DUBAI (Reuters) -Washington's current approach toward Tehran does not indicate any readiness for "equal and fair negotiations", Iran's foreign minister said on Sunday, after U.S. President Donald Trump hinted last week at potential discussions. Following Israel's attack on Iran in June, which was joined by U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, attempts at renewing dialogue on Tehran's nuclear programme have failed.

By Catarina Demony and Alistair SmoutLONDON (Reuters) -Britain said it would make refugee status temporary and the wait for permanent settlement would be quadrupled to 20 years under the country's most sweeping overhaul of policy on asylum seekers in modern times.The Labour government has been hardening its immigration policies, above all on illegal small-boat crossings from France, in efforts to stem the soaring popularity of the populist Reform UK party, which has driven the immigration agenda.

(Reuters) -Ukraine is working to resume the exchange of prisoners with Russia, hoping for the release of 1,200 Ukrainians, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his Security Council chief said."We are ... counting on the resumption of exchanges," Zelenskiy said in a video posted on the Telegram messaging app on Sunday. "Many meetings, negotiations and calls are now devoted to this."His security chief, Rustem Umerov, said on Saturday that he had held consultations in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, with the support of Kyiv's partners, on resuming the process of exchanges.

<p>(Reuters) -At least four people were killed when two boats carrying 95 irregular migrants capsized off the Libyan coastal city of Al Khums on Thursday, the Libyan Red Crescent said on Saturday.</p><p>The first boat was carrying 26 migrants from Bangladesh, four of whom died, the Red Crescent said in a statement on its verified Facebook page.</p><p>The second boat carried 69 migrants, including two Egyptians and dozens of Sudanese, the Red Crescent added without specifying their fate.</p><p>Khums is a coastal city, some 118 km east of the capital, Tripoli.</p>

BEIJING (Reuters) -A China Coast Guard ship formation passed through the waters of the Senkaku Islands on Sunday on a "rights enforcement patrol", the China Coast Guard said in a statement, as Beijing ramps up tensions with Japan over its prime minister's remarks on Taiwan.A diplomatic spat between China and Japan has intensified since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told parliament on November 7 that a hypothetical Chinese attack on democratically-ruled Taiwan could trigger a military response from Tokyo.

BEIRUT (Reuters) -Lebanon will file a complaint to the U.N. Security Council against Israel for constructing a concrete wall along Lebanon's southern border that extends beyond the "Blue Line", the Lebanese presidency said on Saturday.The Blue Line is a U.N.-mapped line separating Lebanon from Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Israeli forces withdrew to the Blue Line when they left south Lebanon in 2000.

On a "mission" in Spain, Palestinian national team coach Ehab Abu Jazar and his players will play symbolic friendlies against the Basque Country and Catalan national teams in the hopes of working towards safety and freedom for their people.Dressed in a black tracksuit, whistle in mouth, Palestinian coach Abu Jazar leads the team's training session with authority at Lezama, Athletic Bilbao's training ground on Friday.

DOHA (Reuters) -The Democratic Republic of Congo and the M23 rebel group signed on Saturday in Qatar a framework agreement for a peace deal aimed at ending fighting in eastern Congo.The agreement was signed by representatives from both sides in a ceremony in the Qatari capital Doha.M23, in the latest of a string of actions supported by neighbouring Rwanda, seized Goma, eastern Congo's largest city, in January and went on to make gains across North Kivu and South Kivu provinces.

The UN Security Council will vote Monday on a resolution endorsing US President Donald Trump's Gaza peace plan, diplomats said.Last week the Americans officially launched negotiations within the 15-member Security Council on a text that would follow up on a ceasefire in the two-year war between Israel and Hamas and endorse Trump's plan.A draft of the resolution seen Thursday by AFP "welcomes the establishment of the Board of Peace," a transitional governing body for Gaza -- that Trump would theoretically chair -- with a mandate running until the end of 2027.

When Paniz Faryoussefi mounts the podium and reaches for her baton, she represents more than just the hope of a thrilling orchestral performance.The eyes turned towards her in Tehran's renowned Vahdat Hall include those of many young women musicians inspired by her taking her place as Iran's first woman philharmonic conductor.Women's professional and cultural lives are still heavily restricted in the conservative Islamic republic, particularly in terms of public performance before mixed-gender audiences.

SYDNEY (Reuters) -Australia's Energy Minister Chris Bowen said he would travel on Saturday to the COP30 climate summit in Brazil to push forAustralia to host next year's summit,amid a stand-off with rival bidder Turkey.Australia and Turkey submitted bids in 2022 to host the United Nations climate conference and both countries have refused to concede to the other ever since. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese this month wrote to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in an attempt to resolve the long-running tussle.

