U.S. President Joe Biden has pledged to make it "very, very difficult" for Russia's Vladimir Putin to take military action in Ukraine as U.S. intelligence officials determined that Russian planning is underway for a possible military offensive that could begin as soon as early 2022.

The new intelligence finding estimates that the Russians are planning to deploy an estimated 175,000 troops and almost half of them are already deployed along various points near Ukraine's border, according to a Biden administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the finding.

The Kremlin has said that President Vladimir Putin will seek binding guarantees precluding NATO's expansion to Ukraine during a planned call with U.S. President Joe Biden, while a U.S. intelligence report and the Ukrainian defense minister warned of a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine as soon as next month.

With tensions between Russia and the West escalating, Biden said his administration was "putting together what I believe to be the most comprehensive and meaningful set of initiatives to make it very, very difficult for Mr. Putin to go ahead and do what people are worried he may do" in positioning troops near Ukraine.

A night of violence ignited when a man was shot and killed in an Arab town in northern Israel ended on Friday with police shooting and killing a man involved in an alleged car-ramming attack that wounded two officers, Israeli officials said.

The chaos in the town of Umm al-Fahm comes amid a wave of violent crime in Israel's Arab community that shows no sign of abating, despite far-reaching action announced in recent months by Israeli authorities.

France announced multibillion-euro deals Friday to sell fighter planes and combat helicopters to the United Arab Emirates, aiming to boost military cooperation with its top ally in the Persian Gulf amid their shared concerns about Iran.

The UAE is buying 80 upgraded Rafale warplanes in a deal the French Defense Ministry said is worth 16 billion euros ($18 billion) and represents the largest-ever French weapons contract for export. It also announced a deal with the UAE to sell 12 Airbus-built combat helicopters.

U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday vowed to make it "very, very difficult" for Russian President Vladimir Putin to take military action in Ukraine, saying his administration is putting together a comprehensive set of initiatives to curb Russian aggression.

The president offered the measured warning to Putin amid growing concern about a Russian buildup of troops on the Ukrainian border and increasingly bellicose rhetoric from the Kremlin.

Information Minister George Kordahi resigned Friday, saying he hoped the much anticipated move will open the way for easing an unprecedented diplomatic crisis with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab countries. That crisis has added to immense economic troubles facing Lebanon, already mired in a financial meltdown.

Kordahi, a prominent former game show host, said he took the decision to step down ahead of French President Emmanuel Macron's visit to Saudi Arabia on Saturday. The resignation, Kordahi said at a press conference in the Lebanese capital, may help Macron start a dialogue to help restore Beirut-Riyadh relations.

Pope Francis lamented centuries of hostility and prejudice that have divided Catholics and Orthodox as he met Friday with the leader of Cyprus' Greek Orthodox Church and pointed to works of charity as a means to help heal the rift between Catholic West and Orthodox East.

Archbishop Chrysostomos II hosted Francis for private talks at his residence and then invited the pope to the brand new Orthodox Cathedral of St. Barnabas for an encounter with the Holy Synod, the highest decision-making body of the Greek Orthodox Church.

A Lebanese DJ was days away from moving to Riyadh to play for a month in one of the newest entertainment centers in Saudi Arabia's capital when a brief, polite WhatsApp message informed her that the contract won't go through.

The head of a Beirut-based communications agency had been negotiating to revive a two-year-old contract derailed by the pandemic for hundreds of thousands of dollars. After two days of silence her Saudi client, in an apologetic call, said now is not the time.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appointed a new treasury and finance minister early Thursday after Lutfi Elvan stepped down from the post as the currency has been tumbling to record lows.

Erdogan named Nureddin Nebati, who was deputy minister, to the post, according to an announcement published in the Official Gazette. It said Elvan asked to be "pardoned from the job" and that his request was accepted.

A World War II bomb exploded at a construction site next to a busy railway line in Munich on Wednesday, injuring four people, one of them seriously, German authorities said.

A column of smoke was seen rising from the site near the Donnersbergerbruecke station. The construction site for a new commuter train line is located on the approach to Munich's central station, which is a bit over a kilometer (about a half-mile) to the east.