Russian Telegram channels showed pictures of special forces in gas masks and lights, some using colourful Russian curses, along the inside of what looked like a large pipe.

France also plans to hand over some of its older armoured fighting vehicles, such as its AMX-10RC and personnel carriers, Lecornu told La Tribune weekend newspaper.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitor, said on Saturday more than 1,000 people had been killed in the two days of fighting.

Francis, 88, has been in Rome’s Gemelli hospital for more than three weeks with a severe respiratory infection that has required continuously evolving treatment.

Some 316,540 people were without power in Queensland’s southeast, where the Gold Coast city was the worst-hit area with more than 112,000 without power due to the storm system.

Yoon, 64, remains suspended from his duties, and his criminal and impeachment trials continue over his short-lived imposition of martial law on December 3.

A delegation from Hamas is engaging in ceasefire talks in Cairo with Egyptian mediators who have been helping facilitate the talks along with officials from Qatar.

The new ruling authority on Thursday began a crackdown on what it said was a nascent insurgency after deadly ambushes by militants linked to former president Bashar al-Assad's government.

A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police said they were alerted to the incident at Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben) at 0724 GMT.

Thousands of members of the militant Islamist group are being held in prison camps in northeast Syria, guarded by the US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Photographs of partially destroyed buildings engulfed in flames and rescue workers clearing debris were also published by the ministry.

The levies, announced by the commerce ministry and scheduled to take effect on March 20, match the 100% and 25% import duties Canada slapped on China-made electric vehicles and steel and aluminium products just over four months ago.

Myanmar has been turmoil since early 2021, when the military ousted an elected civilian government led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, triggering a protest movement that morphed into an armed rebellion against the junta

Russian forces have almost surrounded thousands of Ukrainian troops who stormed into Russia’s Kursk region last summer in a shock incursion which Kyiv had hoped to use as leverage over Moscow in any peace talks.

The ruling did not dismiss the criminal charges that led to Yoon’s arrest on January 15, and the case is separate from his impeachment, which is still pending before the Constitutional Court.