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Fire kills 4 in Morocco’s UNESCO-listed Fez: state media

Fire kills 4 in Morocco’s UNESCO-listed Fez: state media
Screengrab taken from a video of a fire that broke out at a popular market in the Moroccan city of Fez's UNESCO-listed old city, and killed at least four people. (X/@Tanja7com)
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Updated 06 June 2024
AFP
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Fire kills 4 in Morocco’s UNESCO-listed Fez: state media

Fire kills 4 in Morocco’s UNESCO-listed Fez: state media
  • Fez’s walled city is a popular tourist destination renowned for being one of the best-preserved in the Arab-Muslim world
Updated 06 June 2024
AFP
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RABAT: At least four people were killed in a fire at a popular market in the Moroccan city of Fez’s UNESCO-listed old city, state media reported Thursday.
The blaze, which broke out on Wednesday evening, also injured 26 people and caused “significant material damage” to nearly 25 shops, the MAP news agency said.
Ten of the injured suffered burns, with three in critical condition, it said. Initial investigations suggest a short-circuit sparked the fire.
Fez’s walled city, spanning 280 hectares (about 690 acres), is a popular tourist destination renowned for being one of the best-preserved in the Arab-Muslim world.

Topics: Morocco fire UNESCO Fez

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US’s Blinken says ‘every indication’ Golan rocket fired by Hezbollah

US’s Blinken says ‘every indication’ Golan rocket fired by Hezbollah
Updated 28 July 2024
AFP
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US’s Blinken says ‘every indication’ Golan rocket fired by Hezbollah

US’s Blinken says ‘every indication’ Golan rocket fired by Hezbollah
  • Blinken said Washington in talks with Israel to avoid conflict escalation
Updated 28 July 2024
AFP

TOKYO: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday that there was “every indication” that Lebanese militant group Hezbollah was behind a rocket strike in the Israel-annexed Golan Heights that killed 12 young people.
“Every indication is that indeed the rocket was from Hezbollah. We stand by Israel’s right to defend its citizens from terrorist attacks,” Blinken told reporters in Japan.
The Israeli military said the young people were struck on Saturday by an Iranian-made rocket carrying a 50-kilogram warhead that Iran-backed Hezbollah fired at a football field in the Druze Arab town of Majdal Shams.
Hezbollah has denied responsibility for the strike.
“We are determined to bring the Gaza conflict to a close. It’s gone on for far too long. It’s cost far too many lives. We want to see Israelis, we want to see Palestinians, we want to see Lebanese live free from the threat of conflict and violence,” Blinken said.
“We’re in conversations with the government of Israel. And again, I emphasize its right to defend its citizens and our determination to make sure that they’re able to do that,” he said in Tokyo.
“But we also don’t want to see the conflict escalating. We don’t want to see a spread. That has been one of our goals from day one, from October 7 on, and we’ll continue to do that.
“But again, the best way to do that in a sustained way is to get the ceasefire in Gaza that we’re working so hard on virtually every minute of the day,” he said.

Topics: War on Gaza Antony Blinken

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Update Strike on Israeli Golan Heights kills 11 and threatens to spark a wider war. Hezbollah denies a role
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Libya opens nominations for new government presidency

Libya opens nominations for new government presidency
Updated 28 July 2024
Arab News
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Libya opens nominations for new government presidency

Libya opens nominations for new government presidency
  • Submission of nomination documents at HoR headquarters in Benghazi open until August 11.
Updated 28 July 2024
Arab News

BENGHAZI: Libya’s House of Representatives on Sunday announced the opening of nominations for the presidency of a new government, the Libyan News Agency reported. 

Those wishing to run are invited to submit their nomination documents at HoR headquarters in Benghazi starting on Sunday, until Aug. 11.

House spokesperson Abdullah Balihaq, in an announcement on the council’s official page, said that the speaker, Aguila Saleh, is urging representatives and members of the Supreme Council of State to recommend qualified candidates for the position of prime minister.

