President Michel Aoun on Monday suggested to visiting Japanese deputy justice minister that Nissan's fugitive ex-boss Carlos Ghosn won't be extradited back to Japan and remains in the hands of Lebanon's judiciary, according to a presidential statement.

Ghosn was smuggled out of Japan and into his ancestral homeland of Lebanon late last year despite supposedly rigorous surveillance. He jumped $14 million bail to evade charges of financial misconduct that could carry a jail sentence of up to 15 years.

Thousands of migrants were trying to find a way across Turkey's western border with Greece Monday, with only dozens managing to pass through either border fences or fording rivers, after Turkey opened its side of the frontier to migrants and refugees to leave the country for Europe.

Turkey declared its borders open to pressure the European Union into helping it handle the fallout from the war in neighboring Syria. Thousands of Turkish troops are supporting the last rebel forces holed up there in the northwestern province of Idlib against the onslaught of Russian-backed Syrian government forces.

Iranian state radio says a member of a council that advises Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has died after after falling ill from the new coronavirus.

The report Monday said Expediency Council member Mohammad Mirmohammadi had died. He was 71.

Thousands of mourners thronged the coffins of five Hizbullah fighters whose funeral was held Sunday in Beirut's southern suburbs after they were killed in neighboring Syria's northwestern Idlib region.

The fighters were among at least eight Hizbullah members who died Friday in Turkish attacks amid fierce fighting between Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces and Turkish troops and allied militiamen. The deaths marked the highest for Hizbullah in Syria in years.

A coughing Pope Francis told pilgrims gathered for the traditional Sunday blessing that he is canceling his participation at a week-long spiritual retreat in the Roman countryside because of a cold.

It is the first time in his seven-year papacy that he has missed the spiritual exercises that he initiated early in his pontificate to mark the start of each Lenten season. Such retreats are typical Jesuits, an order to which he belongs.

Hizbullah lost at least eight fighters in northwest Syria in skirmishes with insurgents and airstrikes by Turkey's air force, an opposition war monitor and the Iran-backed group said.

The casualties followed the death of at least 33 Turkish soldiers earlier this week.

After facing sanctions and the risk of war amid tensions with the United States, Iran's Shiite theocracy now has an enemy in the new coronavirus that infiltrated its leadership in plain view of state-controlled media and despite repeated denials of any looming threat.

The outbreak of the new virus in Iran has been dramatic — the head of Iran's task force to stop the illness, known as COVID-19, was seen coughing, sweating and wheezing across televised interviews before acknowledging he was infected. Then, days later, a visibly pale official sat only meters (feet) away from President Hassan Rouhani and other top leaders before she too reportedly came down with the virus.

A viral outbreak that began in China has infected more than 83,000 people globally. The World Health Organization has named the illness COVID-19, referring to its origin late last year and the coronavirus that causes it.

After facing sanctions and the risk of war amid tensions with the United States, Iran's Shiite theocracy now has an enemy in the new coronavirus that infiltrated its leadership in plain view of state-controlled media and despite repeated denials of any looming threat.

The outbreak of the new virus in Iran has been dramatic — the head of Iran's task force to stop the illness, known as COVID-19, was seen coughing, sweating and wheezing across televised interviews before acknowledging he was infected. Then days later, a visibly pale official sat only meters (feet) away from President Hassan Rouhani and other top leaders before she too reportedly came down with the virus.

A Japanese vice minister for justice is heading to Lebanon for talks on the case of former Nissan Motor Co. executive Carlos Ghosn, who fled for his home country late last year while out on bail awaiting trial.

Justice Minister Masako Mori said Friday that she was dispatching the official to Beirut to explain the Japanese criminal justice system and improve cooperation.