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Iraq

Parliament approves cabinet resignation

Iraq's parliament on Sunday approved the resignation of Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi's government after two months of protests that have left more than 420 people dead. The premier said on Friday he would submit his resignation to Parliament. The Parliament speaker said on Sunday he would now ask President Barham Saleh to name a new prime minister.

Israel

Palestinian man killed by soldiers in W. Bank

Israeli soldiers shot dead on Saturday a Palestinian young man near the southern West Bank city of Hebron. The Palestinian Health Ministry said the man was shot dead by Israeli soldiers in the village of Beit Awa, south of Hebron. Palestinian security sources said that Israeli soldiers opened fire at three Palestinian young men who were trying to throw a Molotov cocktail bottle at Israeli army forces, and one of them was killed. The Israeli army said that the three men were found trying to throw fire bombs at an Israeli vehicle, and the Israeli soldiers shot one of them and arrested the other two.

Albania

Govt seeks global help to recover from quake

Albania's Prime Minister Edi Rama said on Sunday he has called on the international community for financial aid and expert assistance to help the country recover from a 6.4 magnitude earthquake that killed 51 persons and left thousands homeless. Rama said the government was reshaping the budget to deal with the crisis but that the country also needs international support. "Simply, this is humanly impossible to do this (reconstruction) alone." Rama met with a group of ambassadors on Saturday evening, including representatives from the European Union, United States, Turkey and Japan, and delivered the same message to them, he told his ministers.

United States

DiCaprio denies link to Amazon fires

US actor Leonardo DiCaprio on Saturday denied a claim by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro that he had helped fund groups allegedly linked to fires in the Amazon rainforest. "While worthy of support," the 45-year-old DiCaprio said in a statement on his Instagram account, "we did not fund the organizations targeted." In his weekly broadcast on Thursday, Bolsonaro accused DiCaprio of "collaborating with the fires in the Amazon" by donating $500,000 to a group he said had started fires in the ecologically sensitive forest in order to attract donations. While citing no evidence, Bolsonaro said that DiCaprio had earmarked a part of the $500,000"for the people who were setting fires." The Brazilian president repeated the accusations on Friday.

Agencies - Xinhua

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