Ongoing fighting in Sudan's troubled Darfur region has killed more than 200 people in recent days, with the UN human rights chief saying she was "appalled" at the spike in violence.

Members of the Massalit community and Arab fighters have clashed since Friday in and around the West Darfur state capital El Geneina, the latest ethnic violence in the vast, arid and impoverished region long awash with guns.

Heavy shooting was reported Wednesday evening in El Geneina, said Adam Regal from the General Coordination for Refugees and Displaced in Darfur, an independent aid group.

At least one in five reptile species are threatened with extinction, including more than half of turtles and crocodiles, according to the first major global assessment of the world's so-called cold-blooded creatures.

Catastrophic declines in biodiversity across the world are increasingly seen as a threat to life on Earth -- and as important as the interrelated menace of climate change.

Threats to other creatures have been well documented. More than 40 percent of amphibians, 25 percent of mammals and 13 percent of birds could face extinction.

More than 20 people have been killed in an attack on Muslims in the northern Ethiopian city of Gondar during the funeral of a Muslim elder, a local Islamic group said on Wednesday.

The Islamic Affairs Council of Amhara, the region where Gondar is located, described Tuesday's attack at a cemetery as a "massacre" by heavily armed "extremist Christians."

The attackers "fired a barrage of heavy machine guns and grenades... leaving many dead while others who were injured have been taken to hospital," the religious body said.

At least 130 people, mainly civilians, have been killed by landmines and other explosives left after heavy fighting in 2020 around the Libyan capital, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday.

The explosives, including banned antipersonnel landmines and booby-trapped explosives, were scattered in the suburbs of Tripoli during heavy fighting in 2019-2020, when the powerful eastern-based military strongman Khalifa Haftar tried to capture the capital.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Wednesday praised cooperation with the country's largest trading partner China, saying Tehran wanted to "expand its long-term strategic relations" at a meeting with Beijing's defence minister.

Raisi stressed that "regional and global developments show more than ever the value of Iran-China strategic cooperation".

Iran has been engaged for a year in negotiations with France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China directly, and the United States indirectly, to revive a troubled 2015 nuclear deal.

Israeli air strikes near Damascus on Wednesday killed 10 combatants, among them six Syrian soldiers, in the deadliest such raid since the start of 2022, a war monitor said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said an ammunition depot and several positions linked to Iran's military presence in Syria were among the targets.

Government media in Syria confirmed four casualties in the strikes, on which Israel did not comment.

Israeli forces killed a Palestinian man in the West Bank flashpoint city of Jenin Wednesday, in what the army called its latest "counterterrorism" raid following a series of attacks in Israel since late March.

The army said that during the operation at Jenin's refugee camp, troops used "live ammunition" after being targeted with gunfire and explosives by Palestinian "rioters".

As Egyptians mark the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, they are being treated to a blockbuster TV series that celebrates their army marshall turned president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Fans hail "Al-Ikhtiyar 3" (The Choice 3) for enlightening the masses about Egypt's turbulent recent history. Critics see it as propaganda by a regime that rules with an iron fist.

While the first two seasons paid tribute to soldiers who battle Islamist extremists and to national security agents, the third has the 67-year-old Sisi as its central character.

Israeli air strikes near Damascus on Wednesday killed nine combatants, among them five Syrian soldiers, in the deadliest such raid since the start of 2022, a war monitor said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said an ammunition depot and several positions linked to Iran's military presence in Syria were among the targets.

Government media in Syria confirmed four of the five casualties in the strikes, on which Israel did not comment.

The world's first minister for artificial intelligence says the United Arab Emirates isn't only looking for economic benefits as it seeks to become a leading nation in the sector.

The UAE's minister of state for AI, Omar bin Sultan al-Olama, said "quality of life" considerations were key, and also stressed the importance of a "responsible" rollout -- with impacts potentially reverberating for decades.

"We are looking at AI as a tool," he told AFP in an interview in Dubai. "It's a tool that we need to use to unleash the quality of life aspect."