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Tag: Middle East

  • Israel greenlights Karish gas production ahead of Lebanon deal

    Israel greenlights Karish gas production ahead of Lebanon deal

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    The announcement comes before an historic maritime border agreement with Lebanon is expected to be signed on Thursday.

    Israel has given a hydrocarbon company permission to start operations at Karish, an offshore field at the heart of a maritime border agreement expected to be signed soon with Lebanon.

    A statement from the energy ministry on Tuesday said it had given the London-based Energean “the approval to begin producing natural gas from Karish”.

    Energean has said that its floating production storage and offloading vessel is due to start production at Karish in the third quarter but has not given a precise date.

    Israel and Lebanon agreed earlier this month to set a maritime border for the first time and establish a mechanism for both countries to explore offshore gas fields.

    That is despite the two neighbours having technically been at war for decades, although the last active conflict was in 2006.

    The US-brokered deal is expected to be finalised on Thursday during a ceremony in the Lebanese town of Naqoura, with delegations from Israel and Lebanon signing the deal in separate rooms.

    Under its terms, Israel retains full rights to develop the Karish field while Lebanon retains full rights in nearby Qana.

    As Qana extends southward across a border known as Line 23, Israel will be entitled to a share of royalties through a side agreement with the operator, the French company Total.

    (Al Jazeera)

    The exploration of Karish’s 2.4 trillion cubic feet (68 billion cubic metres) of natural gas had drawn the wrath of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, which had called the extraction of gas from the contested waters before the conclusion of any deal a “red line”.

    However, Hezbollah is on board with the agreement, seeing it as a potential way out of Lebanon’s continuing economic crisis.

    The offshore gas field is now set to join Tamar and Leviathan to become Israel’s third offshore rig providing natural gas, with each connected to the mainland by separate infrastructure.

    Earlier this month, Energean began pumping gas to its floating production facility in Karish as part of reverse flow testing procedures approved by the Israeli government.

    Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who is facing an election on November 1 and refused to bring the agreement before parliament for approval, said “the production of natural gas from the Karish platform bolsters Israel’s energy security, enhances our stature as energy exporters, strengthens Israel’s economy and helps in grappling with the global energy crisis”.

    Gas exports to Jordan and Egypt would be able to increase, the energy ministry said, “and from there to additional countries in Europe that need natural gas sources in light of the global energy crisis”.

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  • Middle East Bucks Global Stock Market Slump, With Slew Of New Listings

    Middle East Bucks Global Stock Market Slump, With Slew Of New Listings

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    The Middle East is bucking a global slump in stock market listings, with an almost 300% rise in the number of companies making their debuts on bourses across the region so far this year.

    According to data from consultancy firm EY, there have been 31 initial public offerings (IPOs) in the region in the first nine months of 2022, up 288% on the same period in 2021. Between them, these deals have raised some $14.7 billion, up 550% year-on-year.

    The pace of new listings has been slowing down as the year has progressed, but the oil windfall that the region’s energy producers are enjoying means the level of activity is expected to remain relatively high for some time.

    There were 15 IPOs in the first three months of the year, raising a combined $4 billion. In the second quarter the number of listings dropped to nine, although the amount raised grew to $9 billion.

    In the most recent quarter, from July-September, there were seven listings which between them raised $1.5 billion in proceeds. The largest of these was the Dubai road toll operator Salik, which raised more than $1 billion. However, most of the deals were in Saudi Arabia, accounting for five of the seven. The only other one was in Morocco, where Disty Technologies raised $17m on the Casablanca Stock Exchange.

    Despite the relative slowdown over the course of the year, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is outperforming most other parts of the world when it comes to stock market activity.

    In the first three quarters of this year, there have been a total of 992 IPOs worldwide, according to EY, some 44% less than in the opening nine months of 2021. Between them they have raised $146 billion, a 57% drop year-on-year. The consultancy says the U.S. is set to record its lowest proceeds from stock market listings in almost 20 years.

    “Despite IPO volumes and values declining significantly in the majority of other global markets, the MENA region continues to forge its own path with a steady stream of new listings in Q3, adding to the large number of IPOs already announced across exchanges in the year-to-date,” said Brad Watson, MENA strategy and transactions leader at EY.

    Many parts of the world are facing constraints on economic activity, with high oil prices feeding into rising inflation and dampening investor sentiment. However, in the Middle East many countries are enjoying a surge in oil and gas revenues, which is leading to improved investor sentiment. As a result, most local stock markets have been rising this year, led by the Abu Dhabi Stock Exchange which is up 15% so far this year.

    IPO pipeline

    There continues to be a strong pipeline of new deals, with EY describing the outlook for IPOs in the MENA region in the final quarter of 2022 and into 2023 as “promising”.

    Gregory Hughes, EY’s IPO and transaction diligence leader for the MENA region, said investor confidence in the region has remained high “despite challenging financial headwinds across the world. As we look into Q4, we see no signs of that changing.”

    Among the deals coming to the market are Saudi utility Marafiq, which secured $897 million in orders for its shares in early October and is due to make its market debut in the coming days. The Dubai government is also planning to sell a 10% stake in district cooling firm Empower next month, with a book-building exercise expected to start on October 31.

    Slightly further out, oil giant Saudi Aramco is planning to sell a stake in its energy trading division either later this year or in 2023 and grocery retailer Lulu Group International is planning to list on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange next year.

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    Dominic Dudley, Contributor

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  • Thousands march in Khartoum on 1st anniversary of Sudan coup

    Thousands march in Khartoum on 1st anniversary of Sudan coup

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    CAIRO — Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Sudan’s capital of Khartoum on Tuesday, marking the first anniversary of a military coup that upended the nation’s short-lived transition to democracy.

    Videos published on social media showed marchers with flags and drums, most of them bound for the Presidential Palace. Other footage showed protesters standing in front of convoys of security forces.

    Netblocks, an online network tracker, announced early Tuesday that internet services across the country were blocked. Various Sudanese pro-democracy activists and local journalists reported security forces fired tear gas at protesters and earlier closed off bridges leading into Khartoum. The Associated Press has been unable to verify these claims.

    Since its takeover, the military has cracked down and suppressed near-weekly pro-democracy marches, with as many as 118 protesters killed, according to statistics published by the Sudan Doctors Committee.

    Sudan’s top general, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and paramilitary deputy Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo were meant to oversee a democratic transition after Sudan’s autocratic ruler Omar al-Bashir was toppled in a popular uprising in 2019.

    But last year, Burhan dissolved the ruling Sovereign Council, arrested the transitional prime minister and unseated the civilian faction of a power-sharing government that had been in place. He later said he acted to stop a civil war.

    Rights groups say hundreds have been detained since the military takeover, many without charge.

    In recent weeks, internationally backed talks between Sudan’s pro-democracy movement and the ruling military have made some progress.

    According to The Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change — an alliance of political parties and protest groups — the military has agreed on a draft constitutional document written by the country’s Bar Association. This would allow the appointment of a civilian prime minister who would lead the country through elections by 2024.

    But Sudan’s more ardent pro-democracy groups, including the grassroots Resistance Committees who spearhead anti-coup street protests, reject any settlement with the military. Along with the Communist Party, they have demanded that those responsible for the year’s deadly crackdown on demonstrations be tried in court.

    ‘‘I have no trust in the army’s intentions, the new negotiation is just a new division of wealth and power” said Ammar Yahya, the spokesperson for a Khartoum branch of the Resistance Committees.

    The coup has plunged Sudan’s already inflation-riddled economy into deeper peril. International aid has dried up while bread and fuel shortages, caused in part by the war in Ukraine, have become increasingly routine.

    In a statement also marking the coup’s anniversary, the head of The U.S. Agency for International Development condemned the takeover but said she was ‘encouraged’ by the recent agreement over the Bar Association’s constitutional document.

    ‘‘I reiterate the call for the military to cede power back to civilian authorities,’’ Samantha Powell added.

    The year has also seen a resurgence of deadly tribal clashes in the country’s neglected peripheries. Fierce clashes between the Hausa and Berta people last week killed at least 230 people in southern Blue Nile province.

    Many analysts consider the rising violence in the south a product of the power vacuum caused by the military takeover, with the ruling generals’ clampdown focused on the center of power, Khartoum and the country’s heartland, while the peripheries descend into chaos.

    Burhan and Dagalo have separately promised to step back from politics following the reinstatement of a civilian government. But amid the chaos, both have also sought to further their political influence.

    Dagalo’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, implicated in the killing of more than 100 sit-in protesters in June 2019 in Khartoum, have continued to expand across the country. Meanwhile, Burhan has overseen the reinstatement of dozens of civil servants sacked by the previous government for their association with al-Bashir’s circle.

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  • Six killed by Israeli forces in the deadliest day for Palestinians this year | CNN

    Six killed by Israeli forces in the deadliest day for Palestinians this year | CNN

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    Bethlehem and Jerusalem
    CNN
     — 

    At least six Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military on Tuesday, making it the deadliest day of violence in the occupied West Bank this year, CNN analysis of official Palestinian data showed.

    Five were killed in the old city of Nablus during an Israeli raid there, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. A sixth person was killed in Nabi Saleh, north of Ramallah, by Israeli live fire, the Ministry added, when Palestinian protestors took to the streets in response to the Nablus military operation.

    The raid in Nablus also left some 20 people injured, the ministry said.

    Israel said it was targeting Lion’s Den, a new militant group which emerged in Nablus this year and has targeted Israeli soldiers, killing at least two.

    Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned Tuesday’s killings as a “war crime” while calling on the United States to stop Israeli “aggression” in the West Bank before things “reach a very critical point,” according to his spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh.

    Commenting on the Nablus raid, Israel’s Prime Minister Yair Lapid said, “our goal was and remains to inflict severe and lasting damage on terrorism and its agents in Jenin and Nablus and anywhere else where terrorist nests grow.” He added that the head of the Lion’s Den militant group and other militants were assassinated in the raid and that the “terrorist laboratory of Lion’s Den was severely damaged.”

    In a joint statement posted on Twitter, the Israel Defense Forces, the Israel Security Agency, and Israeli police said a raid was conducted on a hideout in the old city of Nablus that was being used as a headquarters and explosives manufacturing site by operatives of Lion’s Den, adding that the group was responsible for a shooting attack that killed an Israeli soldier, and for attempting to carry out an attack in Tel Aviv that was thwarted by the Israeli police as well as the planting of an explosive device in a gas station.

