Iraq parliament staff resume work after weeks-long hiatus

Iraq parliament staff resume work after weeks-long hiatus
Protesters had staged a sit-in outside the assembly for weeks after initially storming it to demand fresh elections and the dissolution of parliament. (File/Reuters)
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Updated 04 September 2022

Iraq parliament staff resume work after weeks-long hiatus

Iraq parliament staff resume work after weeks-long hiatus
  • Speaker Mohammed Al-Halbusi had suggested an agenda for an upcoming national dialogue session following an 11-month political paralysis

BAGHDAD: Staff at Iraq’s parliament returned to work Sunday for the first time since powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr’s supporters stormed the legislature in late July, an assembly official said.
The development came as speaker Mohammed Al-Halbusi suggested an agenda for an upcoming national dialogue session following an 11-month political paralysis that sparked deadly clashes in Baghdad last week.
“All parliament staff have returned to work,” following orders issued on Saturday night, the parliament official told AFP, on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.
“Operations in parliament had been suspended since protesters stormed the legislature’s building,” he said.
The protesters had staged a sit-in outside the assembly for weeks after initially storming it to demand fresh elections and the dissolution of parliament.
They pulled out last Tuesday at Sadr’s orders following nearly 24 hours of violence pitting them against the army and Iran-backed factions that left more than 30 Sadr supporters dead.
The battles that started when Sadr supporters stormed the government palace in the capital’s fortified Green Zone marked one of the deadliest episodes of street violence in the country in nearly three years.
In a statement posted on Twitter on Sunday, Halbusi suggested an agenda for a second national dialogue session, following a previous round that was held on August 17.
The dialogue sessions are part of a bid to end a political stalemate that has left Iraq without a new government, prime minister or president since elections last October.
The first session was boycotted by Sadr representatives.
Halbusi did not set a timeframe for the upcoming talks but said they should “set a date for early parliamentary elections” and discuss the election of a new president and formation of a government.
It was not immediately clear who would attend the talks.


Houthis attack Yemeni forces in Shabwa amid militia’s escalating operations

Houthis attack Yemeni forces in Shabwa amid militia’s escalating operations
Updated 11 sec ago

Houthis attack Yemeni forces in Shabwa amid militia’s escalating operations

Houthis attack Yemeni forces in Shabwa amid militia’s escalating operations
  • Houthis attacked Shabwa Defense Forces on Saturday in a range of mountains
  • Government troops said that the Houthis were forced to suspend the assault and withdraw

AL-MUKALLA: Yemeni government troops in the southern province of Shabwa announced on Sunday that they had repelled a Houthi assault on their positions in the face of the militia’s continuing expansion of military operations.

Houthis attacked Shabwa Defense Forces on Saturday in a range of mountains which connect the Merkhah Al Ulya district with the adjacent Bayda province, resulting in a fierce battle that reportedly killed and wounded many soldiers on both sides.

Government troops said that the Houthis were forced to suspend the assault and withdraw after failing to capture control of the highlands, and that military reinforcements were sent to the front line to repel any future action.

Unofficial Houthi media sources said that its troops had moved 8 km into government-held territory in Merkhah Al Ulya.

A Yemeni official in Shabwa told Arab News that the Houthi attacks had been intended to distract government soldiers rather than occupy the province.

The official, who requested anonymity, said: “Rather than a full-scale military action in the area, the purpose of the strike is to stir up sluggish waters.”

The Houthi military buildup in Shabwa comes only days after heavy combat erupted in the central province of Marib when government soldiers were attacked in rural areas of Hareb.

The fighting subsided on Sunday amid reports that government forces had regained villages held by the Houthis.

Meanwhile, Taiz Gov. Nabil Shamsan said on Twitter that Houthis had attacked his convoy for 90 minutes on Saturday with a guided missile, mortars, and artillery bombs as he was returning to Taiz from the city of Mocha on the Red Sea.

One of his bodyguards was killed and two others were injured in the incident.

Houthi assaults and the militia’s military escalation have sparked outrage and warnings of the impending failure of UN-led diplomatic efforts to end the conflict.

Separately, Yemen’s Ministry of Human Rights said on Sunday that Houthis had encircled ancient areas in the city of Ibb and had detained scores of people, including two social media activists who took part in a rally against the militia last week.

The burial of a social media influencer turned into a protest against the Houthis on Thursday.

Protesters accused the militia of kidnapping, torturing, and executing Hamdi Abdel-Razzaq, also known as Al-Mukahal, an influencer abducted by the Houthis in October for criticizing corruption.

The Yemeni government said that armed Houthi forces in military vehicles surrounded Ibb, where the influencer had lived, and conducted raids on homes, detaining many people.

The government’s statement added: “The ministry has monitored the savage Houthi terrorist militia’s campaign of arbitrary arrests against Ibb residents, looting and destruction of their property, and terrorization of children and women.”


UAE slams Israeli decision to permit new settlements in Occupied Territories

UAE slams Israeli decision to permit new settlements in Occupied Territories
Updated 26 March 2023

UAE slams Israeli decision to permit new settlements in Occupied Territories

UAE slams Israeli decision to permit new settlements in Occupied Territories
  • Gulf state reaffirms rejection of violations of international law, threats to regional stability

DUBAI: The UAE has strongly condemned Israel’s decision to allow resettlement in northern West Bank areas, and to permit new settlement units in the Occupied Territories, the Emirates News Agency reported on Sunday.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation reaffirmed the UAE’s rejection of all practices that violate international law and threaten to aggravate regional escalation and instability. 

