DUBAI: Iranians will vote for a new president on Friday following Ebrahim Raisi’s death in a helicopter crash, choosing from a tightly controlled group of four candidates loyal to the supreme leader, at a time of growing public frustration.
While the election is unlikely to bring a major shift in the Islamic Republic’s policies, the outcome could influence the succession to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s 85-year-old supreme leader, in power for three-and-a-half decades.
Khamenei has called for a “maximum” turnout to offset a legitimacy crisis fueled by public discontent over economic hardship and curbs on political and social freedoms.
Voter turnout has plunged over the past four years, with a mostly young population chafing at political and social restrictions.
Polls open at 8:00 am local time (0430 GMT) and close at 6:00 p.m. (1430 p.m. GMT), but are usually extended until as late as midnight. As ballots are counted manually, the final result is expected to be announced only in two days although initial figures may come out sooner.
If no candidate wins at least 50 percent plus one vote from all ballots cast including blank votes, a run-off round between the top two candidates is held on the first Friday after the election result is declared.
Three of the candidates are hard-liners and one a low-profile comparative moderate, backed by the reformist faction that has largely been sidelined in Iran in recent years.
Critics of Iran’s clerical rule say the low and declining turnout of recent elections shows the system’s legitimacy has eroded. Just 48 percent of voters participated in the 2021 election that brought Raisi to power, and turnout hit a record low of 41 percent in a parliamentary election three months ago.
The election now coincides with escalating regional tensions due to war between Israel and Iranian allies Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as increased Western pressure on Iran over its fast-advancing nuclear program.
The next president is not expected to produce any major policy shift on Iran’s nuclear program or support for militia groups across the Middle East, since Khamenei calls all the shots on top state matters. However, the president runs the government day-to-day and can influence the tone of Iran’s foreign and domestic policy.
A hard-line watchdog body made up of six clerics and six jurists aligned with Khamenei vets candidates. It approved just six candidates from an initial pool of 80. Two hard-line candidates subsequently dropped out.
Prominent among the remaining hard-liners are Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, parliament speaker and former commander of the powerful Revolutionary Guards, and Saeed Jalili, a former nuclear negotiator who served for four years in Khamenei’s office.
The sole comparative moderate, Massoud Pezeshkian, is faithful to the country’s theocratic rule but advocates detente with the West, economic reform, social liberalization and political pluralism.
His chances hinge on reviving the enthusiasm of reform-minded voters who have largely stayed away from the polls for the last four years after previous pragmatist presidents achieved little change. He could also benefit from his rivals’ failure to consolidate the hard-line vote.
All four candidates have vowed to revive the flagging economy, beset by mismanagement, state corruption and sanctions reimposed since 2018 after the US ditched Tehran’s 2015 nuclear pact with six world powers.
The hashtag #ElectionCircus has been widely posted on social media platform X by Iranians in the past few weeks, with some activists at home and abroad calling for an election boycott, arguing that a high turnout would legitimize the Islamic Republic.
Ben-Gvir repeats call for prayer at Al-Aqsa Mosque compound
Updated 10 sec ago
Reuters
JERUSALEM: Israel’s hard-line Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir repeated a call for Jews to be allowed to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, drawing sharp criticism for inflaming tensions as ceasefire negotiators seek a deal to halt fighting in Gaza. “The policy at the Temple Mount allows praying there. Period,” Ben-Gvir told an Army Radio interviewer.
“The prime minister knew when I joined the government there would not be any discrimination.”
Asked if he would build a synagogue on the site if he could, Ben-Gvir replied “Yes, Yes.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office immediately put out a statement restating the official Israeli position, which accepts decades-old rules restricting non-Muslim prayer at the mosque compound.
“There is no change to the status quo on the Temple Mount,” Netanyahu’s office said.
The hillside compound in Jerusalem’s Old City is one of the most sensitive locations in the Middle East, and the trigger for repeated conflict. Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said calls to tamper with the status of Al-Aqsa appeared intended “to drag the region into a religious war that will burn everyone.”
Ben-Gvir, head of one of two hard-line religious-nationalist parties in Netanyahu’s coalition, has a long record of making inflammatory statements appreciated by his supporters but conflicting with the government’s official line.
Israel announces air strike in West Bank, Palestinian Authority says 5 dead
Violence in the West Bank has surged alongside the war in Gaza, with more than 640 Palestinians killed by Israeli troops and settlers since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack
Nur Shams refugee camp near Tulkarem has been the target of multiple Israeli army operations
Updated 1 min 13 sec ago
AFP
JERUSALEM: Israel said on Monday it carried out an air strike on the occupied West Bank, while the Palestinian Authority reported five killed in the incident.
