CIUDAD EVITA, Argentina (AP) — As Argentina heads for a presidential runoff election on Sunday, the decades-old populist movement known as Peronism is on shaky ground, its candidate having lost some traction even among longtime loyalists living in a suburb of the capital that is its literal and figurative embodiment.

BEIRUT, Nov. 17 (Xinhua) -- Lebanese experts on Thursday highlighted the challenges posed by the Syrian refugees in Lebanon and the necessity of finding a suitable resolution to address them.

Ziad Sayegh, an expert in refugee and immigration affairs and executive director of Civic Influence Hub, a non-governmental organization, said the first step that the Lebanese government must take is to collect data and know the precise number of Syrian refugees, a move that he says would give a clearer idea of the real situation on the ground.

MOSCOW, Nov. 17 (Xinhua) -- Russia had begun free shipments of grain totaling up to 200,000 tons to Africa by the end of the year, Agriculture Minister Dmitry Patrushev said Friday.

"The first two ships, each carrying 25,000 tons (of grain), have already left Russian ports and are heading for Somalia and Burkina Faso," he said.

The ships are expected to arrive in the two African countries by the end of this month or early December, Patrushev said.

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 16 (Xinhua) -- In a world shadowed by the turmoil in Ukraine and Gaza, the urgency for reforming the UN Security Council has reached an unprecedented peak, Dennis Francis, president of the 78th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA), said on Thursday.

Amid the assembly's annual discourse, evaluating the United Nations' foremost platform for peace and security, Francis conveyed with deep conviction that without fundamental structural reform, the council's effectiveness and credibility are destined to progressively diminish.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The wreckage goes on for block after devastated block. The smell is sickening. Every day, hundreds of people claw through tons of rubble with shovels and iron bars and their bare hands.

They are looking for the bodies of their children. Their parents. Their neighbors. All of them killed in Israeli missile strikes. The corpses are there, somewhere in the endless acres of destruction.

NAIROBI, Nov. 17 (Xinhua) -- Kenya's economy could face setbacks without climate actions designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adjustments to the effects of climate change, the World Bank said in a report released Friday.

According to the Kenya Country Climate and Development Report, inaction against climate change could result in a decline of 3.61 percent to 7.25 percent in real gross domestic product (GDP) relative to the business-as-usual baseline scenario by the year 2050.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s troops secured multiple bridgeheads on the eastern bank of the Dnieper River in the Kherson region in fighting that the country’s marine corps described Friday as having left nearly 3,500 Russians killed or wounded and dozens of ammunition depots, tanks, armored vehicles and other weaponry destroyed.

KIGALI, Nov. 17 (Xinhua) -- The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, in collaboration with the Rwandan Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources and the City of Kigali, launched a campaign on Thursday to plant fruit trees in 100 schools in the Rwandan capital.

The campaign, dubbed "Healthy Forest, Healthy Planet," aims at promoting environmental awareness and sustainable agriculture in schools and in farms by planting more than 20,000 trees.

LUCKNOW, India (AP) — Rescuers drilled deeper into the rubble of a collapsed road tunnel in northern India on Friday to fix wide pipes for 40 workers trapped underground for a sixth day to crawl to their freedom.

Drilling with a new machine started on Thursday and has covered a stretch of 24 meters (78 feet) so far, Devendra Patwal, a disaster management official, said.

It may require up to 60 meters (195 feet) to enable the trapped workers’ escape, Patwal told The Associated Press on Friday.

Tehran, IRNA - In the latest Israeli attempt to justify their crimes, Israeli soldiers claimed they found Hamas' military equipment during a raid in Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, but no evidence yet of a vast tunnel network it claimed was used by Hamas, media reports said.

London, Nov 17 (PTI) A teenager who died of stab injuries in a street fight in south-west London has been identified by the Metropolitan Police on Friday as Simarjeet Singh Nangpal, a British Sikh.

The Met Police said four men, aged 21, 27, 31, and 71, remain in custody after being arrested on suspicion of the murder, which occurred in the Hounslow area of London in the early hours of Wednesday.

Tehran, IRNA – In an open letter to US President Joe Biden, The Elders said that destroying Gaza and killing civilians will not make the Zionists safe.

The letter, which was published on Thursday, added that “these actions will breed more terrorism, across the region and beyond”.