British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Wednesday condemned a Russian attack which saw more than 170 drones and missiles launched on Ukraine's energy grid, killing one person.

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.

China on Wednesday said it would extend its anti-dumping probe into brandy imported from the European Union due to the case's "complexity", prolonging a trade standoff between Beijing and Brussels.

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.

Angry protests broke out Wednesday in several areas of Syria after a video circulated showing an attack on an Alawite shrine in the country's north, a war monitor and witnesses said.

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.