“A short while ago, an aircraft struck an operational center in the area of Nur Shams,” an Israeli military spokesperson said, without providing a casualty count or specifying who was targeted.
“Five citizens were killed and others were injured,” the official Palestinian news agency Wafa said.
Violence in the West Bank has surged alongside the war in Gaza, with more than 640 Palestinians killed by Israeli troops and settlers since Hamas’s October 7 attack, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry figures.
At least 19 Israelis have also died in Palestinian attacks during the same period, according to Israeli officials.
A correspondent for Wafa reported hearing four loud explosions and said Monday’s strike targeted a house in the Nur Shams refugee camp.
The camp near Tulkarem has been the target of multiple Israeli army operations.
Fourteen people died in one two-day Israeli operation in Nur Shams in April, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.
And in July Israeli forces bulldozed the main street in Nur Shams during a raid that lasted 15 hours.
How floods, hunger and disease are making Sudan’s humanitarian disaster worse
Beleaguered African nation’s collapsing healthcare system ill-prepared to face unfolding perfect storm of crises
Diseases will spread owing to lack of clean water, shortage of medicine and people with weakened immune systems
Updated 23 min ago
ANAN TELLO
LONDON: Sudan’s prolonged conflict has brought devastation, but this year a new enemy has emerged: torrential rains and floods, killing over 100 people and reigniting a deadly cholera outbreak.
The situation has sparked a public health emergency in the violence-wracked African nation, where waterborne diseases like cholera, exacerbated by floods and poor sanitation, continue to surge.
A child suffering from cholera receives treatment at a rural isolation centre in Wad Al-Hilu in Kassala state in eastern Sudan, on August 17, 2024. (AFP)
The World Health Organization reported over 11,327 cholera cases and 316 deaths since June 2023, but the real numbers are likely higher. Haitham Mohamed Ibrahim, Sudan’s health minister, officially declared a cholera outbreak on Aug. 17, just a day after the WHO report.
“Cholera is caused by bacteria that are transmitted through contaminated water and the fecal-oral route,” said Dr. Zaher Sahloul, president of the medical NGO MedGlobal. “There are hundreds of new cholera cases in southeastern states, worsened by the recent torrential rains and floods.”
Damaged trucks burried in the mud after the collapse of the Arbaat Dam, 40km north of Port Sudan following heavy rains and torrential floods on August 25, 2024. (AFP)
Sudan’s history with cholera runs deep. A 2017 outbreak infected over 22,000 people within two months, killing at least 700. Today, a worsening humanitarian crisis driven by conflict has led to a resurgence of diseases, including dengue fever and meningitis.
Heavy rains have flooded conflict zones including Al-Jazirah, Khartoum and Darfur, contaminating water sources and amplifying the spread of disease.
IN NUMBERS
11,327+ Cholera cases from June 2023 to August 2024.
316+ Deaths from cholera during the same period.
(Source: WHO)
The rain, forecast to continue into September, has killed 114 people and displaced thousands already weakened by war and acute food shortages, according to Sudan’s Health Ministry.
Floods have displaced 20,000 people in 11 of Sudan’s 18 states since June, according to the International Organization for Migration. The Nile and Kassala states, near Eritrea, have been particularly hard-hit.
Sahloul cautioned that cholera would continue to spread due to the collapse of Sudan’s healthcare system, lack of clean water, and a shortage of medicine.
The fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which broke out on April 15 last year, has claimed at least 15,000 lives and displaced 12 million people. Out of them, nearly 2 million are now refugees in three neighboring countries — Chad, Egypt and South Sudan.
The violence has decimated the healthcare system, with about 70 percent of hospitals in conflict zones no longer operational.
The humanitarian crisis in Sudan has been the largest in the world for many months now. More than half of the country’s 45 million people need urgent relief aid. Some food security specialists fear that as many as 2.5 million people could die from hunger by the end of this year.
The violence has decimated the healthcare system, with about 70 percent of hospitals in conflict zones no longer operational. (MSF)
In addition to cholera, Sudan faces another health crisis: the spread of mpox, formerly known as monkeypox. The WHO has declared a public-health emergency following the rapid spread of a new clade of mpox in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and neighboring countries.
“The emergence of a new strain of mpox, clade 1, its rapid spread, and the reporting of cases in several neighboring countries are very worrying,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director-general, said in mid-August.
