A Syrian television journalist and two soldiers were killed on Wednesday when a roadside bomb exploded in the southern province of Daraa, state media reported.

"Correspondent Firas al-Ahmad from (privately owned) Sama TV and two members of our armed forces were killed by an explosive device" as they returned from a counternarcotics operation in the province, state television said.

Bahrain prison inmates are taking part in a hunger strike over conditions there, activists and authorities said Wednesday, the latest sign of simmering unrest in the island kingdom a decade after the Arab Spring.

The strike targets the Jaw Rehabilitation and Reform Center, a facility holding many of the prisoners identified by human rights activists as dissidents who oppose the rule of the Al Khalifa family. The country's Sunni rulers long have faced complaints from the island's Shiite majority of discrimination.

The United States and its allies vowed Tuesday to keep Syria's failure to account for its chemical weapons program in the spotlight at the U.N. Security Council every month despite opposition from Russia and China.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the council Syrian President Bashar Assad's government "has repeatedly lied to the international community" and to investigators from the international chemical weapons watchdog, which has confirmed that it used these banned weapons on at least nine occasions.

A spate of high-profile visits by U.S. officials to Saudi Arabia underscores how ties have warmed amid talks over a potential deal that would see the Gulf kingdom recognise Israel, analysts say.

Less than a year after U.S. President Joe Biden warned of unspecified "consequences" for Riyadh during a dispute over oil supply, he is dispatching top aides to meet Saudi royals at a rapid clip.

The United Nations announced late Tuesday that an agreement had been reached with Syria to reopen the main border crossing from Turkey to its rebel-held northwest for six months.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed the "understanding" reached following talks between U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths and Syrian officials, U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said.

The Syrian government decided to increase prices of drugs by 50%, the head of the pharmacies syndicate in Damascus said Tuesday, as the Syrian pound hit new a low in recent days.

Hassan Derwan did not give a reason for the price hike in his interview with the pro-government daily Al-Watan. Earlier this year, prices were raised by between 50% and 80%.

A medical charity on Tuesday deplored the U.N.'s failure to renew a cross-border mechanism that allowed international aid to reach rebel-held northwestern Syria from Turkey and demanded an urgent solution.

"The resolution expired a month ago and there is no solution currently in sight. This is simply deplorable," said Sebastien Gay, head of mission for Doctors Without Border (MSF) in Syria.

Thousands of people displaced by 12 years of war are stuck in squalid, unofficial camps in Syria's Kurdish-held northeast, languishing in extreme poverty and largely cut off from international assistance.

"We've been completely forgotten," said Rahma al-Hammud, 33, standing at her tent -- a shoddy patchwork of worn-out fabric, tarp and old fertiliser bags crudely sewn together.

Israeli security forces on Tuesday demolished the West Bank home of a Palestinian man accused of carrying out a deadly shooting attack earlier this year, the military said, the latest incursion to fuel tensions in the occupied territory.

Israel's decades-old tactic of leveling the family homes of alleged Palestinian assailants has drawn intense criticism from human rights groups, which call it collective punishment — prohibited under international law.

Ukraine has said it was "satisfied" with a summit held in Saudi Arabia over the weekend on a peace settlement to end fighting, to which Moscow was not invited.

Representatives from around 40 countries including China, India, the United States and Ukraine took part in the peace summit, which was held in Jeddah.