Wildfires raging across Algeria during a blistering heatwave have killed more than 30 people and forced mass evacuations, the government said on Monday.

As temperatures hit 48 degrees Celsius (118 Fahrenheit) in parts of the North African country, it recorded 97 blazes across 16 provinces, fanned by strong winds, said the interior ministry.

The fires killed at least 34 people, including 10 soldiers, as they raged through residential areas, the interior ministry said, revising an earlier toll of 15 dead.

One Sudanese child has been killed or wounded every hour on average during the country's brutal war that has now raged for 100 days, the UN children's agency said Monday.

The army led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary forces of Mohamed Hamdan Daglo have been locked into a battle to "win or die" since April 15.

UNICEF said it had documented "2,500 severe violations of children's rights -- an average of at least one an hour" since the fighting began.

A library in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem offers a rare glimpse into Palestinian history with its treasure trove of manuscripts dating back hundreds of years before the creation of Israel.

At the Khalidi Library in the walled Old City, Rami Salameh expertly inspects a damaged manuscript as part of the effort to restore and digitise historical Palestinian documents.

A Zoroastrian priest dressed in white carefully added wood to a fire that has burned for centuries inside an Iranian temple, sacred to one of the world's oldest religions.

The fragrant holy fire, kept in a large bronze goblet, "has been burning for more than 1,500 years", said Simin, a tour guide welcoming visitors to the Zoroastrian fire temple in Iran's central Yazd province.

Zoroastrianism dates back some 3,500 years, but centuries of persecution have dwindled its numbers and a fast-changing modern world has left it struggling to adjust.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday defended as "necessary" parliament's vote for a key clause of the government's controversial judicial reform package, defying mass protests and international concern.

Netanyahu and his coalition allies approved the bill earlier on Monday following a stormy parliamentary session, which saw opposition lawmakers boycott the decisive vote with some shouting "shame, shame".

Critics charge the judicial revamp could open the way to more authoritarian government by removing checks and balances on the Israeli executive.

Iraqi security forces on Saturday dispersed about 1,000 supporters of Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr who tried to march to Baghdad's Green Zone housing foreign embassies, believing a Koran had been desecrated in Denmark.

The protesters were reacting to reports of an apparent desecration of the Muslim holy book for the third time within a month, with the first two in Sweden already raising diplomatic tensions.

On its Facebook page, the extreme right group Danske Patrioter posted on Friday a video of a man burning what seemed to be a Koran and trampling an Iraqi flag.

Authorities in Yemen have identified a suspect in the killing of a World Food Programme official in the southern Taez province, a security official has told AFP.

Moayad Hameidi, the head of the UN food agency's office in Taez, was killed in a shooting Friday in the nearby city of Turbah, the Rome-based WFP has confirmed.

More than 1,100 Israeli air force reservists -- including fighter pilots -- threatened to suspend volunteer service as protests intensified Saturday ahead of final votes on a bill that aims to overhaul Israel's judiciary.

The judicial revamp has split the nation and sparked one of the biggest protest movements in Israel's history, with weekly demonstrations often drawing tens of thousands.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-right government unveiled in January the plans to limit the judiciary's powers, which the protesters view as a threat to democracy.

Iraqi security forces on Saturday dispersed around 1,000 supporters of Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr who tried to march to Baghdad's Green Zone housing foreign embassies, believing a Koran had been desecrated in Denmark.

The protesters were reacting to reports of an apparent desecration of the Muslim holy book.

On its Facebook page, the extreme right group Danske Patrioter posted on Friday a video of a man burning what seemed to be a Koran and trampling an Iraqi flag.

The International Seabed Authority's member nations on Friday agreed on a two-year roadmap for the adoption of deep sea mining regulations, despite conservationists' calls for a moratorium on mineral extraction they say would avert marine threats.

The ISA, an intergovernmental body tasked with protecting the seabed, and its member states have spent the last decade trying to hash out a mining code for the possible exploitation of nickel, cobalt and copper in deep seabed areas that fall outside of national jurisdictions.

But an agreement has so far been elusive.