A top United Nations official urged Greece on May 16 to stop detaining refugee and migrant children, some of whom are locked up in police cells for weeks, and to develop child protection services instead.

The Obama administration's failure to convince Moscow that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must go is fueling European frustration at being sidelined in efforts to end the country's five-year civil war, diplomats say.

Islamic State has not gained significant ground since it took the Iraqi city of Ramadi a year ago, which it then lost in December, as the US-led coalition in Iraq and Syria has been helped by better intelligence and better equipped local forces.

US Secretary of State John Kerry met Saudi Arabia's King Salman in Jeddah on May 15 to discuss the fragile truce in Syria, before broader talks with Russia, Iran and other countries in Vienna on May 17.

An Islamic State attack on a state-run gas plant in Baghdad's northern outskirts on May 15 killed at least 11 people, including policemen, and forced two power stations it supplied to suspend electricity production.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told France's foreign minister on May 15 that Israel remained opposed to a French initiative for an international conference to try to revive peace talks.

Australian police have charged five men suspected of planning to travel to Syria to join Islamic State via journey that would start in a small motor boat taking them to Indonesia and the Philippines.

Syrian government forces retook a hospital in Deir al-Zor after Islamic State attacked it on May 14 following a dawn offensive by the militants on the besieged eastern Syrian city, a war monitor and state media said.

Venezuela's opposition on May 14 slammed a state of emergency decreed by President Nicolas Maduro and vowed to press home efforts to remove the leftist leader this year amid a grim economic crisis.

China is expected to add substantial military infrastructure, including surveillance systems, to artificial islands in the East Sea this year, giving it long-term "civil-military bases" in the contested waters, the Pentagon said on May 13.