Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that Starlink services in his country were still being restored, after partial restrictions impeded the military's ability to defend against Russian forces.

Iraq's prime minister completed his cabinet line-up by appointing a U.S.-designated terrorist after receiving Washington's approval, in a bid to advance efforts to disarm Iran-backed groups in the country, diplomatic sources told AFP.

Crammed with beds and stretchers, the dilapidated Al Jumhuri hospital in Yemen's besieged city of Taiz is running so low on fuel and medicine that it may have to close, officials warn.

A Yemeni minister told AFP on condition of anonymity on Thursday that the country's prime minister was present at the presidential palace in Aden when the Iran-backed Houthis attacked the compound with missiles, though he was not hurt.

Iraq has lost around $60 billion during the Middle East war, Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said on Thursday, with Iran blockading a waterway that is crucial to global energy flows.

OPEC member Iraq was producing about four million barrels of oil per day before the conflict, exporting about 3.5 million bpd -- mostly shipped from the country's south via the Strait of Hormuz.

Syrian authorities have announced the arrest of a former paramilitary leader who is the main suspect in a massacre of nearly 250 civilians by Assad-allied forces during the country's civil war.

A Syrian security source told AFP that Ali Kayali was apprehended in Lebanon during an operation coordinated with Lebanese authorities. Lebanese media reports said Thursday that the man was “kidnapped” from his home in Lebanon's Mansourieh and that his wife and son were tied up by the culprits.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told President Joseph Aoun in a phone call that he should not return several hundred kilograms of explosives seized by Lebanese authorities from Hezbollah, a U.S. official said.

"He urged President Aoun to hold accountable all those who ordered, financed, and directed the shipment, and underscored that returning explosives to Hezbollah should be out of the question," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

Lebanese authorities have released a famous TikTok content creator arrested for drug trafficking and smuggling, dropping the charges against him under a new amnesty law.

Georges Dib, better known as "Doctor Food" to his more than eight million followers, was arrested in August after being sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment in March.

EU chief Antonio Costa said it was time to up pressure on Russia and support for Kyiv on Friday, rallying behind Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky as tensions spike with Washington.

With Pope Leo XIV recovering in hospital on Thursday following his lung cancer operation, questions are swirling about how the illness could change his papacy, less than two years after his election.