Churches in Jerusalem are up in arms against Jewish "radicals" who are settling in the Christian Quarter and threatening a fragile religious balance in the ancient Holy City.

"We have a major problem here," said Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilus III in Jerusalem's Old City, which is split into historic Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Armenian quarters.

During its 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran embraced the protest cry of "neither East nor West," rejecting both the U.S. and the Soviet Union, then locked in the Cold War. The phrase to this day hangs over the doors of Iran's Foreign Ministry.

Russia's war on Ukraine, however, has exposed just how much Tehran has tilted toward Moscow in recent years as the collapse of its nuclear deal with world powers stoked decades-old, hard-line anger at America. Members of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard train on Russian surface-to-air missile systems and aircraft. Hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi visited Russian President Vladimir Putin on one of his first trips abroad.

During a visit to Syria in 2017, Vladimir Putin lavished praise on a Syrian general whose division played an instrumental role in defeating insurgents in the country's long-running civil war. The Russian president told him his cooperation with Russian troops "will lead to great successes in the future."

Now members of Brig. Gen. Suheil al-Hassan's division are among hundreds of Russian-trained Syrian fighters who have reportedly signed up to fight alongside Russian troops in Ukraine, including Syrian soldiers, former rebels and experienced fighters who fought for years against the Islamic State group in Syria's desert.

In a "tunnel city" under the sandy soils of southern Gaza, Palestinian militants are preparing for the next conflict with Israel, as tensions in Jerusalem threaten to escalate.

The coffin was made from pieces of a closet. In a darkened basement under a building shaking from the bombardment of war, there were few other options.

Six-year-old Vlad watched as his mother was carried out of the shelter last month and to the yard of a nearby home. The burial was hurried and devastating.

The thought of an extreme-right leader standing at the helm of the European Union would be abhorrent to most in the 27-nation bloc. But if Emmanuel Macron falters in the April 24 French presidential elections, it might be two weeks away.

Experts say a win for far-right candidate Marine Le Pen would have immense repercussions on the functioning of the EU. Not only would her coming to power damage the democratic values and commercial rules of the 27-nation bloc, but it would also threaten the EU's common front and sanctions that have been built in response to Russia's war in Ukraine.

Economic and financial experts have reiterated doubts over the willingness of Lebanon's political elite, widely blamed for endemic corruption, to implement the reforms requested by the International Monetary Fund to resuscitate the economy, shortly after Lebanon and the IMF reached a tentative deal.

A former vice governor of Lebanon's central bank, Nasser Saidi, said he had doubts that such reforms would ever materialize.

A month before a highly symbolic May 9 parade on Red Square that celebrates victory in World War II, Russian President Vladimir Putin's troops face considerable challenges in Ukraine.

Here are some of Moscow's military and social objectives:

A spike in global energy prices benefits Saudi Arabia as the world's top oil exporter, but problems remain for the kingdom's impulsive crown prince.

Whether trying to find jobs for a growing number of unemployed youth or finding a way to end the long war he launched in Yemen, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his father King Salman now face a potential pivot point for the kingdom amid Russia's war on Ukraine.

Tia Rutherford is worried about her 3-year-old son.

As energy prices soared last fall, she tacked fleece blankets over her doors and windows to keep the cold out and started serving Jacob breakfast in his room so she didn't have to heat the living room. But she's consumed by worry that she can't pay her utility bills and that her son isn't warm enough.