With flowing kaftans, fluid separates and glamorous maxi dresses, Western luxury fashion brands are increasingly targeting the monied Middle Eastern market with Ramadan capsule collections.

"You're about to be the best-dressed person at every iftar and suhoor that you attend," declared Cosmopolitan Middle East magazine earlier this month in a Ramadan fashion spread, referring to the meals before and after the daily fast during the Muslim holy month.

A Saudi delegation has left war-torn Yemen without a finalised truce but with a commitment from Iran-backed Huthi rebels to hold a second round of talks, Huthi and government sources told AFP on Friday.

The team, which was led by ambassador Mohammed al-Jaber, left the rebel-held capital Sanaa late on Thursday, four days after he arrived seeking to "stabilise" a truce that lapsed last year.

Diplomats meeting in Saudi Arabia agreed Saturday that the Arab world must play a leading role in efforts to broker a solution to Syria's war, following talks aimed at easing Damascus's isolation.

Top diplomats from the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries -- Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- plus Egypt, Iraq and Jordan met in Saudi Arabia at the kingdom's request.

Twelve years after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was shunned, Arab countries have gradually welcomed his regime back into the fold -- as victor of a war that has yet to end.

Despite Assad not yet controlling all of Syria, the Arab acceptance serves to legitimise his rule over the impoverished and war-wrecked country.

"Assad has simply rejected compromise and waited for his enemies to give up, and it worked," said Aron Lund of the Century International think tank. "One by one they're coming back to shake his hand and pretend that the past decade never happened."

After being at daggers drawn for years, longtime Middle East rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia are engaged in whirlwind diplomacy as they prepare to normalise relations after a seven-year split.

As Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi prepares to visit Saudi Arabia, AFP looks back at key moments in the relationship:

- 1979: Iran revolution -

When Iranian revolutionaries overthrow the US-backed shah in 1979 and form an Islamic republic, Sunni-led governments in the region accuse the Shiite state of seeking to "export" its revolution.

Tunisia's coastguard said Thursday 24 people had died in a shipwreck carrying sub-Saharan African migrants, a group that complains of not feeling safe since the country's president delivered an incendiary speech against them.

The coastguard announced on Wednesday that it had recovered 10 bodies after the shipwreck the day before off the North African coastal city of Sfax.

On Thursday, it said 14 more bodies of migrants were discovered, including six women, as well as the body of the boat's Tunisian captain.

Saudi Arabia was preparing Thursday to host an Arab regional meeting on ending Syria's isolation at a time of dizzying diplomatic shifts following its deal to resume relations with rival Iran.

Friday's nine-nation talks in Jeddah, the Red Sea gateway to Mecca, come after Syria's foreign minister arrived on a previously unannounced visit -- the first since the outbreak of the country's civil war in 2011.

At least three people have been electrocuted in central Iraq after torrential rain played havoc with the war-ravaged country's dilapidated power grid, a medical official said Thursday.

The three deaths happened in separate incidents in the central province of Babil, said Dr Ahmed Sabbah, director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine in the provincial capital Hilla.

The dead were aged 16, 22 and 30 and one of them was a woman, Sabbah told AFP.

Iran hanged 75 percent more people in 2022 than the previous year, two rights groups said on Thursday, warning this "killing machine" risked putting even more people to death this year after protests rocked the country.

The figure of at least 582 executions was the highest for Iran since 2015 and well above the figure of 333 for 2021, the report by Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and Paris-based Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM) said.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Wednesday welcomed his Emirati counterpart Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al Nahyan in Cairo, his latest meeting with a leader from the oil-rich Gulf amid his country's economic crisis.

Sisi has been courting Gulf leaders as Egypt grapples with economic turmoil that has seen official inflation shoot up to nearly 34 percent and the local currency halve in value over the past year.

The two leaders "explored opportunities to further strengthen the deep-rooted ties between the UAE and Egypt", Sheikh Mohamed tweeted.