The United States, Japan and South Korea are set to sign on to a new security pledge, committing the three countries to consult with each other in the event of a security crisis or threat in the Pacific, according to Biden administration officials.

Details about the new "duty to consult" commitment emerged as President Joe Biden prepared Friday to welcome South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for a summit at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland.

Lithuania on Friday closed two of its six border checkpoints with Belarus in a move it announced earlier this month citing the security risk posed by Russia's Wagner mercenary group.

"Both Sumsko and Tvereciaus border checkpoints were shut at midnight," the spokeswoman of the border guard service Lina Laurinaityte-Grigiene told AFP.

Thousands of residents fled the capital of Canada's Northwest Territories ahead of an approaching wildfire Thursday, some driving hundreds of miles to safety and others waiting in long lines for emergency flights, the latest chapter in Canada's worst fire season on record.

The fire, boosted by strong winds, was within 16 kilometers (10 miles) of Yellowknife's northern edge, and people in the four areas at highest risk were told to leave as soon as possible, Fire Information Officer Mike Westwick said.

Russian forces have destroyed Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow and its Black Sea Fleet, officials said, the latest in a surge of attacks on the capital and the flashpoint waterway.

Russia's defence ministry said its air force downed a Ukrainian drone over the capital at about 04:00 (0100 GMT) on Friday.

The United States has imposed sanctions on two Turkey-backed Syrian militias and the groups' leaders accused of human rights abuses in Syria's northwestern, opposition-held enclave.

The groups are operating in the town of Afrin, which has been under Turkish-backed opposition forces since 2018, following an Ankara-backed military operation. That offensive pushed Syrian Kurdish fighters and thousands of Kurdish residents from the area.

The global cat cafe trend, where people pay to have coffee and hang out with cats, has finally come to the besieged Gaza Strip.

In the impoverished Palestinian enclave run by the Hamas militant group and crippled by a 17-year blockade, residents seeking to escape the territory's troubles flocked on Thursday to the new Meow Cafe — Gaza City's answer to the quirky concept tried successfully around the world.

Last month, after the biggest Israeli military raid on a Palestinian refugee camp in the occupied West Bank in years, Palestinians turned their wrath on their own security forces.

They unleashed gunfire, firebombs and pipe bombs at Palestinian security buildings in an outpouring of rage against the Palestinian Authority's failure to protect them from the devastating July 3 raid and a long-running, deeply unpopular security alliance with Israel.

There is no real history of world-class, elite basketball success in the United Arab Emirates. The nation has never qualified for the Basketball World Cup, never reached the courts at the Olympics, never sent a player to the NBA.

Doesn't matter. The game is coming to the oil-rich nation that considers itself a big-time sports playground, and it's easy to see why: other sports like soccer, golf, auto racing, tennis and UFC have long held competitions there, despite concerns about its human-rights record.

Sweden's Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson has said that Hezbollah and other "terrorist groups" have urged their sympathizers to take revenge for the Quran burnings that have taken place in Sweden.

He said that Swedish interests abroad had already been targeted, including an attempted attack on the diplomatic mission in Beirut last week and the storming of Sweden's Embassy in Baghdad last month.

A Russian court on Thursday imposed a 3-million-ruble ($32,000) fine on Google for failing to delete allegedly false information about the conflict in Ukraine.

The move by a magistrate's court follows similar actions in early August against Apple and the Wikimedia Foundation that hosts Wikipedia.