Jordan partners with Japan to boost electrical infrastructure
They will work together to improve electrical protection systems in key substations across Jordan
Updated 09 October 2023
Arab News
LONDON: Jordan’s National Electric Power Company signed an agreement with the Japan International Cooperation Agency on Monday for a project that will enhance electrical infrastructure in the Arab nation.
Under the terms of the deal, the organizations will work together to improve electrical protection systems in key substations, to help strengthen Jordan’s power-transmission network, the Jordan News Agency reported.
The agreement was signed by Amjad Rawashdeh, NEPCO’s general manager, and Kazuyoshi Yoshida, the Japanese consultant who will oversee the implementation of the project.
Rawashdeh highlighted the strategic importance of the agreement, which he said is in keeping with the company’s efforts to improve the quality and durability of Jordan’s electrical grid. He also emphasized the significant part the collaboration will play in enhancing NEPCO’s ability to adapt to the growing number of renewable-energy installations that form part of the power grid.
The agreement is proof, he added, of the tangible results produced through funding from the Japanese agency, which has already played a critical role in helping to boost the country’s energy sector.
Aid group says Israel hit convoy to hospital in Gaza. Israel says it hit gunmen who seized the car
The strike killed several people employed by a transportation company that the aid group was using to bring supplies to the Emirates Red Crescent Hospital in Rafah
Strike happened Thursday on the Salah Al-Din Road in the Gaza Strip and hit the convoy’s first vehicle
Updated 19 sec ago
AP
DUBAI: An Israeli missile hit a convoy carrying medical supplies and fuel to an Emirati hospital in the Gaza Strip, killing several people from a local transportation company, the American Near East Refugee Aid group said Friday. Israel claimed without immediate evidence that it opened fire after gunmen seized the convoy. The strike killed several people employed by a transportation company that the aid group was using to bring supplies to the Emirates Red Crescent Hospital in Rafah, said Sandra Rasheed, Anera’s director for the Palestinian territories. The strike happened Thursday on the Salah Al-Din Road in the Gaza Strip and hit the convoy’s first vehicle. “The convoy, which was coordinated by Anera and approved by Israeli authorities, included an Anera employee who was fortunately unharmed,” Rasheed said in a statement. “Despite this devastating incident, our understanding is that the remaining vehicles in the convoy were able to continue and successfully deliver the aid to the hospital. We are urgently seeking further details about what happened.” Anera planned to release more information later Friday. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday from The Associated Press. However, Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Avichay Adraee posted to the social platform X that “gunmen seized a car at the head of the convoy (a jeep) and began driving.” “After the seizure operation and after confirming the possibility of attacking the militants’ vehicle alone, the raid was carried out, as the rest of the convoy vehicles were not harmed and reached their target according to the plan,” Adraee wrote. “The operation to target the militants removed the risk of seizing the humanitarian convoy.” He added: “The presence of armed men inside a humanitarian convoy in an uncoordinated manner makes it difficult to secure the convoys and their staff and harms the humanitarian effort.” The United Arab Emirates, which reached a diplomatic recognition deal with Israel in 2020 and has been providing aid to Gaza since the Israel-Hamas war began, did not immediately acknowledge the attack. Israeli forces have opened fire on other aid convoys in the Gaza Strip. The World Food Program announced Wednesday it is pausing all staff movement in Gaza until further notice over Israeli troops opening fire on one of its marked vehicles, hitting it with at least 10 rounds. The shooting came despite having received multiple clearances from Israeli authorities. On July 23, UNICEF said two of its vehicles were hit with live ammunition while waiting at a designated holding point. An Israeli attack in April hit three World Central Kitchen vehicles, killing seven people.
Israeli military hits Jenin as its West Bank raid pushes forward
Airstrikes while common over the months-long Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip have been rare in the West Bank
Updated 30 August 2024
AP
JERUSALEM — The Israeli military conducted an airstrike in the West Bank city of Jenin amid days of heavy fighting in the Palestinian territory, authorities said Friday.