Sahloul of MedGlobal, which has been providing essential aid in Sudan, cited the “regional increase in mpox cases and the spread to nearby Central and East African countries, including Uganda,” which borders Sudan, as the main reason for the declaration.
Workers gather to kickstart a hygiene and sanitation campaign initiated by health authorities in Sudan’s eastern city of Gedaref on August 24, 2024, to combat the spread of disease in the country. (AFP)
The virus, which causes flu-like symptoms and blistering rashes, can be deadly if left untreated. Sudan’s limited health infrastructure is already struggling to cope with multiple disease outbreaks, placing the country and its neighbors at risk.
With a fatality rate of 3.6 percent, clade 1 “is a dangerous disease caused by a virus that is from the same family of now-extinct smallpox,” Sahloul said.
“Like cholera, mpox is an infectious disease that spreads in an environment of displacement, crowding, and lack of access to personal hygiene and clean water.”
He added: “The spread of mpox in overcrowded camps and regions with poor sanitation could have catastrophic consequences.”
Sudanese already displaced by conflict, rest under a blanket at a makeshift campsite they were evacuated to following deadly floods in the eastern city of Kassala on August 12, 2024. (AFP)
Sahloul said both cholera and mpox “can undermine health security regionally and internationally, and may spread quickly to neighboring countries like Egypt, Libya, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan.”
The situation is especially concerning as “many of these countries have their own separate crises.”
Against this alarming backdrop, the international community has been calling for a ceasefire to allow humanitarian aid to reach the affected areas in Sudan.
The US opened talks in Switzerland on Aug. 14 aimed at easing the human suffering and achieving a lasting ceasefire. The talks were co-hosted by Saudi Arabia and Switzerland, with the African Union, Egypt, the UAE and the UN completing the so-called Aligned for Advancing Lifesaving and Peace in Sudan Group (ALPS).
According to an AFP report, an RSF delegation showed up but the SAF were unhappy with the format and did not attend, though they were in telephone contact with the mediators. The talks ended on Aug. 16 without a ceasefire but with progress on securing aid access on two key routes into the country.
People receive treatment at the Bashair hospital in Sudan's capital on September 10, 2023. (AFP)
The reopening of the Adre crossing from Chad is a key development for aid organizations. The crossing is the most effective route for delivering relief supplies into Sudan, where millions are in dire need of food, clean water, and medical care.
“The reopening will enable the entry of aid needed to stop the famine and address food insecurity,” said a joint statement from the five countries. The statement called on Sudan’s warring parties to coordinate with humanitarian groups to ensure aid reaches the most vulnerable people.
Sudan’s hunger crisis has left more than 25.6 million people vulnerable to infections, according to the UN. The breadbasket regions of Al-Jazirah and Sennar along the Blue Nile have been devastated. People there are going hungry for the first time in generations, according to a recent BBC report.
It says starvation is worst in Darfur, especially in El-Fasher, the only city in the region still controlled by the army and its local allies.
With limited access to clean water and sanitation, many Sudanese — especially in refugee camps — are at high risk of contracting cholera, mpox and other diseases. “The combination of displacement, crowding, and lack of clean water creates a perfect storm for outbreaks,” said Sahloul.
Sudan’s history with cholera runs deep. A 2017 outbreak infected over 22,000 people within two months, killing at least 700. (AFP)
UNICEF has reported that more than 17.3 million people in Sudan currently lack access to safe drinking water, while the International Federation of Medical Students Associations estimates that 829,000 deaths annually are linked to diseases caused by contaminated war and poor standards of sanitation and hygiene.
As Sudan grapples with cholera, mpox and a humanitarian catastrophe, the country’s people await an end to the violence that continues to fuel this public health disaster.
Iraq fire tears through fuel tankers, kills one driver
The fire injured 7, destroyed 15 tankers carrying petroleum derivatives
Updated 38 min 58 sec ago
AFP
SULAIMANIYAH: A fire that engulfed around fifteen fuel tankers in northern Iraq’s Kurdistan region killed one driver and injured seven others on Monday, local authorities said.
The exact cause of the fire, which broke out in a parking area for the Parviz Khan border crossing that connects the autonomous Kurdistan region with Iran, was still under investigation.
“Firefighters have brought the fire at the Parviz Khan border crossing under control,” the Garmiyan regional municipality, home to the crossing, said in a statement.
“One person was killed and seven others injured,” it said, adding that the victims were all taken to hospital.
“The fire broke out around 1900 (1600 GMT) in a parking area reserved for fuel tankers and lasted around two hours,” the municipal spokesman Shoman Ahmed told AFP.
The fire destroyed 15 tankers carrying petroleum derivatives, he said, adding that a lorry driver died while firefighters were among the injured.
An investigative committee has been appointed to establish the cause of the fire, but initial reports suggest that a driver had taken out a gas stove to prepare a meal, Ahmed said.
Fires are a frequent occurrence in Iraq, where safety rules are often not followed, especially in the construction and transportation sectors.
With summer temperatures reaching 50 degrees Celsius, the country has experienced several fires in recent months including in shopping centers, warehouses and even hospitals.
Lebanon pushes for UNIFIL extension without changes
UN Security Council is expected to renew the peacekeeping mission’s mandate at the end of this month
Israeli assassination attempt on Hamas official in southern Lebanon fails as hostilities resume
Updated 42 min 11 sec ago
NAJIA HOUSSARI
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib reiterated Lebanon’s support for the extension of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon mandate for an additional year without any modifications to the existing resolution.
The UN Security Council is expected to renew the peacekeeping mission’s mandate at the end of this month, as it has annually since Resolution 1701 was adopted in 2006 after a 33-day war between Lebanon and Israel.
Bou Habib met on Monday with the ambassadors of France, China, Spain and Italy, as well as the charge d’affaires of the embassies of Russia and the UK.
The meetings were part of Lebanon’s efforts to secure an extension for UNIFIL forces, whose mandate expires at the end of this month.
Bou Habib discussed the developments regarding the extension during a telephone conversation with Lisa Johnson, the US ambassador to Lebanon.
The government intensified its diplomatic drive on the UNIFIL extension as Israeli and Hezbollah strikes and counter strikes on the border resumed on Monday.
Israel and Hezbollah pulled back after an exchange of heavy fire on Sunday that briefly raised fears of an all-out war.
Iran praised Hezbollah’s drone and missile assault in a statement by the foreign ministry: “The strategic balances have shifted to the detriment of the Zionist regime, as the terrorist Israeli army has lost its deterrence and offensive capabilities, and it needs to defend itself against strategic strikes.”
The press release claimed that “the strategic equation has changed, and the myth of the invincible army has become an empty slogan.”
On Monday, an Israeli attempt to kill a Hamas official in a residential neighbourhood of Sidon failed.
An Israeli combat drone targeted a car in the city as Hamas leader Nidal Hleihel was approaching the vehicle. The car was later seen on fire, while Hleihel narrowly avoided the strike. Other reports claimed that Hleihel and his family members suffered injuries.
Cautious calm prevailed in the Lebanon-Israel border area on Monday morning, a day after Hezbollah’s retaliation operation for the assassination of senior military commander Fouad Shukr, and what Israel called “a pre-emptive action” to paralyze Hezbollah’s launchers from firing rockets toward army positions.
Israeli aircraft struck Lebanese border towns on Monday. Warplanes and combat drones targeted an area between Taybeh and Odaisseh, and the towns of Kfarkela, Alma Al-Shaab, Tayr Harfa and Hanine.
Israeli incursions into southern Lebanon airspace continued over southern Lebanon, reaching the Bekaa and Beirut’s suburbs.
“The two measured and controlled military responses on Sunday — one by Hezbollah and the other by Israel,” a political observer in Lebanon said, prevented an all-out war.
Residents of Beirut’s southern suburbs, who had left in recent days fearing repercussions after Hezbollah’s response, returned to their homes.
In a speech on Sunday evening, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah sought to reassure his supporters, leading hundreds of young people to take to the streets of the southern suburbs on their motorcycles and carrying Hezbollah flags in celebration of what they perceived as “the retaliation against Israel.”
Hezbollah and Israel returned the following day to operate under the framework of avoiding a full-scale war while adhering to flexible yet carefully considered rules of engagement.
Sirens sounded in several settlements in Western Galilee as a warning of potential attacks from Hezbollah.
Israeli media reported that the alarms were heard in Arab Al-Aramshe, Adamit and Hanita in western Galilee.
Israel’s military released a video to confirm “Israeli strikes on Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon.”
The footage displayed a segment of a drone being intercepted by a combat helicopter, as well as aerial refueling operations in Lebanese airspace.
Nasrallah said that Hezbollah had “attacked the Glilot base of the Israeli military intelligence directorate ‘Aman’ located near Tel Aviv, as well as the Ein Shemer base in Hadera.”
To achieve this, Hezbollah launched 340 Katyusha rockets at northern Israel to distract attention from the trajectory of its suicide drones aimed at Tel Aviv.
It attacked 11 locations during the operation, including barracks and military command centers.
