WORLD

An international aid agency in Afghanistan hopes to have an interim arrangement within days to allow its Afghan female staff to return to work in the southern province of Kandahar - the birthplace of the Taliban and home to the supreme spiritual leader.

Salameh has been the target of a series of judicial investigations both at home and abroad on allegations including embezzlement, money laundering, fraud and illicit enrichment, which he denies.

Clashes between rival military factions broke out on Wednesday in Sudan's capital Khartoum, residents said, threatening to shatter a fragile ceasefire designed to allow for the delivery of aid and create conditions for a more lasting truce.

Health department official Zaher Hajjo told AFP that 53 abandoned newborn babies had been registered in government-controlled areas in the first 10 months of last year -- 28 boys and 25 girls.

Nerves have been rattled across global markets owing to a lack of real headway in the standoff on Capitol Hill to increase the US borrowing limit so it can meet its debt obligations.

Since fighting began on April 15 between the forces of two rival generals, more than 132,000 refugees have arrived in Egypt, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Wednesday.

The winner will have leverage over key areas for Moscow, such as Russia's large-scale military campaign in Ukraine, the war in Syria and the Kremlin's standoff with NATO.

Canada and Saudi Arabia have agreed to restore full diplomatic ties and appoint new ambassadors, both countries said on Wednesday, bringing to a close a 2018 dispute that damaged relations and trade. The decision follows discussions held between Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on the sidelines of the summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum in Bangkok in November last year, according to statements from Canada and Saudi Arabia.

Footage of some of the destroyed vehicles released by the Russian defence ministry showed U.S.-made military hardware such as Humvee military trucks.

Opposition politicians, who have been in compromise talks with the government over the proposed reforms since they were suspended in late March, protested. One threatened to "shake up the country" if Netanyahu pursues the legislation unilaterally.

The academic was also awarded around 151,000 Swiss francs ($167,000) in compensation from the Swiss canton of Geneva over the case.

Alexander Shiplyuk, head of Siberia's Khristianovich Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ITAM), is suspected of handing over classified material at a scientific conference in China in 2017, the sources said.

Sporadic artillery fire has still echoed across the capital but the two foreign powers observing the one-week truce said that "fighting in Khartoum appeared to be less intense" since it entered into force late Monday.

Pakistan is considering banning former Prime Minister Imran Khan's party for attacking the state, the defence minister said on Wednesday, a decision likely to enrage his supporters and exacerbate his confrontation with the military establishment.

Once labelled a pariah, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman took centre stage as master of ceremonies last week when Arab states readmitted Syria to the Arab League, signaling to Washington who calls the regional shots.

With Erdogan hot favourite, the opposition is searching for votes to push secular leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu over the line in Sunday's presidential runoff.

Local psychiatrists said al-Mansi's symptoms were common among many children living in the enclave, who were experiencing lack of sleep, anxiety, bedwetting, as well as a tendency to stay glued to their parents and avoid going outdoors.

The economic cooperation between the UAE and Malaysia demonstrates the depth of the relations between the two countries, said Saif Al Jarwan.

Erdogan repeated the allegation and referred to the doctored video, splicing footage of Kemal Kilicdaroglu and a Kurdish militant, in an interview with state broadcaster TRT late on Monday, despite having been criticised by the opposition for showing it earlier in his campaign.

Josep Borrell said EU states had also given 1,300 missiles under the scheme and were on track to hit a target of supplying 1 million pieces of ammunition within a year, even though some EU countries have avoided endorsing that goal as feasible.

The announcement came in response to a report by the exiled Belarusian opposition alleging that 2,150 Ukrainian children, including orphans aged six to 15, were taken to so-called recreation camps and sanatoriums on Belarusian territory.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, already the country's longest-serving premier, took power again in December in a coalition with extreme right and ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties.

The Black Sea deal - brokered last July by the United Nations and Turkey and extended last week for two months - covers the wartime export of food and fertiliser from the Ukrainian ports of Odesa, Chornomorsk and Pivdennyi.

Switzerland's biggest bank bought out its rival for $3.25 billion on March 19, under strong pressure from the regulators FINMA, the government and the central bank, to prevent Credit Suisse from collapsing.

Modi is visiting Australia for the first time since 2014, and two months after Albanese travelled to India.

World powers' efforts to negotiate new curbs to Iranian uranium enrichment and other projects with bomb-making potential have been fruitless so far, fanning long-bruited threats by Israel to resort to force if it deems diplomacy a dead end.

Jaber, who heads the United Arab Emirates oil giant Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, was chosen in January to lead the talks.

In the first round in early May, Recep Tayyip Erdogan won more than 75 percent of the vote in Essen, around 10 points above the average of 65 percent in Germany, which has the largest Turkish community abroad with its 1.5 million voters.

A photograph of a woman, wearing a white chador with an ornate pattern and standing in front of a hanging Persian rug, is perhaps the most striking image of a new exhibition in Milan that aims to shed light on women's lives in today's Iran.