WORLD

There was a large crater in a yard and windows were shattered from ground to top floors in two 14-storey tower blocks, while nearby private houses had smashed roofs, AFP journalists saw.

Medical student Mohammed al-Asibi was killed late Friday, hours after worshippers marking the Muslim holy month of Ramadan held prayers at the sacred site.

The strike early Sunday near the western Syrian city of Homs was Israel's third since early Thursday, after the capital Damascus was targeted that morning and early Friday.

The battle for Bakhmut has raged for months with Wagner supporting Russian troops and Ukraine warning the fall of the town would lead to the loss of huge swathes of its territory.

Andriy, a Ukrainian serviceman, was injured Saturday morning near the frontline of Bakhmut, the scene of the heaviest fighting since Russia invaded last year.

The reading, which echoed slower growth in an official PMI released on Friday, put the index at the 50-point line that separates growth from contraction.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan will travel to Damascus in coming weeks to hand Assad a formal invitation to attend the summit scheduled for May 19, two of the sources said.

New Delhi has resisted Western pressure to freeze out Moscow, opting instead to strengthen trade ties with its long-standing ally -- with the added benefits of tempering inflation while saving money.

Twelve large Indian states, which have released their local budgets over the past few weeks and forecast aggressive spending growth in 2023-24, are likely to fall short of their targets posing a risk to economic growth, experts said.

The 7.8-magnitude quake on February 6, and its aftershocks, killed more than 55,000 people and left many more in dire conditions.

Bangladesh is home to around a million Rohingya, most of whom fled a 2017 military crackdown in neighbouring Myanmar that is now subject to a UN genocide investigation.

Pakistani Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said on Friday China had rolled over a $2 billion loan that matured last week, providing relief during the South Asian nation's acute balance of payment crisis.

Pinar Selek, 51, is best known for her ground-breaking research on the Kurdish conflict in Turkey and work with street children.

This appeared to further centralise power in Abu Dhabi, which is the political capital by virtue of its immense oil wealth, of the UAE federation of seven emirates. Dubai is the Gulf's business and tourism hub.

A planned overhaul of the judiciary by Israel's religious-nationalist government would be "a disaster" for human rights, HRW Executive Director Tirana Hassan told Reuters.

Two people were wounded by Israeli army fire during a march in the blockaded Gaza Strip, a medical source said without elaborating on their condition.

Under discussion was for North Korea to ship "over two dozen" kinds of weapons and munitions to Russia, according to the US Treasury, which placed Mkrtychev on its sanctions blacklist.

After three months of tensions that split the nation, triggered protests by tens of thousands, and a general strike, Netanyahu on Monday announced a "pause" for dialogue on the measures.

Russia cut off most gas supplies to Europe in the months following its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine - squeezing supply and triggering record-high prices.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy spoke in his Thursday evening video address of the "tremendous path" his country had taken in 400 days of resistance since Russia's invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan jumped 1% on Friday, heading for its first March gain in four years with a rise of 2.9%, as fears of a global banking crisis receded.

Vokzalna Street, now an open-air building site where dozens of builders weave between diggers and dump trucks, rebuilding homes and roads, is a far cry from the height of the fighting.

The April 1-2 trip will include talks with Hayashi's Chinese counterpart Qin Gang, the ministry said, and will be the first time a Japanese foreign minister has visited since December 2019.

Worldwide growth in consumer prices has compounded high inflation in Pakistan caused by a weakening currency, energy tariff increases and elevated food prices due to Ramadan.

Islam Shakhbanov, 37, from Russia's Muslim-majority Dagestan republic, said he headed to Syria in 2015 "to take part in jihad".

Ukraine struck a railway depot and knocked out power in the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol deep behind front lines on Wednesday amid growing talk from Kyiv of a counterassault against Russian forces worn out by a failed winter offensive.

The children chatter and giggle as they do colouring, listen to stories, build Lego and get their faces painted.

Such a rollover is critical for Pakistan, where foreign exchange reserves have dipped to just four weeks' worth of imports, at a time when it is seeking an IMF bailout tranche of $1.1 billion.

TTP fighters launched a heavy-weapons assault early Thursday on a police station in Lakki Marwat district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which abuts the border with Afghanistan.