The Israeli military said in a brief statement that a military aircraft “struck a terrorist cell during an encounter with security forces in a counterterrorism operation in the area of Jenin.” It did not immediately elaborate.
Such airstrikes, while common over the months-long Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, have been rare in the West Bank in the time since.
Israel says the raids across the northern West Bank — which have killed 16 people, nearly all militants, since late Tuesday — are aimed at preventing attacks. The Palestinians see them as a widening of the war in Gaza and an effort to perpetuate Israel’s decades-long military rule over the territory.
The Palestinian Health Ministry says over 650 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the start of the war.
Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and the Palestinians want all three territories for their future state.
Libya central bank governor, other bankers flee to avoid militias, FT says
The crisis over the control of the Central Bank of Libya creates yet another level of instability in the country
Updated 30 August 2024
Reuters
Libya’s central bank governor Sadiq Al-Kabir said he and other senior bank staff had been forced to leave the country to “protect out lives” from potential attacks by armed militia, the Financial Times reported on Friday.
“Militias are threatening and terrifying bank staff and are sometimes abducting their children and relatives to force them to go to work,” Kabir told the newspaper via telephone.
He also said attempts by interim Prime Minister Abdulhamid Al-Dbeibah to replace him were illegal, and contravened UN negotiated accords on control of the central bank.
The crisis over the control of the Central Bank of Libya creates yet another level of instability in the country, a major oil producer that is split between eastern and western factions that have drawn backing from Turkiye and Russia.
The UN Support Mission in Libya early this week called for the suspension of unilateral decisions, the lifting of force majeure on oil fields, the halting of escalations and use of force, and the protection of central bank employees.
Israel agrees ‘humanitarian pauses’ in Gaza to allow polio vaccinations
First case of polio in Gaza in 25 years was confirmed this month in an unvaccinated 10-month-old baby
UN plans to provide oral vaccines against type-2 poliovirus to more than 640,000 children in the territory
Updated 30 August 2024
AFP
GAZA: Israel has agreed to a series of three-day “humanitarian pauses” in Gaza to allow UN health officials to administer polio vaccinations in the territory, the World Health Organization said Thursday.
“The way we discussed and agreed, the campaign will start on the first of September, in central Gaza, for three days, and there will be a humanitarian pause during the vaccination,” said Rik Peeperkorn, the agency’s representative for Palestinian territories.
The vaccination rollout will also cover southern and northern Gaza, which will each get their own three-day pauses, Peeperkorn told reporters, adding that Israel had agreed to allow an additional day if required.
Israeli authorities did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday night the new measures were “not a ceasefire.”
Hamas said it supports the “UN humanitarian truce.”
The United States and European Union have both voiced concern over polio in Gaza, after the first case there in 25 years was confirmed this month in an unvaccinated 10-month-old baby.
UN agencies have said they plan to provide oral vaccines against type-2 poliovirus (cVDPV2) to more than 640,000 children in the territory.
Poliovirus is highly infectious and most often spread through sewage and contaminated water — an increasingly common problem in Gaza with much of the territory’s infrastructure destroyed by Israel in its war against Hamas.
The disease mainly affects children under the age of five. It can cause deformities and paralysis, and is potentially fatal.
Houthi video shows the Yemeni militia planted bombs on tanker now threatening Red Sea oil spill
In the video, the Iran-backed Houthis chant their motto as the bombs detonated aboard the oil tanker Sounion
The European Union’s Operation Aspides is tryinhg to secure the abandoned ship to prevent and oil spill
Updated 30 August 2024
AP
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: Yemen’s Houthi rebels released footage on Thursday showing their fighters boarded and placed explosives on a Greek-flagged tanker, setting off blasts that put the Red Sea at risk of a major oil spill. The vessel was abandoned earlier, after the Houthis repeatedly attacked it.
In the video, the Iran-backed Houthis chant their motto as the bombs detonated aboard the oil tanker Sounion: “God is the greatest; death to America; death to Israel; curse the Jews; victory to Islam.”
