At his workshop in Tunisia's capital, Khaled ben Khemis pieces together a type of bagpipe once banned from airwaves but now embraced by artists infusing its sound into new musical styles.

Known as a "mizwad", it "must be made from natural elements", the 50-year-old craftsman said, taking two cow horns and connecting them to pieces of river reed and a goatskin bag for producing the musical notes.

He has made the instrument for 30 years.

The European Union on Sunday said it is considering more than one billion euros in aid to boost crisis-hit Tunisia's economy and reduce the flow of irregular migrants across the Mediterranean Sea.

The North African country, highly indebted and in talks for an IMF bailout loan, is a gateway for migrants and asylum-seekers attempting the dangerous voyages to Europe.

Iran's supreme leader on Sunday urged continued cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog, while warning against succumbing to "bullying" based on "unfounded claims".

"Cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) within the framework of safeguards regulations should be maintained," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said during a meeting with Iranian nuclear scientists, experts and officials.

Mourners gathered to bury the dead and bodies lay in a Khartoum hospital Sunday as deadly shelling and gunfire resumed after the end of a 24-hour ceasefire in Sudan.

Fighting has raged in the northeast African country since mid-April, when army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, turned on each other.

The latest in a series of ceasefire agreements enabled civilians trapped in the capital Khartoum to venture outside and stock up on food and other essential supplies.

At a rubbish dump in northwest Syria, Mohammed Behlal rummages for plastic to be sold to recyclers and transformed into floor rugs and other items in the impoverished rebel enclave.

In rebel-held Syria, recycling is rarely an environmental impulse but rather a grim lifeline for needy residents looking for work or items they otherwise could not afford.

Braving the stench, insects and risk of disease, 39-year-old Behlal hacks through the rubbish pile with a scythe and his bare hands.

Entrepreneurs are repurposing the Israeli kibbutz into hubs for creative and hi-tech industries, after decades of decline in the rural communities once considered models of socialism.

Founded on ideals of communal living and agriculture, the kibbutzim -- whose residents often shared work, accommodation and possessions -- were crucial to Israeli society in the 20th century.

Today, standing in a former metal factory in Hanita, a kibbutz in Israel's north, Yuval Vakrat is surrounded by shops, an art gallery and a distillery.

Standing amid ears of wheat growing tall in the buffer zone dividing Cyprus, farmer Christodoulos Christodoulou can rest easy.

The rodents that once ran rampant in the decades since the no-man's land was created and destroyed his crops are being driven out by owls.

"Our village was full of rats and mice. They ate our crops, nibbled on our tyres," recalls Christodoulou, who owns a farm in the demilitarised corridor that splits the internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus and the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

Thousands took to the streets of cities and towns across Israel on Saturday for the 23rd straight week, protesting controversial judicial reform plans as well as deadly violence hitting Arab communities.

The hard-right government's reform proposals would curtail the authority of the Supreme Court and give politicians greater powers over the selection of judges.

In March, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had announced a "pause" to allow for talks on the divisive reforms.

Thousands of Arab Israelis protested Friday in the country's north following the funerals of five killed in one of the worst crime waves to hit the minority in recent years.

The five Arab Israelis, including a 15-year-old, were shot dead on Thursday at a car wash in Yafia, an Arab town near the city of Nazareth, police said.

Since the start of the year, close to 100 people have been killed in crime-related violence in Arab Israeli communities, according to NGOs.

In the walled Old City of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, Nora and Mustafa Sub Laban are counting down the last days before a court decision that has hovered over them since 1978 is carried out.

After decades of legal wrangling, they are set to be evicted from their home in the Muslim Quarter to make way for Jewish settlers.

"These days, I'm like a prisoner waiting to be put to death. I don't sleep like other people," Nora Sub Laban told AFP.

The east Jerusalem residents have been embroiled in a 45-year legal battle with authorities and Israeli settlers.