Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will press for security guarantees while US President Donald Trump will urge him to normalise ties with Israel when the de facto Saudi ruler breaks a seven-year absence from Washington this week.

Saudi Arabia is unlikely to agree to normalisation at this stage, with Prince Mohammed's priority set for firmer US security guarantees after Israeli strikes in September on Qatar, an iron-clad US ally, rattled the wealthy Gulf region.

Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are facing an energy crisis as water levels have plummeted at the reservoirs powering their largests hydropower stations, officials said this week.

The two landlocked Central Asian countries are heavily reliant on hydropower. Both use massive Soviet-built hydropower plants for their domestic electricity output.

The water level in the reservoir connected to Tajikistan's Nurek power plant has dropped by 2.47 metres (8.1 feet) over the last year, the state utility firm told AFP on Friday.

BERLIN (Reuters) -Cyprus said on Friday Turkey must drop its insistence on a two-state solution for the divided island if it hopes to make progress on its long-stalled bid to join the European Union.

Speaking in Berlin after talks with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides said Turkey's position on Cyprus was an obstacle to its EU ambitions. He also argued that Ankara should not gain access to the bloc's defence fund, known as SAFE, saying that Turkey - though a NATO member - has no defence or security agreement with the EU.

By Sfundo Parakozov

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -South Africa granted entry to 130 Palestinians without travel papers after initially barring them but said it will examine accusations that an unregistered organisation arranged their trip "in an irregular and irresponsible manner".

South Africa has long supported Palestinian aspirations to statehood and filed a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in 2023 accusing it of genocide in the Gaza war. Israel has denied the accusations.

By Emma Farge

GENEVA (Reuters) -Tens of thousands of people who have fled the Sudanese city of al-Fashir are unaccounted for, the U.N. refugee agency said on Friday, raising concerns for their safety after reports of rape, killings and other abuses from escapees.

Famine-stricken al-Fashir was the final stronghold of the Sudanese army in the vast, western Darfur region before it fell to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on October 26 after an 18-month siege.

By Lili Bayer

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -European Union foreign ministers will discuss next week a proposal for the bloc to take the lead in training 3,000 Palestinian police officers with the aim of later deploying them in Gaza, according to a document seen by Reuters on Friday.

In a paper produced by the bloc’s diplomatic arm ahead of the gathering of ministers on November 20, officials outlined options for contributing to the implementation of a 20-point plan for Gaza proposed by U.S. President Donald Trump.

ATHENS (Reuters) -Greece is in talks with Israel to buy modern missile systems that would be used for a planned anti-aircraft defence dome, two officials with knowledge of the plan told Reuters.

Athens has said it will spend about 28 billion euros ($33 billion) by 2036 to modernise its armed forces as it emerges from a 2009-2018 debt crisis and tries to keep pace with its historic rival Turkey.

JAKARTA (Reuters) -Indonesia has trained up to 20,000 troops to take on health and construction-related tasks during a planned peacekeeping operation in the war-torn enclave of Gaza, the defence minister said on Friday.

The world's most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia is among the countries with which the United States has discussed plans for a multinational stabilisation force in Gaza, which include Azerbaijan, Egypt and Qatar.

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

CAIRO (Reuters) -From regulating the price of chicken to levying fees on cigarettes, Hamas is seeking to widen control over Gaza as U.S. plans for its future slowly take shape, Gazans say, adding to rivals' doubts over whether it will cede authority as promised.

By Olivia Le Poidevin

GENEVA (Reuters) -A special session on the situation in al-Fashir, Sudan, opened on Friday at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva following grave concerns about mass killings during the fall of the city to paramilitary forces.

States will consider a draft resolution which requests a U.N. fact-finding mission to conduct an urgent inquiry into recent violations allegedly committed by the Rapid Support Forces and their allies in al-Fashir, as well as identifying the perpetrators.