At least 841 people have been executed in Iran since the start of the year, the UN said Friday, decrying "a systematic pattern of using the death penalty as a tool of state intimidation".

The United Nations' human rights office said there had been a "major increase in executions" by Tehran during the first half of 2025.

"Iranian authorities have executed at least 841 people since the beginning of the year," spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva.

"The real situation might be different," she added. "It might be worse, given the lack of transparency."

(Reuters) -Germany has told its nationals to leave Iran and refrain from travelling there to avoid getting caught in retaliatory acts by Tehran over Germany's role in triggering U.N. sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme.

Britain, France and Germany on Thursday launched a 30-day process to reimpose U.N. sanctions on Iran over its disputed nuclear programme, a step likely to stoke tensions two months after Israel and the United States bombed Iran.

Men sit outside shisha bars and women in hijabs push strollers past Middle Eastern restaurants and pastry shops in Berlin's Sonnenallee, a wide avenue which has become a symbol of how much Germany has changed in the last decade.

Many came during the huge migrant influx of 2015, when a million people arrived in a matter of months -- mostly from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

For barber Moustafa Mohmmad, 26, who fled the ruins of Syria's Aleppo, it is a home from home, "a kind of Arab street" where he can find sweets from Damascus and Aleppo-style barbecue.

BEIJING (Reuters) -China's military and coast guard said they conducted patrols on Friday in the waters around the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the busy waterway of the South China Sea.

The coast guard has stepped up law enforcement patrols in the area since the beginning of August, it said in a statement, vowing to "safeguard China's territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests".

China sent its naval and air forces on "combat readiness" patrols in the waters and airspace around the atoll, the Southern Theatre Command said in a separate statement.

LONDON (Reuters) -Britain has barred Israeli officials from its biggest defence trade show over its escalation of the war against Hamas in Gaza, its latest effort to pressure a historically close ally over the conflict.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer's government said in July it would recognise a Palestinian state unless Israel took steps to relieve suffering in the enclave and met other conditions, enraging the Israeli government.

(Reuters) -Iran is ready to resume "fair " negotiations over its disputed nuclear programme if the West shows goodwill, Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, said on Thursday, hours after three European powers triggered the process to reimpose UN sanctions on Tehran.

"Araqchi reaffirmed Iran's readiness to resume fair and balanced diplomatic negotiations, on the condition that the other parties show seriousness and goodwill and avoid actions that harm the chances of success," he said in a letter sent to European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas.

ANKARA (Reuters) -Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed peace efforts on the Russia-Ukraine conflict in a phone call on Thursday, a Turkish Foreign Ministry source said.

The source said Fidan told Rubio that Ankara was ready to fulfil its responsibilities in the peace process.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Writing by Ezgi Erkoyun; Editing by Alex Richardson)

(Corrects to add dropped word "member" in paragraph 3)

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -The United Nations Security Council on Thursday unanimously extended "for a final time" a long-running peacekeeping mission in Lebanon until the end of 2026, when the operation will then begin a year-long "orderly and safe drawdown and withdrawal."

The U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), established in 1978, patrols Lebanon's southern border with Israel.

The Security Council voted Thursday for UN peacekeepers to leave Lebanon in 2027, allowing only one final extension after pressure from Israel and its US ally to end the nearly 50-year-old force.

Israel hailed the upcoming termination of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and urged the Beirut government to exert its authority after an Israeli military campaign devastated Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah.

With the United States dangling a veto threat, the Security Council voted unanimously for a resolution that will extend UNIFIL's mandate "a final time."

A British couple held in Iran on espionage charges have appeared in a Tehran court represented by a state-appointed lawyer, their family said on Thursday.

Little has been known about the plight of Lindsay and Craig Foreman, both 52, since Iranian authorities seized the pair in Kerman, in central Iran, in early January.

They were passing through the country while on a round-the-world motorbike trip, but Tehran has claimed they are spies. Their family has rejected the claim.