An elderly Lebanese priest found guilty in France of sexually assaulting children has been defrocked by the Vatican, the Assembly of Catholic Patriarchs and Bishops of Lebanon said.

Saudi Arabia said Thursday it will launch a training program with the goal of sending its own astronauts, including a woman, into space next year.

The kingdom is actively promoting science and technology as part of its wide-ranging Vision 2030 plan to overhaul its economy and reduce its dependency on oil.

From a Lebanese student decrying government failures through art to a Palestinian teacher seeking escape in music, young people across the Middle East are creatively giving voice to complex situations.

In a series exploring youth aspirations in the volatile region -- where more than half of the population is under 30 -- AFP speaks to artists in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the Gaza Strip, Israel and Iraq about the hardships, uncertainties and challenges they face.

Nabila works 10 hours or more a day, doing the heavy, dirty labor of packing mud into molds and hauling wheelbarrows full of bricks. At 12 years old, she's been working in brick factories half her life now, and she's probably the oldest of all her co-workers.

Already high, the number of children put to work in Afghanistan is growing, fueled by the collapse of the economy after the Taliban took over the country and the world cut off financial aid just over a year ago.

Young people across Lebanon are creatively giving voice to complex situations by decrying government failures through art.

Lebanese fine arts student Ali Merhi is finishing his degree as his country endures its worst-ever economic crisis, with unemployment around 30 percent, the local currency in free fall, and faltering electricity and water supplies.

In a war-scarred Beirut heritage house turned museum, archives of Lebanon's troubled past fuse with artistic depictions of its grim present to portray a country seemingly in perpetual turmoil.

Newspaper clippings, film negatives and diary entries from the years before Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war tell a story of government corruption, public sector strikes and student protests.

Fresh protests broke out Monday at several universities in Iran's capital, local media reported, over the death of a young woman who had been arrested by the "morality police" that enforces a strict dress code.

Iranian police have fired tear gas to disperse a protest rally in the country's west following the funeral ceremony for a young woman who died while in police custody in Tehran earlier this week, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

The police have said that 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was detained on Tuesday after Iran's so-called "morality police" found fault with her headscarf, or hijab, had died of a heart attack. The police have also released closed circuit footage from the police station, which they say shows the moment Amini collapsed. A relative has said she had no history of heart disease.

Pope Francis is studying a possible visit to Bahrain in November and said he is looking to reschedule his trip to South Sudan and Congo for February.

Francis told reporters en route home from Kazakhstan that his strained knee ligaments still hadn't healed and that travelling was "difficult." But the 85-year-old pontiff said he would undertake a next trip — a reference to a three-day visit to Bahrain in early November that is currently under study by the Vatican, spokesman Matteo Bruni said.

Against the backdrop of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Pope Francis told the Russian Orthodox hierarchy and other faith leaders Wednesday that religion must never be used to justify the "evil" of war and that God must never "be held hostage to the human thirst for power."

Francis opened an interfaith conference in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan by challenging delegations to unite in condemning war and religious justifications for it. He cited a Kazakh poet in warning that "he who permits evil and does not oppose it cannot be regarded as a true believer. At best he is a half-hearted believer."