Major natural gas exporting nations on Sunday began meetings in Doha to discuss how to meet skyrocketing world demand as tensions surrounding Ukraine stoke fears in Europe about gas supplies from Russia.
Experts from the 11-member Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) started meetings in the Qatari capital, ahead of ministerial level talks on Monday and heads of state and government on Tuesday.
A Sudanese man was shot dead Sunday as security forces cracked down on rallies against last year's military coup, medics said, as a UN rights expert arrived in the country.
Regular protests have rocked the northeast African country since army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan led a military takeover in October, sparking international condemnation.
United Nations human rights expert Adama Dieng is visiting Sudan until Thursday, on a trip initially planned for last month but postponed at the request of Sudanese authorities.
The UAE and its allies warned Sunday of the rising threat of drone attacks, as Middle East militants rapidly acquire a taste for the cheap and easily accessible unmanned systems.
But while the countries called for a collective effort to protect airspaces against the small and often hard to detect targets, one question remained: how to easily stop a drone attack?
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Sunday Iran may "shortly" agree a new nuclear deal with major powers but warned it will be weaker than the original 2015 agreement.
He addressed Iran's nuclear programme in two speeches on Sunday -- at his cabinet meeting and at a conference of Jewish American organisations -- following signs that a deal was taking shape during negotiations in Vienna.
"We are looking to Vienna, and we are deeply troubled by what we see," Bennett told the conference.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Sunday that Iran may "shortly" agree a new nuclear deal with major powers but warned it will be weaker than the original 2015 agreement.
Bennett was speaking ahead of a weekly cabinet meeting following indications that the outline of a deal was taking shape at talks in Vienna.
"We may see an agreement shortly," Bennett said. "The new agreement that appears will be made is shorter and weaker than the previous one."
Once the economy's crown jewel, Lebanon's banks are shutting branches and laying off employees in droves, resizing to the bleak reality of a crisis they are widely blamed for.
Before the onset in 2019 of a financial collapse deemed one of the world's worst since the 1850s by the World Bank, the small Mediterranean country had an oversized but prosperous banking sector.
The capital Beirut was a booming regional financial hub, attracting savers keen to profit from high interest rates and banking secrecy laws.
Leading gas producers meet in Qatar from Sunday to discuss how to answer frantic world demand, but Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to stay away as Ukraine tensions soar, diplomats said.
The 11-member Gas Exporting Countries Forum holds its summit as the Ukraine showdown sends prices ever higher while Europe fears for its supplies from Russia.
The group that includes Russia, Qatar, Iran, Libya, Algeria and Nigeria -- accounting for more than 70 percent of proven gas reserves -- has faced mounting pressure as Europe has sought alternative suppliers to Russia.
Israeli police on horseback scattered protesters Friday in the flashpoint east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where demonstrators poured in to support Palestinians facing eviction by Jewish settlers.
The scuffles there came alongside protests elsewhere in the occupied West Bank.
Tensions that erupted in Sheikh Jarrah last year -- as several Palestinian families faced eviction by settler groups -- in part sparked the May war between Israel and armed groups in the Gaza Strip.
Motorists in Iraq's main northern city of Mosul queued for hours on Friday to fill up their cars with petrol, with authorities blaming shortages on smuggling to the nearby Kurdistan region.
For the past week, long lines have formed at petrol stations in Mosul and the rest of Nineveh province, AFP journalists reported.
Soldiers were deployed in some stations to contain any violence, as tempers flared among motorists over the petrol shortage.
"Our lives are made of waiting in line. It has become a routine," taxi driver Abdel Khaliq al-Mousalli complained.
Israel's military said its air defences fired at a drone that had crossed into its airspace from Lebanon on Friday, the second such incident in as many days.
Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah group said it had launched the drone on a reconnaissance mission over Israel in a statement released on Friday.
The Israeli military said air raid sirens were sounded, sending residents into bomb shelters, after "a radio-controlled aircraft crossed into Israeli airspace from Lebanon".
