The United States and Iran go into the World Cup with political and football grudges that their coaches, Gregg Berhalter and Dragan Skocic, are keen to defuse before the teams meet in November.
They will meet in Group B at the World Cup in Qatar, and also play England and potentially Ukraine in what could be the first-round matches that draw most of the spotlight.
The US military could have done more to limit civilian casualties and damage during the battle for the Syrian city of Raqqa that marked the Islamic State's fall in 2017, according to a report commissioned by the Pentagon.
At the end of the nearly five-month battle to free the city from IS, "60 to 80 percent" of it was "uninhabitable" and resentment of the population was directed at the liberators, said a report by the research center RAND Corporation.
"Raqqa endured the most structural damage by density of any city in Syria," said the report released Thursday.
Algeria's state-owned energy giant Sonatrach warned Friday it could increase the price of its gas sales to Spain, against the backdrop of a diplomatic row with Madrid over the disputed Western Sahara.
"Since the start of the Ukraine crisis, gas and oil prices have skyrocketed. Algeria has decided to stick, for all its customers, to relatively fair contract prices," Sonatrach CEO Toufik Hakkar told the national news agency APS.
"But a 'recalculation' of prices for our Spanish customer is not ruled out," he said.
The UN said Yemen's warring parties have agreed to a two-month extendable truce starting Saturday, the first day of Ramadan for many Muslims, and an accord on fuel shipments and Sanaa airport.
Friday's announcement brings a glimmer of hope in a brutal conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands and left millions on the brink of famine in Yemen, long the Arab world's poorest country.
Saudi Arabia, home to Islam's holiest sites, announced it will start the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on Saturday.
"Tomorrow, Saturday, will be the first day of the blessed month of Ramadan," the kingdom said Friday, in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency.
Traditionally, many Muslim-majority countries have followed dates set by Saudi religious authorities, but in recent years many have used their own astronomic calculations.
Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian on Friday during clashes in the flashpoint occupied West Bank city of Hebron, the latest in a surge of violence, the Palestinian health ministry said.
The clashes come amid heightened tensions ahead of the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and as days of deadly violence in Israel and the occupied West Bank have raised fears of an escalation.
Clashes erupted in the centre of Hebron between Palestinian residents and Israeli forces, an AFP journalist said.
Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian on Friday during clashes in the flashpoint occupied West Bank city of Hebron, the latest in a surge of violence, the Palestinian health ministry said.
The 29-year-old Palestinian was shot and killed "with live ammunition", the ministry said in a brief statement.
The Palestinian Wafa news agency named the man killed as Ahmad al-Atrash, a former detainee who spent six years in an Israeli prison.
Asked by AFP, the Israeli army had no immediate comment.
Lebanon's electricity company is charging $16 million to supply power on the day of the May 15 parliamentary polls, a sum that exceeds the overall election budget by nearly 30 percent, the interior minister said.
Holding credible elections is one of the main steps Lebanon's major donors are insisting on to deliver more assistance to the country, which is mired in a deep financial crisis fuelled by endemic corruption.
FIFA on Friday faced calls to sanction Iran and even throw its team out of the 2022 World Cup finals over the Islamic republic's renewed failure to allow women to attend an international football match.
Iranian news agencies this week confirmed that 2,000 women who had bought tickets for Tuesday's World Cup qualifier against Lebanon in the northeastern city of Mashhad could not enter the stadium.
Activists based outside Iran accused the authorities of using pepper spray at close range to disperse women who then protested the ban outside the venue.
The draw for this year's World Cup takes place in the shadow of Doha's skyscrapers on Friday, with the focus for the evening on the actual football after a build-up dominated by the many off-field issues surrounding the awarding of the tournament.
It is the most controversial World Cup in history, with Qatar dogged ever since it was named host in 2010 by accusations of vote-buying –- which were hotly denied –- and questions over the country's suitability.
