Iran's top diplomat Hossein Amir-Abdollahian held talks with neighbouring ally Iraq Wednesday to discuss stalled talks with arch-rival Saudi Arabia to ease regional tensions, as well as on border security.

Iraq has taken a key role as a mediator between Iran and Saudi Arabia since 2021, after Riyadh broke off diplomatic relations in 2016, but efforts have been deadlocked for several months.

Amir-Abdollahian, speaking to reporters in Baghdad alongside his Iraqi counterpart Fuad Hussein, hailed the efforts "to strengthen talks and cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Iran".

Germany and other European countries must do everything they can to save a German citizen sentenced to death by Iran after he was abducted in the Gulf, his daughter said on Wednesday.

Jamshid Sharmahd, a German-Iranian dual national, was Tuesday handed the death sentence on terror charges vehemently rejected by his family, who also say he was kidnapped in Dubai by Iran in 2020 and taken to the Islamic republic for a show trial.

The European governments "should use all the means in their political arsenal -- each and every one of them," his daughter Gazelle Sharmahd told AFP.

Germany said Wednesday that it was expelling two diplomats from the Iranian embassy in Berlin in response to the death sentence an Iranian court handed down against an Iranian-German national.

After the death penalty verdict Tuesday against Jamshid Sharmahd, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said in a statement that Berlin was "declaring two Iranian embassy staff members to be persona non grata" and "ordering them to leave Germany".

A ministry spokesman said later the Iranians would have "a few days" to quit the country.

Sitting by a bed strewn with rubble in Syria's second biggest city, Umm Mounir refuses to leave her home even though the deadly earthquake has torn a gaping hole into the room.

Aleppo, once a major commercial hub, had already been battered by over a decade of war when the 7.8-magnitude quake struck in early February, killing more than 45,000 people across Turkey and Syria and flattening entire neighbourhoods.

US space agency NASA and SpaceX on Tuesday pushed back by 24 hours the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket that is to carry four astronauts to the International Space Station.

NASA's Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg, Russia's Andrey Fedyaev and Sultan al-Neyadi of the United Arab Emirates had been scheduled to blast off for the ISS at 2:07 am (0707 GMT) Sunday.

Liftoff of the SpaceX Dragon Crew-6 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida has now been rescheduled for 1:45 am Monday, NASA officials said.

Born an orphan under the rubble in north Syria after a devastating earthquake, Afraa al-Suwadi has been given a new lease on life when relatives took her in.

Since footage of her rescue in the town of Jindayris went viral on social media, Suwadi's story has captivated a grieving nation and made international headlines as Syria's "miracle baby".

The sole survivor in her immediate family of the February 6 quake, relatives had pulled her from the wreckage still tied to her deceased mother by the umbilical cord.

Syrians have been moved by the fate of a brave nine-year-old girl called Sham that has captured the tragedy, hope and heartbreak of the earthquake which devastated her war-ravaged country.

Trapped under the rubble for 40 hours, she was rescued alive but now faces the risk of having both her legs amputated because of tissue damage from the crush injuries, say her doctors.

Tunisia's former parliamentary speaker Rached Ghannouchi appeared in court Tuesday on new terror-related charges after being accused of calling police officers "tyrants", his party said.

Ghannouchi, who leads President Kais Saied's arch-foes the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha, had already faced court in late November over allegations his party helped jihadists travel to Iraq and Syria.

The latest hearing comes amid a series of arrests of high profile figures that have prompted criticism from rights groups in the North African country and abroad.

Dubai's airport welcomed 66 million passengers in 2022, more than double the previous year, it said Tuesday, a spike its chief executive attributed to "huge growth" in Russian travellers.

The main business hub of the oil-rich United Arab Emirates is home to one of the world's busiest airports.

The airport "welcomed a total of 66,069,981 passengers during 2022", representing year-on-year growth of 127 percent, according to a statement.

In 2021, around 29.1 million passengers passed through Dubai, and the authorities had expected 57 million visitors for the year 2022.

Israel's parliament took a step towards approving a controversial judicial reform Tuesday despite weeks of mass protests against the legislation critics see as a threat to democracy.

President Isaac Herzog -- who has been attempting to broker dialogue on the divisive issue, which would boost the powers of politicians over the courts -- said there was widespread "fear for the nation's unity".