The ministry also emphasized the importance of supporting all regional and international efforts to advance the Middle East peace process, as well as ending illegal practices that jeopardize the two-state solution, and establishing an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

 


Iraq’s Kurdistan region to hold elections on Nov. 18 — spokesman

Iraq’s Kurdistan region to hold elections on Nov. 18 — spokesman
Updated 26 March 2023

Iraq’s Kurdistan region to hold elections on Nov. 18 — spokesman

Iraq’s Kurdistan region to hold elections on Nov. 18 — spokesman
  • The vote should elect both a parliament and a president for Kurdish regions

SULAIMANIYA: Elections will be held in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq on Nov. 18, the regional government spokesman said on Sunday.
Iraqi Kurdistan President Nechirvan Barzani issued a decree on Sunday and approved the date, KRG spokesman Dilshad Shahab told a news conference.
The vote should elect both a parliament and a president for Kurdish regions which have gained self-rule in 1991.


GCC appeals to US over Israeli minister’s Palestinian comments

GCC appeals to US over Israeli minister’s Palestinian comments
Updated 26 March 2023

GCC appeals to US over Israeli minister’s Palestinian comments

GCC appeals to US over Israeli minister’s Palestinian comments
  • The US State Department said they had found Smotrich’s comments “innacurate, dangerous”

LONDON: The Gulf Cooperation Council said on Sunday it had written to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemning controversial comments made by Israel’s finance minister in which he denied the existence of a Palestinian people.

Secretary General Jassem Mohamed Albudaiwi said that the foreign ministers of the GCC had sent the joint letter, which embodied the position of the leaders of the GCC countries regarding the Palestinian cause, Saudi Press Agency reported.

In the letter, the GCC called on Washington “to assume its responsibilities in responding to all measures and statements that target the Palestinian people,” and also called on the US “to play its role in reaching a just, comprehensive and lasting solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

He added that the letter praised the American position which rejected the statements made by Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

Albudaiwi said the 155th session of the GCC Ministerial Council, which was held on March 22 and met in Riyadh, stressed the GCC's support for the sovereignty of the Palestinian people over all Palestinian lands occupied since June 1967, the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, that guarantees all the legitimate rights of the brotherly Palestinian people, and rejects settlements in the occupied Palestinian lands.

The US State Department said they had found Smotrich’s comments “to not only be inaccurate but also deeply concerning and dangerous.”

Smotrich is part of veteran Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right government that took office in December.

* With AFP


Tunisia recovers 29 bodies after migrant vessels capsize

Tunisia recovers 29 bodies after migrant vessels capsize
Updated 26 March 2023

Tunisia recovers 29 bodies after migrant vessels capsize

Tunisia recovers 29 bodies after migrant vessels capsize
  • Rome has pressured Tunisian authorities to rein in the flow of people

TUNIS: Tunisia’s coast guard said Sunday the bodies of 29 migrants from sub-Saharan African countries had been recovered after three vessels capsized, the latest in a string of such tragedies.
A series of shipwrecks has left dozens of migrants dead and others missing in the country that serves as a key conduit for migrants seeking to reach nearby European shores.
It comes after President Kais Saied made an incendiary speech last month, accusing sub-Saharan Africans of representing a demographic threat and causing a crime wave in Tunisia.
The coast guard said in a statement Sunday that it had “rescued 11 illegal migrants of various African nationalities after their boats sank” off the central eastern coast, citing three separate sinkings.
In one, a Tunisian fishing trawler recovered 19 bodies 58 kilometers (36 miles) off the coast after their boat capsized.
A coast guard patrol off the coastal city of Mahdiya also recovered eight bodies and “rescued” 11 other migrants after their boat sank as it headed toward Italy.
Fishing trawlers in Sfax meanwhile recovered two other bodies.
Black migrants in the country have faced a spike in violence since Saied’s speech and hundreds have been living in the streets for weeks in increasingly desperate conditions.
People fleeing poverty and violence in Sudan’s Darfur region, West Africa and other parts of the continent have for years used Tunisia as a springboard for often perilous attempts to reach safety and better lives in Europe.


The Italian island of Lampedusa is just 150 kilometers (90 miles) off the Tunisian coast, part of the Central Mediterranean route described by the United Nations as the most deadly in the world.
Rome has pressured Tunisian authorities to rein in the flow of people, and has helped beef up the coast guard, which rights groups accuse of violence.
Italy’s hard-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni warned Friday that Tunisia’s “serious financial problems” risked sparking a “migratory wave” toward Europe.
She also confirmed plans for a mission to the North African country involving the Italian and French foreign ministers.
Meloni echoed comments earlier in the week by Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, who warned Tunisia risks economic collapse that could trigger a new flow of migrants to Europe — fears Tunis has since dismissed.
Since Saied’s speech, hundreds of migrants have been repatriated in flights organized by their embassies, but many say they fear going home and have called on the UN to organize evacuation flights to safe third countries.
Tunisia is in the throes of a long-running socio-economic crisis, with spiralling inflation and persistently high joblessness, and Tunisians themselves make up a large proportion of the migrants traveling to Italian shores.
The heavily indebted North African country is in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund for a $2-billion bailout package, but the talks have been stalled for months and there is no sign a deal is any closer.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned on Wednesday that unless they reach an agreement, “the economy risks falling off the deep end.”