SEOUL, Sept 11 (Reuters) - South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun discussed the situation in the Middle East, including freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, in a telephone call on Friday with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araqchi, Seoul's foreign ministry said.

Cho expressed deep concern over the situation and voiced his hope for the restoration of lasting peace and stability in the region, the ministry said in a statement.

The presidents of Russia and Iran were in India for talks Friday ahead of a BRICS summit that will bring together leaders including China's Xi Jinping, with wars, trade and energy expected to dominate the agenda.

"The world today is going through a period of unprecedented complexity", Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said, speaking in New Delhi at a forum, ahead of the main summit on Saturday.

Wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, as well as global trade turbulence and oil, are expected to feature prominently at the two-day annual summit.

Cristiano Ronaldo will have a last crack at winning the Asian Champions League when the continent's top club competition begins on Monday, with big-spending Saudi teams set to dominate.

The 41-year-old former Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus superstar said in August that it was "probably my last year in football".

The Portuguese attacker has nearly won it all during his club career, including five UEFA Champions League crowns.

But the Asian Champions League has so far eluded the five-time Ballon d'Or winner.

An ancient Biblical prophecy lies at

Anthropic said Thursday it shut down multiple cases of state-sponsored surveillance operations that used its artificial intelligence (AI) models, and warned that governments and state-aligned actors are increasingly using AI to spy on ethnic minorities and dissidents.

The incidents were found and disrupted between January and July, and they originated in China, Iran and west Africa, Anthropic said in a report about misuse of its models. 

New York commemorated the 25th anniversary of the devastating September 11, 2001 attacks Friday w

By Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON, Sept 10 (Reuters) - When Donald Trump campaigned for a second term in the White House, he promised to be a “president of peace” who would stop foreign wars, not start them.

Now, a quarter-century after the September 11, 2001, attacks that triggered America’s global “war on terror,” he is entangled in an unpopular conflict of his own making that analysts say risks becoming his version of a “forever war."

By Jasper Ward

WASHINGTON, Sept 10 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Thursday the Trump administration will sanction a large bank next week as it continues to apply economic pressure on Tehran to end a more than six-month U.S. conflict with Iran.

He named neither the financial institution nor its country during his appearance on "Real America's Voice," but said the move would happen on Monday.

By Nidal al-Mughrabi, Haseeb Alwazeer and Dawoud Abu Alkas

CAIRO/GAZA, Sept 10 (Reuters) - As power cuts cascade through one of Gaza's largest functioning hospitals and patients wait for treatment in sweltering wards, medics warn that shortages of engine oil and spare parts are causing generators to seize up, putting lives at risk.

The crisis is spreading beyond hospitals, where soaring costs for oil and diesel are making electricity from neighbourhood generators increasingly unaffordable for families that depend on it.

By Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON, Sept 10 (Reuters) - The U.S. government announced new sanctions on Thursday against firms and individuals that it says are aiding Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies in the Middle East as it intensified its campaign to isolate Iran economically.

The latest sanctions are part of the Treasury Department's "Operation Economic Outcast," announced August 24, which aims to cut off Tehran's funding for the war, missile construction, cyberattacks and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC.