King Abdullah named a new health minister Monday to lead the fight against the MERS virus that has cost more than 350 lives in Saudi Arabia, after his predecessor was sacked.

Mohammed bin Ali bin Hayazaa al-Hayazaa replaces Abdullah al-Rabiah who was dismissed in April as concerns grew over the kingdom's handling of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV).

New European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said in Turkey on Monday she hoped increased intelligence-sharing would help stop the flow of foreign fighters joining the ranks of Islamic State militants.

Mogherini was speaking after talks in Ankara on her first trip to Turkey since taking office.

An appeals court in the Moroccan city of Casablanca on Monday upheld a four-month jail sentence imposed on pro-reform rapper Mouad Belghawat for assaulting police, a judicial source said.

On his release in September after serving the full term, the 26-year-old known as Lhaqed -- The Rancorous One in Arabic -- said he planned to appeal to prove his innocence and that he had been the victim of assault.

A criminal court in Algeria on Monday cleared a national repatriated by the United States after 12 years at the Guantanamo prison camp of "terror" offenses, his lawyer said.

Ahmed Belbacha, 45, was acquitted by the court in the capital Algiers for lack of proof, Amine Sidhoum told AFP.

The U.N. was trying to convince Libya's warring factions on Monday to join a new round of peace talks aimed at ending months of violence and political deadlock.

The world body's mission to Libya (UNSMIL) said last week that it planned to broker new negotiations beginning on Tuesday.

Seven civilians were killed in a U.S.-Yemeni raid to rescue an American hostage at the weekend that also left him and a kidnapped South African dead, a tribal chief said Monday.

Tarek Ferid al-Daghari, who heads the influential Al-Awlaki tribe in Shabwa province, said his tribe would press for compensation from the Yemeni government over Saturday's raid.

Police have arrested 33 men in a night-time raid on a Cairo bathhouse for alleged "debauchery", a security official said Monday, in what appeared to be Egypt's latest crackdown on homosexuality.

Egyptian law does not expressly ban homosexuality but gay men have previously been arrested and charged with debauchery instead.

Egypt's prosecutor general Monday referred to trial 71 students of the prestigious Al-Azhar University on charges of joining the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and holding illegal protests, a judicial official said.

Hundreds of students have been tried in civilian courts after violence on campuses, bastions of pro-Islamist activists since the army's overthrow of president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday criticized Egypt's military rulers for having Interpol issue an arrest warrant for a Muslim scholar.

Islamist scholar Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi, whose fiery sermons have caused tensions with Cairo's military rulers, is a strong supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Iranian pilgrims are pouring across the border into Iraq in unprecedented numbers for a huge annual religious gathering but also to flex Shiite muscle in the face of the Islamic State group.

Scrapped visa fees and an appeal by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, unleashed a million-strong human tide that bemused Iraqi border guards have struggled to control.