A United Nations agency paused the evacuation of ships through the Strait of Hormuz after the British military said a vessel was hit by a projectile off the coast of Oman.

President Donald Trump says he has “demanded” that about seven countries heavily reliant on Middle East oil join a coalition to police the Strait of Hormuz.

An aid group reports that only a few thousand Sudanese have escaped atrocities by Sudan's paramilitary forces in el-Fasher city.

An Emirati diplomat earlier identified by Tehran as carrying a letter from U.S. President Donald Trump seeking to jump-start talks over Iran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program has met with Iran’s foreign minister.

The al-Qaida-linked militant group al-Shabab has claimed an attack that killed four Emirati troops and a Bahraini military officer at a military base in the Somali capital.

TANZANIA – Russia and China blocked the official release of a report by U.N. experts on Libya that accused its warring parties and their international backers -- including Russia -- of violating a U.N. arms embargo on the conflict-wracked country, U.N. diplomats said Friday. Germany’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Günter Sautter, said he brought the issue to the Security Council after the two countries blocked the report’s release by the committee monitoring sanctions on Libya, which Germany heads. “Many delegations have asked for the publication of the panel of experts’ interim report,” he said. But finding a replacement acceptable to all Security Council diplomats has proven exceedingly difficult. Germany's Sautter said the Security Council has agreed that there will be a special envoy “and we need an agreement urgently on who that is going to be."

But its actions had an impact in the region, he said, though he wouldn’t speculate on whether other Arab countries would follow the UAE and Bahrain in establishing relations with Israel. “The only thing I want to say is the more strategic the Israelis look at these relationships, the more doors will open to them,” Gargash said. Looking back at the UAE's decision to normalize relations with Israel, Gargash said the government decided it was strategically good for the country, “and will make the UAE more of a global presence." But the Arab world and the region remain polarized, Gargash said, though “I would like to say we haven’t lost a single friend.”The UAE minister called the Iranian reaction “very alarming." ___Edith M. Lederer, chief U.N. correspondent for The Associated Press, has been covering world affairs for nearly a half-century.