Portal:Current events/2025 December 22

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Middle Eastern crisis
  • Syrian conflict
    • SDF–Syrian transitional government clashes (2025–present)
      • December 2025 Aleppo clashes
        • Two people are killed and eight others are injured during clashes between Syrian security forces and Syrian Democratic Forces fighters in Aleppo. (AP via WFMZ-TV)
  • Israel–Hezbollah conflict
    • Three people are killed in an Israeli airstrike against a vehicle near Sidon, Lebanon. (Al Jazeera)
• 2025 United States naval deployment in the Caribbean, United States–Venezuela relations
  • Operation Southern Spear
    • U.S. President Donald Trump says that the United States will keep the oil from the oil tankers it seized off the coast of Venezuela, along with the ships themselves. (BBC) (The Hill)
• Russo-Ukrainian war
  • Attacks in Russia during the Russo-Ukrainian war
    • Ukrainian military forces launch airstrikes on several targets across Russia, hitting an oil terminal, an ammunition depot, and a drone launch site in Krasnodar. (AP)
  • Lieutenant general Fanil Sarvarov is killed by a car bomb in Moscow, Russia. The Security Service of Ukraine is being investigated for its role in the attack, which they have not taken responsibility for, with connections also drawn to the assassination of Igor Kirillov last year. (The Guardian)
• Turkey–Islamic State conflict, Insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
  • Turkish intelligence agents capture a senior member of the Islamic State – Khorasan Province along the Afghanistan–Pakistan border. (AP)

Business and economy

• China–European Union relations
  • The Chinese commerce ministry imposes a provisional set of 42.7% tariffs on dairy products imported from the European Union. (AP)
• The price of gold reaches an all-time high of US$4,383.76 per ounce, surpassing its previous peak of $4,381.52. (AFP via Barron's)

Disasters and accidents

• At least 16 people are killed and 18 others are injured, including five critically, when a passenger bus loses control on a toll road, strikes a concrete barrier, and overturns in Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia. (AP)
• A Mexican Navy Beechcraft Super King Air plane carrying eight people, including a pediatric patient, crashes into a bay while on approach to Scholes International Airport in Galveston, Texas, United States. At least five people are killed, including a two-year-old child, while two others are rescued and another is reported missing. (Chron) (BNO News) (AP)
• Ten people are injured, including three seriously and the driver, when an individual drove into a crowd waiting to watch a parade in Nunspeet, Gelderland, Netherlands. (Nunspeet Huis aan Huis in Dutch) (AP)

Health and environment

• Nuclear power in Japan
  • The Niigata prefectural assembly approves the restart of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant, the world's largest nuclear facility, nearly 15 years after Japan shut down its reactors following the 2011 Fukushima disaster. (Reuters)

International relations

• India–New Zealand relations
  • India and New Zealand finalize a free-trade agreement aiming to reduce most tariffs on bilateral trades, while New Zealand also pledges to invest US$20 billion in India's economy over the next 15 years. (DW)

Law and crime

• 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal
  • The high court of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, rules that former prime minister Najib Razak must remain in prison, holding that a purported royal addendum allowing house arrest lacks legal force because it was not approved by the pardons board, as required under the constitution. (Reuters)

Politics and elections

• Mass media in Israel
  • The Israeli cabinet approves defense minister Israel Katz's proposal to close the Israeli Army Radio, one of the country's two state broadcasters, by March 1, 2026, citing dissatisfaction from soldiers. (Reuters)
• United States president Donald Trump reveals the development of the Trump Class USS Defiant, the first American battleship built since World War II. (BBC News) (USNI)