When Shanghai Port paid almost $100 million to sign Oscar from Chelsea in 2016, the London club's coach Antonio Conte expressed concern over the rise of the Chinese league.

Now Oscar is one of the few big names left in the Chinese Super League, with Saudi Arabia surpassing it as the Asian competition attracting the ire of soccer figures in Europe.

Germany on Friday commemorated 60 years since the day East German authorities started building the Berlin Wall, where at least 140 people were killed over three decades trying to flee to the west.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier called its construction from Aug. 13, 1961, onward the "beginning of the end" for the communist regime, which claimed at the time that the wall was designed to protect the country from fascism.

Australia is working urgently with the United States to evacuate the last Afghans who helped Australian troops and diplomats as Taliban insurgents make rapid territorial gains across Afghanistan, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Friday.

Australia shut its Kabul embassy in May and withdrew the last of its troops in June as U.S. and NATO forces pulled out of the Afghanistan conflict after 20 years.

Israel downed an unarmed Hizbullah drone that crossed the border from Lebanon, the Israeli army said Thursday.

In a statement, the Israeli army said it downed the drone after it crossed the border into Israeli airspace. The incident on Wednesday was the latest uptick in activity along Israel's northern border.

Lebanon's central bank said overnight it will provide a line of credit for fuel importers at market price, ending subsidies on the scarce resource. The move is likely to send prices soaring in a country already in the throes of an economic crisis.

The decision comes amid an unfolding energy crisis that has plunged the country into hours of darkness, threatened hospitals and businesses with shutdown and sparked deadly violence among consumers and motorists looking for fuel.

The Israeli military said soldiers shot and wounded a Palestinian woman after she attacked them with a knife in the occupied West Bank late on Monday.

The woman was hospitalized after being shot in her "lower body" near the northern West Bank city of Nablus, the military said in a statement early Tuesday. A military spokesman said he was not aware of her current condition. No Israeli soldiers were wounded in the incident.

Just three months after the latest war between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, the border town of Sderot appears to be on the road to recovery.

The streets are bustling, and the town is filled with well-kept parks and playgrounds. The local real-estate market is booming.

Israel's prime minister said Sunday he holds the Lebanese government responsible for rocket fire launched from its territory, whether Hizbullah launched the weapons or not.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's comments came days after one of the heaviest flareups in violence between Israel and Hizbullah in several years and indicated Israel could expand its response if the rocket fire continues.

Hizbullah said it fired "dozens" of rockets Friday at open areas of the occupied Shebaa Farms district, drawing retaliatory Israeli strikes for a second straight day.

It is the first time that Hizbullah has directly claimed an attack on Israel since 2019, as tensions boil along the border following a week of tit-for-tat exchanges.

Israel's defense minister warned Thursday that his country is prepared to strike Iran, issuing the threat against the Islamic Republic after a fatal drone strike on a oil tanker at sea that his nation blamed on Tehran.

The comments by Benny Gantz come as Israel meanwhile lobbies countries for action at the United Nations over last week's attack on the oil tanker Mercer Street that killed two people. The tanker, struck off Oman in the Arabian Sea, is managed by a firm owned by an Israeli billionaire.