Three members of the United States Congress made a rare visit Sunday to rebel-held territory in northern Syria controlled by pro-Turkish factions, an AFP journalist at the scene said.
The Republican delegation comprising French Hill, Ben Cline and Scott Fitzgerald entered Syria from Turkey through the Bab al-Salama border crossing, where they were welcomed by a banner reading "Welcome to Free Syria" and revolutionary flags.
UN experts have written to oil firm Saudi Aramco and its financial backers challenging them on allegations that their activities are fuelling climate change-related negative impacts on human rights.
A cache of correspondence was published Saturday on a United Nations human rights special procedures website, exactly two months after it was sent.
The letters said UN experts had received information "concerning Saudi Aramco's business activities... which are adversely impacting the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change".
Tennis greats Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert have spoken out against the prospect of the WTA Tour staging its end-of-season finals in Saudi Arabia.
WTA chief Steve Simon said in June the organization was "evaluating" the possibility of taking a tournament to Saudi Arabia, while describing the subject as "difficult and challenging."
Recent reports have said Saudi Arabia is in pole position to land the tour's prestigious WTA Finals tournament, which sees the top eight women players in the world battle it out in a season-ending championship.
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy will be tried in 2025 over allegations he took money from late Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi to fund one of his election campaigns, prosecutors said on Friday.
The trial has been scheduled for January-April 2025 and is set to hear explosive evidence that the right-winger conspired to take cash from the Libyan leader to illegally fund his victorious 2007 bid to become French president.
Rare protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government showed no sign of abating Friday with demonstrations reported in a string of towns in Daraa and Sweida provinces.
The protests began late last week after the government ended fuel subsidies, dealing a heavy blow to Syrians reeling from years of war and economic crisis.
In the Daraa province town of Bosra al-Sham, dozens of people demonstrated, openly calling for an end to Assad's rule, an AFP correspondent said.
Hundreds of women holding Israeli flags protested on Thursday in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish suburb of Tel Aviv against what they said was rising gender-based segregation, especially on public transport.
The protest in Bnei Brak came after media reports that several bus drivers in recent weeks had forced women to either sit in the back or simply refused to take them on board.
One report earlier this month said the driver of a public bus told a group of teenage girls to sit in the back and cover up after they boarded dressed in tank tops and jeans.
Twin Turkish drone strikes killed seven members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region Thursday, authorities said, as Ankara's foreign minister visited the northern region.
Both strikes hit the mountainous Sidakan subdistrict, north of the regional capital Arbil, where the PKK maintains rear bases in its nearly four-decade-long insurgency against the Turkish military.
"A Turkish army drone struck a PKK vehicle, killing an official and two fighters," the Kurdish counterterrorism services said in a statement on the earlier strike.
By the end of century, more than one billion cows worldwide could suffer from heat stress if global warming continues unabated, threatening their fertility, milk production and lives, according to research published on Thursday.
Nearly eight out of 10 cows across the planet are already experiencing excessively high body temperatures, spiked respiration rates, bowed heads and open-mouthed panting -- all symptoms associated with severe heat stress, the study said.
In tropical climates, 20 percent of cattle endure those symptoms year-round.
Rights activists on Thursday condemned a hardline Christian group's assault on a bar hosting a drag show in a Beirut nightlife district as the result of escalating anti-LGBTQ rhetoric.
On Wednesday evening, more than a dozen people from the "Soldiers of God" group converged on the drag show venue in the capital's Mar Mikhael district, witnesses told AFP, requesting anonymity due to security concerns.
As star footballers line up to take Saudi money, it is easy to forget this is a phenomenon that stretches back decades. Only now, the stakes are much, much higher.
Read about a Brazilian player being greeted by thousands of fans and whisked off in a Rolls-Royce to banquet with royalty, and Neymar springs to mind.
But this describes the arrival of Rivelino, who signed a lucrative contract with Al-Hilal in 1978 -- 45 years before Neymar, his modern-day equivalent, did the same this month.