    The Israeli security forces “detonated the explosive manufacturing site” during the raid, the statement said, adding that “dozens of Palestinians burned tires and hurled rocks at the troops. The [Israeli] troops responded with live fire toward the armed suspects who were shooting at them.”

    The Palestinian National Forces, an umbrella grouping of political and popular groupings, announced a general strike across cities and villages in the West Bank on Tuesday. The strike will affect essential services such as schools, universities and courts.

    This year has been the deadliest in the West Bank for Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers since 2015. Israel claims most killed were clashing violently with soldiers.

    It has also been the deadliest year for Israelis and foreigners killed in attacks by Palestinians since 2015.

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  • London-based TV channel sparks Iranian leaders’ ire amid protests | CNN

    London-based TV channel sparks Iranian leaders’ ire amid protests | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: A version of this story first appeared in CNN’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, a three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here.


    Abu Dhabi
    CNN
     — 

    A top Iranian military official issued a warning to Saudi Arabia last week as his government continued to face off against protesters at home. “You are involved in this matter and know that you are vulnerable, it is better to be careful,” he said at the sidelines of a military drill.

    Major General Hossein Salami, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was referring to what state news outlets called a “media war” that they say is being waged against “the Iranian youth and nation” by foreign conspirators seeking to create unrest in the country by supporting protesters there.

    Then, on Thursday Iran again warned Saudi Arabia, as well as the United States and the United Kingdom, to “stop interfering in the country’s internal affairs.”

    Iran last week said it sanctioned a number of media outlets in the UK for “supporting terrorism” and “inciting violence”, reported Tasnim news agency The sanctioned entities include, among others, Volant Media, Global Media, and DMA Media, as well as the “anti-Iranian TV channels” that the companies support, such as Iran International, reported Tasnim agency.

    Now in their sixth week, protests have swept through the Islamic Republic following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died on September 16 after being detained by “morality police” and taken to a “re-education center,” allegedly for not abiding by the country’s conservative dress code.

    As the protests rage, Iran is turning up the heat on its adversaries, mainly the United States and Israel. But last week, Saudi Arabia found itself in the line of fire, which risks further complicating attempts by the two regional rivals to mend ties.

    Riyadh hasn’t publicly commented on the protests. The kingdom’s foreign minister refused to give his view when asked to during an interview with Al Arabiya news channel on October 12.

    “Saudi Arabia has a fixed policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of states,” he said. “Surely, we are following [the situation] and we wish Iran and its people the best.”

    Iran and Saudi Arabia severed ties in 2016 and both parties have backed opposite sides in proxy conflicts across the Middle East. Last year, they began direct talks in an attempt to improve relations. Baghdad has hosted five rounds of talks so far, the last of which was held in April.

    At the heart of Iran’s most recent accusations against Saudi Arabia may be Iran International, a Persian-language news channel that broadcasts from London. The channel has become one of the go-to sources for many Persian speakers looking for news on the protests. It has been at the forefront of covering the demonstrations, getting breaking news and exclusive footage of the events on the ground. Its Twitter account has over a million followers.

    Founded in 2017, Iran International has previously come under scrutiny by the Iranian government. Some say it is due to their coverage of the protests at home, which in recent weeks have rocked the Islamic Republic.

    Salami didn’t name the channel in his warning, but government-backed Iranian media last week accused Saudi Arabia of funding it. Saudi Arabia has not addressed the allegations. Karim Sa djadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank in Washington DC, said on Twitter that Iran has demanded the shuttering of the channel in talks with Saudi Arabia, citing a senior Gulf official.

    In 2018, Iran International released a statement denying connections to any government, including Saudi Arabia or Iran after The Guardian reported that it was funded by a firm whose director has ties to Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

    Saudi Arabia did not comment on the Guardian report. The Saudi government did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

    “We have heard these accusations before most often promoted by those in whose interests it is to deny a free press,” a spokesperson for Volant Media told CNN.

    “Iran International and its sister channel, Afghanistan International, are editorially independent television channels owned by Volant Media, a company based in London owned by a Saudi Arabian/British citizen; it has no state backing or affiliation,” added the spokesperson.

    Azadeh Moaveni, associate professor of journalism at New York University, described the channel as “one of the most pernicious and damaging forces to enter the Iranian media sphere,” calling it an arm of Saudi foreign policy. “I would not describe Iran International as pro-reform, or organically Iranian in any manner,” she told CNN.

    Mohammad Marandi, a professor at the University of Tehran who was also an adviser to the Iranian nuclear talks negotiating team, said there’s “no doubt” that Iran International is funded by Saudi Arabia. A prominent figure on state-funded Iranian outlets, Marandi added that Iran International spreads rumors, ethnic and sectarian strife “and it tries to use misinformation to create fear, chaos and promote violence.”

    Saudi Research and Marketing Group, a media conglomerate with ties to the Saudi ruling family, has run the Persian language website of the UK’s Independent newspaper since 2018. Its account on Instagram, where many Iranians get their news, has over 600,000 followers.

    CNN’s parent company is Warner Bros. Discovery, which has a partnership with Saudi Research and Media Group, a Saudi joint stock company.

    Saudi Arabia has for years accused Iran of doing the same with its own Arabic-language news channels: targeting Arab audiences with propaganda. State-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting runs Al Alam TV, an Arabic news channel that has interviewed Saudi opposition figures and has been blocked by Arab states. Iran-backed Hezbollah’s Al Manar channel has also been blocked.

    “It’s about time Iran gets a taste of its own medicine,” said Ali Shihabi, a Saudi author and analyst. “Iran has spent decades inciting and funding instability in the Arab world so having them pay the price of such behavior themselves is certainly a source of satisfaction to a lot of people,” he told CNN.

    The channel “is making an impact on public behavior in Iran and they are nervous about their domestic situation,” added Shihabi.

    Analysts say that Iran’s tight grip on domestic media outlets and its lack of freedom of expression have created “fertile ground” for anti-establishment platforms such as Iran International to flourish.

    “It is not so much the broadcasters themselves, but the situation in Iran has provided the possibility for broadcasters outside of Iran to gather a certain degree of popularity in the Iranian context,” said Gholam Khiabany, a reader in media and communications at Goldsmiths, University of London.

    Harun Najafizada, a former journalist at Iran International who is now a director at the sister Afghanistan International news channel, said the parent company Volant Media is privately funded but “I don’t care as long as they do not influence my editorial take,” adding that shareholders never interfere in decision making.

    Iran International stood out from other Western-backed Persian language news outlets “by taking the side of the disenchanted, oppressed, voiceless people,” while competitor Persian channels in the West were focused on bringing balance by giving the Iranian government a voice, he told CNN.

    “They have a vision, of course – they don’t do it for God,” said Najafizada, referring to the shareholders. “That vision is democracy.”

    Just two days after Salami’s first warning, however, Ali Akbar Velayati, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, was quoted saying that the two countries should reopen their embassies to facilitate a rapprochement, according to the semi-official Iranian news agency ISNA.

    “We are neighbors of Saudi Arabia and we must coexist,” he was cited as saying by ISNA. “The embassies of the two countries should reopen in order to solve our problems in a better way.”

    Business owners and factory workers in Iran’s Kurdish region went on strike over the weekend as anti-government protests continued.

    Video shared with CNN by pro-reform activist outlet IranWire shows Sanandaj, the capital of the Kurdish region, quiet at the beginning of the work week as stores remain shut.

    The Norway-based Iranian rights group Hengaw said shopkeepers were on strike in Bukan, Sanandaj and Saqez, as well as Marivan. Strikes and protests have become common in cities and towns across Iran as people unite against the regime.

    The nationwide protests are now in their fifth week, triggered by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died three days after being arrested by the country’s morality police and taken to a re-education center.

    Here’s the latest on this developing story:

    • Iran will file a lawsuit against the United States claiming the US had direct involvement in recent riots, Kazem Gharibabadi, the deputy head of the Iranian judiciary and secretary of the country’s High Council for Human Rights, said on Saturday, according to state news agency IRNA.
    • The Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations (CCITTA) on Saturday called for a nationwide strike in protest at the recent deaths and detention of students in the country, according to a statement published on Telegram. The council also announced a period of public mourning for students who have died in recent weeks from Thursday through Saturday, and called for a sit-in on Sunday, October 23 and Monday, October 24.
    • Protests took place in central Berlin on Saturday, with close to 80,000 people standing in solidarity with Iran, German state broadcaster RBB reported, citing police officials.

    Israel and Lebanon could sign maritime border agreement on Thursday, Biden energy adviser says

    Senior US adviser for global energy security Amos Hochstein said on Sunday that Israel and Lebanon could sign their historic maritime borders agreement as early as Thursday.

    • Background: “We’re going to have a deal. We’re going to sign it hopefully this Thursday,” Hochstein said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “And I hope that this continues our commitment to stability in the region and prosperity for both countries,” he added.
    • Why it matters: The US-brokered agreement settles a years-long maritime border dispute involving major oil and gas fields in the Mediterranean. Still technically at war, Lebanon and Israel both have much to gain. Not only does the agreement cool down recent security tensions, it also allows Israel to begin drilling and exporting gas to Europe and offers potential economic relief to Lebanon.

    Human Rights Watch says LGBTQ people subjected to arrest and mistreatment in Qatar ahead of World Cup

    Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused Qatar’s security forces of arbitrarily arresting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people and subjecting them to ill-treatment in detention ahead of the FIFA World Cup.

    • Background: HRW said in a report issued Monday that it documented six cases of “severe and repeated beatings and five cases of sexual harassment in police custody between 2019 and 2022,” the most recent of which took place in September. Security forces arrested people in public places based solely on their gender expression and unlawfully searched their phones, the HRW report said, adding that as a requirement for their release, security forces mandated that transgender women detainees attend “conversion therapy sessions” at a government-sponsored “behavioral healthcare” center. Homosexuality is illegal in Qatar and punishable by imprisonment. A Qatari official told CNN that the HRW allegations “contain information that is categorically and unequivocally false.”
    • Why it matters: Ahead of the FIFA World Cup, which starts November 20, Qatar has said it would welcome LGBT visitors, after concerns were raised from the LGBT community over how safe they will be at the tournament.

    Egypt has ordered the release of prominent activist, presidential pardon committee member says

    Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi on Monday pardoned a prominent activist and former parliamentarian, Zyad el-Elaimy, according to a presidential pardon committee member.

