The West warned Libya on Thursday that political instability is hampering international efforts to provide assistance to the deeply-divided country.

Italy's new Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini told Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan and a large delegation of foreign ministers in Rome that "international partners are ready to help Libya", but the "uncontrolled circulation of arms" in the country was creating difficulties.

An Egyptian court ban on Hamas activities could push the increasingly isolated Palestinian Islamist movement into another battle with Israel, analysts say.

The latest move marked a further deterioration in ties between Egypt and Hamas, which has close links to the Muslim Brotherhood of deposed Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi and is now the target of a sweeping crackdown by the military-installed government.

Negotiators have lost contact with a group of nuns kidnapped from a Syrian town last year after their captors moved them, a source told AFP on Thursday.

The 13 nuns and three maids were kidnapped from the famed Christian hamlet of Maalula last year and transported to the nearby town of Yabrud, a rebel stronghold the army is fighting to recapture.

Sudan has no connection with a ship intercepted in the Red Sea allegedly carrying rockets from Iran to Gaza, Khartoum's foreign ministry said on Thursday.

"We have nothing to do with this," foreign ministry spokesman Abubakr Al-Siddiq told AFP, adding that the vessel was in international waters.

Tunisia's president has lifted a state of emergency in force since the 2011 uprising that ousted dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, his office said Thursday, despite a string of recent jihadist attacks.

The country has been rocked by sporadic violence since the January 2011 revolution, which ignited the Arab Spring across North Africa and the Middle East.

Syria's President Bashar Assad has expressed his "solidarity" with Russian President Vladimir Putin's position on the crisis in Ukraine, state media reported on Thursday.

In a telegram, Assad "expressed... Syria's solidarity with Putin's efforts to restore security and stability to Ukraine in the face of attempted coups against legitimacy and democracy in favor of radical terrorists", state news agency SANA said.

An Egyptian court suspended Thursday the murder trial of Mohammed Morsi after his lawyers requested new judges, sources said, the third such case against the deposed president to be put on hold.

The case is part of a relentless crackdown the government has been waging against Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood movement since the military ousted him on July 3, ending a turbulent year of rule.

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Thursday rejected as "lies" an Israeli claim that it intercepted a ship carrying advanced rockets sent by Tehran to the Gaza Strip.

"An Iranian ship carrying arms for Gaza. Captured just in time for annual (pro-Israel lobby) AIPAC anti Iran campaign. Amazing Coincidence! Or same failed lies," Zarif wrote on Twitter, referring to a pro-Israel lobby group.

Security forces on Thursday arrested about 40 people protesting in central Algiers against President Abdelaziz Bouteflika standing for a fourth term next month, an AFP journalist said.

Public demonstrations in Algeria remain banned, despite a state of emergency being lifted in 2011, and a similar protest last week was also scattered.

Al-Qaida militants in Yemen executed one of their own Thursday after accusing him of spying for the United States, a security official said.

The man was executed by firing squad and his body was displayed at a football stadium near Shehr in the southeastern Hadramawt province, an Al-Qaida stronghold, the source said.