A New-York-based company contracted by the Lebanese government to conduct a forensic audit of the country's central bank has decided to pull out of the deal because it was not able to acquire requested information and documents, Lebanon's caretaker finance minister said Friday.

The announcement by Alvarez & Marsal deals a major blow to those hoping for accountability in a country mired in corruption and a crippling economic and financial crisis. It comes after Lebanon's central bank refused to provide the company with the needed documents, using the country's decades-old banking secrecy laws as a pretext.

As winter nears and coronavirus cases surge across the Middle East, the regional director for the World Health Organization said Thursday the only way to avoid mass deaths is for countries to quickly tighten restrictions and enforce preventative measures.

In a press briefing from Cairo, Ahmed al-Mandhari, director of WHO's eastern Mediterranean region, which comprises most of the Middle East, expressed concern that countries in the area were lowering their guard after tough lockdowns imposed earlier this year.

The African continent has surpassed 2 million confirmed cases as health officials warn of infections starting to creep up again into a second surge.

The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday that the continent had crossed that milestone. Its numbers show the 54-country continent also has seen more than 48,000 deaths from COVID-19.

Nurses hover over a patient to insert a breathing tube as his condition suddenly deteriorates. ICU beds fill up almost overnight. As one patient dies of the coronavirus and is wheeled out, another is whisked in to take his place. An exhausted doctor leans against a wheelchair for a breather.

The pace is dizzying at the largest isolation hospital in Syria's northwestern city of Idlib. There are no bombs falling outside and the wounded don't crowd bloodstained corridors amid a shaky cease-fire in the country's decade old civil war. Still, the intensive care unit staff is overwhelmed with beds full of elderly patients gasping for air.

President Donald Trump's refusal to cooperate with his successor is forcing President-elect Joe Biden to seek unusual workarounds to prepare for the exploding public health threat and evolving national security challenges he will inherit in just nine weeks.

Blocked from the official intelligence briefing traditionally afforded to incoming presidents, Biden gathered virtually on Tuesday with a collection of intelligence, defense and diplomatic experts. None of the experts is currently affiliated with the U.S. government, raising questions about whether Biden is being provided the most up-to-date information about dangers facing the nation.

German police fired water cannons Wednesday at demonstrators protesting coronavirus restrictions in Berlin's government district, after crowds ignored calls to wear masks and keep their distance from one another in line with pandemic regulations.

As the cannons soaked protesters outside the landmark Brandenburg Gate, police in riot gear moved through the crowd carrying away some participants. Some demonstrators threw fireworks and flares in response as police helicopters hovered overhead.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was due to arrive in Jerusalem Wednesday for a farewell visit as the chief diplomat of the strongly pro-Israeli Trump administration. 

U.S. acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller on Tuesday announced plans to reduce U.S. troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying the decision fulfills President Donald Trump's pledge to bring forces home when conditions were met that kept the U.S. and its allies safe.

The new plan will accelerate troop withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan in Trump's final days in office, despite arguments from senior military officials in favor of a slower, more methodical pullout.

President Donald Trump's national security adviser promised a "very professional transition" to the administration of President-elect Joe Biden in an interview broadcast Monday, even as Trump continues to falsely claim he won the November election.

Speaking to the Global Security Forum hosted in part by Qatar, Robert O'Brien several times mentioned the transition and referred to recent peace deals that Bahrain, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates struck with Israel as "a great legacy for the president to have as he leaves office."

The United States and Israel worked together to track and kill a senior al-Qaida operative in Iran earlier this year, a bold intelligence operation by the two allied countries that came as the Trump administration was ramping up pressure on Tehran.

Four current and former U.S. officials said Abu Mohammed al-Masri, al-Qaida's No. 2, was killed by assassins in the Iranian capital in August. The U.S. provided intelligence to the Israelis on where they could find al-Masri and the alias he was using at the time, while Israeli agents carried out the killing, according to two of the officials. The two other officials confirmed al-Masri's killing but could not provide specific details.