Iran drew international condemnation on Saturday as it executed two men for killing a paramilitary force member in November during unprecedented protests sparked by Mahsa Amini's death in custody.

The latest hangings double the number of executions to four over the nationwide unrest, which has escalated since mid-September into calls for an end to Iran's clerical regime.

They also come in defiance of a campaign by international rights groups for the lives of the two men to be spared.

"It's here in Paris where my sister and her friends were killed," said Metin Cansiz, the brother of Kurdish activist Sakine Cansiz, who was gunned down in January 2013.

"France has a debt of justice towards us."

His eyes are red and his hands tremble as he looks back on the fate of his sister, killed in the French capital on the night of January 9, 2013.

Cansiz, a white-haired 61-year-old, was speaking to AFP days before the 10th anniversary of the still-unsolved slayings. His family, he said, had lost a loved one "sacrificed" on the altar of Franco-Turkish relations.

Iraq on Friday welcomed football teams from across the region for the Gulf Cup, ending nearly three decades of repeated bans on international matches in the war-torn and corruption-plagued country.

The tournament in the southern city of Basra brings together eight teams, with Friday's opening match seeing the host nation take on Oman.

More than 10,000 foreign fans had arrived by the afternoon in the city, located a short distance from Iraq's borders with Kuwait and Iran, an official from Basra's provincial government told AFP.

Two teenagers suspected of desecrating dozens of Christian graves at a Jerusalem cemetery have been arrested, Israeli police said Friday.

Toppled crosses and damaged graves were discovered earlier this week at the Protestant cemetery on Mount Zion, where Christians believe Jesus's Last Supper took place. The area is adjacent to Jerusalem's Old City.

Officers on Thursday evening "arrested two suspects, residents of central (Israel) aged 18 and 14", a police statement said.

The pair were set to appear in court on Friday, the statement added.

France's Stephane Peterhansel, a record 14-time winner of the Dakar Rally, crashed out of the 2023 edition on Friday as Qatari Nasser Al-Attiyah won the sixth stage in his Toyota.

The 57-year-old Peterhansel, whose nickname is 'Mr Dakar' after eight car victories and six on a motorbike, "had an accident after 212km of the day’s special", organisers said.

"His co-pilot Edouard Boulanger has been injured by the impact leaving him with pain in the back. He has been evacuated by the Dakar medical team to the hospital in Buraydah to undergo further examinations."

Israeli and Palestinian envoys to the United Nations on Thursday traded heated barbs at a Security Council meeting over the controversial visit by an Israeli minister to Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound.

Israel's ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, called the session "pathetic" and "absurd" while the Palestinian envoy accused the Jewish state of acting "with absolute contempt."

The 15-member Council discussed the visit, which has enraged Palestinians, at UN headquarters in New York following a request by the United Arab Emirates and China.

Security forces fired tear gas and rubber bullets in eastern Turkey on Thursday outside the funeral of a Kurdish singer killed in Paris last month, an AFP correspondent said, as fellow victims were laid to rest elsewhere.

Mir Perwer, a political refugee, was buried in the presence of family members in Mus province.

Police blocked roads leading to the village where the funeral was held, preventing several groups from reaching the funeral, including members of the pro-Kurdish HDP party and people who said they were relatives.

The European Union's top diplomat vowed "zero tolerance" for graft on Thursday as he visited Morocco, which has been linked to an influence-trafficking scandal rocking the European Parliament.

"The position of the EU is clear: There can be no impunity for corruption. Zero tolerance," EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said after a meeting with Morocco's Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita.

"We need to wait for the result of the investigations currently underway," Borrell added, saying he expected "everybody's full cooperation" with the inquiry.

A US-based member of Kuwait's stateless Bidoon minority said she is "traumatised" after she was blocked from returning to see her family -- a move a rights group decried as an "act of cruelty".

Mona Kareem, a 35-year-old Kuwaiti-born academic and activist with US citizenship, who has hit out at treatment of the Bidoon, was denied entry on the night of January 3-4.

The poet and translator was forced to leave on a flight to Beirut after an 11-hour ordeal at Kuwait International Airport during which authorities repeatedly refused to explain their decision.

French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo is making headlines again by stirring outrage in Iran, demonstrating that it has lost none of its appetite for provocation or its ability to stir up diplomatic problems abroad.

The irreverent and militantly atheist publication operates today with round-the-clock police protection and from a secret location, seven years after it was attacked by Islamist gunmen.