A dozen poor countries are facing economic instability and even collapse under the weight of hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign loans, much of them from the world's biggest and most unforgiving government lender, China.

U.K. telecom company BT Group said Thursday that it plans to shed up to 55,000 jobs by the end of the decade and replace some of them with artificial intelligence, as part of an overhaul aimed at slimming down its workforce to slash costs.

BT, which has 130,000 workers including both staff and contractors, said in its latest earnings report that its number of employees would be reduced to between 75,000 and 90,000 by 2030.

The U.N. envoy for Yemen has expressed "cautious optimism" that the country's warring parties will return to U.N.-led negotiations to end their deadly eight-year conflict.

Hans Grundberg told the U.N. Security Council he is confident last month's prisoner releases agreed to by the government and rival Houthi rebels will "build further confidence between the parties" and support an environment conducive for dialogue.

Syrian President Bashar Assad headed to Saudi Arabia on Thursday to attend a regional summit, his first visit to the oil-rich kingdom since Syria's conflict began in 2011, the president's office said.

Assad's attendance at the Arab League summit, which starts Friday, is expected to seal Syria's return to the Arab fold following a 12-year suspension and open a new chapter of relations after more than a decade of tensions.

The top leaders of Pakistan and Iran on Thursday inaugurated the first border market as relations warm between the two countries, officials said.

Located in the remote village of Pashin in Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province, the marketplace is the first of six to be constructed along the Pakistan-Iran border under a 2012 agreement signed by the two sides.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's main challenger in Turkey's presidential race shifted gear and adopted a more nationalist and hard-line stance on Thursday, vowing to send back millions of refugees if he is elected and rejecting any possibility of negotiating for peace with Kurdish militants.

Voters in Turkey will head back to the polls on May 28 for a runoff election after neither Erdogan nor his rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, won more than 50% of the votes in Sunday's first round.

Leaders of seven of the world's most powerful democracies will gather this weekend for the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima, the location of the world's first atomic attack at the end of World War II.

From the emergence of crucial developing countries to security worries, including growing aggression from China, North Korea and Russia, here's a look at the G-7, who will attend and some of the key issues:

Russia launched cruise missiles at Ukraine's capital and the Odesa region early Thursday, officials said, in an escalation ahead of a much-anticipated counteroffensive. Most of the missiles were shot down, and one death was reported from the attacks.

Loud explosions were heard in Kyiv, and falling debris caused a fire in a nonresidential building.

World leaders began arriving in Hiroshima on Thursday for a Group of Seven meeting in the western Japanese city that was the site of the world's first atomic bomb attack, with Russia's war in Ukraine expected to be high on the agenda.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida planned to hold separate meetings with U.S. President Joe Biden, who arrived at a nearby military base, and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak later in the day, before the wider summit kicks off Friday.

Russia agreed to a two-month extension of a deal that has allowed Ukraine to ship grain through the Black Sea to parts of the world struggling with hunger, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced, a boost to global food security after the war drove up prices.

Turkey and the U.N. brokered the breakthrough accord with the warring sides last summer, which came with a separate agreement to facilitate shipments of Russian food and fertilizer that Moscow insists hasn't been applied.