Gulf leaders flew to Saudi Arabia Tuesday for a summit that could yield more breakthroughs in a regional crisis, after Riyadh re-opened its borders to Doha despite lingering enmity between the neighbours.

Qatar said Monday its ruler would attend a summit of regional leaders, marking a breakthrough in the Gulf crisis which has pitted Doha against a Saudi-led group of countries since 2017.

Saudi Arabia will reopen its borders and airspace to Qatar, the Kuwaiti foreign minister said Monday, more than three years after Riyadh sealed both and led an alliance to isolate Doha.

"Based on (Kuwait's ruler Emir) Sheikh Nawaf's proposal, it was agreed to open the airspace and land and sea borders between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the State of Qatar, starting from this evening," said Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Ahmad Nasser Al-Sabah on state TV.

An Algerian supporter of the Hirak protest movement was sentenced to three years in jail Monday for satirical social media posts mocking the government and religion, a campaign group said.

A prominent Palestinian disc jockey arrested after a dance event at a Muslim religious and cultural site last week has been freed on bail, her father said Monday. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that arch foe Iran's renewal of uranium enrichment proves that it is seeking to build nuclear arms despite its denials.

State media in the Islamic republic said Monday it had started the process of enriching uranium to 20 percent purity at its Fordow facility, going well beyond the threshold set by the 2015 nuclear deal.

Gunmen killed at least 15 people in Syria, mostly government soldiers travelling on a bus in the second such road ambush in recent days, a war monitor said Monday.

The U.S. reversed a decision to bring an aircraft carrier home from the Gulf Sunday, with the Pentagon saying that due to "recent threats" by Iran the USS Nimitz would stay in position.

The Nimitz has been patrolling Gulf waters since late November, but in a statement issued on December 31, acting US defense secretary Christopher C. Miller ordered the vessel to "transit directly home to complete a nearly 10-month deployment."

Saudi Arabia on Sunday announced the reopening of borders and the resumption of international flights after a two-week suspension aimed to stem the spread of a new Covid-19 strain.

Egypt has approved the use of a Covid-19 vaccine developed by Chinese pharma giant Sinopharm with its rollout to start later in January, the health minister said.