Saudi authorities were investigating Thursday after an assailant and a security guard were killed in an exchange of gunfire outside the US consulate in Jeddah, the gateway city for the massive hajj pilgrimage taking place in Mecca. . "Security forces reacted... resulting in an exchange of fire that killed the assailant," it said, adding that the Nepalese guard later died of his wounds.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in an interview that aired Wednesday she hopes to travel to China to "reestablish contact" with Beijing despite differences between the two countries.. But the Biden administration has recently sought to dial down the heat, with Yellen telling MSNBC that her hopes in "traveling to China is to reestablish contact."
Many masterpieces of Iraqi painting were looted or destroyed during the years of war, but now the country's artistic heritage faces another threat: rampant counterfeiting and illicit trafficking.. Many of them were among the thousands of pieces looted from the country's museums and homes during the security vacuum after dictator Saddam Hussein fell.
Ten years ago, Egypt's then-defence minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi rallied citizens by promising to move the country out of the "terrorist" shadow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.. One of the many citizens caught up in the justice system is finance manager Samer al-Desouki, 32, who was arrested on the street over a year ago and remains in pre-trial detention, Bahgat told AFP. While his family swore he had nothing to do with Islamists or the liberal opposition, his lawyers have been unable to access the file of the state security detainee.
EU leaders meeting in Brussels on Thursday are to look at ways to press aid on Tunisia in a bid to stem migrant boat departures for Europe.. France has separately announced 26 million euros in aid to Tunisia to help curb departures by irregular migrants across the Mediterranean.
Gulf oil states are using their vast wealth to build influence across the far-flung South Pacific, experts have told AFP, tearing a page straight out of China's Belt and Road playbook.. "There are some good things they see in the South Pacific," he told AFP. "We are getting big help from them, as well as from China."
Virgin Galactic is set Thursday to finally begin commercial spaceflights, a major milestone for the company founded in 2004 by British billionaire Richard Branson.. But the company subsequently faced setbacks, including a brief grounding by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which found the Branson flight deviated from its assigned airspace and Virgin Galactic did not communicate the "mishap" as required.
With the imminent end of the UN's Mali peacekeeping mission seemingly no longer in doubt, negotiations at the UN are still foundering over the timetable for their departure, which Bamako wants "without delay", according to diplomatic sources. . "The hope is really that we can adopt by the end of this week a draft that is taking into account what Mali wants and really shows that there is absolutely no intention from the UN to stay one day more than what is strictly necessary," said one diplomat.
A search operation involving hundreds of security personnel was under way in Mexico on Wednesday, a day after gunmen kidnapped 16 administrative employees of the police force, authorities said.. More than 1,000 members of the state and federal security forces were involved in the search operation, including a specialized team from the capital Mexico City, it said.
Smoke from Canada's worst-ever wildfires was severely impacting air quality Wednesday across Ontario and at least 15 US states, with monitors warning that over one hundred million people face potentially unhealthy conditions.. Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland recorded some of the worst air quality in the United States, with residents told to stay inside or limit outdoor activity as smoke blanketed huge swaths of the country just weeks after communities suffered similar disruptions from Canada's hundreds of active forest fires.