    • Background: Jailed since 2019, el-Elaimy was one of the key participants in the 2011 uprisings that led to the downfall of former longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak. His release is “in response to calls by political parties and forces,” presidential pardon committee member Tarek el-Khouly wrote on Facebook. Young members of political parties, politicians and the presidential pardon committee also coordinated to help secure his release, added el-Khouly. El-Elaimy was given a five-year sentence last year on charges of spreading false news.
    • Why it matters: The release comes two weeks ahead of November’s COP27 summit in Egypt. The country has come in for sharp criticism in recent months, with activists denouncing global leaders’ attendance in the light of Sisi’s questionable human rights record. Egypt has been promoting moves to improve its rights record, but activists and critics have described recent reforms as mostly cosmetic.

    United Arab Emirates: #Diwali

    Also known as Deepavali, the holiday is widely trending across social platforms in the United Arab Emirates, with many flooding Twitter with colorful photos of candles and wishing joy and prosperity to the world.

    Some are also posting photos of themselves in traditional celebratory garments. Diwali is one of the most important festivals in Hinduism, the largest religion in India. This year, it falls on October 24.

    India and the UAE share a strong political and economic relationship, one that has grown closer in recent years.

    The Indian expatriate community in the UAE is around 3.5 million, according to the Indian embassy in the UAE, adding that it is reportedly the largest ethnic community in the oil-rich Arabian Gulf state. Approximately 15% of the diaspora are in the emirate of Abu Dhabi, added the Indian embassy, while the rest are in six northern Emirates, including business hub Dubai.

    The UAE also accounts for 33% of foreign remittances to India, at more than $20 billion a year.

    Diwali is also significant for Sikhs and Jains. It is celebrated in India, Nepal, Malaysia, Singapore and other countries with South Asian diasporas.

    Palestinian girls wearing traditional embroidered dresses perform during a ceremony marking the start of the olive harvest season in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza on Sunday.

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  • Judges, ministers, now army chief: Settlers rise in Israel

    Judges, ministers, now army chief: Settlers rise in Israel

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    JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s military has long had a cozy relationship with Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Those ties are about to deepen.

    For the first time, a settler will serve as chief of staff of Israel’s military, becoming the enforcer of Israel’s open-ended occupation of the West Bank, now in its 56th year.

    Maj. Gen. Herzi Halevi’s nomination was approved on Sunday and he is expected to begin his three-year term on Jan. 17.

    Halevi’s rise caps the decades-long transformation of the settler movement from a small group of religious ideologues to a diverse and influential force at the heart of the Israeli mainstream whose members have reached the highest ranks of government and other key institutions.

    Critics say the settlers’ outsized political influence imperils any hope for the creation of an independent Palestinian state and endangers the country’s future as a democracy. They say Halevi’s appointment lays bare just how interconnected settlers and the military truly are.

    “It isn’t surprising that we’ve come to a point where the chief of staff is a settler too,” said Shabtay Bendet of the anti-settlement watchdog group Peace Now.

    Others say Halevi, currently deputy chief of staff, has had a distinguished military career and his place of residence won’t affect his decision-making. He served as head of the elite Sayeret Matkal unit, as well as military intelligence and led the Southern Command, from where he oversaw operations in the Gaza Strip.

    Defense Minister Benny Gantz praised Halevi as an ethical officer. “I have no doubt that he is the right man to head the military,” Gantz said upon nominating him.

    The military declined to make Halevi available for an interview.

    Born just months after the 1967 Mideast war, when Israel captured the West Bank, and raised in Jerusalem, Halevi is a descendant of a rabbi seen as the father of the modern settler movement.

    Halevi lives in Kfar HaOranim, a settlement that abuts the invisible line between Israel and the West Bank.

    Many of those moving to Kfar HaOranim might have been drawn by cheaper housing prices in a central location between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, rather than a radical ideology. Yet choosing to live in a settlement often indicates even some nationalist political inclination. Many Israelis are still hesitant to visit parts of the West Bank.

    A search through some of Halevi’s past speeches and public statements did not reveal his opinion on the Jewish settlement enterprise.

    The settler movement embraced the incoming army chief.

    “We are proud that the new chief of staff is a resident,” said Israel Ganz, the head of the regional settlement council that includes Kfar HaOranim. He said he expects any chief of staff to operate with a belief in the “righteousness” of Jewish settlement and “deepening the roots” of Jewish settlers.

    Palestinians want the West Bank as part of their hoped-for state, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

    Since 1967, the settler population has grown to some 500,000 people, who live in more than 130 settlements and outposts in the West Bank. Nearly 3 million Palestinians live in the West Bank, most of them in semi-autonomous population centers administered by the Palestinian Authority.

    Much of the international community considers the settlements illegitimate and obstacles to peace, while Israel views the territory as its biblical heartland and critical to security.

    A two-tier system is in place in the West Bank, with settlers enjoying the same rights as citizens in Israel, while Palestinians are subject to military rule. The Palestinian Authority administers parts of the West Bank but it is hobbled in many aspects by the occupation.

    For Palestinians, soldiers are the most visible enforcers of the occupation. Under international law an occupying military is meant to protect civilians under its rule, but Palestinians typically view soldiers as hostile to them.

    Soldiers man the checkpoints that Palestinians must cross through to enter Israel or the ones that are set up between their cities, disrupting their journey. Soldiers often conduct arrest raids in Palestinian autonomous areas, in search of suspected militants. Palestinians accused of violence are tried, and almost always convicted, in military courts. Israel sees those measures as essential to its security.

    Critics also say the military turns a blind eye to settler violence against Palestinians, which has been intensifying in recent months, including rampages that have also targeted soldiers. In one case last week a settlement guard on a Defense Ministry salary was seen joining forces with a settler in a clash with Palestinians. The military says troops work to prevent breaking of the law by both Palestinians and Israelis in the West Bank.

    For settlers, the military buttresses their presence in the West Bank. Soldiers protect settlements. The military escorts settlers when they want to visit sensitive sites or hold a march or protest. A defense body headed by a general is in charge of approving settler housing, and some of the military’s top commanders are settlers.

    Oded Revivi, mayor of the Efrat settlement, said he didn’t believe Halevi’s place of residence would influence the way he ran the military in the West Bank, which he said is dictated by policies made by elected officials.

    “He was chosen because of his career, because of his achievements during his career,” he said. “It has absolutely nothing to do with where he lives.”

    Over the years, settlers reached key positions in Israeli institutions.

    The country’s current roster of Supreme Court judges includes at least two settlers. Settler politicians have long served as Cabinet ministers, including Avigdor Lieberman, who has been Israel’s foreign, defense and finance minister. Settlers have held key positions in cultural institutions and in bodies that allocate land. Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett was previously a settler leader, though he did not live in a settlement.

    That integration, part of a years-long concerted effort by settlers, is hardly questioned by Israelis.

    Many Israelis give little thought to the occupation, and news media often ignore the approval of new settler housing, unless it draws international rebuke. And pushback against the settler narrative is often officially silenced. Schools in liberal Tel Aviv were recently prohibited from showing maps that demarcate the West Bank, indicating it as distinct from Israel.

    The world of culture, once a mainstay of liberalism and Israel’s dovish left, has embraced settlers, featuring them on reality TV shows, while artists and musicians are increasingly agreeing to perform in settlements or accept funding from settler sponsors. One popular rocker who had often denounced settlers apologized to them at a recent concert in the Beit El settlement.

    Diana Buttu, a Palestinian commentator, said having a settler as chief of staff raises concerns that the military’s conduct toward the Palestinians will worsen, further entrench Israel’s occupation and make the creation of a Palestinian state all the more unlikely.

    “There’s this fiction that people in the international community seem to have that somehow there’s Israel and then there’s the settlements — as though they are separate and apart from one another,” she said. “But really, in reality, we see that it’s all one.”

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  • Yemen Fast Facts | CNN

    Yemen Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at Yemen, a country located on the southwestern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, sharing a border with Saudi Arabia and Oman.

    (from the CIA World Fact Book)
    Area: 527,968 sq km (twice the size of Wyoming)

    Population: 30,984,689 (2022 est.)

    Median age: 19.8 years

    Capital: Sanaa

    Ethnic groups: Predominantly Arab; but also Afro-Arab, South Asian, European

    Religions: Muslim (99.1%: an estimated 65% are Sunni and 35% are Shia) and small numbers of Jewish, Christian, Hindu and Baha’i (2020)

    Unemployment: 27% (2014 est.)

    Yemen is part of the Arab League.

    Yemen has been mired in political unrest and armed conflict, which intensified in early 2015. Houthi rebels – a minority Shia group from the north of the country – drove out the US-backed government and took over the capital, Sanaa. The crisis quickly escalated into a multi-sided war, with neighboring Saudi Arabia leading a coalition of Gulf states against the Houthi rebels. The coalition is advised and supported by the United States and the United Kingdom, among other nations.

    READ: Yemen: What you need to know about how we got here

    May 22, 1990 – The Republic of Yemen is created from the unification of North Yemen, the Yemen Arab Republic and South Yemen, the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen.

    May-July 1994 – A civil war between northerners and southerners begins due to disagreements between supporters of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, from North Yemen, and Vice President Ali Salim al-Baid, from South Yemen. Troops loyal to Saleh win the war.

    September 25, 1999 – Saleh wins the country’s first direct presidential election, with 96.3% of the vote. Opposition leaders allege tampering at the ballot box.

    September 23, 2006 – Saleh wins reelection to a seven-year term with 77% of the vote.

    September 17, 2008 – Ten people, Yemeni citizens and police officers, are killed in terrorist attack on the US embassy in Sanaa.

    December 28, 2009 – A Yemen-based arm of al Qaeda, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), claims responsibility for a failed bombing on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on December 25.

    January 2, 2010 – US President Barack Obama announces a new counterterrorism partnership with Yemen, involving intelligence sharing, military training and joint attacks.

    January 3, 2010 – The United States and the United Kingdom temporarily close their embassies in Sanaa after they receive word that AQAP may be planning an attack on the facilities. The US embassy reopens two days later after Yemeni forces kill two AQAP militants in a counterterrorism operation.

    January 2010 – A group called Friends of Yemen is established in the UK to rally support for Yemen from the international community. They later hold meetings in London and Saudi Arabia.

    January 27, 2011 – Protests break out, inspired by demonstrations in neighboring countries. The unrest continues for months, while crackdowns on protesters lead to civilian deaths.

