Five Israeli tourists were remanded in Cyprus police custody on Monday in connection with an alleged gang rape of a young British woman in the popular resort of Ayia Napa, authorities said.

The five men, aged between 19 and 20, were arrested Sunday after a 20-year-old British tourist told police she was gang raped at a hotel room in the Mediterranean island's premier party spot.

They appeared before Paralimni district court on the southeast coast, where they were ordered held in custody for eight days on suspicion of rape, police said.

Days of deadly clashes between the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and local fighters have rocked eastern Syria's Deir Ezzor province, threatening a fragile balance in the strategic area.

The Kurdish-led SDF spearheaded the offensive that defeated the Islamic State jihadist group's self-declared caliphate in Syria in 2019.

Arab-majority Deir Ezzor province, a resource-rich region which borders Iraq, is bisected by the Euphrates river and is home to dozens of local tribal communities, some of whose fighters joined the SDF in its battle against IS.

The United Arab Emirates has set up a regulatory body for "commercial gaming" -- a step which could potentially allow for casino licences in the Arab Gulf state where gambling is currently banned.

The General Commercial Gaming Regulatory Authority (GCGRA) will "coordinate regulatory activities, manage licensing... and facilitate unlocking the economic potential of commercial gaming," the official WAM news agency said late Sunday.

Cyprus says it received a diplomatic protest from an unnamed Arab Gulf state after tourists were attacked during anti-migrant violence in the island's second city, Limassol.

Senior diplomat Kyriakos Kouros posted on the X platform, formerly Twitter, Sunday: "I received a demarche from an ambassador of an Arab country."

Kouros, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, added: "A number of its citizens, innocent visitors to our country, were among the victims of the incidents in Limassol, one quite seriously.

Invasive species that destroy forests, ravage crops and cause extinctions are a major and growing threat worldwide, a landmark UN-backed assessment is poised to report.

From water hyacinth choking Lake Victoria in East Africa, to rats and brown snakes wiping out bird species in the Pacific, to mosquitoes exposing new regions to Zika, yellow fever, dengue and other diseases, tens of thousands of alien species have taken root -- often literally -- far from their place of origin.

Israel's foreign minister arrived in Bahrain Sunday for talks with senior officials, state media reported, in his first visit to one of the Gulf Arab states with ties to Israel.

Eli Cohen was accompanied by a political and commercial delegation, and is scheduled to meet Bahrain's king as well as his counterpart in Manama during the two-day trip.

It is his first official visit to one of the signatories of the 2020 US-brokered Abraham Accords, which saw Israel normalise relations with Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco.

Algeria said Sunday its security forces had opened fire this week after a group of jet skiers from Morocco ignored warning shots and refused to comply with orders to stop.

Lawyers for two men shot dead in the incident plan to file a complaint in France. One was French-Moroccan and the other held a residence permit in France.

"During a security patrol inside our territorial waters, a coastguard unit intercepted on Tuesday at 7:47 pm (18:47 GMT), three jet skis that clandestinely entered our territorial waters," a defence ministry press release said.

Venice hosted an unprecedented collaboration between Israeli and Iranian filmmakers, who say there are similarities between their governments and hope they can set an example for greater unity between their people.

"Tatami", shown in the "Orizzonti" ("Horizons") section of the Venice Film Festival, recounts the story of an Iranian judo star who rejects her government's rules about never facing an Israeli athlete in an international competition.

Hamed Haddadi, the only Iranian to play in the National Basketball Association, retired from international play at the age of 38 after his team was eliminated from the World Cup, state media reported.

The 7ft 2ins (2.18 metre) centre made the announcement late Saturday after Iran lost 81-73 to Lebanon in Jakarta to exit the World Cup after five consecutive losses, dashing hopes of qualifying for the 2024 Olympics.

"I have loved the national team and basketball, but one day you have to go and today is that day," state news agency IRNA quoted Haddadi as saying.

Five civilians were killed by bombs that "fell on their homes" in Khartoum, a Sudanese medical source told AFP, a day after an air strike in the city's south killed at least 20 civilians.

Residents of the war-torn capital reported the city was again pummelled by artillery and rocket fire Sunday, in the fifth month of war between the army and paramilitary fighters.