The president of the upcoming COP28 climate talks told an Abu Dhabi oil conference on Monday that the fossil fuel industry would play an essential role in addressing the climate crisis.

"For too long, this industry has been viewed as part of the problem, that it's not doing enough and in some cases even blocking progress," said Sultan Al Jaber, the president-designate of the COP28 talks, who is also the head of UAE state-owned oil firm ADNOC.

A huge fire ripped through a regional police headquarters in the Egyptian city of Ismailia before dawn Monday, gutting the building and leaving at least 45 people injured.

Authorities said they had launched a probe into the cause of the blaze that destroyed the Security Directorate building in the city 110 kilometres (70 miles) northeast of Cairo.

Several people could be seen trapped inside the burning building, screaming for help from the windows, in video footage shared on social media, and emergency crews were later seen deploying a crane to rescue them.

Libya's eastern authorities said Sunday they had postponed a reconstruction conference for the flood-hit city of Derna that had been planned for October 10 but was met with international scepticism.

The event was put off until November 1-2 to "offer time for the submission of effective studies and projects" for the reconstruction effort, the committee charged with planning the meeting said in a statement.

Syrian writer and veteran government critic Khaled Khalifa has died of cardiac arrest at the age of 59 at his home in Damascus, a close friend told AFP.

Khalifa, who hailed from Maryamin in northwestern Aleppo province, was celebrated for his novels, television screenplays and newspaper columns, and honoured with several of the Arab world's top literary awards.

Yemen's national carrier has suspended international flights from the country's capital, officials have said, citing a dispute with the Iran-backed Huthi rebels over access to funds.

Yemenia operates near-daily commercial flights to the Jordanian capital Amman -- its only direct international destination from Sanaa's Huthi-controlled airport which reopened last year following a six-year hiatus.

On Saturday, an official with the Huthi transport ministry told the rebel's Saba news agency that "Yemenia flights have been suspended from Sanaa airport".

Fifty years after what Egypt celebrated as its "October victory", the memory of the 1973 war against Israel that has shaped the Arab nation's politics and diplomacy is fading.

Successive Egyptian presidents over the course of decades drew legitimacy from their military past fighting Israel.

Egypt's current leader, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, is a rare exception. Having only enlisted in a military academy the year the war took place, he did not take up arms against neighbouring Israel.

Yet, he has still capitalised on this chapter in national history.

A decorated Israeli veteran of tank battles on the Syrian front in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, Avigdor Kahalani remembers the conflict, despite its heavy toll, as a "slap in the face" Israel needed.

The twin attack by Egypt and Syria on October 6 caught Israel by surprise on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar -- Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement -- when the nation comes to a virtual standstill.

When the fighting erupted, Kahalani was a 29-year-old lieutenant-colonel commanding the 77th tank battalion in the Golan Heights that overlook Syria.

A Rome-bound aircraft departed on Saturday from Libya's capital, restarting flights to Italy after a nearly decade-long suspension due to an EU ban, authorities in Tripoli said.

The European Union in 2014 halted flights operated by Libyan airlines and banned them from entering member states' airspace, as the war-torn North African country was mired in intense fighting.

Saturday's flight took off from Tripoli's Mitiga airport. It was operated by Libya-based Medsky Airways, which offers a twice-weekly direct connection to the Italian capital.

One delivered gas cylinders in government-run Aden for a living and the other cooked meals in rebel-held Sanaa. Now the two athletes from war-torn Yemen find themselves on the same team at the Asian Games.

Yemen has been in the grip of a war since 2014 pitting forces loyal to the internationally recognised government against the Iran-backed Huthi rebels. The conflict has cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

The Yemeni team at the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China is the only sign of the country's unity, according to delegation chief Abdel Sattar al-Hamadani.

Pope Francis on Saturday elevated 21 clergymen from the four corners of the world to the rank of cardinal, saying diversity was indispensable to the future of the Catholic Church.

Under sunny skies and with a crowd that filled half of Vatican City's grandiose, colonnaded St Peter's Square, the 86-year-old pope welcomed the new, so-called "Princes of the Church".

"The College of Cardinals is called to resemble a symphony orchestra, representing the harmony... of the Church," said Francis, seated under a canopy before the gathered cardinals on the steps of St Peter's Basilica.