    June 3, 2011 – Opposition forces launch missiles at the presidential palace, injuring Saleh and killing several others.

    September 2, 2011 – More than two million people demonstrate across Yemen, demanding that the military remove Saleh from power.

    September 23, 2011 – Saleh returns to Yemen after more than three months of medical treatment in Saudi Arabia.

    September 30, 2011 – Anwar al-Awlaki, spokesman for AQAP, is killed by a CIA drone strike.

    November 23, 2011 – Saleh signs an agreement in Saudi Arabia transferring his executive powers to Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, Yemen’s vice president, effectively ending his rule.

    January 21, 2012 – Parliament approves a law that grants Saleh immunity from prosecution.

    February 21, 2012 – Yemen holds presidential elections to replace Saleh. There is only one candidate on the ballot, Vice President Hadi, the acting president since November 2011. Hadi receives 99.8% of the 6.6 million votes cast, according to the government elections committee.

    February 25, 2012 – Hadi is sworn in as president.

    May 21, 2012 – During a rehearsal for a military parade in Sanaa, a suicide bomber kills more than 100 Yemeni troops and wounds more than 200.

    May 23, 2012 – Friends of Yemen pledges more than $4 billion in aid to help the country fight terrorism and boost its economy. The amount is later increased to $7.9 billion. There are delays, however, that hold up delivery of the funds, according to Reuters.

    December 5, 2013 – Militants attack a Defense Ministry hospital in Sanaa. They ram the building with an explosives-laden vehicle and gunmen battle security forces inside. At least 52 people are killed, including four foreign doctors, according to the government.

    December 15, 2013 – Parliament calls for an end to drone strikes on its territory three days after a US missile attack mistakenly hits a wedding convoy, killing 14 civilians.

    February 10, 2014 – State news reports that Hadi has approved making Yemen a federal state consisting of six regions: two in the south, and four in the north. Sanaa is designated as neutral territory.

    September 21, 2014 – Hadi, Houthi rebels and representatives of major political parties sign a ceasefire deal. The United Nations-brokered deal ends a month of protests by Houthis that essentially halted life in Sanaa and resulted in hundreds of people being killed or injured.

    January 17, 2015 – Houthi rebels kidnap Hadi’s Chief of Staff Ahmed bin Mubarak in a push for more political power. He is released 10 days later, according to Reuters.

    January 20, 2015 – Houthi rebels take over the presidential palace.

    January 22, 2015 – President Hadi resigns shortly after the prime minister and the cabinet step down. Houthis say they will withdraw their fighters from Sanaa if the government agrees to constitutional changes including fair representation for marginalized groups within the country. No agreement is reached.

    February 11, 2015 – The United States and the United Kingdom suspend embassy operations in Yemen.

    March 20, 2015 – Terrorists bomb two mosques in Sanaa, killing at least 137 and wounding 357. ISIS claims responsibility for the attack.

    March 22, 2015 – Houthi rebels seize the international airport in Taiz.

    March 26, 2015 – Warplanes from Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and other countries strike Houthi rebel targets.

    December 6, 2015 – The governor of the city of Aden and six bodyguards are killed in a car bombing. ISIS claims responsibility.

    December 18-19, 2015 – At least 100 people are killed as violence erupts in the Harath district of Hajjah, a strategic border near Saudi Arabia.

    April-August 2016 – Direct peace talks between the warring parties take place in Kuwait, but fail after Houthi rebels reject a UN proposal aimed at ending the war. Yemeni government officials leave the discussions shortly afterward.

    November 28, 2016 – The Iranian-backed Houthi movement forms a new government in the capital. Abdul Aziz Habtoor, who defected from Hadi’s government and joined the Houthi coalition in 2015, is its leader, according to the movement’s news agency Saba.

    December 18, 2016 – A suicide bomber strikes as soldiers line up to receive their salaries at the Al Solban military base in the southern city of Aden. The strike kills at least 52 soldiers and injures 34 others, two Yemeni senior security officials tell CNN. ISIS claims responsibility.

    January 29, 2017 – US Central Command announces that a Navy SEAL was killed during a raid on a suspected al Qaeda hideout in a Yemeni village. The Navy SEAL is later identified as William Owens. The Pentagon reports that 14 terrorists were killed during the raid. Yemeni officials say civilians got caught in the crossfire and 13 people died, including eight-year-old Nawar Anwar Al-Awalki, the daughter of Anwar Al-Awalki. The raid was authorized by US President Donald Trump, days after he was sworn in as commander in chief.

    February 8, 2017 – Two senior Yemeni officials tell CNN that the government has requested that the United States stop ground operations in the country unless it has full approval.

    May 15, 2017 – Save the Children reports that 242 people have died of cholera as an outbreak spreads through Sanaa and beyond.

    October 16, 2017 – US forces conduct airstrikes against two ISIS training camps in what a defense official tells CNN are the first US strikes specifically targeting ISIS in Yemen.

    November 4, 2017 – Houthi rebels fire a missile at the King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh. The Saudi government says that their military intercepted the missile before it reached its target. The Saudis carry out airstrikes on Sanaa in response.

    November 6, 2017 – Saudi Arabia blocks humanitarian aid planes from landing in Yemen. The move is in retaliation for the attempted missile strike on Riyadh.

    December 4, 2017 – Saleh is killed by Houthi rebels as he tries to flee Sanaa.

    December 6, 2017 – Trump issues a statement that he has directed his administration to call for an end to Saudi Arabia’s blockade.

    December 21, 2017 – The International Committee of the Red Cross announces that one million cases of cholera have been reported in Yemen since the outbreak began during the spring. More than 2,200 people have died, according to the World Health Organization. It is the largest outbreak of the disease in recent history.

    April 3, 2018 – Speaking at a UN Pledging Conference on Yemen, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres notes that, in its fourth year of conflict, more than three-quarters of the population, 22 million, require humanitarian aid. Regarding hunger alone, “some 18 million people are food insecure; one million more than when we convened last year.”

    August 3, 2018 – The World Health Organization warns that Yemen is teetering on the brink of a third cholera epidemic.

    August 9, 2018 – A Saudi-led coalition bombs a school bus, killing 40 boys returning from a day trip in the northern Saada governorate. Fifty-one people are killed in total. Later, munitions experts tell CNN that the bomb, a 500-pound laser-guided MK 82 bomb made by Lockheed Martin, was sold as part of a US State Department-sanctioned arms deal with Saudi Arabia. The Saudi coalition blames “incorrect information” for the strike, admits it was a mistake and takes responsibility.

    November 20, 2018 – Save the Children says that an estimated 85,000 children under the age of 5 may have died from extreme hunger or disease since the war in Yemen escalated in early 2015.

    December 6, 2018 – The opposing sides in Yemen’s conflict begin direct talks in Sweden, the first direct discussions between the parties since 2016.

    December 18, 2018 – A ceasefire reached in Sweden between Yemen’s warring parties goes into effect at midnight (4 p.m. ET December 17) in the strategic port city of Hodeidah.

    February 2019 – A CNN investigation reveals that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have transferred US-made weapons to al Qaeda-linked fighters, hardline Salafi militias, and other groups on the ground in Yemen. The weapons have also made their way into the hands of Iranian-backed rebels, exposing some of America’s sensitive military technology to Tehran and potentially endangering the lives of US troops in other war zones.

    May 2019 – A CNN investigation exposes the theft or “diversion” of food aid, some of which is being stolen by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, on a scale far greater than has been reported before.

    June 2019 – The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) finds that the total number of reported fatalities in Yemen is more than 91,000 since 2015.

    June 12, 2019 – A missile fired by Houthi rebels strikes the arrivals hall of Abha International Airport in Saudi Arabia, injuring 26 people. On July 2, a second attack occurs when Houthi rebels execute a drone strike on the same airport, injuring nine civilians. according to the Houthi-run Al-Masirah news agency.

    August 11, 2019 – A spokesperson for Yemeni separatists tells CNN that they have taken control of Aden, which had been the seat of the Saudi-backed government since Houthis took over Sanaa in 2014.

    January 19, 2020 – At least 80 Yemeni soldiers attending prayers at a mosque are killed and 130 others injured in ballistic missile and drone attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels, according to the UN Special Envoy for Yemen.

    December 26, 2020 – Yemen’s new 24-member cabinet, the power-sharing government brokered by Saudi Arabia, is sworn in. The new cohesive government will have equal representatives from Yemen’s internationally recognized government and southern separatists, their coalition allies in the war against the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels.

    February 12, 2021 – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announces the removal of Yemen’s Houthi rebels from the US list of foreign terrorist organizations, effective February 16, reversing the Trump administration’s January 2020 designation that faced bipartisan backlash from politicians and humanitarian organizations.

    April 2, 2022 – Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis and their rival Saudi-led coalition agree to a nationwide truce. It is the most significant step towards ending the hostilities since the war began seven years ago, and a win for UN and US mediators who for the past year have been trying to engineer a permanent peace deal. The renewable two-month truce is meant to halt all military operations in Yemen and across its borders.

    October 2, 2022 – After a rare six months of relative calm, the truce between Yemen’s warring sides expires. The two-month truce had been renewed twice but ends after the two sides fail to renew their deal.

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  • Iran protests trigger solidarity rallies in US, Europe

    Iran protests trigger solidarity rallies in US, Europe

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Chanting crowds marched in the streets of Berlin, Washington DC and Los Angeles on Saturday in a show of international support for demonstrators facing a violent government crackdown in Iran, sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of that country’s morality police.

    On the U.S. National Mall, thousands of women and men of all ages — wearing green, white and red, the colors of the Iran flag — shouted in rhythm. “Be scared. Be scared. We are one in this,” demonstrators yelled, before marching to the White House. “Say her name! Mahsa!”

    The demonstrations, put together by grassroots organizers from around the United States, drew Iranians from across the Washington D.C. area, with some travelling down from Toronto to join the crowd.

    In Los Angeles, home to the biggest population of Iranians outside of Iran, a throng of protesters formed a slow-moving procession along blocks of a closed downtown street. They chanted for the fall of Iran’s government and waved hundreds of Iranian flags that turned the horizon into a undulating wave of red, white and green.

    “We want freedom,” they thundered.

    Shooka Scharm, an attorney who was born in the U.S. after her parents fled the Iranian revolution, was wearing a T-shirt with the slogan “Women, Life, Freedom” in English and Farsi. In Iran “women are like a second-class citizen and they are sick of it,” Scharm said.

