Doctors in the UAE are warning people against the use of bluetooth earbuds, which they claim not only causes a risk of sleep distraction and deafness, but also brain cancer.

Taliban militants on Monday kidnapped 170 passengers after they launched an ambush on three buses on the highway connecting Kunduz province to Takhar, police said.

Peruvian actor Richard Torres has "married" a tree in the Dominican Republic capital to draw attention to the indiscriminate felling of forests.

In the curious ceremony on Sunday in the Ciudad Colonial neighbourhood here Torres placed a ring on the tree and told a person who acted as a judge that he accepted the marriage.

At least five people were killed and 40 others injured as two quakes measuring 6.5 and 6.9 on the Richter scale jolted Indonesia's Lombok Island where several previous tremors have already claimed over 400 lives since July, an official said on Monday.

Pakistan on Sunday welcomed the Afghan government's declaration of a three-month conditional ceasefire with the Taliban from Monday.

The Hajj season started on Sunday with the Day of Tarwiyah, the first ritual of the holy pilgrimage, in Mina, a neighbourhood of the Islamic city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, with 1,966,461 pilgrims.

US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo is likely to visit Islamabad in September for consultations with Pakistan's newly-elected Prime Minister Imran Khan and his team on issues of mutual interests, sources told Dawn news on Sunday.

An earthquake measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale jolted Indonesia's Lombok island on Sunday, weeks after three previous tremors in the same region killed 467 people.