Gunmen mugged 129 migrants on a rubber dinghy headed for Europe and also stole the craft's motor, abandoning them off the Libyan coast, Libya's navy said Saturday.

Egypt reopened the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip for three days starting on Saturday to allow hundreds of stranded Palestinians to return home, officials said.

The Russian plan to create safe zones in Syria, which came into effect Saturday, is the latest in a string of efforts to ease the country's horrendous violence. After past failures, this deal provides for the first time a mechanism to observe the cease-fire: Russian, Iranian and Turkish troops are to monitor compliance on the ground.

But there are also worrisome flaws that could doom the deal to the same fate as its predecessors.

Aliyah Hussein and the 25 family members sheltering with her in Mosul's western Mahatta neighborhood are surviving by picking wild greens growing in a park near their home. Hussein mixes the vegetables with small amounts of rice and tomato paste to make a thin soup that is often her family's only meal.

Her cousin Zuhair Abdul Karim said on a recent day that even with the wild greens, the food ran out.

Syria's leading opposition High Negotiations Committee on Friday expressed "concern" about a deal for safe zones, saying it "lacks safeguards and compliance mechanisms."

As he plans his first foreign trip and visits to Israel and the Palestinian territories, U.S. President Donald Trump seems optimistic that he can help secure peace in the region.

But what, if anything has changed to justify the hope that he can overcome a challenge that has frustrated all his recent predecessors?

A week of infighting killed nearly 169 people in the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta region outside Syria's capital Damascus before calm returned on Friday, a monitor said.

Russia on Friday said it had already stopped bombing in areas of Syria set to be designated safe zones under an agreement it inked with Iran and Turkey. 

The three key powerbrokers signed off on a Russian plan Thursday to establish four "de-escalation zones" in rebel-held territory of the war-torn country in a bid to shore up a shaky ceasefire.

The United Arab Emirates on Friday delayed the start-up of its first nuclear reactor until next year for further safety checks because regulators have not yet granted an operating license.

In Morocco's neglected Rif region, where outrage erupted last year over the gruesome death of a fishmonger, calls for justice have evolved into a grassroots movement demanding jobs and hospitals.