    Iran’s nationwide antigovernment protest movement first focused on the country’s mandatory hijab covering for women following Amiri’s death on Sept. 16. The demonstrations there have since transformed into the greatest challenge to the Islamic Republic since the 2009 Green Movement over disputed elections. In Tehran on Saturday, more antigovernment protests took place at several universities.

    Iran’s security forces have dispersed gatherings in that country with live ammunition and tear gas, killing over 200 people, including teenage girls, according to rights groups.

    The Biden administration has said it condemns the brutality and repression against the citizens of Iran and that it will look for ways to impose more sanctions against the Iranian government if the violence continues.

    Between chants, protesters in D.C. broke into song, singing traditional Persian music about life and freedom — all written after the revolution in 1979 brought religious fundamentalists to power in Iran. They sang one in particular in unison — “Baraye,” meaning because of, which has become the unofficial anthem of the Iran protests. The artist of that song, Shervin Hajipour, was arrested shortly after posting the song to his Instagram in late September. It accrued more than 40 million views.

    “Because of women, life, freedom,” protesters sang, echoing a popular protest chant: “Azadi” — Freedom.

    The movement in Iran is rooted in the same issues as in the U.S. and around the globe, said protester Samin Aayanifard, 28, who left Iran three years ago. “It’s forced hijab in Iran and here in America, after 50 years, women’s bodies are under control,” said Aayanifard, who drove from East Lansing, Michigan to join the D.C. march. She referred to rollbacks of abortion laws in the United States. “It’s about control over women’s bodies.”

    Several weeks of Saturday solidarity rallies in the U.S. capital have drawn growing crowds.

    In Berlin, a crowd estimated by German police at several tens of thousands turned out to show solidarity for the women and activists leading the movement for the past few weeks in Iran. The protests in Germany’s capital, organized by the Woman(asterisk) Life Freedom Collective, began at the Victory Column in Berlin’s Tiergarten park and continued as a march through central Berlin.

    Some demonstrators there said they had come from elsewhere in Germany and other European countries to show their support.

    “It is so important for us to be here, to be the voice of the people of Iran, who are killed on the streets,” said Shakib Lolo, who is from Iran but lives in the Netherlands. “And this is not a protest anymore, this is a revolution, in Iran. And the people of the world have to see it.”

    ___

    Blood reported from Los Angeles.

    Follow AP’s coverage of Iran at: https://apnews.com/hub/iran

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  • Russia’s defense chief warns of ‘dirty bomb’ provocation

    Russia’s defense chief warns of ‘dirty bomb’ provocation

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    KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia’s defense chief alleged Sunday that Ukraine was preparing a “provocation” involving a radioactive device, a stark claim that was strongly rejected by U.S., British and Ukrainian officials amid soaring tensions as Moscow struggles to stem Ukrainian advances in the south.

    Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu made the allegations in phone calls with his counterparts from the United States, Britain, France and Turkey.

    Russia’s defense ministry said Shoigu voiced concern about “possible Ukrainian provocations involving a ‘dirty bomb,’” a device that uses explosives to scatter radioactive waste. It doesn’t have the devastating effect of a nuclear explosion, but could expose broad areas to radioactive contamination.

    Russian authorities repeatedly have made allegations that Ukraine could detonate a dirty bomb in a false flag attack and blame it on Moscow. Ukrainian authorities, in turn, have accused the Kremlin of hatching such a plan.

    British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace strongly rejected Shoigu’s claim and warned Moscow against using it as a pretext for escalation.

    The British Ministry of Defense noted that Shoigu, in a call with Wallace, “alleged that Ukraine was planning actions facilitated by Western countries, including the UK, to escalate the conflict in Ukraine.”

    “The Defense Secretary refuted these claims and cautioned that such allegations should not be used as a pretext for greater escalation,” the ministry said.

    The U.S. also rejected Shoigu’s “transparently false allegations,” White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement. “The world would see through any attempt to use this allegation as a pretext for escalation.”

    In a televised address Sunday evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggested that Moscow itself was setting the stage for deploying a radioactive device on Ukrainian soil.

    “If Russia calls and says that Ukraine is allegedly preparing something, it means only one thing: that Russia has already prepared all of it,” Zelenskyy said.

    The mention of the dirty bomb threat in Shoigu’s calls seemed to indicate the threat of such an attack has risen to an unprecedented level.

    The French Ministry of the Armed Forces said Shoigu told his counterpart, Sebastien Lecornu, that the situation in Ukraine was rapidly worsening and “trending towards uncontrollable escalation.”

    “It appears that there is a shared feeling that the tensions have approached the level that could raise the real threat for all,” said Fyodor Lukyanov, the Kremlin-connected head of the Council for Foreign and Defense policies, a Moscow-based group of top foreign affairs experts.

    The rising tensions come as Russian authorities reported building defensive positions in occupied areas of Ukraine and border regions of Russia, reflecting fears that Ukrainian forces may attack along new sections of the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line of the war, which enters its ninth month on Monday.

    In recent weeks, Ukraine has focused its counteroffensive mostly on the Kherson region. Their relentless artillery strikes cut the main crossings across the Dnieper River, which bisects the southern region, leaving Russian troops on the west bank short of supplies and vulnerable to encirclement.

    Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of the Russian-installed regional administration in Kherson, said Sunday in a radio interview that Russian defensive lines “have been reinforced and the situation has remained stable” since local officials strongly encouraged all residents of the region’s capital and nearby areas Saturday to evacuate by ferry to the river’s east bank.

    The region is one of four that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed last month and put under Russian martial law on Thursday. Kherson city has been in Russian hands since the early days of the war, but Ukraine’s forces have made advances toward reclaiming it.

    About 20,000 Kherson residents have moved to places on the east bank of the Dnieper River, the Kremlin-backed regional administration reported. The Ukrainian military said Sunday that Russia’s military also withdrew its officers from areas on the west bank, leaving newly mobilized, inexperienced forces.

    The Ukrainian claim could not be independently verified.

    As Ukraine presses south after liberating the Kharkiv region in the north last month, authorities in the western Russian provinces bordering northeastern Ukraine appeared jittery.

    The governor of Russia’s Kursk region, Roman Starovoit, said Sunday that two defensive lines have been built and a third one would be finished by Nov. 5.

    Defensive lines were also established in the Belgorod region, Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

    More defensive positions were being built in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine, said Yevgeny Prigozhin, a millionaire Russian businessman who owns the Wagner Group, a mercenary military company that has played a prominent role in the war.

    Prigozhin said his company was constructing a “Wagner line” in the Luhansk region, another of the Ukrainian provinces Putin illegally annexed last month. Prigozhin posted images last week showing a section of newly built defenses and trench systems southeast of the town of Kreminna.

    The British Defense Ministry said Sunday “the project suggests Russia is making a significant effort to prepare defenses in depth behind the current front line, likely to deter any rapid Ukrainian counteroffensives.”

    Russia’s forces captured Luhansk several months ago. Pro-Moscow separatists declared independent republics in the region and neighboring Donetsk eight years ago, and Putin made controlling all of both provinces a goal at the war’s outset.

    The Institute for the Study of War, a think tank in Washington, said Sunday that Russia’s latest strategy of targeting power plants appeared aimed at diminishing Ukrainians’ will to fight and forcing the government in Kyiv to devote more resources to protecting civilians and energy infrastructure.

    It said the effort was unlikely to damage Ukrainian morale but would have significant economic impacts.

    President Zelenskyy said Sunday that utilities workers were well on their way to restoring electricity supplies cut off by large-scale Russian missile strikes Saturday, but acknowledged that it would take longer to provide heating.

    Nine regions across Ukraine, from Odesa in the southwest to Kharkiv in the northeast, saw more attacks targeting energy and other critical infrastructure over the past day, the Ukrainian army’s general staff said. It reported a total of 25 Russian airstrikes and more than 100 missile and artillery strikes around Ukraine.

    In response, Zelenskyy appealed to mayors and other local leaders to ensure that Ukrainians heed official calls to conserve energy. “Now is definitely not the time for bright storefronts and signs,” he said.

    ___

    Aamer Madhani and Lolita Baldor in Washington and Joanna Kozlowska in London contributed to this report.

    Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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  • Sudan official: Deaths from southern tribal clashes at 220

    Sudan official: Deaths from southern tribal clashes at 220

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    CAIRO — Two days of tribal fighting in Sudan’s south killed at least 220 people, a senior health official said Sunday, marking one the deadliest bouts of tribal violence in recent years. The unrest added to the woes of an African nation mired in civil conflict and political chaos.

    Fighting in Blue Nile province, which borders Ethiopia and South Sudan, reignited earlier this month over a land dispute. It pits the Hausa tribe, with origins across West Africa, against the Berta people.

    The tensions escalated Wednesday and Thursday in the town of Wad el-Mahi on the border with Ethiopia, according to Fath Arrahman Bakheit, the director general of the Health Ministry in Blue Nile.

    He told The Associated Press that officials counted at least 220 dead as of Saturday night, adding the tally could be much higher since medical teams were not able to reach the epicenter of the fighting.

    Bakheit said the first humanitarian and medical convoy managed to reach Was el-Mahi late Saturday to try to assess the situation, including counting “this huge number of bodies,” and the dozens of injured.

    “In such clashes, everyone loses,” he said. “We hope it ends soon and never happens again. But we need strong political, security and civil interventions to achieve that goal.”

    Footage from the scene, which corresponded to the AP’s reporting, showed burned houses and charred bodies. Others showed women and children fleeing on foot.

    Many houses were burned down in the fighting, which displaced some 7,000 people to the city of Rusyaris. Others fled to neighboring provinces, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Overall, about 211,000 people have been displaced by tribal violence and other attacks across the country this year, it said.

    Authorities ordered a nighttime curfew in Wad el-Mahi and deployed troops to the area. They also established a fact-finding committee to investigate the clashes, according to the state-run SUNA news agency.

    The fighting between the two groups first erupted in mid-July, killing at least 149 people as of earlier October. It triggered violent protests and stoked tensions between the two tribes in Blue Nile and other provinces.

    The latest fighting comes at a critical time for Sudan, just a few days before the first anniversary of a military coup that further plunged the country into turmoil. The coup derailed the country’s short-lived transition to democracy after nearly three decades of the repressive rule of Omar al-Bashir, who was removed in April 2019 by a popular uprising.

