The top U.S. diplomat for Latin America expressed concern Monday about the "violent silencing" of dissidents in Cuba, days before the resumption of U.S.-Cuba talks.

"Concerned about violent silencing of peaceful voices for change in Cuba," tweeted Roberta Jacobson, who last month led the first negotiations on restoring diplomatic ties between Washington and Havana after decades in the deep freeze.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman Monday hailed a U.S. jury's order for Palestinian authorities to pay $128 million in damages to American victims of 2002-2004 attacks in Israel as a "moral victory."

"This decision constitutes above all a moral victory for the state of Israel and for victims of terrorism," Lieberman said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the United States on Monday of plunging the Middle East into chaos and fueling the rise of extremists because of its drive to dominate the world.

Lavrov leveled the fierce criticism of Washington's policies at a special U.N. Security Council debate on maintaining international peace and security.

It may be a meeting of allies, but when Qatar's emir holds talks with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington on Tuesday, there are several issues which could test that friendship.

The meeting will be the first official visit to the White House by Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, who has been Qatar's ruler since June 2013.

The United States and Iran said Monday they had made some progress in the latest round of talks on Tehran's nuclear program, but warned there was still a long way to go to reach a final deal.

Negotiators for Iran and six world powers have held a range of meetings in Geneva since Friday, and plan further talks in the city next week, a senior U.S. administration official said.

About 800 Iraqi forces backed by U.S. warplanes are waging a battle to retake the western town of al-Baghdadi from Islamic State jihadists, a U.S. military commander said Monday.

Kurdish militia, meanwhile, rebuffed an attempt by the IS group on Sunday night to recapture an Iraqi town standing on a crucial supply route to the northern city of Mosul, the commander said.

The U.S. Supreme Court will make a rare foray into popular clothing Wednesday to weigh in on accusations that Abercrombie & Fitch illegally rejected a Muslim job applicant because of her hijab.

Abercrombie argued that its store policy forbids sales staff -- whom it calls "models" -- from wearing "caps" of any sort, and that Samantha Elauf, then 17, should have made clear in her 2008 interview that she could not comply due to her religion.

Russia has offered Iran advanced surface-to-air missiles after scrapping a similar deal in 2010 because of U.N. sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program, the state defense company said Monday.

Any such a deal is likely to go down badly in Washington as Western countries seek to keep up the pressure on Iran to agree a comprehensive deal on its nuclear activities.

Head of the parliamentary energy committee MP Mohammed Qabbani stressed that the delay in exploring Lebanon's offshore gas and oil exploration is due to technical obstacles and other unannounced interests as officials are at loggerheads over the demarcation of the 10 maritime oil exploration blocks.

“We have agreed to open the tenders for three blocks as a first step, but the main obstacles impeding the process remains the adoption of the petroleum decrees,” Qabbani said in comments published in An Nahar newspaper on Monday.

The Lebanese state has accomplished most of the contracts under a $1 billion aid by Saudi Arabia as a batch of the arms is expected to be handed over “soon” to security agencies.

A prominent security source stressed in comments published in al-Mustaqbal newspaper on Monday that the Lebanese military finalized all the deals linked to its $500 million as a batch of light arms is “on its way” to be delivered.