Top Iranian officials on Friday paid their final respects to the country's slain supreme leader Ali Khamenei at the start of a week of funeral ceremonies, with allies and mourners converging on Tehran where his body is lying in state.

Authorities expect public mourning and grand processions to attract millions before Khamenei's burial next week, four months after he was killed aged 86 at his compound in the opening US-Israeli salvo of the Middle East war.

By Andrew Gray and Lili Bayer

BRUSSELS, July 3 (Reuters) - NATO leaders including U.S. President Donald Trump are set to affirm an "ironclad commitment" to collective defence under the alliance's Article 5 pact at a summit in Ankara next week, according to a text approved by NATO ambassadors on Friday and reviewed by Reuters.

NATO members are also set to pledge €70 billion ($80 billion) in military assistance to Ukraine for 2026 and "at least equivalent levels" of support in 2027, according to the declaration, which still needs final approval from the leaders at the summit.

By Andrew Gray

BRUSSELS, July 3 (Reuters) - NATO leaders gather next week in Ankara, where Europeans aim to set aside strife with U.S. President Donald Trump over Iran and Greenland and show they are stepping up to defend the continent as Washington cuts back on its commitments to the alliance.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte says the gathering next Tuesday and Wednesday will show Europeans are honouring pledges to hike defence spending to deter Russia from any attack, with arms deals worth tens of billions of dollars to be signed.

By Parisa Hafezi and Jana Choukeir

DUBAI, July 3 - The body of Iran's slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was lying in state in a vast hall in Tehran on Friday as clerics, officials, foreign dignitaries and other mourners paid their respects after his 37-year rule.

Iran is staging a week of mass funeral processions for Khamenei — killed in February by U.S. and Israeli airstrikes at the start of a four-month war — in a show of public devotion to the Islamic Republic's theocratic state and revolutionary fire.

GENEVA, July 3 (Reuters) - The United Nations human rights chief on Friday said another human rights catastrophe was unfolding in Sudan, in the city of al-Obeid in North Kordofan, and urged the world to act.

"The signs from al-Obeid are clear and unmistakable: Another human rights catastrophe is unfolding in Sudan, this time in the capital of the strategic state of North Kordofan," the U.N. high commissioner for human rights Volker Turk told delegates in Geneva during an urgent debate at the U.N. human rights council on the situation in the region.

By Ali Sawafta

JALUD, West Bank, July 3 (Reuters) - Palestinian Mohammad Salameh was building a home for his family in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where his recently engaged son was meant to start married life. Instead, before construction was complete, a group of Israeli settlers seized the property.

Video filmed earlier in the week and verified by Reuters showed at least six settlers moving around on the roof of the two-storey house, which sits below a nearby hill.

By Lili Bayer

BRUSSELS, July 3 (Reuters) - NATO leaders gathering for a summit in Ankara on July 7-8 will discuss a host of challenges facing the alliance, from Europe taking on more responsibility for the continent’s security to boosting defence industrial production.

Some officials worry the Iran war could overshadow the gathering, but hope leaders will remain focused on the alliance’s core business: defence and deterrence.

Here is a look at the main challenges facing NATO in the months and years to come:

KEEPING TRUMP IN

By Raphael Satter

July 3 (Reuters) - A former member of the European Parliament who served on a committee investigating abusive surveillance was himself hacked using an Israeli-made spy tool, a Canadian tech watchdog group said on Friday.

Citizen Lab said in a report that the phone of Stelios Kouloglou, a Greek television journalist-turned-lawmaker, was hacked at least three times between October 2022 and March 2023 using Pegasus spyware, a tool distributed by the Israeli company NSO Group.

By Heejin Kim and Kyu-seok Shim

SEOUL, July 3 (Reuters) - South Korean President Lee Jae Myung will attend a NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, from July 7 to 8, Seoul's national security adviser said on Friday.

Lee aims to build defence industry cooperation between South Korea and NATO member countries, Wi Sung-lac told a press briefing.

In Ankara, Lee will meet NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and take part in a group summit with leaders from Indo-Pacific countries, including Japan, New Zealand and Australia, Wi said.

Maria believed she was romancing a prince from Dubai, captivated by his flirtatious smile and declarations of affection he showered on her during live video calls. But the suitor was an AI deepfake, making her yet another victim of an online romance scam.

The case illustrates how fraudsters posing as the real-life crown prince of Dubai ensnare victims by cultivating online relationships before swindling them out of money, with researchers tracing some of the scams to crime syndicates in Nigeria.