A Tunisian court on Monday sentenced Rached Ghannouchi, one of the main opponents of Tunisian President Kais Saied, to a year in prison on terrorism-related charges, local media reported.

Ghannouchi, 81, a former speaker of parliament, was arrested last month over different accusations, part of what Human Rights Watch (HRW) called last week a move "to neutralise the country's largest political party".

He had appeared in court at the end of February on the terror-related charges after being accused of calling police officers "tyrants".

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas called for Israel to end its "aggression" against Palestinians or be suspended from the United Nations during a speech marking the 75th anniversary of the "Nakba" Monday.

More than 760,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes in 1948 when Israel was created, an event Palestinians call Nakba, or catastrophe, and mark on May 15.

The United Nations is commemorating Nakba at its headquarters in New York this year for the first time, after a resolution was passed in November.

Syria ended over a decade of exile from the Arab League on Monday as its officials took part in a preparatory session ahead of Friday's summit in Saudi Arabia.

"I... take this opportunity to welcome the Syrian Arab Republic to the League of Arab States," Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed al-Jadaan told the meeting, which was broadcast live by state TV channel Al Ekhbariya.

Jadaan said he was "looking forward to working with everyone to achieve what we aspire to", as the camera panned to the Syrian delegation.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday emerged from his toughest election test unbowed and in strong position to extend two decades of his Islamic-rooted rule by another five years in a historic May 28 runoff.

The 69-year-old leader defied pollsters and his country's most dire economic crisis since the 1990s to come within a fraction of a percentage point of winning Sunday's presidential ballot.

One month since Sudan's conflict erupted, its capital is a desolate war zone where terrorised families huddle at home as gun battles rage, while the western Darfur region has descended into deadly chaos.

Residents of Khartoum have endured weeks of desperate food shortages, power blackouts, communications outages and runaway inflation.

The capital of five million, long a place of relative stability, has become a shell of its former self.

A retired civil servant who few outside Turkey have heard of has pushed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan into an election runoff -- the first of the country's post-Ottoman history.

It was a bittersweet result that left Kemal Kilicdaroglu's supporters frustrated following a heated night of vote counting in Turkey's most important election of modern times.

Nearly complete results showed Erdogan picking up 49 percent of the ballot and the secular opposition leader collecting around 45 percent.

Calm returned to Gaza Sunday as a fragile ceasefire largely held, leaving Palestinians and Israelis to count the cost of five days of cross-border fire that killed dozens.

Fishermen took to their boats in the coastal Palestinian enclave, as Gazans emerged from sheltering in their homes during the fierce exchange of fire.

The fighting broke out Tuesday with Israeli strikes on the Islamic Jihad militant group. It ceased late Saturday following days of truce talks led by Egypt.

Banned from using popular Western apps, Iranians have been left with little choice but to take up state-backed alternatives, as the authorities tighten internet restrictions for security reasons following months of protests.

Iranians are accustomed to using virtual private networks, or VPNs, to evade restrictions and access prohibited websites or apps, including the US-owned Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Turkey braced Monday for its first election runoff after a night of high drama showed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan edging ahead of his secular rival but failing to secure a first-round win.

Erdogan sounded triumphant as he emerged before a sea of supporters shortly after midnight to proclaim himself ready to lead the nation for another five years.

The Simseks have spent months huddling in tents next to their old home, laid to waste by Turkey's catastrophic quake.

How they vote Sunday could prove decisive to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's future.

Amid the wreckage of ancient Antakya, a mountain-rimmed cradle of civilisation on Turkey's border with Syria, grandfather Suphi Simsek, his daughter-in-law Dilber and granddaughter Ozlem all intend to cast ballots.