Balihaq said that this call is based on the constitutional declaration, the 13th Constitutional Amendment, election laws issued by the House of Representatives, the outcomes of the 6+6 Committee, and the agreement made on March 10, 2024, between the speaker of the House of Representatives, the president of the Supreme Council of State, and the president of the Presidential Council at the League of Arab States headquarters in Cairo.

The invitation also, Balihaq added, follows the statement issued by the members of the House of Representatives and the State Council after their meeting in Cairo on July 18.

Topics: Libya

Iran’s Khamenei formally grants Pezeshkian presidential powers

Iran’s Khamenei formally grants Pezeshkian presidential powers
Updated 28 July 2024
AFP
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Iran’s Khamenei formally grants Pezeshkian presidential powers

Iran’s Khamenei formally grants Pezeshkian presidential powers
  • New Iranian president due to be sworn in parliament on Tuesday
  • Pezeshkian won runoff election in July against ultraconservative Saeed Jalili
Updated 28 July 2024
AFP

TEHRAN: Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave Sunday his official endorsement of reformist Masoud Pezeshkian as the Islamic republic’s ninth president, following snap elections that had concluded earlier this month.
In a message read by the director of Khamenei’s office, he said: “I endorse the vote (for) the wise, honest, popular and scholarly Mr.Pezeshkian, and I am appointing him as the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
The new president is due to be sworn in before parliament on Tuesday.
The endorsement ceremony was held in the capital Tehran in the presence of senior Iranian officials and foreign diplomats, and broadcast on state TV.
Pezeshkian won a runoff election on July 5 against the ultraconservative Saeed Jalili to replace president Ebrahim Raisi who died in a helicopter crash in May.
The 69-year-old reformist secured more than 16 million votes, or about 54 percent of the roughly 30 million ballots cast.
Turnout in the runoff election stood at 49.8 percent, up from a record low of about 40 percent in the first round, according to Iran’s electoral authority.
Jalili attended Sunday’s ceremony, as did former moderate president Hassan Rouhani who had backed Pezeshkian’s presidential bid along with Iran’s main reformist coalition.
Pezeshkian was the only candidate representing Iran’s reformist camp allowed to stand in the election, for which all contenders were approved by the conservative-dominated Guardian Council.
Iran’s president is not head of state, and the ultimate authority rests with the supreme leader — a post held by Khamenei for the last 35 years.
Following Khamenei’s official endorsement, Pezeshkian thanked the leader and the Iranian people, vowing to carry the “heavy burden” of the presidency.
The election came against a backdrop of heightened regional tensions since the Gaza war began in early October, disputes with Western powers over Iran’s nuclear program, and domestic discontent over the state of the sanctions-hit economy.
On the campaign trail, Pezeshkian had pledged to try to revive a 2015 nuclear deal with the United States and other world powers, which imposed curbs on Iran’s nuclear activity in return for sanctions relief.
The deal collapsed in 2018 after Washington withdrew from it.
Pezeshkian has in a recent article called for “constructive relations” with European countries, even though he accused them of reneging on commitments to mitigate the impact of US sanctions.
Pezeshkian is a heart surgeon who has represented the northwestern city of Tabriz in parliament since 2008.
He served as health minister under Iran’s last reformist president Mohammad Khatami, who held office from 1997 to 2005.

Topics: Masoud Pezeshkian

Thousands of Druze mourn youths killed in Golan rocket attack

Thousands of Druze mourn youths killed in Golan rocket attack
Updated 28 July 2024
AFP
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Thousands of Druze mourn youths killed in Golan rocket attack

Thousands of Druze mourn youths killed in Golan rocket attack
  • Local authorities said the dead were aged between 10 and 16 years
Updated 28 July 2024
AFP

