Region

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — The smell of fresh paint wafts through the domed lobby of the latest Israeli arrival in East Jerusalem — a Jewish seminary in a bustling commercial area in the same building as a post office serving thousands of Palestinians every day.

Otzmat Yerushalayim, which includes sleeping quarters and could house as many as 300 young Israelis, is the first Jewish housing venture on Saladin Street, a main shopping thoroughfare across from the walled Old City.

Palestinians and Israeli critics worry the placement of the academy in such a central location is asking for trouble in East Jerusalem, which has stayed largely trouble-free in recent years compared to the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank, and which Palestinians hope will be the capital of a future state.

“Tensions are sure to spike here. It isn’t going to be easy,” a Palestinian pharmacist, who gave her name only as Maral, said in a drugstore across the street.

“They will just close us up the second a confrontation arises and all work will grind to a halt,” she said.

Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem after its occupation in a 1967 war has never been recognised, meaning most of the world views Israeli enclaves there as illegal settlements.

Settlement expansion has been a key sticking point in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which collapsed in April. But even when Israel froze construction temporarily in 2010, it always insisted the moratorium exclude East Jerusalem, which it views as an integral part of the country.

Unlike in the occupied territories, most Palestinians in East Jerusalem enjoy Israeli social benefits and looser travel restrictions, making them less motivated to engage in political protests.

Religious fervour runs deep in the holy city, however, and violence flared during the Jewish Passover holiday when Palestinians, gathered at a holy site revered by Muslims and Jews, threw rocks and firecrackers to try to prevent any attempt by ultranationalist Jews to pray there.

Israeli forces used stun grenades to quell the protests at a plaza that overlooks Judaism’s Western Wall and is home to Al Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest site. Jews refer to the area as the Temple Mount, the site of the two biblical Jewish temples.

Formal opening

Ateret Cohanim, the private organisation behind the seminary project, has been moving hundreds of Jewish families into predominantly Palestinian-inhabited East Jerusalem for years, either by acquiring property or laying claim to land Jews bought before Israel’s creation in 1948.

It expects a formal opening ceremony to take place at the seminary later this month as part of Israeli celebrations of the 47th anniversary of its capture of East Jerusalem.

A teacher at the school, where a rabbi’s portrait hung on freshly painted walls amid benches and bunk beds, said it quietly opened its door a few weeks ago. The seminary’s windows are painted white, shielding those inside from view from the street.

Daniel Luria, a spokesman for Ateret Cohanim, declined to comment on the seminary while accompanying Reuters on a tour of a half-dozen settlement projects the group has spearheaded in Palestinian residential neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem.

Luria said Ateret Cohanim, whose website suggests it raises more than half of its funds from donors in the United States, wanted Jews to live alongside Palestinians, not supplant them.

Some 200,000 Israelis have settled in East Jerusalem, which is home to about 280,000 Palestinians. Most live in largely separate areas.

“We’re really just doing what Zionism has always been defined as, the return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel. But we’re doing that in an area in the heart of Jerusalem,” Luria said.

Sensitive acquisitions

It is not clear how Ateret Cohanim got ahold of a section of the five-storey structure housing the post office, built at a time when neighbouring Jordan controlled East Jerusalem.

Ateret Cohanim refuses to discuss its acquisitions, citing the issue’s sensitivity. Settlement watchdog groups say an Israeli company that occupied the property put it up for sale.

The Israeli government often distances itself from the activities of pro-settler groups in East Jerusalem, generally leaving it up to the courts to decide in case of disputes.

It weighs in more on settlement in the occupied West Bank where it must authorise any enclaves before they are built — though dozens of settlement outposts have gone up without authorisation over the years. Although the government often vows to remove them, that process often takes years.

A spokeswoman at the Israel Lands Authority, the government agency that oversees land and ownership, denied any knowledge of the seminary transaction.

Luria insisted that Ateret Cohanim was not political, but also said a majority of Israelis opposed relinquishing control over any of Jerusalem for a peace deal with Palestinians.

Asked whether his group was seeking to ensure this didn’t happen, he replied: “Not that there are not ramifications behind Jews living in certain areas - we’re not stupid.”

Meir Margalit, a leader of the left-wing Meretz Party’s representatives in Israel’s Jerusalem municipality, said he had sought European and US intervention to try to block the seminary’s opening.

“It’s a sure recipe for violence. This is a very strategic site and there’s a potential here to cause serious disruptions in civic life in this city,” Margalit said.

Outside the post office building, Mohammed Tufaha, a 26-year-old Palestinian physical education teacher, sorted through a packet of letters he had just collected.

“Little by little, they are trying to overtake us. Soon they will move into other buildings as well and Judaise the entire area,” he said.

