Tensions between the Syrian government and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have been escalating, days after they announced a ceasefire, which is being severely tested by renewed fighting, involving the withdrawal of the latter’s forces from areas west of the Euphrates River. 
  
Talks in Damascus between Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and SDF leader Mazloum Abdi, also known as Mazloum Kobani, have faltered, and Abdi has returned to the northeast. 
 

Israel has begun bulldozing buildings inside the headquarters of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in occupied East Jerusalem, as the far-right government clamps down heavily on humanitarian groups that provide desperately needed aid to Palestinians in Gaza. 
  
UNRWA said in a statement on Tuesday that Israeli forces had confiscated staff devices and forced them out of their headquarters in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. 
 

The president of South Sudan has dismissed his interior minister, the wife of a detained opposition leader with whom he was running a unity government following a peace agreement that ended a five-year civil war. 
 
President Salva Kiir on Monday evening removed Interior Minister Angelina Teny, a senior opposition figure and the wife of detained First Vice President Riek Machar.  
 

Gunmen attacked a village in western Niger over the weekend, leaving at least 31 people dead, student organizations and a resident said Tuesday. 
  
The attack took place Sunday in the commune of Gorouol in the Tillabéri region, according to a joint statement from the Union of Students Originating from the Commune of Gorouol, the Union of Nigerien Students, and other student organizations. 
  

The trial is due to start Tuesday for five men over the killing of an Indigenous Amazon leader, in a rare legal case that prosecutors and advocates say could test whether Peru can hold perpetrators accountable for violence linked to illegal logging and drug trafficking in one of the world’s most dangerous regions for environmental defenders. 
 
Kichwa tribal leader Quinto Inuma Alvarado, 50, was killed on Nov. 29, 2023, after repeatedly denouncing illegal activity within his community’s territory. 
 

The death toll from suspected gangsters’ attacks on Guatemalan police rose to 10 on Monday, as Guatemalans saw heavier security in the streets and curtailed rights after Congress approved President Bernardo Arévalo’s emergency declaration. 
 

Congolese soldiers and fighters from a pro-government militia have reentered the strategic eastern town of Uvira, the army and residents said Monday, a month after it was seized by the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels, as fighting in the region escalated despite a U.S.-mediated peace deal. 
 
The Congolese army said in a statement it took control of the city on Sunday following the rebels announced withdrawal last month.