The Egyptian pound traded Wednesday at half its value from March after the central bank intervened for a third time as part of an International Monetary Fund loan agreement.

The devaluation, representing a drop of around 50 percent against the dollar over the 10-month period, comes as the price of imported food and other goods soars in the Arab world's most populous country.

The currency plunged to 31.95 pounds to the dollar in state banks on Wednesday, before settling at 29.7 in the afternoon, according to the central bank.

Award-winning Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof, jailed half a year ago over protests related to a building collapse, has been released for two weeks because of health concerns, his lawyer said Wednesday.

Rasoulof, 50, was arrested on July 8 after being accused of encouraging demonstrations that erupted after the deadly collapse of a building in May in the southwestern city of Abadan.

A former Iranian prison official sentenced to life in Sweden for crimes committed during a 1988 purge of dissidents appeared in court again Wednesday as his appeal trial opened.

The case relates to the killing of at least 5,000 prisoners across Iran, allegedly ordered by supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini, to avenge attacks carried out by exiled opposition group the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) at the end of the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88.

Hamid Noury, 61, was convicted of a "serious crime against international law" and "murder" in July 2022 by a Stockholm district court.

A Turkish court on Wednesday released an internationally respected medic who outraged President Recep Tayyip Erdogan by backing a probe into the army's alleged use of chemical weapons in Iraq.

Turkish Medical Association head Sebnem Korur Fincanci was detained and jailed in October for using a television interview to highlight claims that first surfaced in media close to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The militia alleged that 17 of its fighters had died in Turkish chemical weapons attacks in the mountains of northern Iraq that month.

The spiritual leader of the largest ultra-Orthodox Jewish party within Israel's ruling coalition, Rabbi Shimon Baadani, died Wednesday at the age of 94, his Shas party announced.

Ultra-Orthodox parties were key to right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's securing a 61-seat majority in parliament last month, with Shas handing the coalition its 11 seats.

Shas chairman and Israel's interior minister, Aryeh Deri, said "darkness has descended on our world" following Baadani's death.

"Woe is the ship that has lost its captain," Deri wrote on Twitter.

An estimated five million children under the age of five died in 2021, the United Nations said Tuesday, urging health care investment in underserved communities around the globe to avoid this "immense, intolerable and mostly preventable loss of life."

"Every day, far too many parents are facing the trauma of losing their children, sometimes even before their first breath," said Vidhya Ganesh, a specialist with the UN's children's agency, UNICEF.

Bolstered Israeli restrictions against flying the Palestinian flag are "a shameless attempt to legitimise racism", rights group Amnesty International said Tuesday.

Israel's new firebrand National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir ordered the police commander on Sunday to authorise officers to remove Palestinian flags flying in public spaces.

"I have instructed the Israeli police to enforce the ban on flying a PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) flag in public spaces, a sign of identification with a terrorist organisation", Ben-Gvir wrote on Twitter.

Iran's judiciary said Tuesday it will "firmly punish" women who violate strict dress rules, as the United Nations warned Tehran is trying to crush protests by weaponising the death penalty.

Demonstrations have swept Iran since the September 16 death of Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, 22, after her arrest in Tehran for allegedly failing to adhere to the dress rules which demand women wear hijab headscarves.

A trial in Greece of 24 migrant rescue workers accused of espionage, including Syrian swimmer Sarah Mardini who inspired a Netflix film, resumed Tuesday after more than a year as leading rights groups slammed the case as a masquerade.

The trial began in November 2021 but was swiftly adjourned. The suspects are also being probed for human trafficking, money laundering, fraud and the unlawful use of radio frequencies.

The US Navy said Tuesday it had seized more than 2,000 assault rifles smuggled on a fishing boat along a maritime route from Iran to Yemen.

The cargo was discovered on Friday off the coast of Oman "on a route historically used to traffic illicit cargo to the Huthis in Yemen," the Bahrain-based US Fifth Fleet said in a statement, noting the vessel "was crewed by six Yemeni nationals".

"This shipment is part of a continued pattern of destabilising activity from Iran," Vice Admiral Brad Cooper was quoted as saying.