The former head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement died Saturday night after a long illness. He was 62.

Lebanese riot police fired tear gas at protesters in central Beirut on Saturday, after a planned anti-government demonstration quickly degenerated into rioting and stone-throwing confrontations between opposing camps.

A few thousand demonstrators had gathered in Martyrs' Square hoping to reboot nationwide protests that began late last year amid an unprecedented economic and financial crisis. But tensions and divisions among protesters over the goals of the demonstration quickly became apparent as groups of protesters faced off, with the army standing between them.

Hundreds of protesters from the south to the north of Lebanon joined the main demo in Martyr’s Square in Beirut on Saturday against the country’s political elite, corruption and a crumbling economy as the result of decades of mismanagement.

Thousands of people rallied across Australia to honor George Floyd and voice their support for the Black Lives Matter movement Saturday, part of a worldwide wave of solidarity that has also sought to highlight racial discrimination outside the United States.

Further protests were planned over the weekend in European cities, some defying restrictions imposed by authorities because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Pakistan reported 97 more coronavirus deaths on Saturday, the highest 24-hour increase to its fatalities, as authorities urged volunteers to motivate people to adhere to social distancing regulations to contain the spread of the virus.

According to Usman Dar, who heads the "Corona Relief Tiger Force," about 1 million volunteers have signed up recently in response to the government's call to help the country's most vulnerable people during the coronavirus outbreak.

On a summer day last year, presidential guards drove out of the charity organization founded by Syria's wealthiest businessman and a close cousin of President Bashar Assad, carting away boxes of documents and computers. At the same time, the charity's director was being questioned at the palace on suspicion of corruption.

Syria's stock market on Tuesday suspended trading for the largest cellular company in the country, owned by a cousin of the president and one of Syria's richest businessmen.

The decision by the Syrian Commission of Financial Markets and Securities marked another development in a deepening financial dispute within the Assad family, which has ruled Syria for five decades. The company, Syriatel, is one of the country's largest employers, with thousands of staff and 11 million subscribers.

Aid organizations are making an urgent plea for funding to shore up their operations in war-torn Yemen, saying they have already been forced to stop some of their work even as the coronavirus rips through the country.

Some 75% of U.N. programs in Yemen have had to shut their doors or reduce operations. The global body's World Food Program had to cut rations in half and U.N.-funded health services were reduced in 189 out of 369 hospitals nationwide.

Several thousand people marched in New Zealand's largest city on Monday to protest the killing of George Floyd in the U.S. as well as to stand up against police violence and racism in their own country.

Many people around the world have watched with growing unease at the civil unrest in the U.S. after the latest in a series of police killings of black men and women. Floyd died on May 25 in Minneapolis after a white police officer pressed his knee on Floyd's neck until he stopped breathing. The officer was fired and charged with murder.

Nations around the world have watched in horror and delight at the five days of civil unrest in the United States following the death of a black man being detained by police. But they have not been surprised.

In Lebanon, anti-government protesters flooded social media with humorous tweets sympathetic to U.S. protesters, using the hashtag #Americarevolts. That's a play on the slogan for Lebanon's protest movement -- Lebanon revolts -- which erupted on Oct. 17 last year.