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North Korea, Russia Reaffirm Commitment to Partnership Accord

A handout photo made available by the Russian Foreign Ministry press service shows Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (R) and North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui (L) during an unveiling ceremony of the plaque to mark Kim Il Sung visit to USSR in 1949, at Yaroslavsky railway station in Moscow, Russia, 01 November 2024. EPA/RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY PRESS SERVICE HANDOUT
A handout photo made available by the Russian Foreign Ministry press service shows Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (R) and North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui (L) during an unveiling ceremony of the plaque to mark Kim Il Sung visit to USSR in 1949, at Yaroslavsky railway station in Moscow, Russia, 01 November 2024. EPA/RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY PRESS SERVICE HANDOUT
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North Korea, Russia Reaffirm Commitment to Partnership Accord

A handout photo made available by the Russian Foreign Ministry press service shows Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (R) and North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui (L) during an unveiling ceremony of the plaque to mark Kim Il Sung visit to USSR in 1949, at Yaroslavsky railway station in Moscow, Russia, 01 November 2024. EPA/RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY PRESS SERVICE HANDOUT
A handout photo made available by the Russian Foreign Ministry press service shows Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (R) and North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui (L) during an unveiling ceremony of the plaque to mark Kim Il Sung visit to USSR in 1949, at Yaroslavsky railway station in Moscow, Russia, 01 November 2024. EPA/RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY PRESS SERVICE HANDOUT

The foreign ministers of North Korea and Russia reaffirmed their commitment to implement provisions agreed in June between the leaders of the two nations, North Korean state media KCNA reported on Saturday.
North Korea Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui and her Russian counterpart Sergei Viktorovich Lavrov met in Moscow, amid rising concerns about Pyongyang's involvement in Moscow's war in Ukraine, Reuters said.
NATO has joined the governments of South Korea, the US and Ukraine in confirming Pyongyang's dispatch of troops to Russia, saying that North Korean military units had been deployed to Russia's Kursk region on the border with Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in June agreed that the two countries would provide military and other assistance if either were attacked, as part of a strategic partnership accord.

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World

RSF Says Israel Killed Highest Number of Journalists Again this Year 

A boy sits amid murals painted on a destroyed building in the Maghazi refugee camp outside Deir al-Balah on December 8, 2025. (AFP)
A boy sits amid murals painted on a destroyed building in the Maghazi refugee camp outside Deir al-Balah on December 8, 2025. (AFP)
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RSF Says Israel Killed Highest Number of Journalists Again this Year 

A boy sits amid murals painted on a destroyed building in the Maghazi refugee camp outside Deir al-Balah on December 8, 2025. (AFP)
A boy sits amid murals painted on a destroyed building in the Maghazi refugee camp outside Deir al-Balah on December 8, 2025. (AFP)

Reporters Without Borders said on Tuesday that Israel was responsible for nearly half of all journalists killed this year worldwide, with 29 Palestinian reporters slain by its forces in Gaza.

In its annual report, the Paris-based media freedom group said the total number of journalists killed reached 67 globally this year, slightly up from the 66 killed in 2024.

Israeli forces accounted for 43 percent of the total, making them "the worst enemy of journalists", RSF said in its report, which documented deaths over 12 months from December 2024.

The most deadly single attack was a so-called "double-tap" strike on a hospital in south Gaza on August 25, which killed five journalists, including two contributors to international news agencies Reuters and the Associated Press.

In total, since the start of hostilities in Gaza in October 2023, nearly 220 journalists have died, making Israel the biggest killer of journalists worldwide for three years running, RSF data shows.

Foreign reporters are still unable to travel to Gaza -- unless they are in tightly controlled tours organized by the Israeli military -- despite calls from media groups and press freedom organizations for access.

Elsewhere in the RSF annual report, the group said that 2025 was the deadliest year in Mexico in at least three years, with nine journalists killed there, despite pledges from left-wing President Claudia Sheinbaum to help protect them.

War-wracked Ukraine (three journalists killed) and Sudan (four journalists killed) are the other most dangerous countries for reporters in the world, according to RSF.

The overall number of deaths last year is far down from the peak of 142 journalists killed in 2012, linked largely to the Syrian civil war, and is below the average since 2003 of around 80 killed per year.

The RSF annual report also counts the number of journalists imprisoned worldwide for their work, with China (121), Russia (48) and Myanmar (47) the most repressive countries, RSF figures showed.

As of December 1, 2025, 503 journalists were detained in 47 countries across the world, the report said.

World

Fighting between Thailand and Cambodia Spreads along Contested Border

A handout photo made available by Agence Kampuchea Presse (AKP) shows people fleeing from a disputed area along a street in Oddar Meanchey Province, Cambodia, 08 December 2025. EPA/Agence Kampuchea Presse (AKP)
A handout photo made available by Agence Kampuchea Presse (AKP) shows people fleeing from a disputed area along a street in Oddar Meanchey Province, Cambodia, 08 December 2025. EPA/Agence Kampuchea Presse (AKP)
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Fighting between Thailand and Cambodia Spreads along Contested Border

A handout photo made available by Agence Kampuchea Presse (AKP) shows people fleeing from a disputed area along a street in Oddar Meanchey Province, Cambodia, 08 December 2025. EPA/Agence Kampuchea Presse (AKP)
A handout photo made available by Agence Kampuchea Presse (AKP) shows people fleeing from a disputed area along a street in Oddar Meanchey Province, Cambodia, 08 December 2025. EPA/Agence Kampuchea Presse (AKP)

Fighting between Cambodia and Thailand escalated along their contested border on Tuesday, as the Southeast Asian neighbors both said they would not back down in defending their sovereignty. With each side blaming the other for starting Monday's renewed clashes, it was unclear how or if a fragile ceasefire brokered by US President Donald Trump in July could be salvaged.

