Mohammed Hamid Nour is only 23, but he is already nostalgic for how Iraq's Mesopotamian marshes once were before drought dried them up, decimating his herd of water buffaloes.

Even at their centre in Chibayish, only a few expanses of the ancient waterways -- home to a Marsh Arab culture that goes back millennia -- survive, linked by channels that snake through the reeds.

As much of the world swelters in record temperatures, spare a thought for Issam Genedi, who ekes out a living washing cars in one of the planet's hottest regions, the Gulf.

Pausing from his work at an outdoor carpark in Dubai, the Egyptian migrant says the United Arab Emirates' furnace-like summer feels even hotter this year.

A German court convicted a Syrian man Tuesday of torturing captives while he was a member of the Islamic State group in Syria.

The Berlin regional court found Raed E. guilty of war crimes, membership of a foreign terrorist organization and other offences. It sentenced the defendant, whose surname wasn't released in line with German privacy rules, to 11 years in prison.

Egypt has invited war-torn Sudan's neighbours for a summit Thursday to "stop the bloodshed", the presidency said, with Ethiopia's premier Abiy Ahmed in Cairo despite tensions over a massive Nile river project.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed "discussed ways to settle the crisis in Sudan", Sisi's spokesman announced late Wednesday ahead of a larger regional meeting.

An online influencer has been arrested in Dubai over a satirical TikTok video in which he portrays a brash Emirati on a spending spree inside a luxury car showroom.

The comedic sketch, in which he tosses stacks of bills at bewildered employees and offers to buy the most expensive car — a $600,000 Ferrari SF90 — poked fun at the lavish lifestyles on display in the city, known for its gleaming skyscrapers and over-the-top tourism attractions.

A multibillion-dollar agreement signed with France's TotalEnergies could help resolve Iraq's longstanding electricity crisis, attract international investors and reduce its reliance on gas imports from neighboring Iran, a point of tension with Washington.

The $27 billion agreement signed in Baghdad on Monday after years of negotiation marks the largest foreign investment in Iraq's history. It could even help combat climate change by reducing oil flares, and relieve some of the stress on Iraq's dwindling waterways through a new desalination plant.

Over half a century, Nissim Kahlon has transformed a tiny cave on a Mediterranean beach into an elaborate underground labyrinth filled with chiseled tunnels, detailed mosaic floors and a network of staircases and chambers.

He lives in the one-of-a-kind artistic creation, which is a popular destination for local curiosity seekers, and Kahlon, 77, is quick to welcome visitors into his subterranean home.

Youssef al-Ramadan says he always feels guilty for having to put his wife and three children to work in order to survive — and now they might not be able to get by since international aid could stop flowing from Turkey.

Standing outside his tent in a displacement camp in northern Idlib, he is worried that their income might not be sufficient to make ends meet if the United Nations Security Council cannot renew a humanitarian border crossing that has been a critical lifeline for him and some 4.1 million people in Syria's rebel-held northwest. The vast majority live in poverty and rely on aid to survive.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas visited the occupied West Bank's Jenin refugee camp Wednesday in the wake of a devastating Israeli offensive last week, marking his first visit to the camp since 2005.

The visit came at a time of seething discontent with Palestinians in the West Bank for Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, the autonomous government which administers parts of the West Bank but whose forces have largely lost control over several militant strongholds in the region — including Jenin.

An Israeli court on Tuesday ordered a Palestinian journalist from annexed east Jerusalem to perform community service, and handed down a suspended sentence, her lawyer said, after she was charged with incitement to violence.

The Palestinian journalists' union condemned the verdict as "unjust".