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Russia to launch Iranian satellite amid Ukraine war concerns

Russia is scheduled to launch an Iranian satellite into orbit on Tuesday, but Tehran brushed off fears that Moscow might use it in the war against Ukraine.

Iran's "Khayyam" satellite is scheduled to take off from the Moscow-operated Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 0552 GMT, three weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin met Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran.

Iran has sought to deflect suspicions that Moscow could use Khayyam to improve its surveillance of military targets in Ukraine.

View of the Baikonur cosmodrome launch pad. Russia is due to launch an Iranian satellite from the Kazakhstan spaceport

EU submits a 'final text' at Iran nuclear talks

The European Union submitted a "final text" at talks to salvage a 2015 deal aimed at reining in Iran's nuclear ambitions and Tehran said Monday it was reviewing the proposals.

Britain, China, France, Germany, Iran and Russia, as well as the United States indirectly, resumed talks on Thursday in Vienna, months after they had stalled.

The European Union has submitted a "final text", a European official said on Monday. "We worked for four days and today the text is on the table," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

Negotiations to save the Iran nuclear deal are taking place in Vienna's Hotel Palais Coburg, pictured in December 2021

UN Security Council meets over Gaza fighting

The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting Monday to discuss the situation in Gaza, with several members raising concerns despite the tenuous truce between Islamic Jihad militants and Israel after three days of deadly conflict.

Speaking via video at the start of the meeting, UN Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland warned that a resumption of hostilities will have "devastating" consequences.

"The ceasefire is fragile," he warned.

Smoke billows as a bomb drops on a target in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip during an Israeli airstrike on August 7, 2022

Israel razes homes of Palestinians suspected of axe murders

Israel demolished the homes of two young Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on Monday suspected of carrying out an axe attack in May that killed three people.

Bulldozers tore down the family homes of Assad Yussef al-Rifai, 19, and Subhi Imad Abu Shukair, 20 in the village of Rummanah, near Jenin in the north of the West Bank, the army said.

Both men are awaiting trial, after a stabbing frenzy in the mainly ultra-Orthodox Jewish city of Elad.

Israel launched a massive manhunt following the attack, ultimately finding the pair hiding in bushes inside Israel.

Israeli soldiers deploy to demolish houses in Rummanah town in the occupied West Bank

Chad military government signs deal to launch peace talks

Chad's military government and more than 40 opposition groups signed a deal Monday to launch national peace talks this month, but the main rebel outfit refused to take part.

United Nations and African Union leaders urged the junta and opposition to seize the latest opportunity to stabilise a country considered key to international efforts to stamp out Islamic extremists in the Sahel region.

But after five months of mediation efforts by Qatar, the main rebel Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT) announced hours before the ceremony in Doha that it would not join.

Chad's military junta and more than 40 opposition groups agreed to a deal for national talks on Monday

Chad peace talks accord to be signed without key rebel group

Chad's military leader will sign a deal on Monday with more than 40 opposition groups to launch national peace talks, but the central African country's main rebel outfit has refused to take part.

Under the accord, to be signed in the Qatari capital Doha, talks aimed at paving the way for a presidential election will start on August 20.

Since March, Qatar has been mediating between opposition groups and the military government of Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, a general who seized power after his father died in a battle with rebels last year.

Mahamat Idriss Deby, the head of Chad's ruling junta, is set to sign a deal launching peace talks with opposition groups on Monday

Iran says UN nuclear watchdog should resolve outstanding issues

Iran on Sunday demanded that the UN nuclear watchdog "completely" resolve outstanding issues related to questions over nuclear material at undeclared sites, amid resumed talks to revive its 2015 nuclear deal.

Talks aimed at reviving the agreement over Iran's nuclear programme resumed this week in Vienna, months after they had stalled.

Iranian sources have suggested that one of the key sticking points is a probe by the International Atomic Energy Agency on traces of nuclear material found at undeclared Iranian sites.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell submitted a compromise proposal last month

Gaza hospital chief warns of 'crisis' as supplies dwindle

Gaza's top hospital director warned Sunday that medics are facing multiple crises amid deadly violence between Palestinian militants and Israel, with drugs and electricity supplies urgently needed to keep treating patients.

Muhammad Abu Salmiya said wounded people were arriving "every minute" at Shifa hospital in Gaza City.

"There is a crisis in medicine, a crisis in drugs, a crisis in electricity," said Salmiya, the hospital's director general.

Paramedics rush a Palestinian woman wounded during Israeli air strikes to Shifa hospital in Gaza City on August 6, 2022

Thirty inmates saw out of Lebanon jail, escape: authorities

More than 30 people fled a Lebanon detention centre at dawn on Sunday, security forces said, after sawing their way through a window, according to a judicial official.

"At dawn... 31 detainees managed to escape" from a detention centre in the Adlieh district of the capital Beirut, the Internal Security Forces said in a statement.

"Immediate orders were given to arrest them and investigations are underway."

The detainees broke past a prison window using a saw smuggled into the facility, said a judicial official close to an investigation into the incident.

Members of Lebanon's security forces deploy on a street with access to a detention center under the Adlieh (Palace of Justice) bridge in the capital Beirut following a dawn prison break

Syria more than doubles petrol prices: ministry

Syria's internal commerce ministry has announced a petrol price hike of around 130 percent in the war-torn country facing fuel shortages and extended power cuts.

The cost of a litre of subsidised fuel will rise to 2,500 Syrian pounds, from 1,100 previously, a rise of 127 percent, the ministry said in a statement quoted by the official SANA news agency late Saturday.

The cost of non-subsidised petrol will rise from 3,500 to 4,000 Syrian pounds, the ministry added.

In this file photo taken on May 10, 2020, pedestrians walk along a line of cars in a busy street in the Syrian capital Damascus