By Daphne PsaledakisWASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasized the importance of achieving a humanitarian ceasefire in Sudan in a call with United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed on Friday, just days after Washington's top diplomat said action was needed to cut off the flow of weapons to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

By Jasper Ward(Reuters) -A survey conducted by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon last month found that a wall built by the Israeli military crosses the Blue Line, the de facto border, a U.N. spokesperson said on FridayThe Blue Line is a U.N.-mapped line separating Lebanon from Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.Stephane Dujarric, the spokesperson for the U.N. secretary-general, said the concrete T-wall erected by the IDF has made more than 4,000 square meters (nearly an acre) of Lebanese territory inaccessible to the local population.

-U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to reach a deal with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman allowing Riyadh to acquire F-35 stealth fighter jets, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing a White House official.Trump and the crown prince plan to sign economic and defense agreements during a visit to the White House scheduled for Tuesday, the report added.Reuters could not immediately verify the report. (Reporting by Bipasha Dey in Bengaluru)

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Palestinians in a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank held weekly communal prayers on Friday after clearing insulting graffiti, broken glass and burn marks from a mosque they say was targeted by Jewish settlers amid a spike in attacks. Villagers in Deir Istiya who cleaned up the mosque told Reuters that settlers had smashed windows, sprayed slogans insulting Islam's Prophet Mohammed and tried to torch the building in an assault on Wednesday night.

<p>BERLIN (Reuters) -Cyprus said on Friday Turkey must drop its insistence on a two-state solution for the divided island if it hopes to make progress on its long-stalled bid to join the European Union.</p><p>Speaking in Berlin after talks with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides said Turkey's position on Cyprus was an obstacle to its EU ambitions. He also argued that Ankara should not gain access to the bloc's defence fund, known as SAFE, saying that Turkey - though a NATO member - has no defence or security agreement with the EU.</p>

<p>Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are facing an energy crisis as water levels have plummeted at the reservoirs powering their largests hydropower stations, officials said this week. </p><p>The two landlocked Central Asian countries are heavily reliant on hydropower. Both use massive Soviet-built hydropower plants for their domestic electricity output.</p><p>The water level in the reservoir connected to Tajikistan's Nurek power plant has dropped by 2.47 metres (8.1 feet) over the last year, the state utility firm told AFP on Friday. </p>

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will press for security guarantees while US President Donald Trump will urge him to normalise ties with Israel when the de facto Saudi ruler breaks a seven-year absence from Washington this week.Saudi Arabia is unlikely to agree to normalisation at this stage, with Prince Mohammed's priority set for firmer US security guarantees after Israeli strikes in September on Qatar, an iron-clad US ally, rattled the wealthy Gulf region.

By Sfundo ParakozovJOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -South Africa granted entry to 130 Palestinians without travel papers after initially barring them but said it will examine accusations that an unregistered organisation arranged their trip "in an irregular and irresponsible manner".South Africa has long supported Palestinian aspirations to statehood and filed a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in 2023 accusing it of genocide in the Gaza war. Israel has denied the accusations.

By Emma FargeGENEVA (Reuters) -Tens of thousands of people who have fled the Sudanese city of al-Fashir are unaccounted for, the U.N. refugee agency said on Friday, raising concerns for their safety after reports of rape, killings and other abuses from escapees.Famine-stricken al-Fashir was the final stronghold of the Sudanese army in the vast, western Darfur region before it fell to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on October 26 after an 18-month siege.

By Lili BayerBRUSSELS (Reuters) -European Union foreign ministers will discuss next week a proposal for the bloc to take the lead in training 3,000 Palestinian police officers with the aim of later deploying them in Gaza, according to a document seen by Reuters on Friday. In a paper produced by the bloc’s diplomatic arm ahead of the gathering of ministers on November 20, officials outlined options for contributing to the implementation of a 20-point plan for Gaza proposed by U.S. President Donald Trump.

ATHENS (Reuters) -Greece is in talks with Israel to buy modern missile systems that would be used for a planned anti-aircraft defence dome, two officials with knowledge of the plan told Reuters.Athens has said it will spend about 28 billion euros ($33 billion) by 2036 to modernise its armed forces as it emerges from a 2009-2018 debt crisis and tries to keep pace with its historic rival Turkey.

JAKARTA (Reuters) -Indonesia has trained up to 20,000 troops to take on health and construction-related tasks during a planned peacekeeping operation in the war-torn enclave of Gaza, the defence minister said on Friday. The world's most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia is among the countries with which the United States has discussed plans for a multinational stabilisation force in Gaza, which include Azerbaijan, Egypt and Qatar.

By Olivia Le PoidevinGENEVA (Reuters) -A special session on the situation in al-Fashir, Sudan, opened on Friday at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva following grave concerns about mass killings during the fall of the city to paramilitary forces.States will consider a draft resolution which requests a U.N. fact-finding mission to conduct an urgent inquiry into recent violations allegedly committed by the Rapid Support Forces and their allies in al-Fashir, as well as identifying the perpetrators.