Sudan's coup leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan on Wednesday dismissed the last civilian members of his ruling body as part of a power shift he has proposed, but protesters who have rejected his pledge again took to the streets.

"The blood of the martyrs did not flow in vain," hundreds of women protesters chanted in Khartoum about pro-democracy activists who have been killed in street violence, also demanding a return of "the soldiers to the barracks".

Cyprus has reintroduced the mandatory use of face masks indoors for all people aged over 12, as coronavirus cases spike, the Mediterranean holiday island's health ministry announced Wednesday.

The ruling, which comes into effect on Friday, was announced by Health Minister Michalis Hadjipantela after a cabinet meeting.

It follows a new spike in Covid-19 infections in recent weeks, with the health ministry recording 19,503 positive cases from June 25 to July 5.

The decision represents a U-turn for authorities, who had lifted the previous face mask mandate on June 1.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh met publicly for the first time in over five years, on the sidelines of Algerian independence anniversary celebrations.

Algeria's state broadcaster reported late Tuesday that representatives of the Palestinian Authority and the Islamist Hamas movement also attended this meeting, which it called "historic".

Of the hundreds of thousands of Muslims arriving in Mecca this week for the annual hajj pilgrimage, perhaps none had a more arduous journey than Adam Mohammed, a 53-year-old electrical engineer from the United Kingdom.

Mohammed, who is of Iraqi-Kurdish origin, decided last year to travel on foot to Saudi Arabia, a journey of more than 7,000 kilometres (4,350 miles) that took him through nine countries before he crossed over from Jordan into the northwestern Saudi town of Tabuk.

After years of a regional blockade and the pandemic, this hajj will be "completely different" for Masoud al-Ali as he and other Qataris are finally able to rejoin the hallowed Muslim pilgrimage.

"This is not the first time that I perform the hajj, however it is completely different," he told AFP. "My feeling cannot be described... returning to perform hajj rituals after five full years."

Long before whiteboards, beamers and laptops entered modern school classrooms, teachers relied on the humble, dusty, sometimes screechy blackboard chalk -- a material that has created a Jordanian business success story.

Chemical engineer Salah Aloqbi remembers sitting on a bus in Amman in 1995 when he hit on the idea that would lead him to create his company. More than two decades later it boasts 150 staff, with exports to more than 100 countries.

Hundreds of thousands of mostly maskless worshippers circled Islam's holiest site in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, on the first day of the biggest hajj pilgrimage since the Covid-19 pandemic began.

One million fully vaccinated Muslims, including 850,000 from abroad, are allowed at this year's hajj in the city of Mecca, a big rise after two years of drastically curtailed numbers due to policies to stop the spread of infection.

American ice cream brand Ben & Jerry's said Tuesday it is suing its parent company Unilever to block a move that would see its product sold in West Bank settlements, which would run counter to its values.

The company, known for its political activism, took the unusual step seeking an injunction after London-based Unilever last week announced it had sold its interest in the ice cream to Israeli license-holder Avi Zinger.

France repatriated 35 children and 16 mothers from camps in Syria holding family members of suspected Islamic State jihadists on Tuesday in the largest such operation by Paris after pressure from campaigners.

The French government had long refused mass repatriations of the hundreds of French children detained in Kurdish-controlled camps, dealing with them on a case-by-case basis that rights groups criticised as deliberately slow.

Public buildings in several Iranian provinces were closed Tuesday due to pollution unleashed by a sandstorm, local media said.

The closures applied to the southwestern province of Khuzestan, the central province of Isfahan, North Khorasan in the northeast and Kerman in the southeast, state television said.

State news agency IRNA reported that state offices continued to function in at least three other provinces that were also hit by the heavy pollution.