A US citizen sentenced to 19 years in a Saudi prison for social media posts criticising the kingdom's rulers has been released, his son told AFP on Tuesday.

Saad Ibrahim Almadi, a 72-year-old of Saudi origin, was arrested in 2021 for what his son, Ibrahim, described as "mild" Twitter posts on topics including the war in Yemen and the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Last October, a court handed Almadi a term of 16 years behind bars, which last month was lengthened to 19 years before his surprise release on Tuesday, Ibrahim said.

Egypt's fertile Nile Delta may not be the obvious destination for field hockey, but a women's team is blazing a trail in a region that lays claim to the sport's ancient roots.

While hockey may never sell out stadiums in football-mad Egypt, 24-year-old forward Donia Shaarawy says the governorate of Sharqiya has become the country's hockey hub, and a potential launchpad for her dreams of going pro.

"Hockey means Sharqiya, that's how we grew up," she told AFP, hopping off the practice field clad in a black jersey and matching hijab.

In a palm grove north of Baghdad, bemused Iraqi shepherds looked on as models paraded second-hand garments down an improvised catwalk, seeking to raise awareness of the fashion industry's environmental impact.

Haute couture has given way to upcycled outfits, sourced entirely from used clothes, as the models strut, pause and pivot on the runway, a sign of the growing popularity of chic, environmentally friendly vintage wear among young Iraqis.

Yemen's Huthi rebels and its internationally recognised government reached an agreement Monday to exchange more than 880 prisoners, the United Nations confirmed, while urging the two parties, at war since 2014, to continue talks.

The agreed exchange comes after Saudi Arabia and Iran, who back opposing sides in the conflict, this month moved towards restoring diplomatic ties after a seven-year rupture.

The Kuwait Oil Company declared a "state of emergency" Monday over an oil spill on land, in an incident decried by environmental activists as a "recurring problem" in the energy-rich Gulf state.

The emergency was sparked by an "oil leak in the west of the country", the state-owned company said in a statement, as video posted by Kuwaiti media showed a gushing pipe surrounded by a large slick of oil.

The Palestinian Authority, Egypt and Jordan on Monday condemned as "racist" a firebrand Israeli minister's remarks denying the existence of the Palestinian people, with Amman summoning Israel's ambassador for a rebuke.

Israel's far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, is part of veteran leader Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-right government that took office in December.

Smotrich had already faced international rebuke in early March after calling for a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank to be "wiped out", amid spiralling violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Donors on Monday pledged seven billion euros to help Turkey and Syria recover from last month's devastating earthquake, as Ankara set the bill for rebuilding at well over 10 times that figure.

An EU-hosted conference sought to generate funds six weeks after the 7.8-magnitude quake that killed over 55,000 people across southeastern Turkey and parts of war-torn Syria.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told those gathered in Brussels that damage to his country was estimated at around $104 billion (96 billion euros).

With half the world experiencing water scarcity for at least part of the year, the huge dams being built by some countries to boost their power supplies while their neighbours go parched are a growing source of potential conflict.

Ahead of a UN conference in New York on global access to water, AFP looks at five mega-projects with very different consequences, depending on whether you live upstream or downstream.

- Mega-dam on the Nile -

Too young for a driver's licence at 15, Evelina Christiansen is already cruising in a sleek BMW in Sweden, where teens can drive any car modified to roll no faster than a golf cart.

An almost century-old regulation originally applied to agricultural vehicles allows kids 15 and older to drive without a proper driver's licence, as long as the vehicle has been altered to have a maximum speed of 30 kilometres per hour (18.6 miles per hour).

Iraq on Monday marked 20 years since the start of the US-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, but no official celebrations were held.

The oil-rich country remains traumatised from the years of war, occupation and bloody sectarian turmoil that followed the operation launched on March 20, 2003.

A semblance of normalcy has returned but Iraq still battles a range of entrenched challenges, from political instability to poverty and rampant corruption.