Israeli police clashed with Palestinians in the flashpoint east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah on Sunday, during a visit by a controversial far-right Jewish lawmaker that inflamed tensions.

Police said they arrested eight people during the day for suspected involvement in "public riots and violence," in the area of annexed east Jerusalem that has emerged as a symbol of Palestinian resistance against Israeli control of the city.

Israeli police clashed with Palestinians in the flashpoint east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah on Sunday, as a visit by a controversial far-right Jewish lawmaker inflamed tensions.

Police said two people were arrested as they tried to contain "a violent riot", in the area of annexed east Jerusalem that has emerged as a symbol of Palestinian resistance against Israeli control of the city.

Iraq's supreme court on Sunday ruled out a bid by veteran politician Hoshyar Zebari to run for president after a complaint filed against him over corruption charges.

Zebari, 68, who served as foreign minister for a decade after the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, was previously "suspended" from the race on February 6, on the eve of the scheduled date for a presidential vote in parliament in which he was the favourite.

Thousands of Tunisians protested on Sunday, hours after President Kais Saied officially replaced a judicial watchdog and gave himself powers to sack judges and ban them from going on strike.

Hours after the decree was published early Sunday morning, more than 2,000 protesters gathered in central Tunis, many waving flags and chanting slogans in support of an independent judiciary.

"Freedom! Freedom! The police state is finished," some chanted.

An Olympic alpine ski racer from Saudi Arabia might read like a misnomer, but Fayik Abdi defied the odds by achieving just that on Sunday.

Just a year after taking up racing, Abdi successfully competed in the men's giant slalom at the Beijing Games in the first step to what he hopes will be an Arab revolution of the truly snowy kind.

Abdi is the sole representative from the Gulf kingdom, not known so much for its mountain pistes as the vast hinterlands of the Empty Quarter, the vast Rub' al-Khali desert in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula.

Saudi Arabia has moved four percent of Aramco shares worth 80 billion dollars in the world's biggest oil exporter to the kingdom's sovereign wealth fund, authorities said Sunday.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's effective ruler, announced the move as part of efforts to recalibrate the oil-dominated economy.

The transfer is also the latest sign that Saudi Arabia wants to open up the oil giant and "crown jewel" of the Saudi economy.

For literature lovers in sanction-hit Iran, a new novel has long provided a brief respite from a grinding economic crisis triggered by international pressure imposed over Tehran's contested nuclear programme.

But now losing yourself in a good book is becoming harder, as cash-strapped publishers struggle because the price of paper is soaring.

"If a 200-page novel sold for 400,000 rials ($1.60) last year, its price today is 1,000,000 rials ($4.10), most of which is the cost of production", said Reza Hasheminejad, who runs the Ofoq publishing house.

Red clothing and underwear are displayed in Saudi shopfronts, but the increasingly popular Valentine's Day promotions are missing one thing: the festival's name.

While sales surge and Valentine's gifts become more common among the youthful Saudi population, the word "Valentine's" is nowhere to be seen.

"Management has asked us to decorate the window display with red lingerie... but without mentioning anywhere Valentine's Day," said one salesperson at a Riyadh mall, who did not want to be named as she was not authorised to speak to media.

Libya's western-based upper house on Saturday defended a decision by lawmakers in the country's east to designate a new prime minister as institutional chaos reigns.

The High Council of State (HCS) -- a Tripoli-based body that is equivalent to a senate -- usually rivals the House of Representatives (HoR), based in the eastern city of Tobruk.

The HoR this week "unanimously approved" former interior minister Fathi Bashagha to head the government, a move that left Libyans with two prime ministers and threatened to spark a new power struggle in the war-torn nation.

Tattoo stamps put up for auction were not used by Nazis on Jewish and other inmates of Auschwitz as claimed, a spokesman for Israel's Holocaust memorial said Friday.

An Israeli court in November issued an injunction after Tzolman's Auctions, a Jerusalem seller, listed for sale what it said were original tattoo stamps of digits used to brand inmates at the notorious Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp.