LONDON: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday held a phone call with his Omani counterpart Sayyid Badr Al-Busaidi, the US State Department said on Friday.
“The secretary thanked the foreign minister for Oman’s efforts to strengthen and extend the truce in Yemen,” Spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.
He added that both sides also discussed Iran and opportunities for greater cooperation on regional issues. 
Blinken also said that he was looking forward to hosting Albusaidi in Washington soon.

NEW YORK: New York prosecutors have seized five Egyptian antiques from the Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of an international trafficking investigation involving the former head of Paris’s Louvre Museum.
The artifacts — which include a group of painted linen fragments, dated between 250 and 450 B.C., depicting a scene from the Book of Exodus — are worth more than $3 million, according to the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
A New York state judge ordered their confiscation on May 19, a court document shows.

DUBAI: The culture of charitable giving in Saudi Arabia has been highlighted as a noteworthy example of “strategic philanthropy” by a new report from the Center for Strategic Philanthropy at the UK’s University of Cambridge Judge Business School.

The report, titled System Change in Philanthropy for Development: A Research Framework for Global Growth Markets, recommends philanthropists pursue greater localization alongside the utilization of new financial instruments to optimize charitable giving.

KHARTOUM: A protester was shot dead in the Sudanese capital Friday, medics said, as pro-democracy demonstrators rallied to demand justice for those killed in a bloody crackdown three years ago to the day.
Thousands took to the streets in Khartoum and other cities to commemorate the 128 people who medics say were killed when armed men in military fatigues violently dispersed a months-long sit-in outside army headquarters.
The latest demonstrations came as UN human rights expert Adama Dieng visited Sudan and urged authorities to “refrain from use of excessive force.”

TEL AVIV: Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank early on Thursday. He was the third Palestinian to be killed in a little over 24 hours at a time of heightened Mideast tensions.

The Israeli military said forces operating in the Dheisheh refugee camp in the West Bank city of Bethlehem opened fire after being pelted with rocks and makeshift bombs. The Palestinian Health Ministry said Ayman Mheisen, 29, was killed.