The blasts capped the most-serious attack in weeks by the Houthis in their campaign disrupting the $1 trillion in goods that pass through the Red Sea each year over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, as well as halting some aid shipments to conflict-ravaged Sudan and Yemen.
Flames and smoke rise from Greek-flagged oil tanker Sounion on the Red Sea, in this handout picture released August 29, 2024. (Houthi Military Media/Handout via REUTERS)
The Sounion carried some 1 million barrels of oil when the Houthis initially attacked it on Aug. 21 with small arms fire, projectiles and a drone boat. A French destroyer operating as part of the European Union’s Operation Aspides rescued the Sounion’s crew of 25 Filipinos and Russians, as well as four private security personnel, after they abandoned the vessel and took them to nearby Djibouti.
The footage released Thursday shows masked Houthi fighters carrying Kalashnikov-style rifles boarding the Sounion after it was abandoned. The bridge appeared ransacked. Fighters then rigged explosives over hatches on its deck leading to the oil tankers below. At least six simultaneous blasts could be seen in the footage.
The footage, as well as comments by the Houthi’s mysterious leader Abdul Malik Al-Houthi, confirmed an earlier analysis by The Associated Press that the Houthis boarded and planted explosives on the Sounion. The Houthi-controlled SABA news agency described Al-Houthi as saying the Sounion attack shows America “is lying in its claims regarding any deterrence of Yemeni operations supporting Palestine.”
“The effectiveness of our operations and their control of the situation is acknowledged by the enemies,” Al-Houthi said.
Western countries and the United Nations have warned any oil spill from the Sounion could devastate the coral reefs and wildlife around the Red Sea. However, the EU’s naval force in the region says it has yet to see any oil spill from the Sounion.
Operation Aspides “is preparing to facilitate any courses of action, in coordination with European authorities and neighboring countries, to avert a catastrophic environmental crisis,” the EU mission said. “Together, we can protect the environment and maintain stability in the region.”
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric commended the efforts by the international community and the UN special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, “to secure the immediate access to the vessel and avert an environmental catastrophe.” The Houthis have agreed to allow the operation to proceed safely, he said.
A Yemen Houthi militant walks on the deck of the Sounion oil tanker on the Red Sea, in this screen grab picture released on August 29, 2024. (Houthi Military Media/Handout via REUTERS)
Dujarric did not offer any indication when it might start but added that the reports that “the salvage operations for the tanker can proceed with tugboats and rescue ships to access the incident area” are encouraging.
On Wednesday, the Houthis suggested they may allow the Sounion to be salvaged, though the rebels already once blocked crews trying to reach the abandoned vessel, the US military said.
The US State Department declined to directly comment on the video Thursday. It referred to earlier remarks in which spokesperson Matthew Miller warned “the Houthis’ continued attacks threaten to spill a million barrels of oil into the Red Sea, an amount four times the size of the Exxon Valdez disaster” in 1989 off Alaska.
This isn’t the first time the Houthis have used the threat of an oil spill to their advantage. It took years of negotiations before the rebels allowed the UN in 2023 to remove 1 million barrels from the oil tanker Safer off the coast of Yemen, which had been used as a floating storage and offloading facility.
“Experience has shown that the group is willing to interfere with salvage efforts if they can turn the situation into a political bargaining chip,” warned Noam Raydan, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near-East Policy who has studied the ongoing Houthi attacks.
The Houthis have targeted more than 80 vessels with missiles and drones since the war in Gaza started in October. They seized one vessel and sank two in the campaign that also killed four sailors. Other missiles and drones have either been intercepted by a US-led coalition in the Red Sea or failed to reach their targets.
The rebels maintain that they target ships linked to Israel, the US or the UK to force an end to Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the conflict, including some bound for Iran.
Meanwhile Thursday, the US military’s Central Command said its forces destroyed a Houthi missile system and drone.
