Iraq will start paying for its Iranian gas imports with oil, to circumvent the complicated mechanism agreed with Washington in order not to contravene US sanctions, the prime minister said Tuesday.

Iranian gas is crucial for Iraq's electricity generation, but US sanctions on Iranian oil and gas impose restrictions on how Baghdad can pay for the imports.

Iraq cannot directly hand over cash to Iran, but payments must be held in a bank account and be used by Tehran to fund imports of food and medicines.

The UN Human Rights Council is heading towards a divisive vote on Wednesday on religious hatred following recent Koran burnings, with some Western nations reluctantly feeling the draft resolution encroaches too far on free speech.

Pakistan and other Organisation of Islamic Cooperation countries secured an urgent debate at the UN's top rights body on Tuesday after a Koran was burnt outside Stockholm's main mosque, triggering a diplomatic backlash across the Muslim world.

The United Arab Emirates promised Tuesday to do more to help keep global warming below the 1.5 degrees tipping point after falling short in its latest plan to slash emissions.

The oil-rich Gulf monarchy, which will host this year's COP28 UN climate talks, last week unveiled plans to cut domestic emissions by 19 percent of 2019 levels by 2030.

US and Saudi officials discussed proposals to completely transform professional golf as they negotiated the biggest merger in the sport's history, a trove of documents released on Tuesday showed.

Among the items on the table in the talks between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia's LIV Golf were the firing of two-time British Open champion Greg Norman as LIV boss and a new "World Golf Series" that would climax in the kingdom.

Police evicted a Palestinian family from their home in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem Tuesday to make way for Jewish settlers after a long legal battle, officials and an AFP correspondent said.

Since 1978, the Sub Laban family had fought in the Israeli courts against their eviction from their home in the Muslim Quarter of the walled Old City.

But early on Tuesday, police arrived to remove the family from their home following a court order.

"They do not have the right to expel me from my house," Nora Abu Laban, 68, told AFP.

The largest casino resort in Europe opened on the east Mediterranean island of Cyprus on Tuesday, with the authorities hoping it will attract an extra high-spending 300,000 tourists annually.

The City of Dreams Mediterranean is the brainchild of Hong Kong-based gambling firm Melco, whose CEO Lawrence Ho said he first got the idea to build the resort when he visited Cyprus 16 years ago for a wedding.

The complex, in the southern coastal city of Limassol, took three years to build at a cost of more than 637 million euros ($700 million), and currently employs 2,000 staff.

The UN Security Council failed Tuesday to reach consensus on extending a key Syria aid route, throwing into doubt a vital mechanism that provides life-saving support to millions of people.

Russia vetoed a nine-month extension of the agreement authorizing the operation of the conduit during a vote at United Nations headquarters in New York, and then failed to muster enough votes to adopt just a six-month extension.

The UN-brokered deal that allows for the delivery of aid overland from Turkey into rebel-held areas of Syria expired on Monday.

Indonesian maritime authorities seized an Iranian-flagged tanker carrying more than 200,000 metric tons of light crude oil after a suspected illegal transfer at sea, they said Tuesday.

Iran has been accused by the United States and its allies of using crowded shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere to circumnavigate Western sanctions on its nuclear programme.

The MT Arman 114 under the Iranian flag was "suspected of carrying out illegal transshipment activities" in Indonesia's exclusive economic zone, the maritime security agency said in a statement.

Human Rights Watch on Tuesday called on the International Criminal Court to investigate possible "war crimes" in Sudan's Darfur region where fighting has intensified despite calls for an end to the conflict.

The New York-based group charged that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied Arab militias "summarily executed" at least 28 members of the Massalit ethnic minority when they ransacked and torched much of the town of Misterei in May.

Israeli protesters blocked highways and converged on the Tel Aviv airport Tuesday, stepping up resistance to the hard-right government's judicial overhaul package opponents say threatens democracy.

Dozens of people were arrested, said police, who used water cannon and deployed mounted officers to disperse demonstrators in the commercial capital, Tel Aviv.