TRIPOLI — Businessman Ahmed Maiteeq was sworn in as Libya’s new prime minister on Sunday after chaotic voting, with several lawmakers challenging an appointment seen by analysts as unlikely to ease the oil producer’s political turmoil.

Officials gave contradicting versions of the parliamentary election outcome, with a deputy speaker initially saying Maiteeq had failed to obtain the necessary quorum even through he emerged as front-runner in several prior votes.

However, second deputy speaker Saleh Makhzoun later said he had won the necessary support and asked him to form a new government within two weeks.

“Ahmed Maiteeq is officially the new prime minister,” Makhzoun told a televised session interrupted by shouts from lawmakers challenging his win.

Analysts expect Maiteeq to struggle to make headway as government and parliament are unable to impose authority on a country awash with arms and militias, both a legacy from the NATO-backed 2011 uprising which toppled Muammar Qadhafi.

Since the civil war that ended Qadhafi’s one-man rule, Libya’s nascent democracy has struggled, with its parliament paralysed by rivalries and brigades of heavily armed former rebels challenging the new state.

The premier’s post became vacant after Prime Minister Abdullah Al Thinni resigned three weeks ago, citing an attack by gunmen on his family just a month into his term.

Parliament began voting on his successor on Wednesday, but that session was postponed after gunmen linked to a defeated candidate stormed the building and wounded several people.

Lawmakers resumed voting on Sunday in a frequently interrupted session, marked by confusion over the number of votes cast for Maiteeq. Some questioned the legitimacy of his election.

“The vote ... to appoint him as the prime minister was totally invalid,” said lawmaker Zainab Haroun Al Targi.

Deadlock

Thinni’s short-lived tenure followed that of Ali Zeidan who fled the country after he was fired by deputies over his failure to stop attempts by rebels in the volatile east to sell oil independently of Tripoli’s government.

Libya’s assembly is deadlocked between Islamists, tribes and nationalists, as the country’s fledgling army tries to assert itself against unruly ex-rebels, tribal groups and Islamist militants.

In February, it agreed to hold early elections in an effort to assuage Libyans frustrated at political chaos nearly three years after the fall of Qadhafi.

Many people in the OPEC nation blame congressional infighting for a lack of progress in the transition to democracy. Libya still has no new constitution.

Assembly President Nouri Abu Sahmain was absent from the vote. He has disappeared from public view since the attorney general launched an investigation into a leaked video showing him being questioned over a late-night visit by two women to his house.

DAMASCUS — Rebels said Sunday they struck a deal to withdraw from the army-besieged heart of Homs city, as government forces advanced on a strategic town near the Syrian capital, a month before elections.

The deal over the Old City of Homs, under total blockade since June 2012, will see some 2,250 people, mostly fighters, evacuate the flashpoint city in central Syria.

Rebels will head to opposition-held areas in the north of Homs province, handing over control to the army, opposition sources told AFP.

The deal brought together — for the first time — representatives of President Bashar Assad’s security forces, the rebels and Damascus backer Iran.

Homs was dubbed the “capital of the revolution” at the start of the anti-Assad uprising in 2011, and it has seen some of the heaviest violence in Syria’s war.

According to the opposition, the deal includes the exchange of an unknown number of Iranian and Lebanese prisoners currently held by the Islamic Front, Syria’s largest rebel alliance.

“An agreement occurred between representatives of the rebels and the chiefs of security, in the presence of the Iranian ambassador, for the pullout of fighters from the Old City,” said rebel negotiator Abul Hareth Al Khalidi.

He said the talk had now moved onto the implementation phase.

Also under the deal, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, relief will be allowed into two Shiite, pro-regime towns in the northern province of Aleppo that are under siege by rebels.

The text specifies that the evacuees will be escorted by UN and Iranian embassy representatives, as “guarantors” of their safety.

But regime representatives said it was an “arrangement” rather than a deal.

“There is no deal, there is an arrangement and reconciliations that should lead to the handing over of the city, stripped empty of weapons and of armed men,” said Homs Governor Talal Al Barazi.

“On the ground there is nothing yet,” he said.

The main opposition National Coalition, for its part, issued a statement in praise of “the heroic actions of the revolutionaries” in Homs.

The group also called on the United Nations “to fulfil its duty and to ensure the regime honours the truce” which began on Friday.

An activist from Homs told AFP: “Today, the modus operandi of the withdrawal was put in place. But there will be fear from both sides until the exit takes place.”

 Army advance 

The army made major advances Sunday on Mleiha, a town strategically located southeast of Damascus near the airport road, a security official said.

“More than half of the town is under army control,” the official told AFP, on condition of anonymity.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported the advance, saying that Lebanon’s Shiite movement Hizbollah was playing a “lead role” in the battle.

