President Joe Biden agreed Monday to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later this year in the United States but declined, amid months of tension, to specify if this would be at the White House.

The offer of a meeting, made on the eve of a White House visit Tuesday by Israeli President Isaac Herzog, marks somewhat of an easing of tensions between Biden and a leader he recently described as heading "one of the most extremist" coalitions in half a century.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived Monday in Saudi Arabia at the start of a three-state Gulf tour as he looks to attract foreign investment in his country's ailing economy.

Erdogan landed in the Red Sea city of Jeddah to meet King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country's de facto ruler, before heading for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar later this week.

Saudi's state-run Al Ekhbariya TV aired footage of the Turkish president appearing at a Saudi-Turkish business forum intended to drum up investment in Turkey's faltering economy.

The United Nations on Monday handed over a vessel that will take on board oil from a decaying tanker in the Red Sea off war-torn Yemen, an operation aimed at averting an environmental catastrophe.

The handover ceremony took place aboard the Nautica, which is being renamed the Yemen, in the presence of the country's Huthi authorities who control the capital Sanaa.

In the coming days, an operation is expected to begin pumping 1.14 million barrels of crude oil to the Nautica from the FSO Safer, a rusting 47-year-old ship that the UN describes as a "ticking time bomb".

Iranian authorities have shuttered an educational centre accused of "inciting riots" during last year's mass demonstrations triggered by the death in custody of a young woman, state media reported Monday.

Nationwide protests rocked Iran following the September death of a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, Mahsa Amini, in police custody after her arrest over violating the Islamic republic's strict dress code.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Monday discussed clean energy cooperation with top officials during a visit to the UAE, host of this year's UN climate talks.

Kishida's visit to the United Arab Emirates, which will host COP28 in November-December, is part of the first Gulf tour by a Japanese premier since the late Shinzo Abe in 2020.

Japan relies almost entirely on imports for its crude oil, with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar accounting for the bulk of its supplies.

The United Nations on Monday handed over a vessel that will take on board oil from a decaying tanker in the Red Sea, an operation aimed at averting an environmental catastrophe.

The handover ceremony took place aboard the Nautica, which is being renamed the Yemen, in the presence of Yemen's Huthi authorities who control the capital Sanaa.

In the coming days, an operation is expected to begin pumping 1.14 million barrels of crude oil to the Nautica from the FSO Safer, a rusting 47-year-old ship that the UN describes as a "ticking time bomb".

When an alarm sounded on the decaying oil tanker off Yemen's coast, signalling a leak in its engine room, Hussein Nasser quickly sprang into action.

Working around the clock for days, he and the half-dozen other people on board the FSO Safer fashioned makeshift iron strips to patch a burst pipe, before divers arrived to install a permanent steel plate to keep seawater from sinking the ship.

Swathes of Europe baked Tuesday in a heatwave trailed by wildfires and health warnings, as parts of Asia and the United States also suffered under extreme weather.

Firefighters battled blazes in parts of Greece and the Canary Islands, Spain issued heat alerts while some children in Italy's Sardinia were warned away from sports for safety reasons.

"You can't be in the street, it's horrible," said Lidia Rodriguez, 27, in Madrid.

The European Union and Tunisia on Sunday signed a memorandum of understanding for a "strategic and comprehensive partnership" on irregular migration, economic development and renewable energy.

The deal, which includes financial assistance, came as Tunisia has been under fire over its treatment of migrants since February, after President Kais Saied accused "hordes" of migrants from sub-Saharan African countries of a "plot" to change the country's demographic makeup.

Libyan border guards have rescued dozens of migrants who have been left in the desert by Tunisian authorities without water and food, and their numbers are "rising", an officer said Sunday.

Hundreds of migrants from sub-Saharan African countries were forcibly taken to desert and hostile areas bordering Libya and Algeria after racial unrest in early July in Sfax, Tunisia's second-largest city.