The U.N. weather agency is warning that carbon-dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere increased at record-breaking speed last year.

World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Petteri Taalas says rapid cuts to CO2 and other greenhouse gases are needed to avoid "dangerous temperature increases" by 2100 that would far surpass targets set in the Paris climate accord.

Islamic State militants, routed from one urban stronghold after another in Syria, have recently been moving deeper into Syria's remote desert, where experts say they are regrouping and preparing their next incarnation.

The Sunni militants' self-proclaimed "caliphate" with its contiguous stretch of land — linking major cities such as Syria's Raqqa and Iraq's Mosul — may have been vanquished, but many agree this territorial defeat will not mark the end of IS.

Mitchell Moses on Sunday spearheaded Lebanon to its first-ever Rugby League World Cup victory as it defeated France 29-18 in Canberra.

The Parramatta Eels playmaker was at the heart of Lebanon’s attack as he scored a try, set up another two and landed a drop goal.

Prime Minister Saad Hariri has said that Cyprus can help Lebanon drum up support from other European Union member states for its economy that's coming under heavy strain from hosting around 1.5 million Syrian refugees.

Hariri said after overnight talks in Nicosia with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades that Lebanon needs international support to prop up the economy and help with job growth.

It all began with a fish seized by the police.

Morocco is marking one year since a fisherman's gruesome death spawned a social protest movement against police abuse — an event that has drawn comparisons to the 2010 death of a Tunisian vendor that sparked the Arab Spring democracy uprisings.

Under pressure in advance of hearings on Russian election interference, Facebook is moving to increase transparency for everyone who sees and buys political advertising on its site.

Executives for the social media company said Friday they will verify political ad buyers in federal elections, requiring them to reveal correct names and locations. The site will also create new graphics where users can click on the ads and find out more about who's behind them.

Zena El Khalil's art exhibit has tapped into wounds that are more than 40 years old in war-scarred Lebanon.

"Sacred Catastrophe: Healing Lebanon" is being hosted in a landmark building in the center of Beirut that is a powerful reminder of the country's 1975-1990 civil war. Pockmarked and riddled with bullet holes, the building stands on the former demarcation line that bisected Beirut into warring sections: east and west, Christian and Muslim.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis accused North Korea on Friday of building a nuclear arsenal to "threaten others with catastrophe" and said the Trump administration remains committed to compelling the North to accept complete nuclear disarmament.

Calling the North a threat to global order, Mattis stood inside the Demilitarized Zone that separates the two Koreas and pledged solidarity with the South.

Experts from the U.N. and the chemical weapons watchdog are blaming Syria's government for a sarin nerve gas attack that killed over 90 people last April.

Their report, obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, says leaders of the expert body are "confident that the Syrian Arab Republic is responsible for the release of sarin at Khan Sheikhoun on April 4, 2017."

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson doubled down Thursday on Washington's call for Syrian President Bashar Assad to leave power, looking past recent battlefield gains by his Russian-backed forces to insist that "the reign of the Assad family is coming to an end."

Tillerson made the comments after what he called a "fruitful" meeting with U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura, who later announced plans to resume U.N.-mediated peace Syrian talks on Nov. 28. It will be the eighth such round under his mediation in Geneva since early 2016.