Like the rest of the Eastern Ghouta area, Mleiha has been besieged for the past year and under fierce bombardment for several weeks.

The advance and agreed rebel pullout from Homs come a month ahead of a presidential election in which Assad is poised to return to power.

On Sunday, the constitutional court announced it had accepted the bids of two challengers for Assad’s seat: Maher Abdel Hafiz Hajjar and Hassan Abdallah Al Nouri.

Neither contender is known to the Syrian public.

While the June 3 election will be the country’s first multi-candidate vote, the rules effectively rule out any serious opponents to Assad’s regime from running.

Among them is the stipulation that anyone who has lived outside Syria in the past decade is excluded, effectively barring most prominent opposition figures, who live in exile.

At the same time, the vote will only be held in areas under government control.

The election is being held amid a brutal civil war that has killed more than 150,000 people since March 2011 and made millions homeless.

GAZA CITY — Hamas will never recognise Israel and will not accept the conditions laid out by the Middle East peacemaking Quartet, according to the Islamist movement’s deputy leader.

Speaking late on Saturday, Musa Abu Marzouq said Hamas, which recently signed a reconciliation deal with the Western-backed Palestinian leadership in the occupied West Bank, would never agree to recognise Israel.

“We will not recognise the Zionist entity,” he said at a press conference in Gaza City.

Under terms of the deal, Gaza’s Hamas rulers and the Palestine Liberation Organisation of President Mahmoud Abbas are to work together to form a new unity government which will prepare for national elections.

But Israel reacted furiously, saying it would not negotiate with any government backed by Hamas, whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel, effectively putting the final nail in the coffin of the latest round of US-brokered peace talks.

Recognising Israel is one of the key conditions laid out in the 2003 peacemaking roadmap of the Middle East Quartet, which brings together the United Nations, the European Union, the United States and Russia.

The other two key demands are a renunciation of violence and acceptance of all prior agreements with Israel.

Abbas, who is to head the new government, to consist of political independents, has insisted it will abide by all three principles.

But Abu Marzouq said Hamas would never accept the Quartet’s conditions.

“Hamas rejects the Quartet’s conditions because it denies some of our people’s rights,” he told reporters.

“We will always refuse any conditions that deny our Palestinian rights.”

He also said the question of disarming Hamas’ armed wing, the Izzeddine Al Qassam Brigades, was “never mentioned” in talks with the PLO since the unity deal was inked on April 23.

“No one asked to discuss this,” he said.

Azzam Al Ahmad, a senior member of Abbas’ Fateh movement, which dominates the PLO, was to arrive in Gaza City on Sunday or Monday to begin consultations on forming the new government, he said.

“This will be a national consensus government that has nothing to do with politics and has specific tasks,” he said of the preparations for long-overdue local, parliamentary and presidential elections.

Hamas would participate in both the municipal and legislative elections but has not yet decided whether it will run a presidential candidate.

Hamas won a landslide victory in the last parliamentary election, held in 2006, prompting a Western boycott of the Palestinian Authority.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — US Secretary of State John Kerry’s nine-month effort to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal formally collapsed last week, with no revival on the horizon because each side appears firmly entrenched in its positions.

Kerry said Thursday it was time for Washington to “pause, take a hard look at these things, and find out what is possible and what is not possible in the days ahead”.

He was speaking two days after the expiration of a Tuesday deadline by which the sides had committed themselves to seek a peace deal.

But the talks had already unraveled last week when Israel suspended them after Hamas, which is sworn to Israel’s destruction, and President Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), dominated by the Fateh movement, reached a reconciliation deal.

Despite that, Abbas has said he would be ready to resume dialogue if a discussion on borders was a top priority, along with a settlement freeze.

But Israel says it will only return to the table if Abbas renounces the pact with Hamas.

“Either Hamas disavows the destruction of Israel and embraces peace and denounces terror, or president Abbas renounces Hamas,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this week.

But chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Israel’s argument that the talks had collapsed because of the reconciliation deal was “completely disingenuous”.

“Netanyahu’s government has refused to recognise the 1967 border or even put a map on the table proposing Israel’s idea of its final borders,” he said in an opinion piece in TIME magazine.

The Hamas-PLO deal gave the sides five weeks to agree on a transitional government which would organise presidential and parliamentary elections.

Palestinian analyst George Giacaman said that deal, alongside a Palestinian diplomatic offensive in the United Nations, were Abbas’ trump cards.

“There are five weeks in which to form a government, which will be an indicator of the success of the Palestinian leadership’s domestic policy,” he said.

Israeli defence analyst Alex Fishman, writing Thursday in the top-selling Yediot Aharonot daily, said Abbas’ tactics had plunged the Netanyahu government into “a confused, passive and mainly reactive state”.

