War-torn Yemen received the first shipment of Covid-19 vaccines on Wednesday, the UN children's agency said, a week after the country's coronavirus committee warned of a public health "emergency".

A deadly attack on December 30, 2020 on Aden airport in Yemen was carried out with missiles similar to those possessed by Huthi rebels and fired from locations under their control, according to a report submitted to the UN Security Council.

Israel's President Reuven Rivlin has said he will pick a candidate to form the next government by April 7, following a tightly fought general election.

The first Syrian refugee to run for a seat in the German parliament has withdrawn his candidacy due to racism and threats, the environmentalist Green party said Tuesday.

Kurdish forces said Tuesday they had arrested 53 suspected Islamic State group members in a northeast Syria camp for relatives of jihadists, in an anti-IS security operation.

The European Union and the United States pledged a combined $1.2 billion in aid Tuesday to help tackle war-ravaged Syria's deepening humanitarian and economic crises.

The promise of aid comes amid a worsening coronavirus pandemic and as the war enters its 11th year without a political solution in sight. The 27-nation EU and the U.S. announced their commitments on the final day of an annual pledging event co-hosted by the United Nations.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi promised Tuesday that his country would buy equipment to avoid any repetition of the past week's closure of the Suez Canal as he visited Ismailia, en route to the vital trade artery.

Experts on Tuesday boarded the massive container ship that had blocked Egypt's vital Suez Canal and disrupted global trade for nearly a week, seeking answers to a single question that could mean billions of dollars in legal implications: What went wrong?

As convoys of ships again began traveling in this artery linking East and West through the Mediterranean and Red Seas, hundreds more idled waiting for their turn in process that will take days. Egyptian government officials, insurers, shippers and others similarly waited for more details about what caused the skyscraper-sized Ever Given to become wedged across the canal's southern single-lane on March 23.

Syrian President Bashar Assad and his wife have recovered from COVID-19 and returned to their regular duties on Tuesday, three weeks after they had tested positive for the coronavirus, the president's office said.

According to the statement, Syria's first couple had their PCR tests and the results were negative, and the mild symptoms of the virus that they had experienced before were now gone.

The MV Ever Given was refloated and the Suez Canal reopened Monday, sparking relief almost a week after the huge container ship got stuck during a sandstorm and blocked a major artery for global trade.