Global air transport is on course to return to profit after two pandemic-battered years but the war in Ukraine and the cost-of-living crisis lurk as threats, the industry's world body said on Monday.
Renewed profitability "appears within reach" in 2023, the International Air Transport Association said, predicting a rebound in passenger levels to 83 percent of pre-pandemic levels this year.
Iran on Monday hanged a Sunni extremist who was sentenced to death for killing two Shiite clerics and wounding another in early April, the judiciary said.
A 21-year-old national of Uzbek origin carried out the April 5 stabbing attack at the Imam Reza shrine which honours one of the most revered figures in Shiite Islam.
The killings happened during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan when large crowds of worshippers had gathered at the shrine, in Iran's second-largest city Mashhad.
The Palestinian Authority on Sunday called on Israel to hand over the gun that allegedly fired the shot which killed Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh.
Abu Akleh was shot and killed on May 11 while covering an Israeli army operation in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
A Palestinian probe said that an Israeli soldier shot dead the veteran Palestinian-American reporter, echoing findings by Al Jazeera and several other major news organisations.
Hundreds demonstrated on Sunday in Tunisia's capital against a planned referendum on constitutional changes and President Kais Saied's recent firing of dozens of judges.
Protesters in Tunis responded to calls from opposition organisations, including Saied's nemesis the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha party, chanting "constitution, liberty and dignity" and "the people want an independent judiciary", an AFP correspondent said.
Italian company Eni on Sunday joined Qatar Energy's $28.75 billion project to expand production from the world's biggest natural gas field, days after Russia slashed supplies to Italy.
Eni will own a stake of just over three percent in the North Field East project, Qatar Energy's CEO told a signing ceremony in Doha.
Qatar announced last week that France's TotalEnergies will be its first, and largest, foreign partner on the development, with a 6.25 percent share.
An unknown number of companies are also set to be named.
A Syrian desert monastery that was once a hub for interfaith dialogue, attracting tens of thousands, has reopened to visitors after more than a decade of war and isolation.
"We yearn for people to return. We want to see them pray and meditate with us once more, so that they may find here a space for calm, silence and contemplation," Father Jihad Youssef told AFP, his voice echoing through the dark, empty halls of the monastery he heads.
Outside his butchery in the south of Iran's capital, Ali cuts up a sheep carcass for customers who, like him, have seen inflation and subsidy reform devour their purchasing power.
"My sales have fallen significantly -- almost by half," Ali, 50, told AFP.
"What can I say? I am a butcher and you may not believe me, but sometimes I don't eat meat for a week," he added. "Everything has gone up in price."
An F-14 fighter jet crashed on Saturday while on a mission in central Iran, causing injuries to its two crew members, media in the Islamic republic reported.
"The fighter jet suffered a technical fault... and the pilot and co-pilot landed with parachutes," said Rassoul Motamedi, spokesman for the military in Isfahan province where the crash occurred.
"The pilot and co-pilot were injured... and were immediately taken to hospital for treatment," he was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency, adding that the plane was destroyed.
Israeli warplanes hit Hamas military sites in the Gaza Strip on Saturday in retaliation for rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave run by the Islamist movement, the Israeli army said.
"A short while ago, in response to the rocket attack, (Israeli military) aircraft struck a number of Hamas terror targets in the Gaza Strip," the army said in a statement.
The strikes came after Hamas "launched a rocket... toward Israeli civilians in southern Israel", it said, adding the projectile was intercepted by Israeli air defences.
Israeli air strikes hit Hamas military sites in the Gaza Strip on Saturday in response to rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave run by the Islamist movement, the Israeli army said.
"A short while ago, in response to the rocket attack, (Israeli military) aircraft struck a number of Hamas terror targets in the Gaza Strip," the army said in a statement.
The strikes came after Hamas "launched a rocket... toward Israeli civilians in southern Israel", it said, adding the projectile was intercepted by Israel's air defences.
