The kingdom has generally sought to quell speculation over the health of the 86-year-old monarch, who has ruled the top oil exporter and the Arab world's biggest economy since 2015.

A proposal by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees to delegate some services to other United Nations agencies has sparked outrage among Palestinians, who have warned of a plot to "dismantle" the body. 

A Palestinian man and an Israeli guard were killed in separate West Bank incidents following clashes on Friday.

The presidency said Erdogan will discuss Ankara's relations with the kingdom in meetings during the trip, as well as ways to increase cooperation.

According to a 134-page document seen by Italian daily Il Corriere della Sera and sent to the Paris court of appeal in March, a fire on board was likely to have been caused by the conjunction of two factors.

Israel, widely believed to have the Middle East's only atomic arsenal, says it will not be bound by any Iran nuclear deal and could eventually take unilateral action against Iranian nuclear sites.

Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi announced his resignation on April 7, handing his powers to a new leadership council as Yemen entered into a fragile ceasefire that brought a rare pause in the years-long conflict.

Israeli police said that before dawn "dozens of masked men" marched into Al-Aqsa chanting and setting off fireworks before crowds hurled stones towards the Western Wall -- considered the holiest site where Jews can pray.

The sketch aired this week by MBC, the biggest pan-Arab entertainment network, shows Biden, played by comedian Khaled Al-Faraj, falling asleep at a podium twice in under a minute while straining to deliver a "stern message" to Russian President Vladimir Putin concerning the war in Ukraine.

"The first day of Ramadan will be tomorrow" for Shiites in Iraq, state media said Saturday, citing the office of the country's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi and Qatar's Deputy Foreign Minister Lolwah Al Khater together held talks with the Taliban's acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in Doha amid mounting concern over rights in the country, especially for women.

Teachers and students from three high schools around the capital Kabul said girls had returned in excitement to campuses on Wednesday morning, but were ordered to go home. They said many students left in tears.

Johnson arrived in the United Arab Emirates and will later visit Saudi Arabia as part of efforts to secure additional oil flows to replace Russian hydrocarbons and increase diplomatic pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin over his invasion of Ukraine.

Israeli media said Friday that a senior Ukrainian official accused Prime Minister Naftali Bennett of acting as a mailbox for Russian demands.

The act of "sabotage and terrorism" follows a series of similar attacks on Saudi facilities by Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels, who are fighting a Saudi-led coalition.

Moscow entered the Syrian civil war in 2015 on the side of President Bashar al-Assad's regime, and the country has been mired in a conflict marked by urban combat for more than a decade.

The de facto leader, 36, also called the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi "a huge mistake" for which he was unfairly blamed, and revealed a penchant for hit TV series "Game of Thrones".

"This isn't a place -- with all due respect, you know -- like Iraq or Afghanistan that has seen conflict raging for decades," said Charlie D'Agata of US network CBS News.

Africans in Ukraine, many of them students, are among hundreds of thousands of people trying to flee into Poland and other neighbours.

Bennett was welcomed by Bahrain's Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani at Manama airport, which was decorated with the flags of both countries, late on Monday. He will meet King Hamad and Crown Prince Salman, who is also prime minister, on Tuesday.

But Damullah Mohibullah Mowaffaq has a reputation as one of the top snipers in the ranks of the Taliban, until last summer waging war to take control of the country.

The Center for Global Development think tank said a review of 535 public-private infrastructure deals funded in the region in those years showed that China's investments dwarfed those of other governments and multilateral development banks.

"Israel's cruel policies of segregation, dispossession and exclusion across all territories under its control clearly amount to apartheid," said Amnesty's secretary general Agnes Callamard.

Flight 302 from Addis Ababa to Nairobi plunged six minutes after take-off into a field southeast of the Ethiopian capital in March 2019, five months after a similar crash in Indonesia left 189 people dead.

The report, an advance copy of which was seen by AFP on Sunday, describes severe curtailing of human rights by Afghanistan's fundamentalist new rulers.

Universities in warmer provinces will reopen from Feb. 2, while those in colder areas would reopen on Feb. 26, the minister, Shaikh Abdul Baqi Haqqani, told a news conference in Kabul.

Herzog, who is travelling with the first lady, is scheduled to meet with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan and Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, his office said. 

French historian Vincent Lemire said he expected some “hostile” responses to his book, given sensitivities surrounding Jerusalem’s holy sites.

Thai-born janitor Kriangkrai Techamong stole $20 million worth of precious gems in 1989 from the home of a Saudi prince, triggering a feud between the countries dubbed the "Blue Diamond Affair".

Saudi Arabia, home to Islam's holiest two sites, and Indonesia, which has the world's largest Muslim population, have conditioned any eventual normalisation with Israel on the addressing of the Palestinians' quest for statehood on territory captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.