Private network Iran International TV said Monday that it was broadcasting again from London having shut down its studios earlier this year due to threats it blamed on Tehran.

The station had been giving extensive coverage to anti-government demonstrations that erupted in Iran last year, and said two of its senior journalists received death threats in response to their reporting.

Acting upon police advice, it closed its base in the UK capital in February, but said in a statement on Monday that "Iran International TV has begun broadcasting from its new London studios".

Egypt will hold a presidential vote on December 10-12, election officials said Monday, at a time the Arab world's most populous country is mired in a painful economic crisis.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a former army chief in power for nearly a decade, has yet to formally announce his candidacy, but state-aligned media has already published messages of support from pro-government entities.

For half his life, 67-year-old Azerbaijani Azad Abbasov has dreamed of returning to his home in the beautiful mountains of Nagorno-Karabakh.

"It's my obsession," said the retired teacher, who will never forget the day in 1992 when his family was driven from the village of Umudulu by Armenian forces.

Baku's lightning victory last week over Armenian separatists in the disputed Caucasus enclave has rekindled his hope of returning to that lost idyll.

A Pablo Picasso masterpiece expected to fetch at least $120 million at auction went on show Monday in Dubai, kicking off a set of rare viewings outside the United States.

"Femme a la montre", the 1932 portrait of Marie-Therese Walter, Picasso's mistress and "golden muse", is being exhibited for two days before heading to Hong Kong and London, a boon for the United Arab Emirates' bid to establish itself as a cultural powerhouse.

Libya's prosecutor general has ordered the arrest of eight officials as part of his inquiry into the recent flood disaster that killed thousands, his office said on Monday.

The flash flood, which witnesses likened to a tsunami, broke through two ageing dams on September 10 after a hurricane-strength storm lashed the area around Derna, a port city in Libya's east.

Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinians in a raid in the West Bank Sunday, the Palestinian health ministry said, as the army launched new drone strikes on the blockaded Gaza Strip.

Violence has surged in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since early last year, particularly in the West Bank where eight Palestinians have now been killed in Israeli incursions since Tuesday.

"Two Palestinians were killed by live Israeli bullets to the head" during the pre-dawn raid, the ministry said.

About a dozen women hunch over sewing machines in Libya's capital, urgently making clothes for the living, and shrouds for the dead, two weeks after a huge flood devastated the eastern city of Derna.

In the war-battered north African country that has long been divided between two rival governments, the tragedy that killed thousands has sparked a nationwide sense of solidarity.

Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinians in a pre-dawn raid Sunday in the West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said, as the army confirmed it dismantled a militant "operational command centre" in the occupied territory.

Violence has surged in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since early last year, particularly in the West Bank where eight Palestinians have now been killed in Israeli incursions since Tuesday.

"Two Palestinians were killed by live Israeli bullets to the head" in the town of Tulkarem, the ministry said.

The Red Sea's spectacular coral reefs face a new threat, marine biologists warn -- the mass death of sea urchins that may be caused by a mystery disease.

Because the long-spined creatures feed on algae that can suffocate corals, their die-off could "destroy our entire coral reef ecosystem", warned scientist Lisa-Maria Schmidt.

In Israel's Red Sea resort of Eilat, which borders Jordan and Egypt, Schmidt recalled the moment she and her colleagues first witnessed the population collapse.

Hosts China swept the first gold medals at the Asian Games in Hangzhou on Sunday in a statement of intent on day one of the region's answer to the Olympics.

China claimed the first gold when Zou Jiaqi and Qiu Xiuping dominated the women's lightweight double sculls rowing to kick off a medal rush for the home nation.

The Chinese pair finished in 7min 6.78sec, with Uzbekistan's Luizakhon Islamova and Malika Tagmativa taking silver -- almost 10 seconds behind.

"I am very excited as it's my first Asian Games," said Zou, clutching her gold medal.