Tunisian human rights activists and social media users on Sunday slammed the sentencing of three people, all aged under 30, to 30 years each in prison for cannabis use.

Car bombs killed 11 people including six civilians in two separate incidents in Turkish-held northern Syria on Sunday, a monitoring group said.

Kurdish security forces opened fire on pro-government protesters in northeast Syria Sunday, killing one person and wounding several others, a monitor and state media said, as tensions rise between the sides.

The Israeli army said it killed a Palestinian who carried out an attempted knife attack Sunday in the Gush Etzion area of the occupied West Bank. 

The UAE announced Saturday it is opening a path to citizenship for select foreigners, in a rare move for the Gulf where the status and its welfare benefits are jealously guarded.

A blast outside the Israeli embassy in New Delhi on Friday damaged cars but did not cause injuries, police said.

After opening itself to New Year's revelers, Dubai is now being blamed by several countries for spreading the coronavirus abroad, even as questions swirl about the city-state's ability to handle reported record spikes in virus cases.

The government's Dubai Media Office says the sheikhdom is doing all it can to handle the pandemic, though it has repeatedly declined to answer questions from The Associated Press about its hospital capacity.

The United Nations warned Thursday that thousands of Yemeni civilians were at risk in the western province of Hodeida after an increase in military clashes this month.

Pope Francis is to meet top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani during the first-ever papal visit to Iraq in March, a senior Catholic cleric told AFP on Thursday.

A former principal at a Jewish ultra-Orthodox school appeared in an Australian court Thursday, hours after she was extradited from Israel to face child sexual abuse charges.