A Cham Wings plane flying from Aleppo in Syria, landed at one o’clock after midnight at Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport following the restoration of air connectivity at Aleppo airport, the National News Agency reported Friday.

A powerful earthquake rocked Indonesia's Sulawesi island early Friday, killing at least 34 people, levelling a hospital and severely damaging other buildings, authorities said.

It was a choice between containing a spiraling virus outbreak and resuscitating a dying economy in a country that has been in steady financial and economic meltdown over the past year. Authorities in Lebanon chose the latter.

Now, virus patients struggling to breathe wait outside hospitals -- hoping for a bed or even a chair to open up. Ordinary people share contact lists of oxygen suppliers on social media as the the critical gas becomes scarce, and the sound of ambulances ferrying the ill echoes through Beirut. Around 500 of Lebanon's 14,000 doctors have left the crisis-ridden country in recent months, according to the Order of Physicians, putting a further strain on existing hospital staff.

President Donald Trump was impeached by the U.S. House for a historic second time, charged with "incitement of insurrection" over the deadly mob siege of the U.S. Capitol in a swift and stunning collapse of his final days in office.

With the Capitol secured by armed National Guard troops inside and out, the House voted 232-197 on Wednesday to impeach Trump. The proceedings moved at lightning speed, with lawmakers voting just one week after violent pro-Trump loyalists stormed the Capitol, egged on by the president's calls for them to "fight like hell" against the election results.

Lebanese authorities began enforcing an 11-day nationwide shutdown and round the clock curfew Thursday, hoping to limit the spread of coronavirus infections spinning out of control after the holiday period.

For the first time, residents were required to request a one-hour permit to be allowed to leave the house for "emergencies," including going to the bakery, pharmacist, doctor, hospital or airport.

Speaker Nabih Berri on Wednesday scheduled a parliament session for Friday aimed at “studying the urgent draft law for regulating the novel use of medical products to fight the Covid-19 pandemic,” the National News Agency said.

Parliament's health committee has prepared a draft law to allow for importing coronavirus vaccines from Pfizer and BioNTech.

Israeli warplanes carried out intense airstrikes in eastern Syria early Wednesday, apparently targeting positions and arms depots of Iran-backed forces as the region is on high alert. Dozens of fighters were killed or wounded, according to an opposition war monitoring group.

A senior U.S. intelligence official with knowledge of the attack told The Associated Press that the airstrikes were carried out with intelligence provided by the United States -- a rare incidence of publicized cooperation between the two countries over choosing targets in Syria. The official said the strikes targeted a series of warehouses in Syria that were being used in a pipeline to store and stage Iranian weapons.

The World Bank approved a $246 million loan to Lebanon to provide emergency cash assistance to nearly 800,000 Lebanese reeling under the country's compounded economic and health crises.

The World Bank said in a statement late Tuesday the loan would also support the development of a national social safety net in Lebanon, which was struggling with a financial crisis before the pandemic struck, driving nearly half the population of the small country of 6 million into poverty. Over 1 million refugees from Syria live in Lebanon.

In the wake of a massive explosion that devastated large parts of Beirut, 93-year-old Yolande Labaki sought a way to help bring healing to the Lebanese capital.

A former Nissan chief operating officer outlined in a Japanese court Tuesday the pains company officials took to hide star executive Carlos Ghosn's pay, and how they had worried about his quitting for a rival.

"Carlos Ghosn is a world-class business leader and CEO," said Toshiyuki Shiga, testifying at the trial of his former colleague Greg Kelly, charged with under-reporting Ghosn's compensation.