AFP news

The crisis led US authorities last week to promise support for other lenders and depositors, in a move aimed at preventing a run on banks.

Soon after, another round of explosions was heard in a neighbourhood two kilometres (one mile) away.

An Israeli government official, requesting anonymity because not authorised to speak publicly about the talks, implied a longer timeline.

Beijing seeks to depict itself as a neutral party to the conflict, neither condemning nor explicitly supporting the Russian offensive.

The trip by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad comes after a visit to Oman last month, his only official engagements in Arab countries since the start of Syria's war in 2011.

That changed on February 6, when a 7.8-magnitude earthquake killed more than 48,000 in southeastern Turkey and nearly 6,000 over the border in Syria, leaving entire cities in ruins.

Salameh, 72, one of the world's longest-serving central bank governors having held the post for three decades, was a previously untouchable figure in Lebanon.

Ukraine has repeatedly asked its Western allies to send warplanes -- although seeking primarily modern US-made F-16s -- but so far no Western countries had committed to give jets to Kyiv.

The special forces aim to defend the nearby village of Grygorivka in the Donetsk region, about 10 kilometres (six miles) northwest of Bakhmut, which is coming under heavy Russian shelling.

The two countries had protested when reports emerged last month that Visit Saudi Arabia would be among the sponsors of the 32-team football tournament hosted by New Zealand and Australia from July 20.

A rollercoaster week was on course to end on a positive note after several Wall Street titans including JP Morgan, Bank of America and Citigroup stumped up $30 billion to deposit into troubled First Republic.

Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, met with Emirati president Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in the capital Abu Dhabi to discuss "opportunities for enhancing cooperation," according to the official WAM news agency.

The 52-year-old Swiss lawyer, who succeeded the disgraced Sepp Blatter in 2016, was waved in for a third term by acclamation, just as he was four years ago, by delegates from the 211 member federations.

The number of Islamic schools has grown across Afghanistan since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, with teenage girls increasingly attending classes after they were banned from secondary schools.

Framed by mountains running between the Mediterranean Sea and Turkey's border with Syria, Antakya was home to Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Persian, Arab and Ottoman empires over more than two millennia.

Police wanted to arrest Khan for skipping court dates to answer allegations he failed to declare gifts he received during his three-and-a-half-year turn in office --or the profits made from selling them.

Ebadi -- who won the Nobel Prize in 2003 and now lives in exile outside Iran -- insisted that "sanctions work" against the authorities in Tehran.

The brutal repression of the 2011 protests, which began during the Middle East's Arab Spring uprisings, triggered a complex civil war that drew in foreign powers and jihadists.

The meeting follows the surprise announcement last week of a Chinese-brokered restoration of diplomatic ties between the Middle East's major rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran.

The German government is under pressure for hosting Netanyahu at a time of the disputed reforms, with critics urging Berlin to scrap the visit.

The US on Tuesday accused Russia of forcing down one of its Reaper surveillance drones over the Black Sea through a collision with a Russian Sukhoi-27 war plane.

The carrier, Riyadh Air, was officially unveiled on Sunday, and on Tuesday announced an agreement to purchase 39 Boeing Dreamliners, with options for 33 more jets.

The Federal Court of Accounts (TCU), which oversees the government coffers, also ordered the far-right ex-army captain to hand over to the presidential palace collection two guns he received as presents from the United Arab Emirates in 2019.

Washington says a Russian Su-27 clipped an MQ-9, requiring the drone to be brought down in the Black Sea, while Moscow denies responsibility and accuses the United States of conducting "hostile" flights in the region.

Already jittery investors have been in panic mode since the collapse of two regional US banks over the weekend sparked a sell-off across equities and ramped up concerns of a global recession.

Amini was visiting the capital Tehran with her brother and cousins when she was arrested as they were leaving a metro station in the city centre last September.

The whistling sound from the projectiles was followed by explosions caused by munitions that released small, burning balls of white phosphorus that slowly fell to the ground.

Russia has been one of Syria's few allies during its years of war and political isolation.

The head of the monastery, Pavlo Lebid, vowed the "monks have no intention of moving", but AFP reporters saw a large number of cars and vans drive out of the religious community on Tuesday.