Arab leaders are to welcome Syrian President Bashar al-Assad back into the fold Friday at a summit in Saudi Arabia that is also expected to confront conflicts in Sudan and Yemen.. Since then, Saudi Arabia has restored bilateral ties with Syria and ramped up a push for peace in Yemen, where it leads a military coalition against the Iran-backed Huthi rebels.
On a scorching sidewalk, Ibrahim Said hopes to withdraw his savings from a Sudanese bank, but the wait seems as unending as the war that has brought the country's financial system to a standstill.. The country's banking federation has repeatedly moved to assure clients that their assets and financial records are intact and has vowed to "restore banking services as soon as conditions permit".
In sweltering heat in a small building in eastern DR Congo, technicians cast molten gold into ingots as traders nearby haggle over the day's price for the precious metal.. In the baking-hot building adjacent to Primera Gold's headquarters, a technician took a crucible of liquid gold from a furnace and poured it into a rectangular mould.
A Pacific Islands leader on Friday called on the United States and China to not bring "adversarial competition" to the region, as the rival powers intensify their bids for influence.. He hailed a White House summit between Biden and Pacific Island leaders last year, but added: "What we don't want to see is our region being an area of adversarial competition by our development partners.
Iran on Friday executed three men convicted of killing security force members during protests triggered by Mahsa Amini's death last year, the judiciary said, drawing condemnation from rights groups.. During the protests, which Tehran generally labelled as foreign-instigated "riots", thousands of Iranians were arrested and hundreds killed including dozens of security forces.
A tsunami warning in the Pacific has been lifted after a 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck on Friday, sending many islanders fleeing coastal areas.. And in April, an evacuation order was issued to coastal dwellers on a remote Philippine island after a 6.2-magnitude quake struck the ocean off the archipelago, triggering a tsunami warning, though there were no reports of damage. djw-burs/al/dva
The brush-tailed bettong -- a rare, very cute marsupial resembling a rabbit-sized kangaroo -- is bouncing back on the South Australian mainland, more than 100 years after disappearing from the region.. "We are really hoping that the brush-tailed bettong is just one of the first of many species that we can bring back and help restore the bush." djw/dva
When the US secretary of state travels through Papua New Guinea's capital next week to meet the leader of the South Pacific nation, it will be on a six-lane highway built by China.. The rivalry between the United States and China has brought them to loggerheads in the Pacific -- and their jostle for influence has been a boon for islands like resource-rich and strategically located Papua New Guinea.
A Hong Kong court on Friday dismissed a legal challenge by jailed pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai, conceding it had "no jurisdiction" over Beijing's national security apparatus in the city.. "(Hong Kong's) courts have no jurisdiction over the work" of the National Security Committee, he wrote in a decision.
Greece's outgoing conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and leftist challenger Alexis Tsipras will make a final push for votes at closing rallies on Friday, ahead of the most uncertain general election in a decade.. Though current polls give the outgoing prime minister a clear lead of between five and seven percent, the rules for Sunday's ballot set a high bar for an absolute majority that no party is likely to reach.
