A lawyer for a Lebanese inmate who disappeared 20 years ago from a federal prison in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania says his client intends to plead guilty to an escape charge.

Public defender Thomas Livingston spoke to a U.S. news website about Ghassan Saleh's plans after the 66-year-old man was arraigned Tuesday. But he didn't say when the plea would be entered.

Lebanon's ambassador to Saudi Arabia and his Saudi counterpart are caught in what appears to be a diplomatic tussle over representation, with each country delaying accreditation of the other's diplomat, though both were named months ago.

The delay highlights tension between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon following the bizarre, now-reversed resignation of Prime Minister Saad Hariri from Riyadh.

As President Bashar Assad seeks to reassert his authority in Idlib, the only remaining province in Syria where his forces have almost no presence, he may be aided there by deep fractures within al-Qaeda, the militant group that dominates the region.

A recent wave of detentions and a spate of violence within al-Qaeda have also raised fears of an all-out war between insurgents in the heavily populated province near Turkey as Assad's forces make their push.

An estimated 258 million people have left their birth countries and are now living in other nations — an increase of 49 percent since 2000, says a U.N. report on international migration released Monday.

The biennial report released on International Migrants Day said the percentage of the world's people who are international migrants has increased modestly from 2.8 percent in 2000 to 3.4 percent this year.

Police arrested a man at a U.S. air base in Britain on Monday after a car drove into a checkpoint gate, prompting American military personnel to open fire, officials said.

The Internal Security Forces Intelligence Branch on Monday arrested a taxi driver suspected of killing British embassy worker Rebecca Dykes after attempting to rape her, according to officials and the National News Agency.

The Lebanese news agency said the Lebanese man, Tarek H., had confessed to killing the young woman, who worked at the UK embassy in Beirut.

Russian President Vladimir Putin telephoned U.S. President Donald Trump Sunday to thank him for a CIA tip that helped thwart a series of bombings in St. Petersburg, the Kremlin and the White House said.

During the call, the two leaders' second in three days, Putin expressed gratitude for the CIA information. The Kremlin said it led Russia's top domestic security agency to a group of suspects that planned to bomb St. Petersburg's Kazan Cathedral and other crowded sites this weekend.

Senior Trump administration officials outlined their view that Jerusalem's Western Wall ultimately will be declared a part of Israel, in another declaration sure to enflame passions among Palestinians and others in the Middle East.

Although they said the ultimate borders of the holy city must be resolved through Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the officials — speaking ahead of Vice President Mike Pence's trip to the region — essentially ruled out any scenario that didn't maintain Israeli control over the holiest ground in Judaism. The issue is sensitive because the wall is beyond Israel's pre-1967 borders and abuts some of the Islamic world's most revered sites.

Lebanon has set the date for the country's first parliamentary elections in nine years, scheduling the vote for May 6, the National News Agency reported.

Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq signed a decree Friday setting the date, NNA said.

Russia is to resume flights between Moscow and the Egyptian capital of Cairo in February after more than a two-year hiatus, Russian transportation minister said on Friday.

Moscow suspended flights to Egypt after an Islamic State bomb brought down a Russian airliner over Sinai in October 2015, killing all 224 people on board.