Twelve-year-old Iraqi Nejla Imad holds a white table tennis ball against her bat with her thumb, flicks it into the air and sends it bouncing over the net.
A truck bomb exploded at a crowded checkpoint outside the city of Hilla, south of Baghdad, on Sunday, killing at least 47 people, officials and medical sources said.
Yemeni authorities have blamed the Islamic State group for an attack on a care home run by missionaries that killed 16 people and was condemned by Pope Francis as "diabolical".
German police on Thursday arrested a doctor suspected of having recruited a man of limited mental capacity to fight for the Islamic State organisation in Iraq.
War-torn Syria was hit Thursday by a nationwide power cut, state television reported, but the cause was not immediately known.
Ukraine on Thursday accused pro-Russian insurgents of firing large-calibre weapons at its forces in advance of new peace talks in Paris aimed at ending the 23-month war.
Saudi Arabia on Sunday accused President Bashar al-Assad's regime and its ally Russia of ‘ceasefire violations’ in Syria.
The United Arab Emirates said Saturday that one of its soldiers has died in Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition is helping government forces against Iran-backed rebels.
Guns fell silent across Syria on Saturday after a landmark UN-backed ceasefire came into effect, as a special task force led by rivals Moscow and Washington prepared to begin monitoring the fledgling truce.
The Syrian army retook a strategic town from the Islamic State group on Thursday, paving the way for the reopening of its sole supply route to main northern city Aleppo.
Syria's main opposition umbrella group was meeting in the Saudi capital on Monday as Washington and Moscow worked to secure a ceasefire.
Bomb attacks in Syria's central city of Homs and near a shrine outside Damascus killed at least 87 people on Sunday, as Washington pursued efforts for a ceasefire.
