Gazelles at an Iraqi wildlife reserve are dropping dead from hunger, making them the latest victims in a country where climate change is compounding hardships after years of war.

In little over one month, the slender-horned gazelle population at the Sawa reserve in southern Iraq has plunged from 148 to 87.

Lack of funding along with a shortage of rain has deprived them of food, as the country's drought dries up lakes and leads to declining crop yields.

Argentine President Alberto Fernandez insisted Saturday that a cargo plane with Iranian and Venezuelan crew members had been grounded due only to fueling difficulties, not because of any alleged link to Iran's elite Quds Force.

There is "no irregularity" with the Venezuelan plane, Fernandez told Radio 10, adding that the sole problem was refueling difficulties linked to US sanctions on Venezuela.

Paraguay's intelligence chief had said Friday that one man aboard the plane, which has been grounded since Wednesday at an airport near Buenos Aires, had ties to the Quds Force.

The United Arab Emirates urged Iran on Friday to provide reassurances on the peaceful nature of its nuclear programme after the International Atomic Energy Agency denounced Tehran's lack of cooperation.

"There are concerns," said the permanent representative of the UAE to the IAEA, Hamad Al Kaabi.

In response to an AFP question during a press conference on the Emirates' own nuclear programme, he called on Iran to "closely cooperate with the IAEA" and "provide reassurances to regional and international countries regarding the peacefulness of its nuclear programme".

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will visit Turkey next week, the Turkish president said Friday, as Ankara and Riyadh heal a bitter rift following the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul.

It is Prince Mohammed's first visit to Turkey since the brutal killing of Saudi insider-turned-critic Khashoggi inside the kingdom's consulate, which shocked the world and dealt a heavy blow to ties between the regional rivals.

Three Palestinians were killed and 12 others were wounded on Friday during an Israeli army raid in Jenin, a stronghold of armed Palestinian factions in the occupied West Bank.

The men were killed when Israeli forces opened fire on a vehicle in which they were, the Palestinian news agency Wafa said.

"Fierce clashes" then ensued in the area, with Israeli troops firing at Palestinians, wounding 12, Wafa reported.

An AFP photographer said a white vehicle riddled with bullet holes was in the area where Israeli forces have stepped up operations in recent months.

Mourad al-Marouai was just nine when a landmine killed him on a beach in war-torn Yemen, a tragedy that will haunt his family forever.

After a swim, the little boy "suddenly disappeared" when he and his two brothers were beach-combing for garbage to sell.

"All I saw were hands and legs," elder brother Yahya, 15, told AFP, clasping the rosary that Mourad had found in the sand and given to him.

The chilling incident in January, in the western province of Hodeida, is all too common in Yemen, where mines are a constant threat and hobble economic activity and aid.

Saudi tour guide Nada Alfuraih ushers guests through an 18th-century palace built from mud and straw, the very site where the kingdom's royal family is said to have first plotted its conquest of the Arabian Peninsula.

Pausing in an airy assembly hall, she raves about this aspect of her country's origin story. Her only regret is that today, nearly 300 years later, some young Saudis seem unaware of it.

"I meet visitors who have no clue. They must have skipped this part of their education or something," she told AFP.

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has long been sidelined on the world stage but as he prepares to mark five years as de facto leader, he is finally coming in from the cold.

Next month's visit by US President Joe Biden will complete the international rehabilitation of the 36-year-old prince, who was widely reviled over the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Biden's trip -- after Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent oil prices soaring, piling on economic pain -- follows visits by the leaders of France, Britain and Turkey.

The makers of Disney-Pixar's new blockbuster about Buzz Lightyear told AFP on Thursday that they were warned of a likely backlash against the same-sex marriage it features, but did not care.

More than a dozen Muslim-majority countries have refused to show "Lightyear" -- a sci-fi spin-off from the Pixar classic "Toy Story", set for global release on Friday -- in opposition to the marriage between two female side characters.

"We had been warned this would be a likely outcome," producer Galyn Susman told AFP in a Zoom interview.

A UN-backed court sentenced two Hezbollah members in their absence to life imprisonment on Thursday for a huge Beirut bombing in 2005 that killed Lebanon's ex-premier Rafic Hariri.

Habib Merhi and Hussein Oneissi were found guilty on appeal in March by the Dutch-based Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) over the attack, which killed 21 other people and injured 226.