Yemen's president handed his powers to a leadership council on Thursday, a major shake-up in the camp that has been battling the Huthi rebels for more than seven years.

Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi's announcement comes after a temporary truce took effect between pro-government troops and the insurgents, offering a glimmer of hope in a conflict which the UN has called the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Here are some key questions and answers on what the shift of power means for the war-torn country:

- A new political era? -

The UN labour agency joined Amnesty International Thursday in calling on World Cup hosts Qatar to protect thousands of security guards who a report said were victims of "forced labour".

Guards posted at World Cup stadiums, ministries and offices often had to work months, sometimes years, without a day off, Amnesty said in a study.

Qatar, where the World Cup starts on November 21, insists it has cracked down on hundreds of "unscrupulous" companies, but acknowledged that abuses still take place.

Morocco, locked in a decades-long struggle with the Polisario independence movement for control of the Western Sahara, has offered limited self-government there -- but insists Rabat must keep sovereignty.

Its 15-year-old autonomy plan last month won the backing of the desert territory's former occupier Spain, whose Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez visits Rabat on Thursday to draw a line under a year-long diplomatic dispute.

Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi struggled and ultimately failed to impose his authority during a turbulent decade as president of war-torn Yemen, much of which he spent in neighbouring Saudi Arabia.

His bruising tenure appeared to reach an end Thursday when he announced he was handing over power to a new leadership council, a major shake-up for forces battling Iran-backed Huthi rebels that came as a fragile ceasefire took hold.

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez visits Morocco on Thursday, after Madrid reversed decades of policy on the Western Sahara to end a year-long diplomatic crisis, a U-turn that has angered Algeria.

The landmark visit will see King Mohammed VI welcome Sanchez as his guest of honour for iftar, the meal where Muslims break their daytime fast during the holy month of Ramadan.

The visit by Sanchez and his foreign minister, Jose Manuel Albares, aims to draw a line under a major stand-off between the two kingdoms.

Yemen's president said Thursday he is handing his powers to a new leadership council, in a major shake-up in the coalition battling Huthi rebels as a fragile ceasefire takes hold.

But Huthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam dismissed the move as "a desperate attempt to rearrange the ranks of the mercenaries" fighting in Yemen, and said peace would only come once foreign forces leave.

President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi made the announcement in a televised statement on the final day of Yemen talks held in the Saudi capital Riyadh.

Palestinian fertility clinics in the West Bank are a magnet for would-be Arab Israeli parents seeking boys -- even when risky procedures can endanger the lives of both mother and child.

Yasmine and Jacki, a couple from Israel, have dreamed of having a boy.

Israeli laws strictly regulate selecting a child's sex. So the couple drove three hours from their home in the suburbs of Jerusalem to a clinic in Nablus in the occupied West Bank.

A Turkish court on Thursday confirmed a halt of the trial in absentia of 26 suspects linked to the killing of Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi and its transfer to Riyadh, a decision that has angered rights groups.

The 59-year-old journalist was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018 in a gruesome murder that shocked the world.

A Turkish court began the trial in 2020 with relations tense between the two Sunni Muslim regional powers.

A French journalist held by the Islamic State in Syria testified Wednesday that he and other hostages were forced by their captors to sing a depraved parody of the Eagles song "Hotel California" called "Hotel Osama."

"It was terrifying for us, a joke for them," Nicolas Henin said at the trial of El Shafee Elsheikh, a 33-year-old former British national.

Elsheikh is accused of involvement in the murders of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and aid workers Kayla Mueller and Peter Kassig.

A US-funded security training facility for the eastern Mediterranean, the Cyprus Centre for Land, Open-seas, and Port Security (CYCLOPS), opened on the Mediterranean island on Wednesday.

Senior State Department official Victoria Nuland attended the ceremony at the high-tech training facility that cements Cyprus's burgeoning relations with the United States.

"This state-of-the-art facility we formally inaugurate today is the crown of our security cooperation," Cypriot Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides said at the ceremony.