The U.N. chief is strongly urging Yemen's warring parties to not only renew but expand a truce that expires Sunday, saying it has brought the longest period of relative calm since the conflict began in 2014.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday that the internationally recognized government and Houthi rebels should prioritize the national interests of the Yemeni people and "choose peace for good."

Leaked government documents show that Iran ordered its security forces to "severely confront" antigovernment demonstrations that broke out earlier this month, Amnesty International said Friday.

The London-based rights group said security forces have killed at least 52 people since protests over the death of a woman detained by the morality police began nearly two weeks ago, including by firing live ammunition into crowds and beating protesters with batons.

The U.S. State Department is calling on Israel to open a "thorough" investigation into the mysterious death of a 7-year-old Palestinian boy who collapsed and died on Thursday, shortly after Israeli soldiers came to his home in the occupied West Bank.

Relatives said Rayan Suleiman had no previous health problems and accused the army of scaring the child to death. The army called the death a tragedy and said its soldiers were not to blame.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed treaties Friday to annex occupied areas of Ukraine and said he would use "all available means" to protect the territory that Ukrainian and Western officials said Russia was claiming illegitimately and in violation of international law.

In a speech preceding the treaty-signing ceremony, Putin urged Ukraine to sit down for talks to end the seven months of fighting that started when he ordered his troops to invade the neighboring country. But he warned that Russia would never give up the absorbed regions and would protect them as part of its sovereign territory.

As serious as the methane escaping from ruptured pipelines on the floor of the Baltic Sea may be, there are alarming incidents of massive methane releases around the world frequently.

Climate scientists have found that methane emissions from the oil and gas industry are far worse than what companies are reporting, despite claims by some major firms that they've reduced their emissions. That matters because natural gas, a fossil fuel widely used to heat homes and provide electricity, is made up of methane, a potent climate warming gas. It escapes into the atmosphere from well sites and across the natural gas distribution network, from pipelines and compressor stations, to the export terminals that liquefy gas to ship it overseas.

The U.S. has imposed sanctions on a group of firms it says have played a critical role in shipping sanctioned Iranian oil.

The State Department designated two Chinese companies, and Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control hit a network of companies based in Hong Kong, Iran, India and the United Arab Emirates.

Iranian anti-government protesters chanted from windows and rooftops in parts of Tehran early Thursday, but there were no reports of street protests in the country's capital, where authorities have waged a fierce crackdown in recent days.

It was not immediately clear whether that signaled a decline in the nationwide protests over the death earlier this month of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was detained by the morality police for allegedly wearing the mandatory Islamic headscarf too loosely. Her death has triggered an outpouring of anger at the country's ruling clerics.

Voters in Kuwait returned to the polls on Thursday for the second parliamentary elections in less than two years, hoping to move the wealthy Gulf Arab nation out of a prolonged period of political gridlock.

Kuwait has the freest and most active assembly in the Persian Gulf, but political power is still largely concentrated in the hands of the ruling Al Sabah family, which appoints the prime minister and Cabinet, and can dissolve the assembly at any time.

Russia confirmed on Thursday it will formally annex parts of Ukraine where occupied areas held Kremlin-orchestrated "referendums" on living under Moscow's rule that the Ukrainian government and the West denounced as illegal and rigged.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will attend a ceremony on Friday in the Kremlin when four regions of Ukraine will be officially folded into Russia, spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Iraq summoned the Iranian ambassador on Thursday to deliver a diplomatic complaint following a deadly drone bombing campaign, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The Iranian drones targeted an Iranian-Kurdish opposition group in northern Iraq on Wednesday, killing at least nine people and wounding 32 others. The strikes took place as demonstrations continued to engulf the Islamic Republic after the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman who died while in the custody of the Iranian morality police.