Sudan filed a case at the top United Nations court accusing the United Arab Emirates of breaching the genocide convention by arming and funding the rebel paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces in Sudan's deadly war, the court announced Thursday. The UAE called the filing a publicity stunt and said it would seek to have the case dismissed.
The International Court of Justice said Sudan's case, filed Wednesday, concerns acts allegedly perpetrated by the Rapid Support Forces and allied militias including "genocide, murder, theft of property, rape, forcible displacement, trespassing, vandalism of public properties, and violation of human rights" targeting the Masalit people.

American Jews who fled their Syrian homeland decades ago went to the White House this week to appeal to the Trump administration to lift sanctions on Syria that they say are blocking them from restoring some of the world's oldest synagogues and rebuilding the country's decimated Jewish community.
For Henry Hamra, who fled Damascus as a teenager with his family in the 1990s, the 30 years since have been shadowed by worry for what they left behind.

Columbia University senior Maryam Alwan was visiting family in Jordan over winter break when she received an email from the school accusing her of discriminatory harassment. Her supposed top offense: writing an op-ed in the student newspaper calling for divestment from Israel.
The probe is part of a flurry of recent cases brought by a new university disciplinary committee — the Office of Institutional Equity — against Columbia students who have expressed criticism of Israel, according to records shared with The Associated Press.

Former captain Neymar has been recalled by Brazil after an absence of almost 1 1/2 years.
The 33-year-old striker was included in the national squad by coach Dorival Junior on Thursday for World Cup qualifiers against Colombia and Argentina this month.

Turkey's central bank lowered its key interest rate by a further 2.5 percentage points on Thursday, days after official figures indicated a slowdown in inflation that has eroded households' purchasing power.
The bank's Monetary Policy Committee said it was reducing its benchmark one-week repo rate from 45% to 42.5%.

Turkish security forces have killed 26 Kurdish militants in the past week, the Turkish defense ministry said Thursday, even as the militants' imprisoned leader called on his group to disband and his fighters declared a ceasefire.
A defense ministry statement said the militants were killed in military operations in areas including the north of Iraq and Syria. It did not provide details on the circumstances of the clashes.

The Trump administration's cuts to USAID have frozen hundreds of millions of dollars in contractual payments to aid groups, leaving them paying out of pocket to preserve a fragile ceasefire, according to officials from the U.S. humanitarian agency.
The cutbacks threaten to halt the small gains aid workers have made combatting Gaza's humanitarian crisis during the Israel-Hamas ceasefire. They also could endanger the tenuous truce, which the Trump administration helped cement.

Russia targeted Ukraine's energy infrastructure in a large-scale missile and drone bombardment during the night, officials said Friday, hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said talks with the U.S. on ending the 3-year war will take place next week.
Ukraine came under a "massive missile and drone" attack, Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko wrote on Facebook. At least 10 people, including a child, were injured, authorities said.

Thirty years after world leaders adopted a historic blueprint to achieve gender equality, a new United Nations report says women's and girls' rights are under attack and gender discrimination remains deeply embedded in economies and societies.
The report released Thursday by the U.N. agency focused on women's rights and gender equality found that nearly one-quarter of governments worldwide reported a backlash to women's rights last year.

More than 70 people were killed and dozens more wounded in Syria in fighting between government security forces and militants loyal to deposed ruler Bashar al-Assad, a war monitor said Friday.
"More than 70 killed and dozens wounded and captured in bloody clashes and ambushes on the Syrian coast between members of the Ministry of Defense and Interior and militants from the defunct regime's army," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a post on X.