    In recent weeks the military and the pro-democracy movement have engaged in talks to find a way out of the ongoing situation. The generals agreed to allow civilians to appoint a prime minister to lead the country through elections within 24 months, the pro-democracy movement said last week.

    However, the violence in Blue Nile is likely to slow down such efforts. Protest groups, who reject the deal with the ruling generals, have been preparing for mass anti-military demonstrations called for Tuesday, the anniversary of the coup.

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  • Iran says it will sue US, alleging ‘direct involvement’ in protests | CNN

    Iran says it will sue US, alleging ‘direct involvement’ in protests | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Iran said Saturday it would take legal action against the United States, accusing it of “direct involvement” in the protests sweeping the country.

    Tehran also warned the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia would “not be ignored by the Islamic Republic’s judiciary system” for their role in hosting and supporting TV networks such as BBC Persian and Iran International – which it claimed had urged protesters “to destroy public and private properties.”

    Anti-government protests have gripped Iran since the September 16 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died after being pulled off the streets of Tehran by morality police and taken to a “re-education center” for lessons in modesty.

    Strikes and protests have become a common sight in cities and towns across the country and in the capital chants of “death to the dictator” – in reference to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei – often ring out at night from the rooftops.

    US President Joe Biden has thrown his support behind the demonstrators, promising costs “on perpetrators of violence against peaceful protesters” and saying the US stands with the “brave women of Iran who right now are demonstrating to secure their basic rights.”

    The US has also announced sanctions on Iran’s morality police “for abuse and violence against Iranian women and the violation of the rights of peaceful Iranian protesters” and is working to making it easier for Iranians to access the internet.

    This is not the first time Iran has accused the US of meddling in anti-government protests – it made similar claims in 2018.

    The state news agency IRNA reported on Saturday that the Justice Department “has been tasked to file a lawsuit in order to investigate the damages and meddling inflicted by the US’s direct involvement in the unrest.” It also reported the claims against the BBC and Iran International, made by the deputy head of the Iranian Judiciary and secretary of the country’s High Council for Human Rights Kazem Gharibabadi.

    The report did not make clear what court would hear such a case.

    Meanwhile protests are continuing both within Iran and in solidarity movements across the world, with large demonstrations in both Berlin and Tokyo on Saturday.

    Within Iran, business owners and factory workers from the Kurdistan region went on strike and students from universities across the country joined in on the demonstrations.

    Video shared with CNN by pro-reform activist outlet IranWire, show Sanandaj, the capital of the Kurdish region, eerily quiet at the beginning of the work week as stores remain shuttered.

    The Norway-based Iranian rights group Hengaw said shopkeepers were also on strike in Bukan, Sanandaj and Marivan, though CNN can’t independently verify these reports.

    On Saturday, videos of protests against the Iranian regime from IranWire showed a crowd at Tehran’s Shahid Behasti University chanting “Freedom, freedom, death to the dictator, death to Khamenei.”

    Workers at Aidin Chocolate Factory in Tabriz have started a strike in solidarity with nationwide protests. (IranWire)

    Students at Tabriz University in East Azerbaijan province also took to the streets chanting in unison that regime change was on the horizon, according to IranWire, and at Yazd University in Yazd province, students sang a century-old pre-revolutionary anthem.

    An eyewitness told CNN that young girls from local schools who joined in the protests calling for “freedom” and “death to the dictator” were rounded up by police moments later and loaded into black vans.

    Outside Iran, video published by Radio Free Liberty showed protesters on a boardwalk in Sydney, Australia, chanting “freedom” on Saturday.

    Germany’s state broadcaster RBB reported solidarity protests with close to 80,000 people in Berlin.

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  • Protest against Iranian regime draws thousands in Berlin

    Protest against Iranian regime draws thousands in Berlin

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    BERLIN — Tens of thousands of people gathered in Germany’s capital Saturday to show solidarity with antigovernment protesters in Iran, where a movement sparked by the death of a woman in the custody of morality police has evolved into a challenge to the Islamic Republic.

    Berlin police estimated that 37,000 people had joined the German demonstration by late afternoon. Participants held up Iranian flags and signs criticizing Iran’s leaders, many with the tagline “Women, Life, Freedom” in both English and German.

    The demonstration, organized by the Woman(asterisk) Life Freedom Collective, began at the Victory Column in Berlin’s Tiergarten park and continued as a march through central Berlin.

    Some demonstrators said they had come from elsewhere in Germany and other European countries to show their support.

    “It is so important for us to be here, to be the voice of the people of Iran, who are killed on the streets,” said Shakib Lolo, who is from Iran but lives in the Netherlands. “And this is not a protest anymore, this is a revolution, in Iran. And the people of the world have to see it.”

    Other issues were the focus of demonstrations in Berlin as well, including one calling for social solidarity in the wake of a potential energy crisis and another advocating a speed limit on German highways.

    In Tehran, more antigovernment protests took place Saturday at several universities. The nationwide movement in Iran first focused on the country’s mandatory hijab following the Sept. 16 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the morality police.

    Security forces have dispersed gatherings with live ammunition and tear gas, leaving over 200 people dead, according to rights groups.

    The government in Tehran also has been in the spotlight in European capitals due to allegations that Iran has supplied explosive drones that Russian troops are using in Ukraine.

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  • Iran protests trigger solidarity rallies in US, Europe

    Iran protests trigger solidarity rallies in US, Europe

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    WASHINGTON — Chanting crowds marched in the streets of Berlin, Washington DC and Los Angeles on Saturday in a show of international support for demonstrators facing a violent government crackdown in Iran, sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of that country’s morality police.

    On the U.S. National Mall, thousands of women and men of all ages — donning green, white and red, the colors of the Iran flag — chanted. “Be scared. Be scared. We are one in this,” some shouted, ahead of the group’s march to the White House. “Say her name! Mahsa!”

    The demonstrations, put together by grassroots organizers from around the United States, drew Iranians from across the Washington D.C. area, with some travelling down from Toronto to join the crowd.

    In Los Angeles, home to the biggest population of Iranians outside of Iran, a throng of protesters formed a slow-moving procession along blocks of a closed downtown street. They chanted for the fall of Iran’s government and waved hundreds of Iranian flags that turned the horizon into a undulating wave of red, white and green.

    “We want freedom,” they thundered in unison.

    Shooka Scharm, an attorney who was born in the U.S. after her parents fled the Iranian revolution, was wearing a T-shirt with the slogan “Women, Life, Freedom” in English and Farsi. In Iran “women are like a second-class citizen and they are sick of it,” Scharm said.

    She said women can be arrested for wearing the wrong makeup color, historically important women are omitted from book and they have few rights in matters such as divorce and child custody. Iranian women “are standing up to unbelievable odds for basic human rights.”

    The Biden administration has said it condemns the brutality and repression against the citizens of Iran and that it will look for ways to impose more sanctions against the Iranian government if the violence continues.

    In Tehran, more antigovernment protests took place Saturday at several universities. The nationwide movement in Iran first focused on the country’s mandatory hijab covering for women following Amiri’s death on Sept. 16. The Iranian protests have since transformed into the greatest challenge to the Islamic Republic since the 2009 Green Movement over disputed elections.

    Iran’s security forces have dispersed gatherings in that country with live ammunition and tear gas, killing over 200 people, including teenage girls, according to rights groups.

    In Berlin, nearly 40,000 people gathered turned out to show solidarity for the women and activists leading the movement for the past few weeks in Iran. The protests in Germany’s capital, organized by the Woman(asterisk) Life Freedom Collective, began at the Victory Column in Berlin’s Tiergarten park and continued as a march through central Berlin.

    Some demonstrators there said they had come from elsewhere in Germany and other European countries to show their support.

    “It is so important for us to be here, to be the voice of the people of Iran, who are killed on the streets,” said Shakib Lolo, who is from Iran but lives in the Netherlands. “And this is not a protest anymore, this is a revolution, in Iran. And the people of the world have to see it.”

    Several weeks of Saturday solidarity rallies in the U.S. capital have drawn growing crowds.

    ———

    Blood reported from Los Angeles.

    Follow AP’s coverage of Iran at: https://apnews.com/hub/iran

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  • Washington Post: Some documents seized at Mar-a-Lago contained sensitive secrets about Iran and China | CNN Politics

    Washington Post: Some documents seized at Mar-a-Lago contained sensitive secrets about Iran and China | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Documents containing highly sensitive intelligence about Iran and China were among those recovered by the FBI from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, The Washington Post reported on Friday.

    Disclosure of the documents’ contents could expose US intelligence-gathering methods, people familiar with the matter told the Post. At least one of the documents describes Iran’s missile program and others described highly sensitive intelligence involving China.

    The Post’s sources characterized the documents as among the most sensitive recovered by the FBI since it began its investigation of the former President and his aides into the potential mishandling of classified information.

    A Trump spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment to the Post on Friday morning.

    The people familiar with the matter who spoke to the Post said many of the more sensitive documents taken to the resort are analysis papers that do not contain sources’ names, though they can still provide insight to foreign adversaries. Some of the documents are only available to the highest-level officials in the US government, such as the President or Cabinet members.

    CNN has reported that since the FBI search in August, the US intelligence community has restarted work on both the classification review and the so-called damage assessment related to Trump’s storage of classified materials at Mar-a-Lago.

    The damage assessment is a long-term analytic product that will study what the risk would be to US national security if the material stored at Mar-a-Lago were to be exposed. The classification review is designed to review each document to establish that its classification markings are current.

    On Thursday, CNN reported that Trump’s legal team is weighing whether to allow federal agents to return to the former President’s Florida residence, and potentially conduct a supervised search, to satisfy the Justice Department’s demands that all sensitive government documents are returned, sources tell CNN.

    In private discussions with Trump’s team as well as court filings, the Justice Department has made clear that it believes Trump failed to comply with a May subpoena ordering the return of all documents marked as classified and that more government records remain missing.

    Some in Trump’s inner circle aren’t convinced there are any remaining government documents, after the FBI seized nearly 22,000 pages when they executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago in August.

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  • Iranian rock climber Elnaz Rekabi thanks supporters on social media, as official denies she is under house arrest | CNN

    Iranian rock climber Elnaz Rekabi thanks supporters on social media, as official denies she is under house arrest | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A female Iranian rock climber, who competed without a hijab at an international competition in South Korea, has taken to social media to thank her supporters – amid conflicting reports over whether she has been put under house arrest.

