The Metropolitan Opera in New York announced Wednesday an agreement to perform in Saudi Arabia and provide artistic training in the oil-rich kingdom as it works to shore up a creaky financial outlook.

The prestigious cultural institution, which received a Moody's credit downgrade just days ago, will travel to Riyadh for five years to perform during the opera house's winter break under an agreement with the Saudi Music Commission.

The performances will be at the Royal Diriyah Opera House, which is expected to open in 2028.

US director Julian Schnabel has hit out at calls to boycott Scottish actor Gerard Butler who has been targeted by activists for his alleged previous support for the Israeli military.

Butler gives a gripping performance as a hit man in Schnabel's latest film -- "In The Hand of Dante" -- which premieres at the Venice Film Festival on Wednesday.

"It's unfortunate," Schnabel told AFP of the boycott calls by activist group Venice4Palestine which has cited Butler's appearance at a fund-raising event for the Israeli military in 2018.

(Reuters) -The Israeli military said on Wednesday it had intercepted a missile launched from Yemen that triggered sirens across several areas of Israel.

Since the start of Israel's war in Gaza in October 2023, Houthi forces who control most of Yemen have been firing at Israel and at shipping in the Red Sea, disrupting global trade.

Most of the dozens of missiles and drones they have launched have been intercepted or fallen short. Israel has carried out a series of retaliatory strikes on Houthi-controlled territory in the Arabian Peninsula country.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out at his Belgium counterpart on Wednesday, calling him "a weak leader who seeks to appease Islamic terrorism by sacrificing Israel" a day after Brussels announced it would recognise a Palestinian state.

Netanyahu's government has been angered by pledges from France, Britain, Canada, Australia, and now Belgium, to formally recognise a Palestinian state when world leaders gather this month at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

By Francois Murphy

VIENNA (Reuters) -The U.N. nuclear watchdog's talks with Iran on how to resume inspections at sites including those Israel and the United States bombed cannot go on for months on end, its chief told Reuters on Wednesday, pushing for a deal as early as this week.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has had no information from Iran on the status or whereabouts of its stock of highly enriched uranium since Israel launched the first attacks on its enrichment sites on June 13, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi confirmed in an interview.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israel's far-right finance minister said on Wednesday that maps were being drawn up for annexing territory in the occupied West Bank, land the Palestinians seek for a state, although it was unclear if he had Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's support.

At a press conference in Jerusalem, Bezalel Smotrich stood before a map that suggested the possible annexation of most of the West Bank with the exception of six large Palestinian cities, including Ramallah and Nablus.

Pizzeria owner Saeed is unable to take or serve orders at his restaurant in the Iranian capital, his business stalled by rolling power outages that have compounded the country's many economic woes.

"Outages often hit right in the middle of lunch service, the worst time for restaurant owners," the 48-year-old entrepreneur told AFP from his pizzeria in an upscale neighbourhood of northern Tehran, requesting to be identified only by his first name.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Wednesday the leaders of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea - who appeared together at a military parade in Beijing - represented an "autocratic alliance" challenging the rules-based international order.

"While Western leaders gather in diplomacy, an autocratic alliance is seeking a fast track to a new world order," Kallas, the European Union's high representative for foreign and security policy, told reporters in Brussels.

The director of a new film about a five-year-old girl killed by Israeli forces in Gaza told the Venice Film Festival Wednesday she wanted to give "a voice and a face" to victims.

"We've seen that the narrative all around the world is that those dying in Gaza are collateral damage, in the media, and I think this is so dehumanising," Franco-Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania told journalists ahead of the world premiere of "The Voice of Hind Rajab".

"And that's why cinema, art, and every kind of expression is very important to give those people a voice and a face."

Syrian Kurdish forces said Wednesday they thwarted an escape attempt by more than 50 inmates of Al-Hol camp, which holds people suspected of ties to the Islamic State (IS) group.

Kurdish authorities in northeastern Syria have run camps hosting thousands of suspected jihadists and their families since the jihadist group lost its last territory in Syria six years ago.

Kurdish security forces said they thwarted a "mass escape attempt" from the Al-Hol camp by several IS families on Tuesday "numbering 56 individuals".