Portal:Current events/2025 December 20

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Operation Southern Spear
  • 2025 United States naval deployment in the Caribbean, United States–Venezuela relations
    • The United States Coast Guard intercepts and seizes an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela after previously seizing another last week. (Reuters) (BBC) (The Washington Post)
• US intervention in the Syrian civil war
  • Operation Hawkeye Strike
    • The United States and Jordan carry out airstrikes on 70 Islamic State targets at multiple locations in Syria, in retaliation for the December 2025 Palmyra attack. (BBC News)

Disasters and accidents

• Seven elephants are killed and another is injured when a passenger train strikes a herd in the Hojai district of Assam, India. (DW) (Reuters)

Law and crime

• Arrest of Imran Khan
  • A Pakistani court sentences former prime minister Imran Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, to 17 years in prison after finding them guilty of corruption-related charges. (AP)
• Iran executes a man convicted of spying for Israeli intelligence agency Mossad in Urmia. (AP) (Iran Human Rights)

Science and technology

• Blue Origin NS-37
  • German engineer Michaela Benthaus becomes the first person in a wheelchair and the first with paraplegia to travel to space on a sub-orbital trip conducted by Blue Origin. (DW)