The head of the Sudanese paramilitary Rapid Support Forces admitted in a speech to fighters on Sunday that the group had withdrawn from the capital Khartoum which rival army forces have retaken.

The comment from RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo came three days after the group said there would be "no retreat and no surrender" and that its forces had "repositioned", despite the army's declaration on Thursday that "the last pockets" of the RSF had been eliminated from Khartoum after nearly two years of war.

Iranian police have dispersed a weeks-long sit-in by demonstrators supporting the mandatory head covering for women, state media reported, after authorities deemed the gathering illegal.

The demonstrators -- largely women in black full-body robes -- staged the sit-in since last month outside the parliament building in Tehran.

Since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, women have been required to conceal their hair in public. However, increasing numbers, particularly in major cities including the capital Tehran, have pushed the boundaries by allowing the covering to slide back.

Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Saturday announced a new transitional government dominated by close allies and including one woman, replacing caretaker authorities in place since the ouster of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad.

The announcement, initially scheduled for earlier this month, comes amid international calls for an inclusive Syrian transition following recent sectarian bloodshed, as the country's new leaders seek to reunite and rebuild Syria and its institutions after Assad's December 8 overthrow brought an end to 14 years of civil war.

A top Hamas official said on Saturday the group approved a new Gaza ceasefire proposal put forth by mediators, urging Israel to back it but warning the Iran-backed group's weapons were a "red line".

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office confirmed it had also received a proposal from the mediators and had submitted a counter-proposal in response.

Marwa fled Taliban rule in Afghanistan because she wanted to study, work, wear jeans and go to the park without a male chaperone.

Now she is under lock and key in Costa Rica, along with hundreds of other migrants expelled by the United States to third countries in Central America.

Costa Rica is one of three Central American countries, along with Panama and Guatemala, that have agreed to receive migrants from other countries and to detain them until they are sent to their home nations or other host countries.

US government lawyers pushed Friday for the case of a pro-Palestinian protest leader slated for deportation to be moved to a Louisiana court thought to be sympathetic to President Donald Trump's hardline immigration crackdown.

Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil -- a prominent face of the protest movement that erupted in response to Israel's war in Gaza -- was arrested and taken to Louisiana earlier this month, sparking protests.

Several other foreign student protesters have been similarly targeted.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences apologized Friday for failing to defend an Oscar-winning Palestinian filmmaker who said he was attacked by Israeli settlers.

The group, which hosts and awards the Oscars each year, wrote to members after movie stars including Joaquin Phoenix, Penelope Cruz and Richard Gere had slammed its initially muted response to the incident.

The Academy "condemns violence of this kind anywhere in the world" and its leaders "abhor the suppression of free speech under any circumstances," said the letter, seen by AFP.

Large crowds took to the streets in the capitals of Iran, Iraq and Yemen on Friday for the annual show of support for Palestinians and denunciation of Israel.

Quds (Jerusalem) Day commemorations were launched in 1979 by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic republic, which has made support for the Palestinian cause a cornerstone of its foreign policy.

The marches, which call for Jerusalem to be returned to the Palestinians, are traditionally held on the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

With the jailing of Istanbul's mayor on corruption charges, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan has got rid of his most powerful opponent. Now his sights are set on the main opposition CHP, analysts say.

"When the big fishes are exposed, they won't dare to look their own families in the eye, let alone the nation," the president warned this week, hinting at a fresh legal action targeting the Republican People's Party (CHP).

Turkey intensified its crackdown on anti-government protests on Friday, arresting the lawyer of the jailed Istanbul mayor and targeting more journalists, as the country faces its biggest wave of unrest in more than a decade.

Nine days after the arrest and subsequent jailing of Istanbul's popular opposition mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, demonstrators were again out on the streets on Thursday night, despite a growing sense of fear.