WORLD

Russia is trying to cut the Ukrainian defenders' vulnerable supply lines into the city and force them to surrender or withdraw.

Blinken's visit to the capitals of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan is his first to the region as the Biden administration's top diplomat.

Egypt's foreign minister met Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday in the first visit to Damascus by a top Egyptian diplomat since the civil war began in 2011, in another sign of warming ties between Assad and Arab states that once shunned him.

Police said about 10,000 people braved the falling snow in central Berlin to call for negotiations with Moscow rather than weapons deliveries to Ukraine.

Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman has pledged $3.25 million to help buy more than a dozen ambulances for Ukraine as it defends itself against Russia's invasion, according to a fellow investor who cited a conversation with him.

The lack of consensus among G20 members meant India resorted to issuing a "chair's summary and outcome document" in which it simply summed up the two days of talks and noted disagreements.

"There is huge potential for intensified cooperation, in sectors such as renewables, hydrogen, mobility, pharma, digital economy, and many more," Scholz told the paper.

Russia, for its part, accused the United States, the European Union and the G7 nations of disrupting the ministers' meeting by trying to force through a joint statement on Ukraine.

The conflict, which pits a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia against the Iran-aligned Houthi group, has divided Yemen and caused a humanitarian crisis that has left 80% of the 30 million population needing help.

Baneira was 24 years old when she was arrested in November, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) revealed at the time.

A Lebanese judge on Thursday filed new charges against Salameh, his brother Raja and his former assistant Marianne Hoayek for embezzlement of public funds and money laundering.

Around three weeks after the disaster that killed more then 44,000 people in Turkey and thousands more in neighbouring Syria, AFP photographer Adem Altan tracked down Mesut Hancer in the capital Ankara.

The trip aims to show "solidarity with the two countries and their brotherly peoples" after the devastating earthquake that hit Syria and Turkey earlier this month, a foreign ministry statement said.

The fatal shooting came days after Israeli forces launched their deadliest West Bank raid in nearly 20 years, which left 11 Palestinians dead in the northern city of Nablus.

The protest, which took place during the match, follows that of fans from fellow Istanbul club Fenerbah?e at their stadium on Saturday.

Russia has made the capture Bakhmut a priority in its strategy to take control of Ukraine's eastern Donbas industrial region.

The popular blood sport "dates back to the 1920s or earlier" in Basra and is thought to have arrived with boats at the port, he added.

Atop a police outpost in northwest Pakistan, Faizanullah Khan stands behind a stack of sandbags and peers through the sight of an anti-aircraft gun, scanning the terrain along the unofficial boundary with the country's restive former tribal areas.

Tactics to access the image-centric social network service include using virtual private network software that encrypts and conceals online activity, said Meta head of security policy Nathaniel Gleicher.

More than 160,000 buildings, containing 520,000 apartments, collapsed or were severely damaged in Turkey in the earthquakes.

In comments to Reuters on Thursday, Salameh said the charges were "not an indictment" and pledged to abide by judicial procedures.

The defence ministers of the two countries met late last year for the highest-level talks between the two foes since the Syrian war began in 2011.

In an audio clip on Thursday, Prigozhin said he felt the pressure he and others had put on the Defence Ministry had paid off, and that he had been told ammunition was now on its way.

The measure will last for six months and was taken "in view of the gravity of the humanitarian crisis in Syria exacerbated by the earthquake".

Local officials told AFP that Sham Sheikh Mohammed, who may have to have her legs amputated, and her brother Omar, 15, crossed from rebel-held northwest Syria at the Bab al-Hawa border post.

On Friday Ukraine will be commemorating not the first anniversary of the Russian invasion but a year of successful resistance, said Olena Zelenska, the wife of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Six countries joined Russia to vote no - Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea, Mali, Nicaragua and Syria.

Global finance leaders will tally the economic damage from Russia's war in Ukraine on Friday as they meet on the conflict's first anniversary with some voicing concerns that more sanctions on Moscow would disrupt a modest improvement in growth.

Abdul Rabbani, who was born in 1967, is believed to have been one of the oldest inmates at the facility on a US base in Cuba.