Cambodia's influential former leader Hun Sen said his country waited 24 hours to honor the ceasefire and allow for evacuations before launching counterattacks overnight against Thai forces.

"Cambodia needs peace, but Cambodia is compelled to counterattack to defend our territory," he said in a Facebook post, saying strong bunkers and weapons gave Cambodian forces the advantage in defending against an "invading enemy". In Thailand, military officials said there were clashes in five border provinces, and a Navy-led operation in its Trat Province to expel Cambodian soldiers was expected to end soon. They said Cambodia was using artillery, rocket launchers, and bomb-dropping drones to attack Thai forces.

"Thailand is determined to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity and therefore military measures must be taken as necessary," Defense Ministry spokesperson Rear Admiral Surasant Kongsiri told the media briefing where other military officials also spoke. Cambodia's Defense Ministry accused Thailand of "brutal and unlawful actions", saying nine civilians were killed since Monday and 20 seriously injured. Thai officials said three soldiers had died in the fighting and 29 people had been injured, Reuters reported.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, Hun Sen's son, said late on Monday that Thailand "must not use military force to attack civilian villages under the pretext of reclaiming its sovereignty". Both countries said they had evacuated hundreds of thousands of people from border areas. Tensions have simmered since Thailand last month suspended de-escalation measures that were agreed at a summit overseen by Trump, after a Thai soldier was maimed by a landmine that Bangkok said Cambodia had recently laid. Monday's clashes were the fiercest since a five-day exchange of rockets and heavy artillery in July, when at least 48 people were killed and 300,000 displaced, before Trump intervened to broker a ceasefire.

In May, tensions rose following the killing of a Cambodian soldier during a skirmish, which led to a major troop buildup at the border and escalated into diplomatic breakdowns and armed clashes. Thailand has superior military capabilities, with armed forces that dwarf its neighbor in terms of personnel, budget and weaponry, and fighter jets that have been carrying out air strikes to support its ground forces. Thailand and Cambodia have for more than a century contested sovereignty at undemarcated points along their 817-km (508-mile) land border, with disputes over ancient temples stirring nationalist fervor and occasional armed flare-ups, including a deadly week-long artillery exchange in 2011.

World

Russia’s Top General Says Army Is Advancing in Ukraine and Targeting Myrnohrad 

A serviceman of the 49th Separate Assault Battalion Carpathian Sich of the Armed Forces of Ukraine walks near an apartment building damaged by Russian military strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the frontline town of Kostiantynivka in Donetsk region, Ukraine December 7, 2025. (Reuters)
A serviceman of the 49th Separate Assault Battalion Carpathian Sich of the Armed Forces of Ukraine walks near an apartment building damaged by Russian military strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the frontline town of Kostiantynivka in Donetsk region, Ukraine December 7, 2025. (Reuters)
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Russia’s Top General Says Army Is Advancing in Ukraine and Targeting Myrnohrad 

A serviceman of the 49th Separate Assault Battalion Carpathian Sich of the Armed Forces of Ukraine walks near an apartment building damaged by Russian military strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the frontline town of Kostiantynivka in Donetsk region, Ukraine December 7, 2025. (Reuters)
A serviceman of the 49th Separate Assault Battalion Carpathian Sich of the Armed Forces of Ukraine walks near an apartment building damaged by Russian military strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the frontline town of Kostiantynivka in Donetsk region, Ukraine December 7, 2025. (Reuters)

Russia's top general, Valery Gerasimov, said on Tuesday that Moscow's forces were advancing along the entire front line in Ukraine and were targeting surrounded Ukrainian troops in the town of Myrnohrad.

In a command post meeting with officers of the Center Grouping which is fighting in Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region, Gerasimov said President Vladimir Putin had ordered the defeat of Ukrainian forces in Myrnohrad, a town with a pre-war population of some 46,000 people to the east of Pokrovsk.

Russia had taken control of more than 30% of Myrnohrad's buildings, Gerasimov said.

Russia, which uses the Soviet-era name of Krasnoarmeysk to refer to neighboring Pokrovsk, says it has taken the whole of the city and claims to have also encircled Ukrainian forces in Myrnohrad, which Russians call Dimitrov.

Ukraine has repeatedly denied Russian claims that Pokrovsk has fallen and says it forces still hold part of the city and are fighting back in Myrnohrad.

Russia currently controls 19.2% of Ukraine, including Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, Luhansk, more than 80% of Donetsk, about 75% of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, and slivers of the Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

Ukraine says it is holding its defensive lines and forcing Russia to pay a high price for what it says are relatively modest gains.

Putin said last week that Russia would take full control of Ukraine's Donbas region by force unless Ukrainian forces withdraw, something Kyiv has flatly rejected.