Alexandre Rocha, a French father in Iceland, claims he lost parental rights after opposing his autistic son's sex reassignment, alleging courts prioritized ideology over his rights.

Pakistan and Afghanistan agree to temporary Eid al-Fitr'pause' in conflict Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to a temporary "pause" in hostilities during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr this week, officials said, amid weeks of deadly violence between the neighbouring countries. Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said on Wednesday that the pause - set to run from midnight on Thursday (19:00 GMT on Wednesday) until midnight on Tuesday (19:00 GMT on Monday) - had been requested by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkiye. However, he warned that "in case of any cross-border attack, drone attack or any terrorist incident inside Pakistan, [operations] shall immediately resume with renewed intensity". Shortly after the announcement, a spokesperson for Afghanistan's Taliban government also said it would temporarily suspend military operations against Pakistan. The pause in fighting is set to begin just days after Afghanistan accused the Pakistani military of killing hundreds of people in an air strike on a drug rehabilitation centre in the country's capital, Kabul.

Do Taliban's drone attacks expose a chink in Pakistan's armour? On the evening of March 13, drones struck three locations across Pakistan. Two children were wounded in Quetta. Civilians were also injured in Kohat and in Rawalpindi, the garrison city that houses the headquarters of Pakistan's armed forces and neighbours the capital, Islamabad. Pakistan's military said the drones were intercepted before reaching their targets.

Fires have broken out in Baghdad's Green Zone after a drone swarm, believed to have been launched by groups aligned with Iran. Araghchi: Iran's system holds despite targeted leaders Experts discuss'Israeli strategy' in killing of senior Iran official Ali L'We'll be doing something with Cuba very soon', Trump says Pakistan'strongly' rejects claim it struck Kabul hospital

Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un arrive for a reception marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Sept. 3, 2025. Moscow and Beijing are driving closer collaboration between authoritarian states and such networks help advance repression globally, according to researchers who used artificial intelligence to drill into the activities. The U.S.-based nonprofit Action for Democracy said in a report Wednesday that its researchers built an index to track seven types of cooperation, including on funding, diplomatic activities, propaganda and tech sharing. It found that China and Russia sit at the center of global authoritarian collaboration" and were jointly involved in around half of all recorded activity. The report's authors said that such cooperation generated compound returns because, for example, surveillance infrastructure exported to one regime becomes a template for the next." In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.

The US military has launched a mission to transfer up to 7,000 Islamic State (IS) group fighters from prisons in north-eastern Syria to Iraq, as Syrian government forces take control of areas long controlled by Kurdish-led forces. US Central Command said it had already moved 150 IS fighters from Hassakeh province to a secure location in Iraq. The move aimed to prevent a breakout that would pose a direct threat to the United States and regional security, it added. On Tuesday night, Syria's government announced a new ceasefire with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), after the militia alliance withdrew from al-Hol camp, which holds thousands of relatives of IS fighters. Separately on Wednesday, Syria's defence ministry said seven soldiers were killed in a drone attack by Kurdish forces in the Kurdish-dominated province of Hasakah.