The US is moving $3.5 billion to the new "Afghan Fund," but officials said they won't release the money imminently to an institution in Afghanistan because there is no trusted institution to guarantee the funds will benefit the Afghan people, the officials said.

Instead, it will be administered by an outside body, independent of the Taliban and the country's central bank.

A cease-fire between Armenia and Azerbaijan held Thursday following two days of fighting that killed 176 soldiers from both sides.

Armen Grigoryan, the secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, said the truce brokered thanks to international mediation took effect at 8 p.m. (1600 GMT) Wednesday. A previous cease-fire that Russia brokered Tuesday had quickly failed.

Fighting has cooled in recent years after Iran and Russia helped Assad recapture 70 percent of Syrian territory, the United States backed Kurdish fighters that defeated Islamic State militants, and Turkey set up a buffer zone near its border. But the United Nations said fault lines between various areas are now starting to heat up again.

"We had an idea at some point that the war was completely finished in Syria," Pinheiro told journalists in Geneva, adding that incidents documented in the report proved this was not the case.

Colombia has asked the Venezuelan government of President Nicolas Maduro to be guarantor of talks with the National Liberation Army, or ELN, the last active rebel group in a country torn by decades of conflict.

In a speech, Maduro said, "Of course we agree!" It thus joins Chile and Cuba as guarantors of talks that the Bogota government hopes to hold with the ELN.

Petro has said there would soon be a meeting with the ELN in Venezuela, which Colombian military intelligence has said is hosting senior ELN leaders.

"The Ethiopian government is committed to the AU-led peace process and expressed hope that the EU would support efforts to end the conflict peacefully," the ministry quoted Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Demeke Mekonnen as saying at a meeting with a visiting EU envoy.

The outbreak of cholera in Syria presents a serious threat to people in the war-torn country and the region, a U.N. official said Tuesday, adding that urgent action is needed to prevent further cases and deaths.

The UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Syria, Imran Riza, said that based on a rapid assessment conducted by health authorities and partners, the source of infection is believed to be linked to people drinking unsafe water from the Euphrates River and using contaminated water to irrigate crops, resulting in food contamination.

Hundreds of people, including relatives of those lost in killings involving state forces, gathered in Belfast to demand the scrapping of the government's contentious plan to deal with the legacy of the Northern Ireland Troubles.

The head of a United Nations team investigating human rights abuses in Myanmar has said that the scope and scale of alleged international crimes taking place in Myanmar “broadened dramatically” during the past year, as the military sought to assert its control in the wake of the February 2021 coup.

Gaston Browne, prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, announced he plans to hold a referendum within the next three years to decide whether to remove the king as head of state and become a republic.

"This is a matter that has to be taken to a referendum for the people to decide," Browne told ITV News.

"It is a final step to complete the circle of independence to become a truly sovereign nation," he also said.

Uganda has paid $65m in the first installment of the $325m it was ordered to pay the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as compensation for losses caused by wars in the 1990s when Ugandan troops occupied Congolese territory.

In a case first brought against Uganda in 1999, DRC asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to compel Uganda to pay it $11bn as reparations for the deaths, looting, and general economic damage caused by Uganda’s military occupation of parts of DRC in the 1990s.