(From Washington,) this is VOA news. I'm Jonathan Jones reporting.

President Donald Trump promised new support for the Iranian people Wednesday.

On Twitter, he said great "respect for the people of Iran as they try to take back their corrupt government. You will see great support from the United States at the appropriate time!"

But Iran's state media reported that tens of thousands of pro-government demonstrators staged rallies across the country after days of anti-government protests.

Iranian state television on Wednesday showed video of crowds waving Iranian flags and chanting in support of their supreme leader. Later in the day, Iran's Revolutionary Guards said the anti-government protests that erupted over the past few days were at an end.

Somali government officials say al-Shabaab militants have executed five men accused of spying for the Somali government and for Kenyan and Ethiopian forces.

VOA's Somali service reporter Mohamed Olad Hassan reports.

The five men were publicly executed by a firing squad in the town of Kuntuwarey in Lower Shabelle region.

Aden Omar, the district commissioner of nearby Barawe said, "The men, innocent civilians, were paraded in an open ground in Kuntuwarey town late Tuesday and a firing squad carried out the execution."

Radio Andalus, al-Shabaab's official mouthpiece, broadcast the voice of an al-Shabaab judge announcing the sentence against the men. Omar said, "The judge who announced the verdict did not show any evidence of the accusations against the victims."

He told VOA's Somali service that 500 residents watched the executions, which were the first carried out by al-Shabaab in the new year.

This is VOA news.

China's ban on the domestic ivory trade has gone into effect after being announced at the end of 2016. Some conservationists in Africa are calling it the best news for elephants in years. But there is concern that the market will shift to nearby countries.

From Nairobi, VOA correspondent Jill Craig reports.

Philip Muruthi, vice president of species conservation at the African Wildlife Foundation, praises the ban and notes the importance of preventing the market from shifting to other locations and he says elephants will not be the only beneficiaries.

"About 35,000 elephants - the number we've heard quoted many times - are lost each year. There are about 415,000 elephants on this continent. That means that within 20 years, if the pace is kept of that loss, we will not have elephants, and therefore, all the aspirations that African people have for using wildlife and associated habitat for development, for tourism in countries like Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania and all that, those aspirations will not be met. So this is big. This is not just about elephants. It's also about the economy, it's about African peoples' well-being. So it's about our heritage. So this is a significant step that China has taken."

Conservationists say that although combating poaching is critical, one of the bigger threats to elephants in the long-term is habitat management. They urge African governments, and China, through its support, to help reduce these threats.

Jill Craig, VOA news, Nairobi.

A suicide bomber attacked a mosque in Nigeria's northern Borno state Wednesday, killing at least 10 people.

Witnesses say the attacker entered the mosque in the town of Gamboru shortly before dawn prayers and detonated his explosives, reducing the building to rubble.

No one has claimed responsibility for the bombing. But it does bear the hallmark of the insurgent group, Boko Haram.

Five Kenyan police officers are dead after their vehicle was attacked by members of the al-Shabaab militant group on Wednesday. It happened in the northern county of Mandera near the shared border with Somalia.

Pakistan has extended for one month the stay of around 1.4 million Afghan refugees who lost their legal residency status on December 31 of 2017.

Under a trilateral [government] agreement, that is, with Afghanistan and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, the host government was considering a proposed one-year extension in the validity of the Proof of Registration cards for the refugees.

You can find more on these and other late breaking and developing stories, from around the world, around the clock, at voanews.com and on the VOA news mobile app. I'm Jonathan Jones reporting from the world headquarters of the Voice of America in Washington.

That's the latest world news from VOA.