Crisis-hit Lebanon is "at a very dangerous moment", a visiting International Monetary Fund delegation said Thursday, criticising slow progress on reforms needed to unlock billions in loans.

Lebanon and the IMF reached a conditional agreement in April 2022 on a $3-billion-dollar loan needed to save the country's economy, in free fall since 2019.

But nearly a year after Beirut signed the agreement, officials have yet to enact the substantial changes required to kickstart the 46-month financing programme.

The battle to buy Manchester United heated up on Wednesday as Qatari banker Sheikh Jassim Bin Hamad Al Thani returned with a second bid for the English giants.

British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe is also expected to make a second offer for the 20-time English champions.

Interested parties had until 2100GMT on Wednesday to declare their offer to Raine, the merchant bank brought in to assist the sale of the club.

A source close to Sheikh Jassim's bid told AFP he remains confident his bid is "the best for the club, fans and local community."

Umm Esmat, a mother living in war-torn Syria, is preparing for the onset of Ramadan this year with a heavy heart, after a deadly earthquake forced her from her home.

Now displaced in the rebel-held countryside of northern Syria, she places on the bare ground of her shelter a few bags of bulgur, dates, rice and sweets for breaking the fast during the Muslim holy month which begins on Thursday.

Turkey's main pro-Kurdish party said Wednesday it would not field a presidential candidate in May elections, giving tacit support to Recep Tayyip Erdogan's secular rival in the crucial vote.

The decision by the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) reduces the possibility of a damaging split of the anti-Erdogan vote, boosting the chances of the opposition's joint candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

Winning more than 10 percent of the vote in the past three national elections, the HDP was widely seen as a kingmaker in the tight race.

Security forces in crisis-hit Lebanon's capital fired tear gas Wednesday at a protest against deteriorating living conditions, as the currency plummeted to new lows against the dollar.

The country's economic meltdown, described by the World Bank as one of the worst in recent global history, has plunged most of the population into poverty according to the United Nations.

Many of the hundreds who protested in Beirut were retired servicemen whose army pensions have lost most of their value, and depositors locked out of their savings by cash-strapped banks.

The oldest known near-complete Hebrew Bible was presented to the press on Wednesday in Tel Aviv, where it will be displayed for a week before going under the hammer in New York.

The Codex Sassoon is one of only two codices, or manuscripts, containing all 24 books of the Hebrew Bible -- the Christian Old Testament -- to have survived into the modern era and is estimated to be 1,100 years old.

The eve of Ramadan is a frantic time for Tunisian coppersmith Chedli Maghraoui, who skilfully puts a new shine on families' favourite kitchenware before the Muslim holy month starts.

From couscous pots to beloved tea sets, the metalware gets a professional polish from the 69-year-old craftsman who labours away solo at his workshop in the old city of Tunis.

So great is the pre-Ramadan rush that he has to politely tell customers he is just unable to work any faster: "I can't do it -- I still have other orders and, as you can see, I'm working alone."

Israel has "no intention" of reviving West Bank settlements evacuated nearly two decades ago, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday, after a parliamentary vote sparked US ire.

Lawmakers voted Tuesday to annul part of a law banning Israelis from living in areas of the occupied West Bank the government evacuated in 2005.

That year Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip and removed Jewish settlers from the coastal territory, as well as from four settlements in the northern West Bank.

An Israeli missile strike destroyed a suspected arms depot used by Iran-backed militias at Syria's Aleppo airport Wednesday, a war monitor said, with authorities saying the raid put the airport out of service.

It was the second such attack in a month on the airport in Syria's second city, which has been a major conduit for relief flights since a February 6 earthquake devastated swathes of northern Syria and neighbouring Turkey.

At least 10 soldiers were killed in renewed fighting in Yemen, military sources told AFP on Wednesday, despite diplomatic efforts to halt the long-running war in the Arab world's poorest country.

The clashes took place in oil-producing Marib province, one of the main battlegrounds and the scene of sporadic fighting even during a lull in hostilities over the past year.

Eight years of war have left hundreds of thousands dead, through direct and indirect causes, and triggered one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.