An Algerian court on Sunday sentenced to three years in jail a member of the "Hirak" protest movement that forced longtime president Abdelaziz Bouteflika to resign last year, a rights group said.

The group, CNLD, lists prisoners of conscience in Algeria. It said earlier this month that 61 people were still behind bars for acts related to "Hirak".

Enraged by near-daily attacks on its interests in Iraq, Washington has threatened to close its embassy in Baghdad, in a blow to a premier seen as a bulwark against Iran.

Two decades on from the second intifada, Palestinians who grew up in the shadow of the uprising find themselves surrounded by physical and political barriers with little hope for the future.

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi warned on Sunday against attempts to stoke instability in the country, following a recent spate of scattered and small-scale anti-government protests.

Both sides in Yemen's war have agreed to exchange more than 1,000 prisoners, the U.N. mediator said on Sunday following talks in Switzerland.

Haytham, tall and well-built, turns away customers without masks from a shop entrance in Libya's capital, telling them to return with a covering or buy one on the spot.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas appealed Friday to the United Nations to arrange an international conference early next year on the peace process, in the wake of two Gulf Arab states' recognition of Israel.

Authorities in war-torn Syria have released dozens of current and former employees of President Bashar al-Assad's embattled billionaire cousin Rami Makhlouf, a war monitor said Friday.

Gaza rulers Hamas and their rivals in the occupied West Bank, Fatah, have agreed to hold Palestinian elections after nearly 15 years, officials from both sides told AFP on Thursday.

Iran on Thursday accused Saudi Arabia of distorting facts and shifting the blame for its own "crimes", after the Saudi king slammed the Islamic republic in a UN address.