BAB AL-HAWA, Syria: World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Wednesday visited areas of rebel-held northwestern Syria that were devastated by last month’s earthquake, an AFP correspondent reported.

Tedros, the highest-ranking United Nations official to visit Syria’s rebel-held zones since the February 6 quake, had traveled to government-controlled areas of Aleppo and Damascus the week of the disaster.

AMMAN: Persistent clashes in the West Bank between Palestinians and Israeli settlers have forced the international community to intervene. But talks in Jordan between senior Israeli and Palestinian security officials appear to have done little to ease tensions or halt hostilities.

During a summit in Jordan’s resort town of Aqaba on Sunday, Israeli and the Palestinian officials pledged in a joint statement to work together to prevent further outbreaks. Both sides “reaffirmed the need to commit to de-escalation on the ground and to prevent further violence.”

BEIRUT: Escalating political confusion sent the Lebanese pound plummeting to a new low on the black market, trading at 90,000 pounds to the dollar on Wednesday.
The latest plunge in the local currency means the exchange rate is more than 60 times lower than the base rate of 1,500 LBP/USD that has been in place for the past three years.
Amid warnings of looming economic chaos, the Finance Ministry set the price of the customs dollar at 45,000 Lebanese pounds so the state treasury could pay public sector salaries.

IDLIB: Damage from last month’s Turkiye-Syria earthquake is exerting new pressure on northwestern Syria’s already strained education sector.
Harem, a city in Idlib, an opposition-held territory, was hit particularly badly by the quake.
Mohamed Al-Khatib is a quake survivor and local headteacher at Harem Rural School.
The three-building school he runs is one of the many educational facilities that the quake damaged and rendered unusable.

BAGHDAD: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres arrived in Iraq for his first visit in six years Tuesday in a show of “solidarity” after a drawn-out political crisis in the country.
Guterres said he wanted to demonstrate “solidarity with the people and the democratic institutions of Iraq and a solidarity that means that the United Nations is totally committed to support the consolidation of the institutions in this country.”