A convoy delivered aid to tens of thousands of displaced Syrians in desperate need of assistance near the Jordanian border on Wednesday, the first such delivery in three months, the Red Crescent and the United Nations said.

An Algerian opposition party said Wednesday 81-year-old President Abdelaziz Bouteflika would be unable to handle the demands of a fifth term in office, due to his ill health.

The Islamic State group has not been defeated in Syria and continues to pose by far the most significant threat of any terror group, U.N. sanctions monitors said Wednesday, contradicting President Donald Trump's claims that IS is nearly wiped out.

Qatar on Wednesday took delivery of the first of 36 Rafale multi-purpose jet fighters it has ordered from French manufacturer Dassault.

"The caliphate is here to stay": in the last town it controlled in Syria, the Islamic State group is little more than a slogan on a broken storefront and a dark memory.

The U.S. Senate has passed a controversial measure designed to shield Israel from boycotts, but its adoption remains uncertain in the Democratically-controlled lower House, where liberal lawmakers warn the approach tramples free-speech rights.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's main rival in an April election has raised the possibility of pulling back from the occupied West Bank, in remarks published Wednesday that drew right-wing criticism.

The Japanese government has ordered a veteran freelance journalist to surrender his passport to prevent him from going on a reporting trip to Yemen.

Ashraf al-Atraqji carefully stepped around tufts of weeds sprouting in a mountain of rubble in Iraq's Mosul, found a seat on a sun-soaked rock, and struck a pose for the photographer.

Behind him stretched the ruins of the Prophet Yunus mosque, an ancient monument infamously destroyed by the Islamic State group when it overran Mosul in 2014. 

Abu Dhabi's main stadium was a sea of yellow-and-white Vatican flags on Tuesday as Pope Francis arrived in warm sunlight to lead an open-air mass for tens of thousands of Catholics.