strengthen its presence in the Baltic Sea following Russia’s suspected sabotage of an undersea power cable between Finland and Estonia.

South Korea’s political crisis deepened Friday as the opposition-controlled parliament voted to impeach acting President Han Duck-soo despite loud protests by governing party lawmakers.

A bus carrying dozens of people veered off the road, landing in a lake in Norway and killing several people, authorities say.

Hundreds of Christians in Syria took to the streets of Damascus on Tuesday to protest the destruction of a Christmas tree in the Christian-majority town of Suqaylabiyah, near Hama, Politico reports. The tree was burned down just over two weeks after the ousting of President Bashar al-Assad by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Islamic insurgent group on December 8.

An increasing number of mass graves are being discovered in Syria since the brutal rule of dictator Bashar al-Assad came to an end at the hands of the Islamic insurgent group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) on December 8, TRT reports. Last week, an international war crimes prosecutor said the mass grave sites in Syria show Assad had operated the “machinery of death” against anyone he considered an enemy.

Sudanese civilians are dealing with famine in addition to the death, displacement, maiming, and trauma brought on them by the war for power between Sudan’s National Army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that broke out in April 2023, Courthouse News reports.

A manhunt was underway Thursday for over 1,500 prisoners who escaped in conflict-stricken Mozambique, where at least 56 people were killed since Monday after earlier Christians were attacked, police and human rights watchers said.

Russia’s leading security service suggested Thursday it had uncovered a plot by Kyiv to kill “senior Defense Ministry officials,” prompting Moscow to fire drones at Ukraine, injuring several people.

Russia launched a large-scale missile attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, ignoring appeals from Pope Francis for a Christmas truce in the war-torn nation and around the world.

Dutch King Willem-Alexander urged the Dutch Jewish community on Christmas Day to remain in the Netherlands despite concerns about mounting antisemitism.

An Embraer passenger plane flying from Azerbaijan to Russia crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan on Wednesday with 62 passengers and five crew on board, Kazakh authorities announced, saying that 32 people had survived.

Suriname’s ex-president Desi Bouterse, who was on the run after being convicted for political murders, has died, several Surinamese sources say. He was 79.

A Dutch court handed down sentences Tuesday of up to six months imprisonment to the first men to be tried over what had been described as “the first pogrom in the Netherlands since World War Two.”

Investigators rushed to the scene of a blast that ripped through an explosives factory in northwest Turkey, killing 11 people and injuring seven.

China’s government protested U.S. military aid to Taiwan, warning that the U.S. is “playing with fire” and cautioning that such actions “will get the U.S. burned.”

The US Defense Department confirmed Thursday that there are actually around 2,000 American troops currently deployed in Syria, rather than the previously stated figure of around 900, MediaLine reports. The updated information follows the ouster of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Islamic insurgent group on December 1.

U.S. sanctions on Syria remain intact following a Friday meeting between the U.S. State Department and de facto Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (Abu Mohammed al-Golani). However, the bounty on al-Sharaa has been lifted, signaling a notable shift in U.S.-Syria relations.