Dubai will bid farewell to its extravagant Expo 2020 world fair on Thursday, leaving a multi-billion dollar mini-city in the desert and heightened expectations for future hosts.
Six months after the delayed opening of the $7 billion, purpose-built site, the Middle East business hub will close the shutters with performances from Christina Aguilera and DJ Tiesto, and fireworks that will go on past 3:00 am local time.
Israel has long been at war with Palestinian militants but recent deadly attacks claimed or inspired by the Islamic State group have raised fears of a new security threat.
The Jewish state has battled Gaza's Hamas and Islamic Jihad -- but recent violence has been linked to IS, which has radicalised followers online and inspired "lone wolf" attacks in many countries.
Relatively few Palestinians and Israeli Arabs joined the IS before their final territorial defeat in Syria in 2019, with most choosing to stay at home and fight for the Palestinian cause.
The OPEC group of oil producing countries and its Russia-led allies agreed on another modest oil output increase on Thursday, ignoring Western pressure to significantly boost production as the Ukraine conflict has rocked prices.
While OPEC refused to budge, the United States said it would tap its strategic stockpile by a record amount in a bid to cool soaring prices.
Israeli security forces on Thursday raided a West Bank city after three fatal attacks rocked the Jewish state in over a week, with two Palestinians shot dead and a third killed after launching a stabbing attack on a bus.
The violence comes after a Palestinian armed with an M-16 assault rifle killed five Israeli civilians in the streets of Bnei Brak, an Orthodox Jewish city near Tel Aviv, on Tuesday night.
Six months after Iraq's parliamentary vote, the war-scarred country is no closer to electing a president amid a bitter political stalemate that has thrown institutions into limbo.
Wrangling between rival Muslim Shiite blocs in the assembly on Wednesday scuppered the legislature's third attempt to elect a head of state.
Though a largely ceremonial role, the president determines the country's next prime minister who will in turn form a cabinet to be voted in by an absolute majority of lawmakers.
- What is the hold-up? -
AFP Sport runs the rule over the eight stadiums which will host matches at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar from November 21 to December 18:
- Lusail, Lusail Iconic Stadium (80,000 capacity)
Qatar's biggest stadium will host the final on December 18 as well as, amongst other matches, the first semi-final. Built in Lusail, a planned city for a population of 200,000 people situated 15 kilometres north of central Doha, there are plans for the stadium to be transformed into a community hub after the World Cup, with most of its seats being removed and donated elsewhere.
The countdown towards the most controversial World Cup in history really begins on Friday as the draw for Qatar 2022 takes place in Doha, less than eight months before the start of the tournament itself.
As pandemic restrictions ease, some of football's biggest names will be there for the draw at a Doha convention centre among the skyscrapers of the city's West Bay district, as holders France and their rivals find out who they will face in the group stage of the first World Cup to be held in November and December.
Hundreds of Ethiopians arrived back in Addis Ababa on Wednesday, the first contingent of some 100,000 nationals to be repatriated from Saudi Arabia over the coming months.
Around 900 returnees, including many mothers with young children, landed at Addis Ababa International Airport throughout the day, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine is having a "deadly" impact and threatening security in the Arab world, particularly through spiralling wheat prices, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Algiers Wednesday.
He was speaking on the final leg of a trip that began with an unprecedented summit in an Israeli kibbutz, attended by Blinken and the foreign ministers of Egypt, the Jewish state and three Arab countries that normalised ties with it in 2020.
Jordan's King Abdullah II on Wednesday condemned "violence in all its forms" in a meeting with visiting Israeli President Isaac Herzog, following a spate of deadly attacks in the Jewish state.
A total of 11 people have been killed in three attacks in the space of a week in Israel, the latest of them on Tuesday.
Abdullah expressed "Jordan's condemnation of violence in all its forms, and the resulting loss of more innocent" lives, a palace statement said.
