The tiny, energy-rich Arab nation of Qatar announced on Monday it would withdraw from OPEC, mixing its aspirations to increase production outside of the cartel's constraints with the politics of slighting the Saudi-dominated group amid the kingdom's boycott of Doha.

The surprise announcement from Qatar's minister of state for energy affairs, Saad Sherida al-Kaabi, again throws into question the role of the cartel after needing non-members to push through a production cut in 2016 after prices crashed below $30 a barrel.

He may have fallen from grace internationally as one of the auto industry's most powerful leaders, but Carlos Ghosn can count on continued support in at least one corner of the globe.

Lebanon has long held hopes that Ghosn, whose grandparents were Lebanese and who holds extensive development projects in the country, would play a bigger role in politics one day, or help rescue its increasingly sluggish economy.

The Trump administration on Thursday accused Iran of stepping up violations of a U.N. ban on arms exports by sending rockets and other weaponry to rebels in Afghanistan and Yemen.

The new allegations come as the U.S. ramps up pressure on Iran to halt what it calls "malign activities" in the Middle East and elsewhere by reinstating sanctions that had been lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal from which President Donald Trump withdrew in May. Iran has denied such accusations in the past.

For two years, the Trump administration has unabashedly slashed U.S. aid to the Palestinians. Now, amid signs it may finally roll out its long-awaited Middle East peace plan, the administration is scrambling to save what little remaining Palestinian assistance it provides.

The striking turnabout is the result of the belated realization that an obscure new law will likely force the U.S. to terminate all aid to the Palestinian Authority, including security assistance supported by Israel, by the end of January. Eliminating such aid, which totaled $61 million this year even as other assistance was being cut, would deal a blow to Palestinian-Israeli security cooperation that both sides value. The law would also require the Jerusalem offices of the U.S. Agency for International Development to close.

Ukrainian officials on Friday barred Russian males between the ages of 16 and 60 from traveling to the country in the latest escalation of tensions between the neighbors.

The long-simmering conflict bubbled over Sunday when Russian border guards rammed into and opened fired on three Ukrainian vessels near the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014. The vessels were trying to pass through the Kerch Strait on their way to the Sea of Azov. The Russians then captured the ships and their 24-member crew.

Israel's most pressing security concerns reportedly lie to the north, even with attention currently focused on Gaza-based Hamas militants along its southern border.

Israeli officials say the threat of the Palestinian Hamas group pales compared to the Iran-backed Hizbullah in Lebanon — a heavily-armed mini-army with combat experience in neighboring Syria and an arsenal of some 150,000 rockets.

Plastic bottles, soft drink cans and blue garbage bags. An old television, discarded vegetables and coffee cups. These are some of the random things that can be seen floating in the sea along Lebanon's coastline.

Once a source of pride, the country's Mediterranean coastline has become a source of shame for many Lebanese because of the swirling trash that pollutes its shores.

Families of Lebanon's war missing are calling on the government to form a commission to look into the fate of relatives nearly three decades after the country's civil war ended.

Parliament approved forming such a commission earlier this month. The law was the first official recognition of the problem that haunted families of an estimated 17,000 missing since the war ended in 1990.

A Lebanese minister says some Syrian refugees who have returned home from Lebanon have been killed, detained or forced to join the military, leading to a slowdown in the return of Syrians residing in Lebanon.

Caretaker Minister of State for Refugee Affairs Mouein al-Merehbi told The Associated Press Tuesday that so far about 12,000 Syrian refugees have returned home since June.

Radio One Lebanon’s renowned host Gavin Ford was found dead Tuesday inside his apartment in Beit Mery.

Citing preliminary investigation revelations, LBCI television said the British radio host was “murdered.”