Twenty years after the fall of his regime, the late Iraqi president Saddam Hussein remains admired and popular in Jordan where his image can still be seen across the country.
The instantly recognisable face peers out from everything from bumper stickers to mobile phone cases in neighbouring Jordan, despite symbols and images associated with his rule being outlawed in Iraq itself.
Surrounded by spring flowers and the ruins of their family homes near Israel's border with Lebanon, Christians gathered Friday to ensure their Easter traditions survive decades after the destruction of their village.
There had been doubts the pilgrimage would happen at all after militants in Lebanon and the Israeli military had traded fire across the nearby frontier hours earlier.
But as people burned incense beside their relatives' tombs, Father Souhail Khoury recounted the importance his community attached to returning to the Palestinian village of Iqrit.
France's foreign minister has held a rare face-to-face meeting with her Iranian counterpart in China, urging Tehran to release French nationals "arbitrarily detained" in Iran, the foreign ministry said Friday.
Catherine Colonna, travelling with President Emmanuel Macron on his state visit to China, met Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Beijing.
Amir-Abdollohian was leading the Iranian delegation in separate reconciliation talks in Beijing between Iran and its once arch regional foe Saudi Arabia.
South Africa said Friday it had learnt with "shock and dismay" that the United Arab Emirates had rejected a request to extradite two brothers accused of orchestrating industrial-scale corruption.
Justice Minister Ronald Lamola bluntly accused the UAE of "non-cooperation" after being informed late Thursday of a court ruling against extraditing tycoons Atul and Rajesh Gupta.
"We learnt with shock and dismay that the extradition hearing had been concluded in the Dubai Court on the 13 February 2023 and our extradition request was unsuccessful," Lamola said in a statement.
Two Israeli women were killed and another seriously wounded Friday in a shooting attack on a vehicle in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli army and medics said.
The army said the assailants struck at Hamra junction, in the northern part of the Jordan valley. It did not immediately give details on the identity of the dead women.
The Magen David Adom emergency service said it had confirmed the "death of two women in their 20s and provided medical treatment to a 40-year-old woman in a serious condition".
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday threatened to abandon a landmark grain deal with Ukraine if obstacles to Moscow's exports remained.
Negotiated in July by Turkey and the United Nations, the agreement allows Ukraine -- one of the world's top grain producers -- to export grain through a safe corridor in the Black Sea.
A supertanker bought by the United Nations to remove oil from a ship abandoned off war-ravaged Yemen's coast departed China on Thursday, the UN announced, calling it a "significant" step in efforts to prevent a major spill.
The UN Development Program (UNDP) had in March purchased the crude carrier Nautica to remove more than a million barrels of oil from the beleaguered FSO Safer.
It was an unusual move for the agency, and was hailed as a breakthrough in efforts to avert a potentially catastrophic oil spill.
Two astronauts from Saudi Arabia, including the first Saudi woman, will blast off from Florida on May 8 on a private mission to the International Space Station (ISS), Axiom Space and NASA officials said Thursday.
Rayyanah Barnawi, a breast cancer researcher, will become the first Saudi woman to voyage into space and will be joined on the mission by fellow Saudi Ali Al-Qarni, a fighter pilot.
Also on board will be Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut who will be making her fourth flight to the ISS, and John Shoffner, a businessman from Tennessee who will serve as pilot.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mobilised police and army reserves Friday after separate attacks killed three people, including an Italian tourist, in the West Bank and Tel Aviv, in the latest escalation of deadly violence.
Despite appeals for restraint, violence has surged since Israeli police clashed with Palestinians Wednesday inside Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque, with Israel bombarding both Gaza and Lebanon following rocket fire by Palestinian militants.
Two Russian vessels left Jeddah on Thursday after making the first port call by the Russian navy in a Saudi port for a decade, Russian officials said.
The frigate Admiral Gorshkov and the tanker Kama arrived in Jeddah on Wednesday and left less than 24 hours later after a "long arranged" visit, a Russian embassy official in Riyadh told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Russia's defence ministry said on its website that the port call was the first by a Russian warship for about 10 years.
