A court on Wednesday convicted a Turkish journalist of threatening President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reports said, in a case that critics view as an attempt to silence a prominent voice against the government.

Fatih Altayli, 63, a veteran journalist whose YouTube programs attracted hundreds of thousands of views daily, was sentenced to four years and two months in prison.

Thirteen people were killed in a fire that spread across multiple high-rise apartment buildings in a Hong Kong housing complex, the city's fire services said Wednesday.

Nine people were declared dead on the scene and four others who were sent to the hospital were later confirmed dead, authorities told reporters.

President Donald Trump has said his plan to end the war in Ukraine has been "fine-tuned" and he's sending envoy Steve Witkoff to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll to meet with Ukrainian officials.

Trump suggested Tuesday he could eventually meet with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but not until further progress has been made in negotiations. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday evening aboard Air Force One, Trump said resolving the war was difficult, and described what had been a 28-point plan as a work in progress. "That was not a plan — it was a concept," Trump said.

The Kremlin said Wednesday that parts of the latest U.S. plan to end the Ukraine war were positive, but that many other points required discussion.

"Some aspects can be viewed positively, but many require special discussions among experts," Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told a state TV reporter.

Pakistan's military denied on Tuesday it had struck neighboring Afghanistan, rejecting accusations by the Taliban government that it was behind an overnight air raid that killed 10 people near the border.

"Pakistan has not attacked Afghanistan," army spokesman Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said in comments carried by state broadcaster PTV, adding that "the allegations of the interim Afghan government are baseless."

Trump's Africa envoy Massad Boulos said on Tuesday neither warring side in Sudan had accepted the latest ceasefire proposal, urging both to agree to the truce presented by Washington on behalf of mediators without preconditions.

"We appeal to both sides to accept the humanitarian truce as presented without preconditions," he told reporters in the Emirati capital Abu Dhabi.

Donald Trump's return to power, a ceasefire in Gaza and massive investments in artificial intelligence: Here are 10 events that defined 2025.

- Trump returns -

U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll was meeting with a Russian delegation in Abu Dhabi, U.S. and British media reported Tuesday, days after talks with Ukraine in Geneva aimed at ending the conflict.

Driscoll met the Russian delegation on Monday with talks due to continue on Tuesday, ABC News and the Financial Times reported, citing a U.S. official.

French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday that France must not be "weak" faced with the threat from Russia, while emphasizing it had no intention of "sending our young people" to fight in the Ukraine war.

"We would be wrong to show weakness in the face of this threat. If we want to protect ourselves, we French -- which is my sole concern -- we must demonstrate that we are not weak against the power that threatens us the most," he told RTL radio in an interview.

Afghanistan's Taliban government on Tuesday accused Pakistan of launching overnight airstrikes in three eastern provinces, killing 10 civilians, including nine children, in a sign of worsening tensions between the two neighbors.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the chief spokesperson for the Afghan government, said on X that Pakistan "bombed" the home of a civilian in Khost province, killing nine children and a woman. He said additional strikes were carried out in the provinces of Kunar and Paktika, injuring four others.