A bill that would impose new regulations on Israeli non-profit groups that receive funds from foreign governments won ministerial approval on December 27, a move critics said targets pro-Palestinian organizations.

Guinea President Alpha Conde recently named mining executive Mamady Youla as prime minister as part of a strategy to revive the West African nation's ailing economy, the government announced.

China's parliament passed a controversial new anti-terrorism law on December 27 that requires technology firms to hand over sensitive information such as encryption keys to the government and allows the military to venture overseas on counter-terror operations.

Iraq's army declared victory over Islamic State fighters in a provincial capital west of Baghdad on December 27, the first major triumph for the US-trained force since it collapsed in the face of an assault by the militants 18 months ago.

A new message purporting to come from the leader of Islamic State said air strikes by Russia and a U.S.-led coalition had failed to weaken the group.

A U.N.-brokered deal to evacuate more than 2,000 Islamic State fighters and other militants from rebel-held suburbs of Damascus on December 26 has been delayed after the killing of an insurgent leader, an organization that monitors the Syrian war said.

More than 100,000 people have had to evacuate from their homes in the bordering areas of Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina due to severe flooding in the wake of heavy summer rains brought on by El Niño, authorities said on December 26.

Israeli border police shot dead a Palestinian woman who tried to ram them with her car in the West Bank on December 25, the police said, as a 12-week surge in street violence showed no sign of abating.

A top Syrian rebel leader and head of the most powerful insurgent group in the eastern suburbs of Damascus was killed in an aerial raid that targeted the group's headquarters, rebel sources and the Syrian army said on December 25.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a surprise stopover in Pakistan on December 25 to meet his counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, the first time an Indian premier has visited Pakistan in over a decade.