Lebanese prime minister-designate Mustafa Adib vowed Monday to swiftly launch a reformist government and seek international financial assistance after the Beirut blast deepened a political and economic crisis.

The first direct commercial flight from Israel to the United Arab Emirates landed in Abu Dhabi on Monday, with a U.S.-Israeli delegation on board, after the two countries struck an accord to normalize ties.

It was a century ago on Sept. 1, 1920, that a French general, Henri Gouraud, stood on the porch of a Beirut palace surrounded by local politicians and religious leaders and declared the State of Greater Lebanon — the precursor of the modern state of Lebanon.

The current French president, Emmanuel Macron, is visiting Lebanon to mark the occasion, 100 years later. But the mood could not be more somber.

Lebanon named its envoy to Germany, Mustafa Adib, as the new premier Monday to steer the country through a deep crisis after the Beirut explosion compounded a sharp economic downturn.

The presidency made the announcement in a televised statement as Adib arrived at the palace in Baabda near Beirut to meet President Michel Aoun and parliament speaker Nabih Berri.

Sara Jaafar joined a group of political activists gathered on Aug. 4 to discuss strategies to challenge Lebanon's entrenched rulers when their building was shaken and the windows blasted out by the giant explosion that rocked Beirut.

She took cover from the flying debris, thoughts rushing through her head of past political assassinations in Lebanon. Her immediate reaction was that Hizbullah was targeting the dissidents' meeting.

The United States plans to reduce its military force in Iraq from the current 5,200 to about 3,500 by November, U.S. officials said Friday. The cut would be in line with President Donald Trump's repeated call to bring troops home and his reelection campaign pledge to end what he calls "endless wars."

The plan to shrink the U.S. force in Iraq was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. Officials who confirmed the plan spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a matter not yet publicly announced.

A lawyer for two American men urged a judge Friday to block their extradition to Japan, where they are wanted on charges that they smuggled former Nissan Motor Co. Chairman Carlos Ghosn out of the country in a box last year.

Attorneys for Michael Taylor and his son, Peter Taylor, have not denied that the men helped Ghosn flee while he was awaiting trial on financial misconduct charges in December, but say their actions don't fit under the law with which Japan is trying to convict them.

For the past decade, art collector Nabil Debs has been working on turning his 19th century ancestral home in a historic neighborhood of Beirut to a hotel and art gallery. He planned to open it to the public in mid-August.

Within seconds, his lifelong dream came crashing down, along with the two-story building's stone facade and front balcony as a massive explosion tore through Beirut, shearing off facades, blasting holes in buildings, doors, stones and shattering glass across the capital.

The U.N. Security Council is voting on a resolution that would extend the mandate of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon for a year but reduce its troop ceiling from 15,000 to 13,000 in response to U.S. pressure.

The French-drafted resolution also makes another concession to the Trump administration and its close ally Israel. It calls on the Lebanese government to facilitate "prompt and full access" to sites requested by U.N. peacekeepers for investigation, including tunnels crossing the U.N.-drawn Blue Line between Lebanon and Israel.

Foreign Minister Heiko Maas agreed with his Israeli counterpart Thursday that an effort must be made to extend a weapon embargo on Iran, while stressing Germany still sees the landmark 2015 deal between Tehran and world powers as the best way to prevent the country from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

With a current U.N. arms embargo on Iran due to expire on Oct. 18, Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi told reporters in Berlin an extension was needed to prevent Iran from getting "more advanced weapons systems and spreading them around the Middle East."