    “I am endlessly grateful for the support of you, all the people of Iran, the most decent people of the planet, athletes and non-athletes, and all your support in [the] international community,” Elnaz Rekabi wrote on Instagram late Friday.

    Alongside a photo of herself rock climbing – in which she appears as a silhouette, suspended in the air – she added, “What I have gained till today was regarding the caring of you beautiful souls; and the future would not be a road without obstacles if you are not coming along.”

    Videos posted to social media appeared to show Rekabi being greeted by crowds chanting “Elnaz the hero” when she arrived back at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport on Wednesday morning.

    Her return to Iran comes amid nationwide protests in the country calling for greater freedoms for women, following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, a woman who died in police custody after her arrest for allegedly wearing her hijab improperly.

    Consequently, some protesters see her as a symbol of the cause and rights groups have expressed fears for what will happen to her now she is back in Iran. A news website critical of the Iranian regime, IranWire, had claimed that Rekabi would be transferred to prison upon her arrival back in the country.

    Rekabi herself has suggested – both on her Instagram account and in interviews with state media IRNA – that she had only “accidentally” competed without her hijab, which Iran mandates must be worn by women representing the country abroad.

    However, it is unclear whether Rekabi’s comments were made under duress.

    Her latest comments on Instagram came as the head of the Iranian federation of mountaineering and sport climbing reportedly denied that Rekabi was under house arrest.

    Speaking with the Iranian government-affiliated Borna News Agency, Reza Zarei said Rekabi was “now with her family.”

    Zarei also denied rumors that he had received checks or property documents from Rekabi or any other athlete competing in the Asian Championship.

    Borna news agency is affiliated with Iran’s Ministry of Sports and Youth.

    CNN cannot independently verify whether or not Rekabi is under house arrest.

    Meanwhile, Iran responded Friday to Canadian sanctions targeting Iranian news stations, describing them as an “absurdity.”

    Canada said this month it would impose additional sanctions on Iranian individuals and entities that had participated in or enabled human rights violations.

    It said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its top leaders – more than 10,000 officers and senior members – would now be barred from entering Canada “for their engagement in terrorism and systemic and gross human rights violations.”

    According to Nasser Kanani, spokesperson for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the latest Canadian sanctions also include the Tasnim News Agency, Kihan newspaper, Noor News, and Fars News Agency.

    Kanani wrote on Instagram that such sanctions show “the absurdity of the West’s slogan regarding free access to information and freedom of expression.”

    Kanani added, “The US government’s sanctions madness has gone viral and is quickly being transferred to its friends.”

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  • Syria reports Israeli airstrikes on suburbs of Damascus

    Syria reports Israeli airstrikes on suburbs of Damascus

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    DAMASCUS, Syria — Israel carried out an airstrike on the Syrian capital of Damascus and its southern suburbs late Friday, in the first such attack in more than a month, state media reported. There were no casualties in the strikes.

    The Syrian military said later that several Israeli missiles were fired toward some military positions near Damascus. It saidt Syrian air defenses shot down most of the missiles, adding that there was only material losses.

    Residents in the capital earlier said they heard at least three explosions.

    Syrian state TV said Syrian air defenses responded to “an Israeli aggression in the airspace of Damascus and southern areas.”

    The pro-government Sham FM radio station said the attacks were close to the Damascus International Airport south of the capital.

    Friday’s strikes were the first since Sept. 17, when an Israeli attack on the Damascus International Airport and nearby military posts south of the Syrian capital killed five soldiers. That attack came days after an Israeli strike shit the main airport in the northern city of Aleppo.

    Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years, but rarely acknowledges or discusses such operations.

    Israel has acknowledged, however, that it targets bases of Iran-allied militant groups, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which has sent thousands of fighters to support Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces.

    The Israeli strikes comes amid a wider shadow war between the country and Iran. The attacks on the airports in Damascus and Aleppo are over fears it was being used to funnel Iranian weaponry into the country.

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  • ACLU asks top US court to review law against boycotting Israel

    ACLU asks top US court to review law against boycotting Israel

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    Washington, DC — A top civil rights group in the United States has asked the Supreme Court to review a lower court’s ruling that upheld an Arkansas state law penalising companies that boycott Israel.

    The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a petition on Thursday asking the top court to take up the case, arguing the Appeals Court decision violates the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects the right to free speech.

    “When a state singles out particular boycotts for special penalties, as Arkansas has done here, it not only infringes the right to boycott — it also transgresses the First Amendment’s core prohibition on content and viewpoint discrimination,” ACLU lawyers wrote in their filing.

    In June, the appeals court ruled in favour of the law, saying boycotts fall under commercial activity, not “expressive conduct” guaranteed by the First Amendment.

    The law follows similar measures passed by dozens of US states to curtail the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which pushes to pressure Israel through non-violent means to end abuses against Palestinians.

    Several rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have said Israel’s treatment of Palestinians amounts to apartheid.

    The Arkansas case started in 2018 when The Arkansas Times, a publication in the city of Little Rock, sued the state after refusing to sign a pledge not to boycott Israel to win an advertising contract from a public university.

    The law requires contractors that do not sign the pledge to reduce their fees by 20 percent.

    A federal district court initially dismissed the lawsuit but a three-judge appeals panel blocked the law in 2021, ruling it violates the First Amendment. In June, a full appeals court reversed the panel’s decision, essentially reviving the law.

    The Supreme Court is the final level of appeal and review in the US judicial system. If the top court refuses to take up the case, the appeals court’s decision will stand.

    The nine-seat Supreme Court has a conservative majority with three justices appointed by former President Donald Trump, a staunch supporter of Israel.

    Rights advocates have warned that anti-boycott measures do not only push to unconstitutionally silence Palestinian rights activism but also threaten free speech rights in general — and are being used to restrict boycotts of other entities, including the fossil fuel industry.

    Brain Hauss, a senior staff lawyer with the ACLU, said the June decision to uphold the anti-BDS law in Arkansas “badly misreads” legal precedents and withdraws protection for freedoms exercised by Americans for centuries.

    “Worse yet, the decision upholds the government’s power to selectively suppress boycotts that express messages with which the government disagrees,” Hauss said in a statement on Thursday.

    “The Supreme Court should take up this case in order to reaffirm that the First Amendment protects the right to participate in politically-motivated consumer boycotts.”

    Americans for Peace Now (APN), an advocacy group that describes itself as pro-Israel and pro-peace, also called on the Supreme Court to review the ruling.

    “A Supreme Court decision on this case, if it decides to take it up, could have broad repercussions in the United States and beyond,” APN President Hadar Susskind said in a statement.

    “We hope the Court discusses the matter and rules that states have no business imposing conditions on the free speech rights of individuals, organizations and companies. You may support or oppose boycotting Israel or the occupation, but as a government you must not impose your opinion on others or sanction them for their views.”

    Anti-BDS laws often restrict boycotts of Israel as well as any Israeli-occupied territories. Last year, several US states threatened sanctions against Ben & Jerry’s after the ice cream company decided to stop doing business in the occupied Palestinian West Bank.

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  • Sudan officials: Tribal clashes kill 170 in country’s south

    Sudan officials: Tribal clashes kill 170 in country’s south

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    CAIRO — Tribal clashes in Sudan’s southern province of Blue Nile have killed at least 170 people over the past two days, two Sudanese officials said Thursday, the latest in inter-communal violence across the country’s neglected south.

    The officials, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, said the clashes erupted on Wednesday and that sporadic fighting continues. Government troops were deployed to the area to try to de-escalate the conflict. The dead include women and children, the two officials said.

    Blue Nile has been shaken by ethnic violence over the past months. Tribal clashes that erupted in July killed 149 people by early October, and last week, renewed clashes killed another 13 people, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA.

    The July fighting involved the Hausa, a tribe with origins across West Africa, and the Berta people, following a land dispute. On Thursday, a group representing the Hausa said they have been under attack by individuals armed with heavy weapons over the past two days, but did not blame any specific tribe or group for the attack.

    A Hausa group issued a statement calling for de-escalation and a stop to ”the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Hausa.” The tribe has long been marginalized within Sudanese society, with July’s violence sparking a string of Hausa protests across the country. The Blue Nile is home to dozens of different ethnic groups, with hate speech and racism often inflaming decades-long tribal tensions.

    OCHA had no confirmation of the latest surge in casualties but said the violence has displaced at least 1,200 people since last week. According to the U.N. agency, the villages surrounding the city of Ar Rusyaris have been at the epicenter of the violence.

    Earlier in the day, OCHA said that tribal clashes in nearby West Kordofan province, which broke out last week, killed 19 people and wounded dozens. A gunfight there between the Misseriya and Nuba ethnic groups erupted amid a land dispute near the town of Al Lagowa, the agency said.

    The West Kordofan state governor visited the town on Tuesday to talk to local residents in a bid to de-escalate the conflict before coming under artillery fire from a nearby mountainous area, OCHA said. There were no reports of casualties from the artillery fire.

    “Fighting in West Kordofan and the Blue Nile states risks further displacements and human suffering,″ OCHA said. ”There is also a risk of an escalation and spread of the fighting with additional humanitarian consequences,” it said

    On Wednesday, the Sudanese army accused the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, a rebel group active in the Blue Nile and South Kordofan, of being behind the attack on Al Lagowa. The rebel group has not responded to the accusation.

    The violence in West Kordofan prompted around 36,500 people to flee Al Lagowa while many who remained sought shelter in the town’s army base, OCHA added. The area is currently inaccessible to humanitarian aid, the agency said.

    Eisa El Dakar, a local journalist from West Kordofan, told The AP last week that the conflict there is partly rooted in the two ethnic groups’ conflicting claims to local land, with the Misseriya being predominately a herding community and the Nuba mostly farmers.

    Much of Kordofan and other areas in southern Sudan have been rocked by chaos and conflict over the past decade.

    Sudan has been plugged into turmoil since a coup last October that upended the country’s brief democratic transition after three decades of autocratic rule by Omar al-Bashir. He was toppled in an April 2019 popular uprising, paving the way for a civilian-military power-sharing government.

    Many analysts consider the rising violence a product of the power vacuum in the region, caused by the military coup last October. The violence has also further threatened Sudan’s already struggling economy, compounded by fuel shortages caused, in part, by the war in Ukraine.

