Iraq said Sunday it has found a site in a province bordering Saudi Arabia where captagon is produced, a rare discovery in a country that has become a transit route for the illicit drug.

"Today, and maybe for the first time, a laboratory where captagon is produced was found," interior ministry spokesman General Saad Maan said in a video posted online.

Iraq has long been a transit country for captagon, the amphetamine-like stimulant plaguing the Middle East, but officials say it has also become a consumer market for the drug.

Israel returned a boat to a Gaza fisherman it had seized for allegedly breaching the limits of the Palestinian enclave's fishing zone, an NGO said Sunday, following an Israeli court order.

Israeli authorities had called for the vessel, belonging to fisherman Mohammad al-Hissi, to be permanently confiscated, triggering fears of more such seizures off the Gaza Strip.

But a Haifa court last month ordered that the boat be returned to Hissi even as legal proceedings continued, according to Gisha, the Israeli group defending the Gazan.

A rusting tanker containing more than a million barrels of oil has lain abandoned off the coast of war-torn Yemen since 2015, threatening a major environmental disaster if it breaks up or explodes.

On Sunday, a United Nations-owned super-tanker arrived for a delicate operation to pump the oil from the abandoned ship, the FSO Safer.

Here are some key facts:

- Blast risk -

The Syrian government recently announced it would allow aid to cross into rebel-held areas after a United Nations mechanism expired, sparking concerns from humanitarian groups.

They worry over the fate of residents in Syria's last remaining rebel strongholds, in the north and northwest, after the Security Council failed on Wednesday to extend the mechanism.

Under a 2014 deal, aid had largely passed through the Bab al-Hawa crossing with Turkey without the authorisation of Damascus.

A UN-owned ship arrived off war-torn Yemen on Sunday for a risky operation to pump more than a million barrels of oil from a decaying tanker and prevent a catastrophic spill.

After years of tense diplomacy between the United Nations, Yemen's Huthi rebels and the internationally recognised government, the Nautica entered Yemeni waters at midday, and was expected to moor soon alongside the FSO Safer, a rusting super-tanker in the Red Sea.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was discharged from hospital Sunday in "excellent condition", a day after being admitted for dehydration, his office and the hospital said.

The 73-year-old was transferred to the Sheba medical centre near Tel Aviv on Saturday with dizziness after having spent the previous day in the scorching heat of the Sea of Galilee in Israel's north.

By late Sunday morning, Netanyahu had "completed a series of tests and is in excellent condition", said professor Amit Segev, Sheba's head of cardiology.

Scorching weather gripped three continents on Sunday, whipping up wildfires and threatening to topple temperature records as the dire consequences of global warming take shape.

Predictions of historic heat hung over swathes of Asia, Europe and the United States.

In the Vatican, 15,000 people braved sweltering temperatures to hear Pope Francis lead prayer, using parasols and fans to keep cool.

But in their black robes, priests like Francois Mbemba said they were "sweating like hell".

An oppressive heat beats down on the central Iraqi province of Babylon, where drought and rising temperatures are hitting bees and honey production hard.

Beekeeper Mohamed Aliawi knows it all too well as he checks on dozens of hive boxes placed at the feet of tall palm trees in the fields of Al-Reghila village.

"There is no water and therefore no (flowering) plants to keep the bees satisfied," Aliawi, the deputy director of a local apiarist association, told AFP.

Among meandering alleyways in the historic market of Lebanon's southern city of Sidon, cobblers and menders are doing brisk business, as an economic crisis revives demand for once-fading trades.

At Ahmed al-Bizri's shoe repair store, nestled among old stone arches and a crowded warren of shops and stalls, workers are busy adjusting a woman's sandals and replacing the worn-out sole of a man's shoe.

"Repairs are in high demand," said Bizri, 48, who learned the trade from his father.

Tens of thousands of Israeli protesters took to the streets of Tel Aviv and elsewhere Saturday protesting reforms advanced by the coalition they say threaten the country's democratic character.

Saturday's rallies, the 28th since the reform agenda was unveiled in January, come days after parliament approved in its first reading a bill that would reduce the "reasonability" clause, through which the judiciary can strike down government decisions.

The proposals would also give the government a greater say in the appointment of judges.