APRNEWS - Syrian pro-government media say troops have captured a village and a strategic hill from insurgents in the country's northwest.

The government-controlled Syrian Central Military Media says troops captured the village of al-Bani and the nearby Othman hill in the northern countryside of Hama province.

APRNEWS - Dozens of combatants were killed as pro-government forces closed in on rebel forces in the heart of the Yemeni port city of Hodeida on Thursday, hospital sources said.

Medics at hospitals inside the city reported 47 rebels had been killed in overnight ground fighting and air raids by a Saudi-led coalition supporting the government.

REUTERS - South Sudan rebel leader Riek Machar will return to the capital Juba to celebrate a peace deal on Wednesday, his group said, more than two years after he fled the country after the collapse of an earlier accord.

Machar’s office said he would hold joint peace celebrations with his long-time rival, President Salva Kiir, in Juba - though there was no immediate confirmation from the government

APRNEWS - GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) - Two South African peacekeepers were wounded in a rebel ambush near the epicenter of an Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, their U.N. mission said on Tuesday.

REUTERS - Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday that the Russian military was in talks with leaders of armed groups in Syria’s rebel-held Idlib province to reach a peace settlement, Russian news agency RIA reported.

Shoigu said the aim of the Idlib talks was to reach peaceful resolution similar to the settlements in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta and Deraa, RIA said.

APRNEWS - Mass vaccination in the Democratic Republic of Congo in an attempt to stem the Ebola epidemic that has already claimed at least 75 lives.

During the vaccination, thousands of people received doses as well as new drugs tested in the Beni region of North Kivu province.

APRNEWS - Earlier this year, Ethiopia looked on the brink of widespread unrest as protests broke out against the government and abuses by security forces. But after just four months in office, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is steering the ship in a new direction.

APRNEWS - A US-backed Kurdish-led alliance is holding talks in Damascus for the first time on the future of the swathe of northern Syria under its control, an alliance official said on Friday.

APRNEWS - The foreign ministry in Damascus condemned on Monday the evacuation of hundreds of trapped White Helmets rescue workers and their relatives from Syria's south through its arch-foe and neighbour, Israel.

REUTERS - Government helicopters dropped barrel bombs on the city of Deraa on Monday for the first time in nearly a year, a rebel and a war monitor said, extending an assault in southwest Syria.