Politicians and a lawyer accused of selling Cyprus passports to dubious investors, exposed by a sting operation that ended the citizenship-for-investment scheme, are to stand trial next month, a court ruled Monday.

Nicosia Criminal Court said the trial of former parliament speaker Demetris Syllouris, ex-MP Christakis Giovani, a senior manager of his real estate firm, Antonis Antoniou, and lawyer Andreas Pittadjis would open on October 26.

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid arrived in Germany on Sunday in his latest diplomatic effort to persuade Western powers to ditch their tattered nuclear deal with the Jewish state's arch nemesis Iran.

Israel has long opposed a revival of the 2015 accord, which has been moribund since then US president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew in 2018 and reimposed biting sanctions on Tehran.

Strolling along the ancient ruins of Hatra in Iraq's north, dozens of visitors admired the site, where local initiatives seek to turn over a new leaf after a brief but brutal jihadist rule.

Designated an endangered world heritage site by UNESCO, Hatra dates back to the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC.

It is a two-hour drive from Mosul, the former "capital" proclaimed by the Islamic State (IS) group, which was recaptured in 2017 by Iraqi forces and an international coalition that backed them.

Thanks to solar energy, residents of the northern Lebanese village of Toula are finally able to enjoy ice cream again -- a treat in a sun-baked country plagued by power cuts.

Lebanon's economy collapsed in 2019 after decades of corruption and mismanagement, leaving the state unable to provide electricity for more than an hour or two per day.

Last winter, the mountain village of Toula barely had three hours of daily generator-driven electricity.

Solar power now helps keep the lights on for 17 hours, an engineer working on the alternative energy project said.

Ons Jabeur insisted she had "no regrets" after losing to Iga Swiatek in the US Open final as she targeted the Pole's world number one ranking next year.

Jabeur's 6-2, 7-6 (7/5) loss on Saturday was her second successive defeat in a Grand Slam final after also coming off second best at Wimbledon in July.

"I have nothing to regret because I did everything possible," said Jabeur, who will return to number two in the world on Monday.

Swiatek remains comfortably in the rankings' top slot with twice as many points.

Albania has suffered a renewed cyberattack, the country's interior ministry said on Saturday, blaming Iran which Tirana also accused of an earlier assault on its digital systems.

"The national police's computer systems were hit Friday by a cyberattack which, according to initial information, was committed by the same actors who in July attacked the country's public and government service systems," the ministry said in a statement.

Tehran has avoided official comment on the death of Queen Elizabeth II, but some Iranians expressed outright hostility, accusing Britain of having supported the late shah's regime.

Unlike many countries with wall-to-wall coverage, state television in the Islamic republic reported the bare minimum on the death Thursday of the woman who had been the world's longest reigning monarch, with just a brief announcement along with archive footage and photographs.

Haniyeh, a student, told AFP she had learned of the queen's death from social media.

Iran's recent seizure of unmanned US Navy boats shined a light on a pioneering Pentagon program to develop networks of air, surface and underwater drones for patrolling large regions, meshing their surveillance with artificial intelligence.

The year-old program operates numerous unmanned surface vessels, or USVs, in the waters around the Arabian peninsula, gathering data and images to be beamed back to collection centers in the Gulf.

Dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators protested outside Morocco's parliament Friday against the kingdom's normalisation of ties with Israel after the Jewish state recalled its top envoy from Rabat amid a probe, AFP correspondents said.

Around 100 people chanted slogans against the rapprochement between Morocco and Israel, criticising its ambassador David Govrin and Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita.

Israeli public broadcaster Kan reported Monday that a foreign ministry delegation had been dispatched to Rabat, following sexual abuse allegations against envoy Govrin.

Queen Elizabeth II's death has triggered a subdued reaction in Cyprus, where the British monarch is intertwined with the island’s painful history of empire, independence and division.

For some Cypriots with long memories, she is the head of state blamed for signing off on the death warrants of freedom fighters against British colonial rule in the late 1950s.

Old wounds reappeared earlier this year during the Queen's jubilee celebrations organised by the British military stationed on the island.