Russia unleashed its biggest air attack of the war on Ukraine on Friday, killing 31 civilians, wounding more than 160 others and hitting cities and infrastructure across the country, officials said.

NATO member Poland said a Russian missile appeared to have flown into its airspace for some 40 km before returning to Ukraine under three minutes later.

But the Russian charge d'affaires, summoned to the Polish Foreign Ministry, said Warsaw had provided no evidence of a missile entering its airspace.

Tens of thousands of supporters of Bangladesh's main opposition party took to the streets of the capital on December 16 defying fears of being arrested ahead of the country's national election early next year.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), whose top leadership is either jailed or in exile, has demanded that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina step down and make way for a neutral government to oversee the Jan. 7 poll, which the opposition party has boycotted.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has closed an international tribunal that was created to investigate the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the U.N. chief’s spokesperson said Sunday.

Over the years, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon held in absentia proceedings and found three members of the militant Hezbollah group guilty in connection with Hariri’s death in a massive Feb. 14, 2005 truck bombing.

Chadians have voted in favor of a new constitution that critics say could help cement the power of junta leader Mahamat Idriss Deby.

The referendum held earlier this month was approved by 86 percent of voters, the government commission that organized it said on Sunday. Voter turnout was about 64 percent, it said.

Twenty-four Venezuelans have been freed as part of this week's prisoner exchange deal with the United States, Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Maria Corina Machado said on Thursday.

The United States announced on Wednesday that President Joe Biden had granted clemency to Colombian businessman Alex Saab, an ally of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, in exchange for the release of 10 Americans, at least 20 opposition-linked Venezuelans and the extradition of a fugitive Malaysian businessman from the South American country.

Thousands of people have gathered in Serbia’s capital in the biggest protest yet over this month’s parliamentary and municipal elections, accusing President Aleksandar Vucic’s governing party of orchestrating a fraud and asking the results be annulled.

The large rally in central Belgrade on Saturday capped nearly two weeks of street protests against reported widespread irregularities during the December 17 vote that were noted by international observers as well.

Myanmar's military has likely perpetrated indiscriminate attacks on civilians and used banned cluster munitions in its fight against ethnic minority insurgents, Amnesty International said on Thursday, calling for an investigation of suspected war crimes.

The junta is facing its biggest battlefield challenge since its 2021 coup, with coordinated rebel attacks on military posts in Shan state, bordering China, and in western Rakhine state.

South Africa has filed a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing it of crimes of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza after nearly three months of relentless Israeli bombardment has killed more than 21,500 people and caused widespread destruction in the besieged enclave.

In an application to the court on December 29, South Africa described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group.”

The president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Felix Tshisekedi, has won a second term in office with a landslide victory, according to provisional results, in a vote opposition leaders have dismissed as a “sham.”

Provisional results from the single-round presidential ballot, declared on Sunday by the country’s electoral commission, Ceni, showed Tshisekedi had won 73 percent of the vote.

Moise Katumbi—a wealthy businessman, football club owner and former provincial governor—was the runner-up with about 18 percent.

Suriname’s former dictator Desi Bouterse was sentenced on Wednesday to 20 years in prison for the murders of 15 opponents of the then-military regime in December 1982, ending a historic 16-year legal process.

Bouterse, 78, was previously sentenced in the case in 2019 and in 2021 but had appealed both decisions. The court on Wednesday upheld his conviction and the latest sentencing was seen as final with no more appeals allowed. The judge handed down 20 years given the ex-president’s age and that it was the highest sentence allowed at the time of the killings.