Saudi Arabia on Thursday said it was hosting a delegation of Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels for talks on ending the impoverished country's brutal war.

Senior Huthi figures took off from Yemen's capital Sanaa, multiple sources said, for their first public visit to oil-rich Saudi since Riyadh began spearheading a military intervention in the neighbouring country in 2015.

Yemen was plunged into conflict when the Huthis overran the capital Sanaa in September 2014, prompting the Saudi-led coalition to launch their offensive the following March.

Mohammed Al Moutawak's village was destroyed by Morocco's powerful earthquake and his apple harvest ruined, but he refuses to leave the land that is vital to small farmers like him.

Drought and extreme weather have long taken a toll on the North African kingdom's growers, but the quake spells new challenges that are just beginning to come into focus.

"We thought hail was our worst enemy, but now we've got another," said the 56-year-old farmer from the mountain village of Ineghede in the worst-hit Al-Haouz region south of Marrakesh.

She has not seen her children for eight years, has spent most of her recent life in prison and acknowledges there is no immediate prospect of release.

But Iranian rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi insists her struggle is worthwhile, saying the protest movement that erupted one year ago in Iran against the Islamic republic is still alive.

First arrested 22 years ago, Mohammadi, 51, has spent much of the past two decades in and out of jail over her unstinting campaigning for human rights in Iran. She has most recently been incarcerated since November 2021.

The commander-in-chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Hossein Salami, is one of three senior officials targeted in a rare criminal complaint filed with Paris prosecutors Thursday.

Along with Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib and Al-Quds force chief Esmail Qaani, Salami is accused of "death threats and justifying terrorism," a lawyer for the six Iranian and Franco-Iranian plaintiffs said.

A global aid effort for Libya gathered pace Thursday after a tsunami-sized flash flood killed at least 4,000 people, with thousands more missing -- a death toll the UN blamed in part on the legacy of years of war and chaos.

The enormous surge of storm water burst two upstream dams late Sunday and reduced the city of Derna to an apocalyptic wasteland where entire city blocks and untold numbers of people were washed into the Mediterranean.

Heatwaves, low rainfall and the threat of wildfires are compounding the woes of people in the forested north of Lebanon, a country where economic pain has long taken prominence over environmental concerns.

After a blistering and dry summer, residents of the mountainous Akkar region near the Syrian border are voicing fears about climate change and water scarcity.

Farmer Abdullah Hammud, 60, has spent his life in the green hills of Akkar, growing everything from tomatoes to figs, but says environmental problems are now hurting his livelihood.

Iran's government has warned it will not tolerate any signs of "instability" as the first anniversary nears of the death of Mahsa Amini and the months-long protests it sparked.

Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, died on September 16 last year after her arrest in Tehran for an alleged breach of the Islamic republic's strict dress code for women.

Her death triggered months of nationwide demonstrations under the slogan "Woman, Life, Freedom".

For the United States, dealing with Iran's clerical leaders has never been for the faint of heart. But a year after massive protests following the death of Mahsa Amini, Tehran has become even more toxic for Washington.

President Joe Biden's Republican critics have savaged him for agreeing, nearly on the anniversary of the uprising, to a deal that will unfreeze $6 billion in Iranian oil revenue to bring home five Americans who had been imprisoned.

The United States on Wednesday signed an agreement with Bahrain to enhance defense and economic ties, a show of support for the Gulf monarchy that a decade ago faced an arms embargo.

Bahrain -- which has tense relations with nearby Iran -- is already home to the US Navy's Fifth Fleet, but the agreement will solidify the relationship both symbolically and by boosting cooperation, including through a commitment to share intelligence.

An air taxi flew over Jerusalem on Wednesday as part of an Israeli experiment to develop a network of drones to offer transport services and ease traffic congestion.

The aircraft, manufactured by a Chinese company, took off from the premises of Hadassah hospital in the city for a few minutes with its two passenger seats empty.

The electric-powered autonomous aircraft with white cockpit and propellers is capable of flying for more than 35 kilometres (over 20 miles), according to organisers of the showcase.