Tunisia sentences prominent opponent of president, four presidential candidates

Abir Moussi, a candidate for Tunisia's presidential elections, casts her ballot at a polling station in the capital Tunis on September 15, 2019.
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Abir Moussi, a candidate for Tunisia's presidential elections, casts her ballot at a polling station in the capital Tunis on September 15, 2019. (AFP)
Tunisian forces stand guard in Djerba, on May 10, 2023. (AFP)
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Tunisian forces stand guard in Djerba, on May 10, 2023. (AFP)
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Updated 06 August 2024
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Tunisia sentences prominent opponent of president, four presidential candidates

Tunisia sentences prominent opponent of president, four presidential candidates
  • Moussi, the leader of the Free Constitutional Party, one of the largest political parties in Tunisia, said that the election commission is not independent and is affiliated with the president

TUNIS: A Tunisian court on Monday sentenced four potential presidential election candidates to eight months in prison and banned them from running for office on a charge of vote buying, politicians and a lawyer told Reuters, a move they said was aimed at excluding serious competitors of President Kais Saied.
The ruling reinforces the fears of opposition parties, candidates and human rights groups who have accused authorities of using arbitrary restrictions and intimidation in order to ensure the reelection of Saied in a vote set for Oct. 6.
The decision was issued against prominent politician Abdel Latif Mekki, activist Nizar Chaari, Judge Mourad Massoudi and another candidate, Adel Dou, said lawyer Mokthar Jmai.
Ahmed Nafatti, the manager of Mekki’s campaign, said they still planned to submit his candidacy papers on Tuesday.
“The decision is unfair and unjust, and aims to exclude a serious player from the race,” Nafatti said.
“It is a shocking rule, it aims to keep us away from running for the race after a series of restrictions,” Chaari told Reuters.
Another court late on Monday sentenced Abir Moussi, also a prominent opponent of Saied, to two years in prison, on a charge of insulting the election commission, local Mosaique radio reported.
Last month, a court sentenced Lotfi Mraihi, a potential presidential election candidate and fierce critic of Saied, to eight months in prison on a charge of vote buying. It also banned him from running in presidential elections.
Elected in 2019, Saied dissolved parliament in 2021 and began ruling by decree in a move the opposition described as a coup. He has said he will not hand over power to what he calls “non-patriots.”
Opposition parties, many of whose leaders are in prison, have accused Saied’s government of exerting pressure on the judiciary to crack down on his rivals in the 2024 elections and pave the way for him to win a second term.
Saied has denied placing any restrictions on rivals.
“There are no restrictions on potential candidates for the presidential elections... this is nonsense and lies,” Saied told reporters on Monday after submitting his official candidacy file.
Earlier on Monday, at least four other prominent potential candidates said the election commission had imposed a new restriction by demanding they submit their police record in order to register, but that the interior ministry had refused to provide those records.
They accused authorities of seeking to return Tunisia to the years of dictatorship and farce elections that were the norm before the Tunisian revolution in 2011. The interior ministry was not immediately available for comment.

 


The UN will vote on a Palestinian resolution demanding Israel end its occupation

Updated 23 sec ago
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The UN will vote on a Palestinian resolution demanding Israel end its occupation

The UN will vote on a Palestinian resolution demanding Israel end its occupation
UNITED NATIONS: The UN General Assembly will vote Wednesday on a Palestinian resolution demanding that Israel end its “unlawful presence” in Gaza and the occupied West Bank within a year, withdraw its military forces and evacuate all settlers.
The resolution is being put to a vote in the 193-member assembly as Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza approaches its first anniversary and as violence in the West Bank reaches new highs. The war was triggered by Hamas attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7.
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian UN ambassador, opened the assembly meeting Tuesday by saying Palestinians face an “existential threat” and claiming Israel has held them “in shackles.” He demanded an end to Israel’s decades-long occupation and for Palestinians to be able to return home to live in peace and freedom.
Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, urged member nations to reject the resolution, describing it as “an attempt to destroy Israel through diplomatic terrorism” that never mentions Hamas’ atrocities and “ignores the truth, twists the facts and replaces reality with fiction.”
“Instead of a resolution condemning the rape and massacre committed by Hamas on Oct. 7, we gather here to watch the Palestinians’ UN circus — a circus where evil is righteous, war is peace, murder is justified and terror is applauded,” he said.
If adopted, the resolution would not be legally binding, but the extent of its support would reflect world opinion. There are no vetoes in the General Assembly, unlike in the 15-member Security Council.
The resolution is a response to a ruling by the top United Nations court in July that said Israel’s presence in the Palestinian territories is unlawful and must end.
In the sweeping condemnation of Israel’s rule over the lands it captured during the 1967 war, the International Court of Justice said Israel had no right to sovereignty over the Palestinian territories and was violating international laws against acquiring the lands by force.
The court’s opinion also is not legally binding. Nonetheless, the Palestinians drafted the resolution to try to implement the ruling, saying Israel’s “abuse of its status as the occupying power” renders its “presence in the occupied Palestinian territory unlawful.”
Mansour stressed that any country that thinks the Palestinian people “will accept a life of servitude” or that claims peace is possible without a just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is “not being realistic.”
The solution remains an independent Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, living side by side in peace and security with Israel, he said.
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas Greenfield told reporters that the resolution has “a significant number of flaws,” saying it goes beyond the ICJ ruling. It also doesn’t recognize that “Hamas is a terrorist organization” in control of Gaza and that Israel has a right to defend itself, she said.
“In our view, the resolution does not bring about tangible benefits across the board for the Palestinian people,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “I think it could complicate the situation on the ground, complicate what we’re trying to do to end the conflict, and I think it impedes reinvigorating steps toward a two-state solution.”
The resolution calls for Israel to pay reparations to Palestinians for the damage caused by its occupation and urges countries to take steps to prevent trade or investments that maintain Israel’s presence in the territories.
It also demands that Israel be held accountable for any violations of international law, that sanctions be imposed on those responsible for maintaining Israel’s presence in the territories, and for countries to halt arms exports to Israel if they’re suspected of being used there.
Mansour said an initial Palestinian draft demanded Israel end its occupation within six months but that it was revised in response to concerns of some countries to increase the time frame to within a year.
Most likely, he said, Israel won’t pay attention to the resolution.