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  • Jewish settlers pepper spray Israeli soldiers in West Bank

    Jewish settlers pepper spray Israeli soldiers in West Bank

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    JERUSALEM — Jewish West Bank settlers stormed through a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military said Thursday, throwing stones at Palestinian cars and using pepper spray on Israeli troops who were trying to disperse the settlers.

    The settler rampage late Wednesday comes days after a similar incident in the same area and as Israeli-Palestinian tensions are surging over Israeli raids in the West Bank and an uptick in shooting attacks by Palestinians.

    The rampage took place near Huwara, a Palestinian town in the northern West Bank near the city of Nablus, where a group of disaffected youth has taken up arms against Israel and in frustration with the Palestinian leadership’s close security ties to it.

    Palestinian militants in the area have carried out several roadside shootings in recent weeks. The area is home to a number of hardline settlements, whose residents often intimidate Palestinians and vandalize their property.

    Critics accuse Israel of turning a blind eye to settler violence against Palestinians and treating them with impunity, while being heavy-handed with Palestinian assailants or protesters. Settler violence has in the past also led to confrontations with soldiers which often sparks condemnations from politicians but rarely leads to a solution to the problem.

    The military said dozens of settlers ran through the town, throwing rocks at Palestinian cars. The settlers used pepper spray on the battalion commander as well as another soldier. The settlers sprayed another two soldiers at a nearby checkpoint, the military said.

    It was not immediately clear why the settlers were allowed to continue to another location after the initial incident.

    In a statement, the military’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi, condemned the violence.

    “This is a very serious incident that embodies shameful and disgraceful criminal behavior that demands strict and swift justice,” he said.

    The violence comes as tensions between Israelis and Palestinians have surged in recent months.

    More than 120 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian fighting in the West Bank and east Jerusalem this year, making 2022 the deadliest year since 2015.

    The fighting has surged since a series of Palestinian attacks in the spring killed 19 people in Israel and more in recent violence. The Israeli military says most of the Palestinians killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.

    Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, territories the Palestinian seek for their future state.

    Israel has since settled some 500,000 settlers in the West Bank in some 130 settlements.

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  • Stalked, tortured, disappeared: Iranian authorities have a playbook for silencing dissent, and they’re using it again | CNN

    Stalked, tortured, disappeared: Iranian authorities have a playbook for silencing dissent, and they’re using it again | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Arman doesn’t sleep much anymore.

    “In my nightmare, I see someone is following me in the dark, ” he said. “I’m alone and no one is helping me.”

    He says his life was forever altered in early October, when he was arrested on the streets of Tehran for joining anti-government demonstrations, and then tortured by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – known as the Sepah – for four days.

    The abuse was psychological and physical, he told CNN, including electric shocks, controlled drowning and mock executions.

    The 29-year-old says he was held in solitary confinement and intermittently beaten, before eventually being placed in a room with roughly two dozen other protesters, including a woman with cuts across her face and neck who said she had been sexually assaulted by security forces.

    Arman, whose name has been changed for his safety, says he saw the IRGC’s emblem on a desk, and again on the uniform of one of the men guarding him – but that he doesn’t know exactly where in Tehran the center was located because he was tasered and had lost consciousness before being driven there.

    In order to leave the detention center, Arman claims he was forced to sign a false confession saying he received money from the US, UK and Israeli governments to go out and create “chaos” in Iranian society. He was then told that if he engaged in any more “activism” he and his family would be hunted down and arrested, he said.

    What Arman claims happened to him and those allegedly detained alongside him isn’t an isolated incident. Instead, it’s part of a tried and tested playbook used by the Iranian government to stalk, torture and imprison protesters, in an ongoing campaign to squash political dissent.

    In the months following Iran’s nationwide demonstrations in 2019, which were sparked by the government’s abrupt decision to increase the price of gas by 50% but snowballed into calls for the fall of the Islamic Republic and its leaders, widespread accounts of torture and thousands of arrests were documented.

    As Iranians from all walks of life unite to fight for their civil rights – in protests first sparked by the death of a young woman in religious police custody last month – it appears to be happening again.

    “We are now in the worst time of our life. Full of stress. Full of fear,” a 24-year-old female protester told CNN. She says several of her friends were tortured – and that one of them was also sexually violated – after being detained by the IRGC in Rasht last month.

    “Nothing has happened to me yet and I was able to escape. But it is possible at any moment,” she explained during a video call about the incident, her face covered to protect her identity.

    CNN has spoken to almost a dozen Iranians who have shared first-hand accounts of torture in either the 2019 and 2022 protests, or who have had loved ones die or disappear while in the custody of authorities.

    Some of those impacted shared photographs documenting their injuries as well as court records detailing the criminal charges they’re facing; others shared only their stories, which CNN cannot independently verify.

    CNN contacted the Iranian government as well as its permanent mission to the United Nations regarding the accounts of torture and arbitrary detention detailed by protesters but has yet to receive a response.

    A group of people look out from what appears to be a security van in Tehran, as an officer stands nearby.

    Farhad, a 37-year-old father-of-two, intimately understands the personal cost of speaking out against the Iranian government, but it hasn’t stopped him from joining the demonstrations which have continued for more than a month now and seem to transcend Iran’s social and ethnic divisions.

    In the November 2019 protests, he says he watched several of his friends die on the streets of Tehran after being gunned down by security forces, in what would be a four-day nationwide rampage to silence dissent that ultimately left more than 300 civilians dead, according to Amnesty International.

    It wasn’t until December 2, in the aftermath of the bloodshed, that Farhad says plain-clothes officers kicked down his door in the middle of the night to arrest him for his involvement in the demonstrations.

    Farhad, whose name has also been changed for his security, says the IRGC used footage of the protests from the BBC – which he has since shared with CNN – to identify him, effectively weaponizing the media coverage of the rallies to hunt down participants.

    Iranian police patrol in the capital Tehran on October 8, 2022.

    He claims he was tortured for 16 days in total and like Arman, that he knew the Tehran detention center in which he was being held was run by the IRGC because of a sign on one of its walls displaying its distinctive insignia.

    In Farhad’s telling, several hundred people were detained and tortured alongside him. He still hears their screams.

    “Hundreds of people were imprisoned with me. There was a bed, people were being tied to it and abused. There were rapes, torture with electric shocks and boiling water … they were hanging people from the ceiling to beat them,” he told CNN.

    Farhad’s last memory from his time in that dark room is when he was hung up and beaten senseless by plain-clothes officers before being thrown in the back of a car, driven to an undisclosed location and dumped on the side of the road.

    Days later he woke up in a medical clinic near his house in Tehran, he said. He doesn’t know how he got there but cites an extended family member with links to Iran’s government as a possible reason his life was spared.

    “My teeth were broken; my lip was completely torn off. Because my bleeding was so severe, I [think] they did not expect me to survive.”

    CNN has reviewed photographs of Farhad’s injuries and the scarring he lives with today.

    Farjad has since left Tehran with his immediate family for their safety, but says he still receives late-night phone calls from Iranian authorities threatening to rape his wife and kill his children, and that his bank account is periodically frozen.

    He also claims that in the months following his torture, his national identity card – the primary document used to access essential services in Iran – was wiped from the system.

    Despite the ongoing risks to his life and livelihood, Farhad’s commitment to the current demonstrations is unwavering.

    “My country and my people are suffering. The government of the Islamic Republic oppresses in the name of religion, I can’t see people [being] killed for their beliefs anymore,” he said.

    CNN spoke with four more protesters who were tortured while in detention and later imprisoned for taking part in anti-government demonstrations in 2019 – including a young single mother who says she has had to place her son in the care of her parents in order to serve prison time, and a 43-year-old father of two from Shiraz who says he suffers from acute post-traumatic stress disorder, after spending 48 days in solitary confinement.

    Their accounts all share striking similarities, most notably the ongoing harassment they say their families face from Iranian authorities via fake social media accounts, late-night phone calls, and local informants whom they believe monitor them for the IRGC intelligence service.

    Amin Sabeti is an Iranian cyber security expert who has spent years studying hacking groups with ties to the Islamic Republic, including the IRGC-affiliated ‘Charming Kitten’ group, which was recently sanctioned by the US government for “malicious cyber-enabled activities, including ransomware and cyber-espionage.”

    According to Sabeti, who is based in the UK, state-sponsored hackers have a tried and tested method in place to “dox protesters” once they’ve infiltrated their online groups using fake accounts, which involves “sharing photos of them on Twitter, Instagram or Telegram and asking others to share information about them,” while pretending to be concerned for their safety.

    “They used the same tactics in the November 2019 uprising,” Sabeti explained, which has led to more tech-savvy demonstrators identifying suspicious accounts and distributing warnings among their networks.

    At Tehran’s Ebrat Museum – a repurposed former prison – dramatic displays on the atrocities carried out against Muslim clerics by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s police during the revolution have long been used as a propaganda tool to celebrate the “freedoms” won in the Islamic Republic.

    And yet, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – who was himself imprisoned in the 1970s during Pahlavi’s reign – and his security apparatus, have a decades-long legacy of also using mass arrests and torture to control and silence political dissidents – the hypocrisy of which is not lost on protesters today.

    The current movement – led and inspired by women – has united Iranians across generations, in what is shaping up to be the biggest threat the regime has faced to date. Notably, it has also survived weeks of rolling internet outages and violent crackdowns.

    But as chants of “woman, life, freedom” continue – a rallying cry that’s come to encompass the daily violence and control Iranian women are rising up against – more than 1,000 people have been arrested, according to state news IRNA.

    People gather next to a burning motorcycle in Tehran amid the protests on October 8.

    Looking ahead, analysts and exiled activists CNN spoke to are fearful that the authorities will ultimately employ whatever violent tactics they deem necessary to once again, regain some semblance of control.

    Already, almost two dozen children – some as young as 11 – were killed by Iran’s security forces during demonstrations in September, according to Amnesty International, in a chilling reminder that no life will be spared. Meanwhile, Iran’s Education Minister Yousef Nouri confirmed last week that student protesters are now being detained in what he termed “psychological institutions,” run by the state.

    None of the Iranians CNN spoke with were naive to the fact that their lives – and the lives of their families – are on the line as the uprising rages on, with most going to extreme lengths to protect their personal information online and avoid unnecessary risks while taking to the streets.

    Arman still receives threatening phone calls and messages for his activism, but he says he won’t be deterred.

    “They torture us, and they are lying to the world, to the international community … Iranians want freedom,” he said. “We don’t want dictatorship. We want to connect with the world.”

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