Germany begin their path to World Cup redemption on Wednesday after the 2018 horror show in Russia, with Spain and Croatia also kicking off their campaigns in Qatar.

After Saudi Arabia stunned Lionel Messi's Argentina, ending the South American champions' 36-match unbeaten run, Germany will be on high alert in their opening match against Japan.

Croatia, surprise runners-up four years ago, take on Morocco in the early game. Spain face Costa Rica in the evening before Belgium play Canada in the late match.

Iranian security forces have killed 72 people, including 56 in Kurdish-populated areas, in the past week alone in their crackdown on the protests sparked by Mahsa Amini's death, a rights group said Tuesday.

The protests, sparked in mid-September by the death of Amini, 22, in morality police custody, have cut across ethnicities, social classes and provincial boundaries and turned into the biggest challenge to Iran's clerical leadership since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Authorities have responded with an intensifying crackdown that has sparked an international outcry.

Saudi King Salman has declared a national holiday after the football team's stunning World Cup win on Tuesday over Argentina, state media reported.

The 86-year-old monarch "orders that tomorrow, Wednesday, be a holiday for all employees in the public and private sectors, as well as male and female students at all educational levels", the Al-Ekhbariya channel said on Twitter.

The move comes in the middle of final exams in the Gulf nation, indicating that they will have to be rescheduled.

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres warned on Tuesday against "dangerous rhetoric" stoking tensions among nuclear-armed rivals.

"Growing divisions are threatening global peace and security, provoking new confrontations and making it all the more difficult to resolve old conflicts," Guterres told a conference in Morocco.

"Dangerous rhetoric is raising nuclear tensions," he warned.

"At the same time, we are dangerously close to the edge on the climate, while hate speech and disinformation are proliferating."

Disbelieving Saudis formed impromptu dance circles and waved the sword-emblazoned national flag from the windows of speeding cars in Riyadh on Tuesday after their team's sensational win over Lionel Messi's Argentina.

As the final whistle blew in the group-stage shocker with a 2-1 scorecard that ended Argentina's 36-match unbeaten streak, fans watching on a big screen at a stadium in the capital sent shisha pipes flying as they rushed to celebrate.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday there were "no plans" for Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to visit Washington while it reviews relations with the Gulf state.

The 37-year-old prince -- widely known as MBS -- has been at the centre of diplomatic turmoil with the United States and other powers since the grisly 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents.

King Charles III on Tuesday welcomed South African President Cyril Ramaphosa to London for a milestone first state visit of his reign.

Gun salutes were fired across London as Charles and Queen Consort Camilla were joined by heir to the throne Prince William and his wife Catherine to greet Ramaphosa for a ceremonial welcome at Horse Guards Parade.

The monarch and Ramaphosa, both dressed in dark overcoats against the November chill, inspected the guard of honour together.

A rusty fishing boat carrying around 500 migrants docked at the Greek island of Crete on Tuesday after being dramatically rescued during near gale-force winds.

An AFP photographer saw the banged-up vessel crammed with men, some of whom peered from holes cut into the hull, apparently to keep those in the hold from suffocating.

Hellenic Red Cross rescuers and health workers readied to help the passengers disembark and take them to the nearest hospital after the boat reached the small Cretan coastal town of Palaiochora.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday called FIFA's ban on an armband promoting LGBTQ rights at the World Cup in Qatar "concerning".

Speaking in Doha hours after watching the United States held to a 1-1 draw by Wales, Blinken told a press conference that no team should be forced to choose between "supporting his values" and playing.

England, Germany and five other European teams abandoned plans to wear rainbow-themed "Onelove" armbands at the World Cup because of the threat of FIFA disciplinary action.

Tourists are flocking to a bar in Morocco searching for the spirit of Humphrey Bogart's iconic, fictional nightclub, 80 years after the classic wartime film "Casablanca" hit the silver screen.

The Moroccan port city entered the cultural imagination of the United States at a key point in World War II, thanks to the moody romance starring Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund and Bogart as Rick Blaine.