Israeli military says four soldiers killed in southern Gaza

Israeli military says four soldiers killed in southern Gaza
Updated 7 min 20 sec ago
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Israeli military says four soldiers killed in southern Gaza

Israeli military says four soldiers killed in southern Gaza
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said on Wednesday four soldiers were killed in combat in southern Gaza.
Three soldiers were severely wounded and two others moderately wounded in the same incident, it said.

Blinken arrives in Egypt to push Gaza ceasefire

Blinken arrives in Egypt to push Gaza ceasefire
Updated 7 min 48 sec ago
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Blinken arrives in Egypt to push Gaza ceasefire

Blinken arrives in Egypt to push Gaza ceasefire
  • On his 10th trip to the Middle East since the start of the war in Gaza nearly a year ago, Blinken will address negotiation efforts with Egyptian officials
  • Blinken is expected to meet with Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and hold a press conference with Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty

CAIRO: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in Cairo early Wednesday, an AFP reporter said, as efforts to secure an elusive ceasefire in Gaza were further complicated by a wave of blasts in Lebanon.
On his 10th trip to the Middle East since the start of the war in Gaza nearly a year ago, Blinken will address negotiation efforts with Egyptian officials, according to the US State Department.
Blinken is expected to meet with Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and hold a press conference with Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, but will not be visiting Israel in this round of diplomacy.
US officials say privately that they do not expect any breakthroughs at Wednesday’s talks in Cairo, but Blinken’s visit will aim to keep up the pressure campaign for a deal between Israel and Hamas.
“He’ll be meeting with Egyptian officials about a number of things, but squarely on the agenda is how we get a proposal that we think would secure agreement from both parties,” said US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.
His visit comes after a series of pagers used by Hezbollah members exploded across Lebanon on Tuesday, killing at least nine people and wounding about 2,800 in blasts the Iran-backed militant group blamed on Israel.
The United States was “not involved” and “not aware of this incident in advance,” according to Miller.
Israel recently announced it was broadening the aims of the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attacks to include its fight against Hezbollah along the country’s border with Lebanon.


Gold Apollo says it did not make pagers used in Lebanon explosion

Gold Apollo says it did not make pagers used in Lebanon explosion
Updated 21 min 21 sec ago
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Gold Apollo says it did not make pagers used in Lebanon explosion

Gold Apollo says it did not make pagers used in Lebanon explosion
  • The company’s founder said the pagers used in the explosion were made by a company in Europe that had the right to use the Taiwanese firm’s brand

TAIPEI: Taiwan’s Gold Apollo did not make the pagers that were used in the detonations in Lebanon on Tuesday, the company’s founder Hsu Ching-Kuang told reporters on Wednesday.

At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon on Tuesday.

Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo.

Hsu said the pagers used in the explosion were made by a company in Europe that had the right to use the Taiwanese firm’s brand.
 


Biden calls on Sudan’s warring parties to re-engage in negotiations

Biden calls on Sudan’s warring parties to re-engage in negotiations
Updated 18 September 2024
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Biden calls on Sudan’s warring parties to re-engage in negotiations

Biden calls on Sudan’s warring parties to re-engage in negotiations
  • “We call for all parties to this conflict to end this violence and refrain from fueling it, for the future of Sudan and for all of the Sudanese people,” Biden said in a statement

WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden on Tuesday called on Sudan’s warring parties to re-engage in negotiations to end a war that has been ongoing for more than 17 months.
“We call for all parties to this conflict to end this violence and refrain from fueling it, for the future of Sudan and for all of the Sudanese people,” Biden said in a statement.
“I call on the belligerents responsible for Sudanese suffering— the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF)— to pull back their forces, facilitate unhindered humanitarian access, and re-engage in negotiations to end this war.”
More than 12,00 people have been killed across Sudan since the war started on April 15, 2023.
The conflict began when competition between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which had previously shared power after staging a coup, flared into open warfare.
Biden said the RSF’s assault is disproportionately harming Sudanese civilians and called on the armed forces to stop “indiscriminate” bombings that are destroying civilian lives and infrastructure.
The US previously determined that the two sides committed war crimes and sanctioned 16 individuals and entities tied to the war.
Biden said the United States will continue to evaluate further atrocity allegations and potential additional sanctions.