A second round of peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine mediated by the United States has begun in the United Arab Emirates, Ukraine's lead negotiator announced Wednesday.

"Another round of negotiations has begun in Abu Dhabi," the head of the Ukrainian delegation, Rustem Umerov, wrote on social media, adding Kyiv's team was seeking "to achieve a just and lasting peace."

An unlikely love story blossoming in the thick of war provides the backdrop to a new documentary that raises questions about how modern media cover conflict.

"Birds of War" traces the growing relationship between Syrian activist-cameraman Abd Alkader Habak and Lebanese journalist Janay Boulos, who was working for the BBC in London as Syria's civil war unfurled.

For Iraqis who lived through the 1990s, dictator Saddam Hussein's birthday on April 28 was a disorientating day of celebration and propaganda.

Parties were staged across the sanctions-hit country to mark the occasion, while many public squares and bridges around Baghdad were decorated with colored lights.

Israel's army will appoint its highest-ranking Muslim woman to replace chief Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee, the public face for Palestinians and Lebanese of its military campaigns, a military source said on Tuesday.

Major Ella Waweya will replace Lieutenant Colonel Avichay Adraee, who for people in Gaza and Lebanon is indelibly linked with Israel's deadly bombing campaigns and known for what are seen as provocative uses of colloquial Arabic, koranic verses and humor in his messages.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Riyadh on Tuesday, Saudi media said, his first visit to the kingdom in over two years as Saudi Arabia moves closer to its rival-turned-ally.

Ties between Turkey and Saudi Arabia have steadily recovered in recent years, with the countries cooperating on a range of diplomatic issues.

More than 50,000 people have been evacuated from their homes in northern Morocco due to severe weather and heavy rainfall affecting several provinces, the interior ministry told AFP on Tuesday.

The evacuations began on Friday, mostly in Larache province, where the city of Ksar El Kebir -- about 100 kilometres (62 miles) south of Tangier -- has seen significant flooding, the ministry said.

The Kremlin warned on Tuesday that the world was heading into a "dangerous" moment as the last U.S.-Russia nuclear treaty is set to expire this week.

New START, the last nuclear treaty between Washington and Moscow after decades of agreements dating to the Cold War, is set to expire on Thursday, and with it restrictions on the two top nuclear powers.

The Kremlin said Tuesday it had not received any indication from India that it would stop buying Russian oil following the announcement of a trade deal with U.S. President Donald Trump.

"So far, we haven't heard any statements from New Delhi on this matter," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, including AFP, a day after Trump said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised he would stop buying Russian oil as part of a deal to ease tariffs.

Kurdish forces imposed a curfew on Kurdish-majority Qamishli in northeastern Syria on Tuesday, ahead of the deployment of government troops to the city, an AFP team reported.

The curfew came after Syrian security personnel entered the mixed Kurdish-Arab city of Hasakeh and the countryside around the Kurdish town of Kobane on Monday, as part of a comprehensive agreement to gradually integrate the Kurds' military and civilian institutions into the state.

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam urged Arab countries to stand by Lebanon and to participate in the army support conference that will be held next month in Paris, as he attended on Tuesday the World Governments Summit in the UAE.

Salam said Lebanon is committed to reforms that would encourage investments and now has the war and peace decision, asking Arab "brothers" to support the crisis and war-hit country in its reformist journey and to participate "actively" in the army support conference.