The World Trade Organization concluded a landmark bundle of deals Friday covering fishing subsidies, food insecurity and Covid-19 vaccines following hectic round-the-clock talks.

WTO director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said trade ministers had struck an "unprecedented" number of agreements that would affect the lives of people everywhere.

The talks in Geneva began Sunday and had been due to wrap up on Wednesday.

But instead the WTO's 164 members went through two straight nights before getting the package over the line at around 5:00 am (0300 GMT) Friday.

US coalition forces said they captured a senior Islamic State group bomb maker in a pre-dawn raid Thursday that, witnesses said, saw troops in helicopters swoop down on an isolated house in rebel-held northwestern Syria.

A war monitor and AFP correspondents said two military helicopters touched down for only a few minutes, and several shots were fired, in a village in an area controlled by Turkish-backed rebel groups.

Mark Eliyahu sat and tuned his ancient Persian violin-like "kamanci" in a yurt in northern Israel -- but many of his biggest fans are in Iran, a country he cannot visit.

Eliyahu's ethereal music, partly inspired by his Jewish roots from the Dagestan region of the Caucasus, is gaining recognition in Israel.

Yet despite the bitter hostility between the Israeli government and Tehran, which cut ties in the wake of the 1979 Iranian revolution, he also has a growing following among Iranians.

Flights were cancelled, public transport ground to a halt and government offices were closed in a nationwide strike by Tunisia's main trade union Thursday, piling pressure on a president already facing multiple crises.

The powerful UGTT confederation had urged workers across the North African country's vast public sector to strike, halting work at 159 state agencies and public companies to demand concessions on salaries and threatened reforms.

A UN-backed court for Lebanon will sentence two Hezbollah members in their absence Thursday for the 2005 assassination of former premier Rafic Hariri in what could be the cash-strapped tribunal's final act.

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), which is based in the Netherlands, found Habib Merhi and Hussein Oneissi guilty on appeal in March over a huge bombing which killed Hariri and 21 others and injured 226.

Russia's war in Ukraine has pushed global displacement numbers above 100 million for the first time, and the UN warns the resulting hunger crisis could force many more to flee their homes.

Efforts to address the global food insecurity crisis, which has been dramatically aggravated by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, is "of paramount importance... to prevent a larger number of people moving," the United Nations refugee chief Filippo Grandi told reporters.

"If you ask me how many... I don't know, but it will be pretty big numbers."

The street in front of Saudi Arabia's embassy in Washington was renamed Wednesday for Jamal Khashoggi as activists vowed never to forget the slain journalist despite President Joe Biden's planned visit to the kingdom.

The capital's local government changed signs on one block in front of the imposing embassy to read "Jamal Khashoggi Way" in honor of the Saudi dissident who was strangled to death and dismembered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro met Wednesday with Qatar's Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani in the gas-rich Gulf nation, his fifth stop of a regional tour.

The two heads of state discussed "developing relations of friendship and prospects of joint cooperation" between the two countries, the Qatar News Agency said.

The talks focused in particular on "energy, the economy, investment, agriculture and tourism", the agency added.

Israel and Egypt plan to boost gas exports to Europe under an agreement signed during a Cairo visit Wednesday by the European Commission president as the bloc seeks to wean itself off Russian gas.

Ursula von der Leyen also pledged relief worth 100 million euros ($104 million) for food security in Egypt, which has been reeling from grain shortages as a result of the Ukraine war.

Israel and Egypt plan to boost gas exports to Europe under an agreement signed during a Cairo visit Wednesday by EU chief Ursula von der Leyen as the bloc seeks to wean itself off Russian gas.

Von der Leyen also pledged food relief worth 100 million euros ($104 million) for Egypt, which has been reeling from grain shortages as a result of the Ukraine war.

The European Commission president had vowed on Tuesday, during a visit to Israel, to confront Russia for its use of fossil fuels to "blackmail" European countries.