24 August 2023; MEMO: Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, on Wednesday, began AL BATTAR-I, a Special Forces joint drill, to enhance bilateral relations and learn from each other’s experiences, Anadolu Agency reports.

Senior officials from the two Armed Forces attended the opening ceremony, which took place in north-western Pakistan’s Nowshera district.

23 August 2023; MEMO: Iraq has approved plans for the construction of 15 new residential cities across various governorates of the country as part of efforts to address the post-war housing crisis, according to Zawya, citing the official Arabic language daily Alsabah.

NEW DELHI (AP) — India became the first country to land a spacecraft near the moon’s south pole on Wednesday — a historic voyage to uncharted territory that scientists believe could hold vital reserves of frozen water, and a technological triumph for the world’s most populous nation.

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — Tropical Storm Franklin made landfall Wednesday on the island of Hispaniola shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti, dumping heavy rains that are expected to bring flooding and possible landslides in both countries.

MILWAUKEE (AP) — He’ll be missing from the stage, but Donald Trump will still be a central figure at the first Republican presidential primary debate Wednesday night as the remaining candidates hoping to take on President Joe Biden confront each other in person for the first time.

LONDON (AP) — A British jury ruled Wednesday that two teenagers were part of a hacking and blackmail campaign against technology companies including the maker of the “Grand Theft Auto” game series.

Jurors at Southwark Crown Court in London said 18-year-old Arion Kurtaj committed 12 offenses including computer hacking, blackmail and fraud. A 17-year-old defendant who can’t be identified because of his age was convicted of fraud, blackmail and carrying out an unauthorized act to impair the operation of a computer.

ATLANTA (AP) — Former President Donald Trump is expected to surrender on Thursday at the jail in Georgia’s most populous county — an overcrowded facility with a reputation for violence and neglect that has prompted a federal investigation into conditions there.

Trump will be released from Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, known colloquially as the Rice Street jail, once he is booked on charges of illegally scheming to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia.

BEDFORD, N.Y. (AP) — A black bear attacked a 7-year-old boy outside his family’s home in suburban New York, sending the child to a hospital with injuries that were not life threatening, officials said.

The attack happened shortly after 11 a.m. Tuesday outside a home in Bedford, about 45 miles northeast of New York City.

North Castle Police Chief Peter Simonsen told News 12 Westchester that the child was playing in his backyard with a sibling when the bear attacked. The boy’s parents quickly rescued their son, said Simonsen, who called the response “extremely brave.”

ATLANTA (AP) — Rudy Giuliani turned himself in at a jail in Atlanta on Wednesday on charges related to efforts to overturn then-President Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

The former New York mayor, was indicted last week along with Trump and 17 others. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said they participated in a wide-ranging conspiracy to subvert the will of the voters after the Republican president lost to Democrat Joe Biden in November 2020.

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Cyprus said Wednesday it dismantled a criminal human smuggling ring responsible for bringing boatloads of Syrian migrants from Syria, Lebanon and Turkey. The eastern Mediterranean island nation has seen almost daily migrant boat arrivals in recent days.

Cypriot police said three months of investigative work resulted in the arrest of five suspects following a raid by a combined force of 40 officers on several homes in the island’s southeast.

NIAMEY, Niger (AP) — After three months of crossing the desert and then watching other migrants die at sea in his failed attempt to reach Europe, Sahr John Yambasu gave up on getting across the Mediterranean and decided to go back home.

The 29-year-old from Sierra Leone reached Niger in June on his return journey, but United Nations officials said he had to wait for packed migrant centers to empty before he could be repatriated.

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Advancing flames devoured forests and homes as dozens of wildfires raged across Greece on Wednesday, leaving 20 people dead over the past three days, while major blazes also burned in northwestern Turkey near the Greek border and on Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands.