Qatar reiterates support for two-state solution

Displaced Palestinians ride in a horse-drawn cart as they return to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. (AP)
Displaced Palestinians ride in a horse-drawn cart as they return to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. (AP)
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Updated 28 January 2025
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Qatar reiterates support for two-state solution

Displaced Palestinians ride in a horse-drawn cart as they return to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Jan. 28.
  • “Our position has always been clear to the necessity of the Palestinian people receiving their rights, and that the two-state solution is the only path forward,” Ansari said

DOHA: Qatar reaffirmed its support for a two-state solution on Tuesday after US President Donald Trump repeated his call to move Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt or Jordan.
Foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari did not reveal details of conversations with US officials, but said Qatar often didn’t see “eye to eye” with its allies.
“Our position has always been clear to the necessity of the Palestinian people receiving their rights, and that the two-state solution is the only path forward,” Ansari told a regular media briefing when asked about Trump’s comments.
“We don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things with all our allies, not only the United States, but we work very closely with them to make sure that we formulate policy together,” he added.
Qatar, the US and Egypt jointly mediated the Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal that went into effect a little over a week ago, halting more than 15 months of fighting sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

On Monday, Trump repeated his wish to move Gazans to another country, after earlier saying he wanted to “clean out” the devastated Palestinian territory.
The US president told reporters he would “like to get them living in an area where they can live without disruption and revolution and violence so much.”
Ansari said Qatar, which hosts the region’s biggest US military base, was “engaging fully with the Trump administration and with envoy (Steve) Witkoff,” the president’s special representative for the Middle East.
“I’m not going to comment on the type of discussions we are having with them right now, but I would say that it is very productive,” Ansari said.
“We have been working very closely with the Trump administration over the regional issues as a whole, including the Palestinian issue.”


Syrian forces seek to snuff out nascent Alawite insurgency

Updated 2 sec ago
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Syrian forces seek to snuff out nascent Alawite insurgency

Syrian forces seek to snuff out nascent Alawite insurgency
Authorities have not issued a death toll, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 120 people had been killed
The violence has shaken interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa’s efforts to consolidate control as his administration struggles to get US sanctions lifted

DAMASCUS: Security forces battled for a second day on Friday to crush a nascent insurgency by fighters from Bashar Assad’s Alawite sect in western Syria, with scores reported killed as the Islamist-led government faced the biggest challenge yet to its authority.
Syrian Arab Republic authorities said remnants of the ousted Assad regime launched a deadly and well-planned attack on their forces on Thursday in the coastal region which is heavily populated by the members of the Alawite minority.
Authorities have not issued a death toll, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 120 people had been killed. Reuters could not independently verify the toll.
The violence has shaken interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa’s efforts to consolidate control as his administration struggles to get US sanctions lifted and grapples with wider security challenges, notably in the southwest where Israel has said it will prevent Damascus deploying forces.
Thursday’s violence was largely focused in the Jableh area but the unrest spread more widely. Curfews were declared in the coastal cities of Tartous and Latakia, state news agency SANA said. Security forces launched combing operations in both cities and nearby mountains, it said, citing a security source.
Civilians were advised to stay at home, it said.
A resident of Latakia city reached by phone said clashes had been going on there for 12 hours. Government reinforcements had arrived in the city, he said. A resident of Tartous city said heavy gunfire was heard as government forces entered the city on Friday morning and began firing into the air.
A security source said reinforcements had managed to enter Latakia city on Friday morning, having been unable to on Thursday because the road had been cut.
Clashes were continuing on the city’s outskirts, security forces were working to open the road to Jableh, which had also been cut, and Assad-linked militias were surrounding a number of positions in Jableh, the source said.

VIOLENCE AND ATTACKS
Alawite activists say their community has been subjected to violence and attacks since Assad fell, particularly in rural Homs and Latakia.
While Sharaa has pledged to run Syria in an inclusive way, no meetings have been declared between him and senior Alawite figures, in contrast to members of other minority groups such as the Kurds, Christians and Druze.
The Assad-led government recruited heavily from the Alawite community for the security apparatus and bureaucracy of the Syrian state, which the Islamist-led authorities are seeking to remake, including through mass sackings.
While Sharaa has brought much of Sunni Muslim majority Syria under the sway of Damascus, important areas remain outside its grasp, including the northeast and east which are controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
A statement by a grouping of Alawite clerics, the Alawite Islamic Council, laid blame for the violence on the government, saying “military convoys had been sent into the coast with the pretext of ‘regime remnants’ to terrorize and kill Syrians.” It called for the coastal region to be put under UN protection.
Saudi Arabia, which has offered diplomatic backing to Sharaa’s administration, condemned “crimes being undertaken by outlaw groups” in Syria and their targeting of security forces. Riyadh “stands alongside” the Syria government in its efforts to preserve security and civil peace, it said in a statement.

South Sudan security forces release peacebuilding minister, vice presidency says

South Sudan security forces release peacebuilding minister, vice presidency says
Updated 16 min 28 sec ago
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South Sudan security forces release peacebuilding minister, vice presidency says

South Sudan security forces release peacebuilding minister, vice presidency says
  • The petroleum minister and the deputy head of military were still in custody on Friday
  • The arrests followed heavy clashes in recent weeks in the strategic northern town of Nasir

NAIROBI: South Sudanese forces loyal to President Salva Kiir have released the peacebuilding minister, a key ally of First Vice President Riek Machar, a spokesman for Machar said on Friday, after the arrests of senior officials escalated tensions.
Between Tuesday and Thursday, security forces arrested or put under house arrest several allies of Machar, including the petroleum minister, the peacebuilding minister and a deputy head of the military, jeopardizing a peace deal that ended a civil war between fighters loyal to Kiir and Machar.
“(Peacebuilding minister) Stephen Par Kuol ... who was unlawfully detained yesterday along with three staff members from his office by the National Security, was released this morning at 05:00 a.m.,” Machar’s spokesman Puok Both Baluang said on X.
The petroleum minister and the deputy head of military were still in custody on Friday, Baluang told Reuters.
Security forces were also deployed around Machar’s residence, though he was able to travel to his office, Baluang said earlier this week.
The arrests followed heavy clashes in recent weeks in the strategic northern town of Nasir between national forces and the White Army militia, a loosely-organized group mostly from the Nuer, Machar’s ethnic group.
The White Army fought alongside Machar’s forces in the 2013-2018 civil war that pitted them against predominantly ethnic Dinka troops loyal to Kiir.
The government has not commented on the detentions. Information Minister Michael Makuei accused forces loyal to Machar of collaborating with the White Army and attacking a military garrison near Nasir on Tuesday.
Machar’s party has denied involvement in the fighting.
South Sudan has formally been at peace since the 2018 agreement ended the five-year conflict that killed hundreds of thousands of people, but violence between rival communities flares up frequently.
On Thursday, officials from regional bloc IGAD, the United Nations, the African Union and RJMEC — the body overseeing the peace deal — met Machar and urged all parties to restore calm in Upper Nile State, where Nasir is located.


World Bank estimates $11 billion needed for reconstruction of Lebanon after Israel-Hezbollah war

World Bank estimates $11 billion needed for reconstruction of Lebanon after Israel-Hezbollah war
Updated 27 min 2 sec ago
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World Bank estimates $11 billion needed for reconstruction of Lebanon after Israel-Hezbollah war

World Bank estimates $11 billion needed for reconstruction of Lebanon after Israel-Hezbollah war
  • Of the $11 billion in reconstruction and recovery needs, $3 to $5 billion will need to be publicly financed
  • Housing has been the hardest-hit sector with damages estimated at $4.6 billion

BEIRUT: The cost of reconstruction and recovery for Lebanon following the 14-month Israel-Hezbollah war is estimated at $11 billion, the World Bank said in a new report Friday.
The war killed over 4,000 people in Lebanon, displaced hundreds of thousands and caused widespread destruction in the nation.
The report by the World Bank’s Lebanon Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment covered damage and losses in ten sectors across the country from Oct. 8, 2023 until Dec. 20, 2024.
Hezbollah began firing rockets across the border on Oct. 8, 2023, one day after a deadly Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza. Israel responded with shelling and airstrikes in Lebanon, and the two sides became locked in an escalating conflict that became a full-blown war in late September. A US-brokered ceasefire went into effect in late November.
The World Bank report estimated that of the $11 billion in reconstruction and recovery needs, $3 to $5 billion will need to be publicly financed, including for infrastructure sectors. It added that private financing is required for about $6 to $8 billion of the costs, mostly in the housing, commerce, industry, and tourism sectors.
The report said the economic cost of the conflict on Lebanon totals $14 billion, with damage to physical structures amounting to $6.8 billion and economic losses from reduced productivity, foregone revenues, and operating costs reaching $7.2 billion.
Housing has been the hardest-hit sector with damages estimated at $4.6 billion.
The report found that the conflict resulted in Lebanon’s real gross domestic product contracting by 7.1 percent in 2024, a significant setback compared to a projected growth of 0.9 percent had the war not happened.
By the end of 2024, Lebanon’s cumulative GDP decline since 2019 had approached 40 percent.


Hamas officials say delegation in Cairo for Gaza truce talks

Hamas officials say delegation in Cairo for Gaza truce talks
Updated 07 March 2025
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Hamas officials say delegation in Cairo for Gaza truce talks

Hamas officials say delegation in Cairo for Gaza truce talks
  • ‘Delegation will meet with Egyptian officials on Saturday to discuss the latest developments’
  • They will also assess progress in implementing the ceasefire agreement, and address matters related to launching the second phase of the deal

CAIRO: A high-level Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo to advance efforts on a fragile ceasefire in Gaza, which has largely paused hostilities with Israel, two senior Hamas officials said Friday.
“The delegation will meet with Egyptian officials on Saturday to discuss the latest developments, assess progress in implementing the ceasefire agreement, and address matters related to launching the second phase of the deal,” one official said.


Migrant boats capsize off Yemen and Djibouti, leaving at least 2 dead and 186 missing

Migrant boats capsize off Yemen and Djibouti, leaving at least 2 dead and 186 missing
Updated 07 March 2025
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Migrant boats capsize off Yemen and Djibouti, leaving at least 2 dead and 186 missing

Migrant boats capsize off Yemen and Djibouti, leaving at least 2 dead and 186 missing
  • Two of the boats capsized off Yemen on Thursday, said Tamim Eleian, a spokesperson for the International Organization for Migration

CAIRO: The United Nations migration agency says four migrant boats have capsized in waters off Yemen and Djibouti, leaving two people dead and 186 missing.
Two of the boats capsized off Yemen on Thursday, said Tamim Eleian, a spokesperson for the International Organization for Migration. Two crewmembers were rescued, but 181 migrants and five Yemeni crewmembers remain missing, he told The Associated Press.
Two other boats capsized off the tiny African nation of Djibouti around the same time, he said. Two bodies of migrants were recovered, and all others on board were rescued.
According to the IOM, 558 people died in 2024 along the route used by many migrants leading from the Horn of Africa to Yemen, crossing the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.