By 232-196, the US House of Representatives on Thursday approved a resolution to formalize the procedures of the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, marking a significant step in the ongoing investigation and setting the stage for the next phase in the investigation, news wires reported.

Syria’s Constitutional Committee, composed of government and opposition members, met for the first time on Wednesday in the first step on what the United Nations says will be a long road to political reconciliation.

The US House of Representatives passed a resolution Tuesday officially recognising the "Armenian genocide," a symbolic but unprecedented move that angered Turkey amid already heightened tensions with Washington.

In a televised address, Lebanon's PM Saad Hariri announced on Tuesday he would submit his resignation to President Michel Aoun following nearly two weeks of unprecedented anti government protests. "It has become necessary for us to make a great shock to fix the crisis. I am going to the Baabda Palace to give my resignation," Hariri said, calling on all Lebanese to protect civil peace.

Syrian government forces and the Turkish military clashed on Tuesday for the first time since Ankara launched an offensive in northeastern Syria three weeks ago, a war monitor said. "Heavy fighting erupted for the first time between the Syrian and Turkish armies," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported, cited by AFP.

Ukrainian government troops and Russian-backed separatists have begun withdrawing from a key front-line area in eastern Ukraine. The country foreign minister Vadym Prystaiko said a planned troop withdrawal in the town of Zolote, in the eastern Luhansk region, started today, a confidence-building measure ahead of peace talks that he hopes will take place at the end of November.

Unemployment and sluggish economic growth are fuelling social tension and popular protests in several Arab countries, the International Monetary Fund said in a report on the regional economic outlook, published on Monday.

Argentines on Sunday entrusted leftists to steer the nation as it reels from a deep recession, electing as president Alberto Fernandez, giving him more than the needed 45% of the vote, or 40% and a 10-point lead over the second-place contestant - conservative incumbent Mauricio Macri. 

US President Donald Trump on Sunday announced that Islamic State founder and leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi killed himself during a daring overnight raid by elite US special operations forces in Syria, describing it as a major victory for his country.

Hundreds of Iraqi protesters have remained in Baghdad's central Tahrir Square on Sunday, despite the bloody crackdown that killed at least 60 people over the weekend and an overnight raid by security forces seeking to disperse them.