Israel's defense minister on Monday said that Israel is helping build a U.S.-led regional air-defense alliance against Iran, and that the partnership has already thwarted attempted Iranian attacks.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz said he expected the upcoming visit by President Joe Biden to the region to further strengthen this alliance.

What's the price of peace?

That question could be partially answered Monday night when Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov auctions off his Nobel Peace Prize medal. The proceeds will go directly to UNICEF in its efforts to help children displaced by the war in Ukraine.

Russia's military machine persevered in its ferocious effort to grind down Ukraine's defenses Monday, as the war's consequences for food and fuel supplies increasingly weighed on minds around the globe after warnings that the fighting could go on for years.

In Ukraine's eastern Luhansk region, which in recent weeks has become the focal point of Moscow's attempt to impose its will on its neighbor, battles raged for the control of multiple villages, the local governor said.

Rival Libyan factions failed to reach an agreement after wrapping up a third round of U.N.-mediated talks in Egypt, the United Nations said Monday, further complicating international efforts to find a way out of the country's decade-old chaos.

According to the U.N. special adviser on Libya, Stephanie Williams, lawmakers from Libya's east-based parliament and the High Council of State, based in the capital of Tripoli in the country's west, concluded their final round of negotiations on constitutional amendments for elections late Sunday in Cairo without a breakthrough.

Lebanon's Health Ministry said Monday authorities have detected the country's first case of monkeypox in a person who returned from abroad and is now isolating at home.

The ministry said the person is stable and that authorities are tracking the person's contacts. It did not provide further details.

Weeks of negotiations on safe corridors to get grain out of Ukraine's Black Sea ports have made little progress, with urgency rising as the summer harvest season arrives.

Countries like Lebanon, Somalia, Libya, Egypt and Sudan are heavily reliant on wheat, corn and sunflower oil from Ukraine and Russia.

Colombia will be governed by a leftist president for the first time after former rebel Gustavo Petro narrowly defeated a real estate millionaire in a runoff election that underscored people's disgust with the country's traditional politicians.

Petro's third attempt to win the presidency earned him 50.48% of the votes Sunday, while political outsider Rodolfo Hernández got 47.26%, according to results released by election authorities.

French President Emmanuel Macron's centrist alliance was projected to lose its majority despite getting the most seats in the final round of parliamentary elections Sunday, while the far-right National Rally appeared to have made big gains.

The projections, which are based on partial results, say Macron's candidates would win between 230 and 250 seats — much less than the 289 required to have a straight majority at the National Assembly, France's most powerful house of parliament.

Floods in Bangladesh continued to wreak havoc Monday with authorities struggling to ferry drinking water and dry food to flood shelters across the country's vast northern and northeastern regions, officials and local media said.

More than a dozen people died across the country since the monsoon began last week, authorities said. The government called in soldiers Friday to help evacuate people.

A new ambassador from Bahrain formally has taken up his post in Syria, the country's first full diplomatic mission there in more than a decade as Damascus continues to improve its relations with Gulf Arab states.

President Bashar Assad received the credentials of Ambassador Waheed Mubarak Sayyar in an official ceremony also attended by Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad. Sayyar was appointed in December and recently moved to Damascus.