WORLD

Both sides said a formal ceasefire agreement which was due to expire at midnight would be extended for a further 72 hours, in a move the RSF said was "in response to international, regional and local calls".

Sevastopol is home to Russia's Black Sea Fleet and has been hit by a series of drone attacks since the Kremlin's Ukraine offensive launched last year.

In the first days after the Feb. 24, 2022 invasion, Ukrainian officials said Russian intelligence units tried to break into Kyiv but were defeated and failed to reach Bankova Street in the centre, home to the presidential offices.

Sheikh Jassim is in a bidding war with British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe after the pair emerged as the main contenders to buy the Premier League club from the Glazer family.

The Taliban government, which took back power in August 2021, will be absent from the talks with representatives from about 25 countries and international organisations, according to diplomats.

Along with the departed football crowds, thousands of foreign workers left the Gulf state after Lionel Messi lifted the coveted trophy on December 18.

The veteran Turkish leader filled a central Ankara square that can fit a few hundred thousand people with flag-waving supporters, showing no signs of an illness that sidelined him for three days this week.

"Eleven deaths are confirmed," Mandeep Singh Sidhu, police commissioner of Ludhiana, told reporters, adding that four people were hospitalised.

Sunday's operation was carried out by the Saudi navy, which for more than a week has dispatched its fleet to Sudan to help evacuate thousands of civilians from all over the world.

Russian forces, which have struggled for months to capture Bakhmut, are slowly taking over more and more of the city.

Video clips shared by local media show fans facing off with security guards as they try to force their way into the venue even after its gates had been shut.

The team leader gave instructions to the 30 or so diggers: "You have to dig from there to there," he said, pointing to a few dozen metres of green grass damp from the night's rain.

The armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas said on Thursday it would stop receiving fundraising via the crypto currency bitcoin, a method it has used for years, citing an increase in "hostile" activity against donors.

The announcement pushes one of Turkey's largest voting blocs behind opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu and further complicates Erdogan's path to a third decade of rule.

Black clouds rose over the capital Khartoum as foreign nations scrambled to organise mass evacuations of their citizens, with Turkey's defence ministry on Friday reporting one of their military transport aircraft had come under fire.

The resolution, passed unanimously by all 15 Council members on Thursday, said a ban on women working for the world body and NGOs in Afghanistan "undermines human rights and humanitarian principles".

The 69-year-old leader cleared his busy schedule of public appearances after getting sick live on TV on Tuesday night.

BBC Chairman Richard Sharp resigned on Friday after an independent report found he had breached public appointment rules by not disclosing potential conflict of interest in his role in securing a $1 million loan for the then-prime minister, Boris Johnson.

In persisting ceasefire violations that the United States called worrying, heavy gunfire and detonations rattled residential neighbourhoods of the capital region where fighting has been concentrated over the past week.

The violence comes after Pakistan declared a new offensive against militants following a resurgence of attacks in recent months, such as a February mosque bombing that killed more than 100.

Russian forces pounded Ukrainian cities with missiles as people slept on Friday, killing at least nine people in their first large-scale air strikes in nearly two months.

Samer said Lebanon's army intelligence raided his brother's apartment in a Beirut suburb last week, detaining him, his wife and children and deporting them to Syria.

The one-hour conversation between Xi Jinping and Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday was the first since Russia invaded its pro-Western neighbour more than a year ago.

Hundreds have died and tens of thousands fled for their lives in two weeks of conflict between the army and rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The US Navy demanded the immediate release of the Marshall Islands-flagged tanker, saying it was transiting international waters in the Gulf of Oman and slamming Iran's "continued harassment of vessels".

In the past day alone, data showed that more cross-border transactions with China were settled in yuan in March than in dollars for the first time, and that Argentina said it aims to regularly pay for Chinese goods in yuan and not dollars.

More than 16,000 Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia since the February 2022 invasion, according to Kyiv, with many allegedly placed in institutions and foster homes.

Iran says its nuclear program is for civilian purposes while the United States suspects Tehran wants to develop a nuclear bomb by enriching uranium.

The "Friends of the Tree" group works to raise awareness about green areas around the capital Tripoli that are quickly disappearing because of drought, human activity and desertification.