Bahrain jailed five people for up to 15 years on Monday for "terrorist" attacks against police in the Sunni-ruled Gulf kingdom that has been shaken by Shiite-led unrest since 2011.

A suicide car bombing killed four people Monday when it hit a gathering of loyalist forces in Yemen's Aden, the southern city serving as a government base, a security official said.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg expressed concern over reports of violations of a three-day-old ceasefire in Syria on Monday and urged all parties to respect the truce.

More than 150,000 Syrian babies have been born in Turkey since Syria's crisis began, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Lutfi Elvan said Monday, underscoring the humanitarian burden incurred by Ankara during the conflict.

Addressing the opening session of the United Nations human rights council in Geneva, Elvan said that Turkey was "doing its upmost to shoulder a large part of the humanitarian catastrophe" caused by more than five years of civil war in Syria. 

The U.N. chief said Monday a fragile Syria ceasefire was holding "by and large" despite "incidents" of fighting at the weekend, as a U.N.-backed taskforce was set to meet to evaluate accusations of breaches.

"As of now I can tell you that by and large the cessation of hostilities is holding even though we have experienced some incidents," United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told reporters in Geneva. 

An Egyptian court sentenced a former television host to a year and six months in prison Monday for trying to shame a sexual harassment victim on her show, a judicial source said.

Riham Saeed, who hosted a controversial show, was also fined 10,000 pounds (about $1,280), and the misdemeanour court set a 15,000 pounds bail until her appeals are exhausted.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault on Monday called for a new meeting of a U.N.-backed task force overseeing a fragile Syria ceasefire "without delay" to evaluate a range of breaches.

"We have received indications that attacks, including air strikes are continuing in areas controlled by the moderate opposition," Ayrault told reporters in Geneva.

The U.S. embassy in Iraq has released evacuation recommendations it said could help save up to 1.5 million lives at risk from a catastrophic failure of the Mosul Dam.

Concern has grown in recent months over a possible collapse of Iraq's largest dam, which would unleash a wave that would devastate second city Mosul and flood much of the capital Baghdad.

Aid workers on Monday made the first delivery of desperately needed assistance since the start of Syria's fragile ceasefire, as an international task force met to try to bolster the truce.

The task force co-chaired by Moscow and Washington held talks in Geneva to evaluate allegations of a range of breaches, said the United Nations which has mediated the three-day-old ceasefire.

Canada has met a self-imposed deadline to accept 25,000 Syrian refugees fleeing their country's civil war, officials said, fulfilling a campaign promise by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

"25000 reasons why Canadians should be proud today #WelcomeRefugees," Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister John McCallum tweeted after a charter flight carrying refugees touched down in Montreal on Saturday.