Iran's national football team was headed to Turkey on Monday to play a final friendly match and apply for visas to fly to the United States for the 2026 World Cup, Iranian media reported.
The team plan to participate in the tournament despite co-host Washington having launched a war against Iran with a massive wave of attacks alongside ally Israel on February 28.
US President Donald Trump said he was planning a major new assault on Iran on Tuesday, but held off as he saw hope for securing a so far elusive agreement to end the war.
Trump said that he stopped his purported attack plan at the urging of Gulf Arab allies, which Iran has threatened with reciprocal attacks if the United States and Israel end a nearly six-week ceasefire.
Four Kenyans died and at least 30 were injured on Monday in fuel price protests triggered by the Middle East war, which saw the country's public transport system grind to a halt.
One of many African countries dependent on fuel imports from the Gulf, Kenya has been heavily affected by Iran's effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil normally passes.
Climber Mostafa Salameh is carrying a kite scribbled with dreams of Gaza's children to the summit of Mount Everest, seeking to raise awareness of the war's toll on its youngest victims.
Tucked among his expedition gear is the kite in red, black, white and green of the Palestinian flag, marked with handwritten messages from children in the battered territory.
The war, sparked by Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel, has killed more than 72,000 people in Gaza, according to the territory's health ministry which operates under Hamas authority.
Iran put to death over 2,150 people last year, a "staggering" increase that pushed recorded worldwide executions to their highest level since 1981, Amnesty International said Monday.
Amnesty said it had confirmed the executions of at least 2,707 people globally in 2025. Of these cases, 2,159 were in Iran, a figure more than double that of 2024, Amnesty said.
President Donald Trump threatened "there won't be anything left" of Iran if no peace deal is reached, as their truce came under further strain with drone attacks on US allies in the Gulf.
Washington, locked in a war with Iran since US and Israeli forces launched strikes in late February, has struggled to break an impasse in negotiations and end the conflict, which has shaken the Middle East and sent energy prices climbing.
The Libyan National Army (LNA), commanded by Marshall Khalifa Haftar and controlling southern and eastern Libya, is conducting what officers describe as its biggest military exercise yet -- and a message for both friends and foes.
At the entrance of a sprawling military encampment some 100 kilometres away from Derna, a towering portrait of Haftar overlooked the scene.
The sand whipped across a barren landscape as armoured vehicles sped along.
Spanish superstar Javier Bardem, who is winning rave reviews for his latest film role, slammed the "toxic masculinity" of Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday which he said was responsible for their wars.
Bardem plays an overbearing film director with an explosive temper in "The Beloved" by Rodrigo Sorogoyen, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday to widespread praise from critics.
Here are the latest developments in the Middle East war:
- Iran Guards target Kurdish area -
Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Monday their forces had struck groups linked to the United States and Israel in the western Iranian province of Kurdistan, near the border with Iraq.
In a statement carried by the ISNA news agency, the Guards said groups from "northern Iraq and acting on behalf of the US and the Zionist regime were attempting to smuggle a large shipment of American weapons and ammunition" into Iran.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Sunday visited people wounded by a driver with a history of mental health problems who ran over several pedestrians in northern city of Modena.
Hundreds gathered in the evening at the call of the city's mayor to "unite against those who want to divide and sow hatred" after some far-right politicians tried to tie the incident to immigration.
The driver, a 31-year-old Italian man of Moroccan heritage, hit several people in central Modena before crashing into a shop window, colliding head-on with a woman.
