High in Lebanon's rugged mountains, hatmaker Youssef Akiki is among the last artisans practising the thousand-year-old skill of making traditional warm woolen caps once widely worn against the icy winter chill.

Akiki believes he may be the last commercial maker of the sheep wool "labbadeh" -- a named derived from the Arabic for felt, or "labd" -- a waterproof and warm cap coloured off-white, grey, brown or black.

"The elders of the village make their own labbadehs", said Akiki, who also dresses in the traditional style of baggy trousers.

Germany condemned as "inhuman" a death sentence an Iranian court handed down Tuesday against an Iranian-German national who supporters say was abducted abroad and forcibly returned to Iran for a show trial.

The Tehran Revolutionary Court convicted Jamshid Sharmahd, 67, in connection with the deadly bombing of a mosque in 2008, the judiciary's Mizan Online website reported.

The Israeli parliament backed a key part of a controversial judicial overhaul at first reading Tuesday despite protests across the country against a bill critics see as a threat to democracy.

Lawmakers voted by 63 to 47 to give more weight to the government in the committee that selects judges, and to deny courts the right to rule on legislation they deem in conflict with so-called Basic Laws, Israel's quasi constitution.

A 6.4-magnitude earthquake has rocked Turkey's southern province of Hatay and northern Syria, killing six people and sparking fresh panic after a massive February 6 tremor left over 45,000 dead in both countries.

The quake hit the Turkish town of Defne on Monday at 8:04 pm (1704 GMT) and was strongly felt by AFP teams in the nearby city of Antakya. It was also felt in Lebanon and Cyprus.

More than 300 people were injured in Turkey and at least 150 were hurt in northwestern Syria.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad visited Oman on Monday, his first official trip to the Gulf country in more than a decade of civil war at home, the Omani foreign ministry said.

The one-day trip to meet with Sultan Haitham bin Tareq came two weeks after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck southeastern Turkey and northern Syria, killing more than 44,000 people across both countries.

The February 6 quake sparked Arab outreach to the internationally-isolated Assad government, which was expelled from the Arab League after war broke out in 2011.

The director of "Golda" on Monday dismissed a controversy over casting Helen Mirren as Israel's only woman prime minister Golda Meir, saying the British Oscar winner had "Jewish chops".

Israel's Guy Nattiv told reporters at the Berlin film festival ahead of the movie's world premiere that it took only one conversation with Mirren to convince him she was "authentic" enough to play the iconic political leader.

"When I met Helen I felt like I'm meeting a family member," he said, saying he had been "surprised" by the uproar.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday said Turkey would build almost 200,000 new homes in the country's southeast region, devastated by a massive earthquake two weeks ago.

A 7.8-magnitude tremor on February 6 and its aftershocks have killed more than 41,000 people in Turkey and left millions without homes.

Erdogan is keen to show his government will do everything for those impacted as he faces his biggest political test in elections planned for May.

Russia showed up in force Monday at an arms fair in the United Arab Emirates, displaying combat-tested weapons up for export, including rifles and air defence systems.

At an isolated pavilion at the International Defence Exhibition (IDEX) in Abu Dhabi, Moscow's state arms exporter Rosoboronexport said it had more than 200 full-scale models of armament, ammunition and military gear.

The UN Security Council expressed its "dismay" with plans by Israel's hard-right government to retroactively legalize settlements in occupied Palestinian lands, warning in a statement Monday that such measures "impede peace."

"The Security Council reiterates that continuing Israeli settlement activities are dangerously imperiling the viability of the two-State solution," the Council said in a statement supported by all 15 members but which does not have the binding force of a resolution considered last week.

The head of Tunisia's dissolved parliament is facing a new police inquiry, his Islamist-inspired Ennahdha party said Monday, days after a string of arrests mainly targeting opposition political figures.

Rached Ghannouchi, President Kais Saied's 81-year-old arch-rival, was ordered to appear at a police station in the capital on Tuesday, Ennahdha spokesman Imed Khemiri told journalists, calling it "a new attack on political leaders".