AKKA, Morocco: In the depths of Morocco’s Akka oasis, two archaeologists pore over the floor of a synagogue searching for the minutest of fragments testifying to the country’s ancient Jewish history.

They are from a team of six researchers from Morocco, Israel and France, part of a project to revive the North African country’s Jewish heritage after it was all but lost following the minority’s exodus.

BEIRUT: When Caroline Sadaka buys groceries in the Lebanese capital Beirut, she keeps her phone in hand – not to check her shopping list but to calculate the spiralling costs of goods now priced at volatile exchange rates that vary by store and sector.
As Lebanon’s economy continues to collapse, an array of exchange rates for the local pound has emerged, complicating personal accounting and dimming hopes of fulfilling a reform requirement set out by the International Monetary Fund.

RAMALLAH: About 10,000 Palestinian students living in Israel and studying in Palestinian universities in the West Bank have faced challenges recently due to the escalation of Israeli army incursions into Palestinian cities, arrests and killings.

At least 250 of them have left universities and returned to their places of residence inside Israel, sources confirmed to Arab News.

ANKARA: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has ended months of diplomatically charged delays and  asked parliament to quickly back Finland’s bid to join NATO.
A simultaneous decision by fellow holdout Hungary to schedule a Finnish ratification vote for March 27 means the US-led defense alliance will likely grow to 31 nations within a few months.
NATO’s expansion into a country with a 1,340-km border with Russia will roughly double the length of the bloc’s current frontier with its Cold War-era foe.

AL-MUKALLA: A commercial ship was attacked by machine-gun fire on Friday off the coast of the western Yemeni province of Hodeidah — the first maritime incident in the Red Sea since the beginning of the year, according to an analysis group based in the UK.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations issued an alert and reported that the vessel’s security team fired back at the attackers and that both the vessel and its crew were unharmed.