Cyprus’ foreign minister says a shipment of humanitarian aid has left a port in Cyprus and is on its way to the U.S-built pier in Gaza, the first delivery to the newly built ramp. The U.S. vessel, loaded with much needed humanitarian assistance, left the Larnaca port on Thursday morning. The voyage comes about two months after President Joe Biden gave the order to build the large floating platform several miles off the Gaza coast. The relief is desperately needed, with the United Nations saying people in Gaza are on the brink of famine and as Israeli troops have ordered the evacuation of 100,000 Palestinians from Gaza’s southern city of Rafah.

China's military is accusing the U.S. of playing up for maximum political effect its warship's passage through the Taiwan Strait. The guided-missile destroyer USS Halsey passed through the waterway between mainland China and Taiwan on Wednesday, less than two weeks before the island's new president takes office. China claims sovereignty over Taiwan and sees other nations' transits of the strait as challenges to its claim. A Chinese naval captain said Chinese naval and air forces monitored the U.S. ship's passage ”in accordance with laws and regulations.” The U.S. Navy said the Halsey conducted a routine transit through the waters where "freedoms of navigation and overflight apply in accordance with international law.”

U.S. and Philippine forces, backed by an Australian air force surveillance aircraft, have unleashed a barrage of high-precision rockets, artillery fire and airstrikes and sank a mock enemy ship as part of largescale war drills in and near the disputed South China Sea that have antagonized Beijing. Military officials and diplomats watched the display of firepower from a hilltop on Wednesday. Washington and Beijing have been on a collision course over China’s increasingly assertive actions to defend its vast territorial claims in the South China Sea. Last year, the Philippines approved a wider U.S. military presence in the archipelago. China opposed the move, which puts U.S. forces across the sea from Taiwan. The Philippines countered it has the right to defend its sovereignty.

Armenia’s prime minister has talked with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow as tensions are spiraling between the estranged allies. Putin hosted Nikol Pashinyan for talks following a summit of the Eurasian Economic Union, a Moscow-dominated economic alliance they both attended earlier in the day. In brief remarks at the start of Wednesday's talks, Putin said that bilateral trade was growing, but acknowledged “issues concerning security in the region.” Armenia’s ties with its longtime ally Russia grew increasingly strained after Azerbaijan waged a military campaign in September to reclaim the Karabakh region, ending three decades of ethnic Armenian separatists’ rule there. Armenian authorities accused Russian peacekeepers of failing to stop the onslaught.

The U.N. World Health Organization says it has only three days of fuel for its medical operations in southern Gaza, and shortages have already forced one of three hospitals in the city of Rafah to shut down.The Rafah border crossing with Egypt has been closed since Israel’s military took control of the Palestinian side early Tuesday, blocking the entry of vital humanitarian aid.Israel said it reopened the Kerem Shalom crossing, the other main aid entry point, early Wednesday. However, the U.N. World Food Program says no aid has entered, and there is no one to receive it on the Palestinian side.  The U.N. says northern Gaza is already in a state of “full-blown famine.”