Thousands of Druze men and women, many dressed in black, arrived for the funeral Sunday of several of the 12 youths killed in a rocket attack on the Israeli annexed Golan Heights the day before.
The Israeli military said they were struck by an Iranian-made rocket carrying a 50-kilogram warhead that Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group fired at a football field in the Druze Arab town of Majdal Shams.
Hezbollah has denied responsibility for the strike.
Local authorities said the dead were aged between 10 and 16 years.
Druze follow an offshoot of Shiite Islam. Early on Sunday morning, Druze women gathered around the coffins covered in white shrouds ahead of the funeral.
Several women dressed in black abayas cried as they laid flowers on the caskets, an AFP correspondent reported.
Many held pink flowers, while hundreds of men dressed in traditional Druze attire, including white caps topped with red, arrived for the ceremonies.
“Every night, every day, every minute we are worried. It’s been like this for 10 months,” Laith, a 42-year-old nurse who gave only his first name, told AFP.
“Everybody you see here is worried all the time,” he said. “We are so very sad. We lost children, children playing soccer.”
Under scorching sun, religious leaders led hundreds at a prayer meeting in a local municipal building, with the entire town at a standstill.
Shops closed, and checkpoints were set up at the entrance of every village in the Golan.
Israel’s army called Saturday’s rocket strike “the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians” since the October 7 attack by Hamas on southern Israel that triggered war in Gaza.
In Majdal Shams many residents have not accepted Israeli nationality since Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967.
That October 7 attack resulted in the death of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s military retaliation in Gaza has killed 39,324 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which does not provide details on civilian and militant deaths.

Topics: Druze Israel Golan Heights

Iran’s Khamenei formally grants Pezeshkian presidential powers

Iran’s Khamenei formally grants Pezeshkian presidential powers
Updated 28 July 2024
AFP
Follow

Iran’s Khamenei formally grants Pezeshkian presidential powers

Iran’s Khamenei formally grants Pezeshkian presidential powers
  • The new president is due to be sworn in before parliament on Tuesday
Updated 28 July 2024
AFP

TEHRAN: Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave Sunday his official endorsement of reformist Masoud Pezeshkian as the Islamic republic’s ninth president, following snap elections that had concluded earlier this month.
In a message read by the director of Khamenei’s office, he said: “I endorse the vote (for) the wise, honest, popular and scholarly Mr.Pezeshkian, and I am appointing him as the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
The new president is due to be sworn in before parliament on Tuesday.
The endorsement ceremony was held in the capital Tehran in the presence of senior Iranian officials and foreign diplomats, and broadcast on state TV.
Pezeshkian won a runoff election on July 5 against the ultraconservative Saeed Jalili to replace president Ebrahim Raisi who died in a helicopter crash in May.
The 69-year-old reformist secured more than 16 million votes, or about 54 percent of the roughly 30 million ballots cast.
Turnout in the runoff election stood at 49.8 percent, up from a record low of about 40 percent in the first round, according to Iran’s electoral authority.
Jalili attended Sunday’s ceremony, as did former moderate president Hassan Rouhani who had backed Pezeshkian’s presidential bid along with Iran’s main reformist coalition.
Pezeshkian was the only candidate representing Iran’s reformist camp allowed to stand in the election, for which all contenders were approved by the conservative-dominated Guardian Council.
Iran’s president is not head of state, and the ultimate authority rests with the supreme leader — a post held by Khamenei for the last 35 years.
Following Khamenei’s official endorsement, Pezeshkian thanked the leader and the Iranian people, vowing to carry the “heavy burden” of the presidency.
The election came against a backdrop of heightened regional tensions since the Gaza war began in early October, disputes with Western powers over Iran’s nuclear program, and domestic discontent over the state of the sanctions-hit economy.
On the campaign trail, Pezeshkian had pledged to try to revive a 2015 nuclear deal with the United States and other world powers, which imposed curbs on Iran’s nuclear activity in return for sanctions relief.
The deal collapsed in 2018 after Washington withdrew from it.
Pezeshkian has in a recent article called for “constructive relations” with European countries, even though he accused them of reneging on commitments to mitigate the impact of US sanctions.
Pezeshkian is a heart surgeon who has represented the northwestern city of Tabriz in parliament since 2008.
He served as health minister under Iran’s last reformist president Mohammad Khatami, who held office from 1997 to 2005.

Topics: Iran

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