Cracks in the foundations 

The standoff sparked by Palestinian reconciliation was only the latest in a string of disputes.

Netanyahu repeatedly attacked the Palestinians over their refusal to recognise Israel as the Jewish state, which he said proved their lack of sincerity.

On Thursday he pledged to draft a bill “that would provide a constitutional anchor for Israel’s status as the national state of the Jewish people”.

Major cracks appeared in late March when Israel refused to free a group of veteran Palestinian prisoners, the last batch of an agreed 104, sparking a furious response from Ramallah.

The Palestinians, who had agreed to freeze all moves to seek international recognition in exchange for the staged release of the prisoners, promptly applied to adhere to 15 international conventions and treaties.

Both commitments had been made as a first step towards the reopening of peace negotiations last July 29, in the first direct talks in three years.

At the time, Kerry said “our objective will be to achieve a final status agreement over the course of the next nine months”.

For his part, Erekat said: “I’m delighted all issues are on the table and will be resolved without any exceptions.”

And his Israeli counterpart, Tzipi Livni, said: “I believe that history is not made by cynics. It is made by realists who are not afraid to dream.”

But hopes were quickly ground down on the hard rock of reality, with the Palestinians accusing Israel of slamming the door in their face by ramping up settlement construction, house demolitions and deadly army raids.

Each time Israel released a batch of 26 prisoners, it also announced more settlement construction.

In mid November, Netanyahu was forced to cancel plans to build 20,000 new settler homes after coming under huge international pressure. A month later, the Palestinian negotiating team resigned en masse, in a move never accepted by Abbas.

In the face of persistent setbacks, Washington began preparing its own framework of how to guide the talks past the April deadline until the end of the year, but efforts to secure an extension never came to fruition.

BEIRUT — At least 11 people were killed by mortar fire in government-held areas in Syria on Saturday, including in a central district of the capital Damascus, a monitoring group and state media said.

The attacks came just days after President Bashar Assad declared he would seek another term in elections in June, defying international opponents and the rebels who have been trying to overthrow him for over three years.

Syrian authorities have tried to project an air of normalcy in the areas they control, despite the ravages of a conflict that has killed over 150,000 people, forced millions to flee their homes and devastated much of the country’s infrastructure.

Residents say the overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim insurgents have stepped up mortar attacks into government-held Damascus in recent weeks as government forces have tightened their grip over central parts of the country.

Syria’s state news agency SANA blamed “terrorists” for Saturday’s mortar attack in Damascus, saying it killed four people including a 16-year-old girl when it struck a minibus in Al Dwel’a area of the capital.

It said 12 other people were killed in mortar attacks that hit a hospital and a hotel in the northern city of Aleppo, a major commercial hub before the war which is now divided between rebel and government forces.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-Assad group which monitors the violence in Syria through a network of sources, also reported the incidents, saying at least three died in the Damascus attack and at least eight in Aleppo.

At least 14 people were killed by a mortar attack on a mainly Shiite area of the capital on Tuesday.

Fighting was reported in nearly every other province of Syria on Saturday, including between Al Qaeda’s Syrian branch the Nusra Front and Al Qaeda splinter group the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant in the eastern Deir Al Zor province. Fighting often claims over 200 lives a day.

The observatory also said the death toll from a pair of car bombs in largely Alawite areas of the central province of Hama on Friday had risen to at least 29, including 14 children.

Assad is an Alawite, a sect derived from Shiite Islam.

Syrian authorities and rebels in the Old City district of Homs agreed a ceasefire on Friday to allow besieged insurgents to pull out of their last stronghold in the central city.

CAIRO — Campaigning opens Saturday in Egypt for a May election likely to be won by the ex-army chief who deposed the elected president, after deadly bombings underscored tensions ahead of the vote.

The May 26-27 presidential poll, meant to restore elected rule following the July overthrow of Islamist Mohamed Morsi, is widely expected to place former army chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi in power.

His only rival, Hamdeen Sabbahi, came third in the 2012 election which Morsi won, and faces a groundswell of support for Sisi since the ouster of the divisive Islamist leader.

Sabbahi says he represents the ideals of the 2011 uprising that overthrew veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak.

But more than three tumultuous year later, many voters yearn for a self proclaimed strong leader such as Sisi to restore stability.

If Sisi wins, he will restore a line of military men at the helm of the country that was briefly interrupted by the civilian Morsi’s year in power.

“I promise to work hard, and I ask everyone to assume responsibility with me. Building this nation is the responsibility of us all,” Sisi said Saturday in a message posted on Twitter.

“Stability, security and hope for Egypt will be achieved through our will and capabilities,” he said.

Sisi, reviled by Morsi’s Islamist supporters, has vowed to stamp out a surge in militant attacks such as the two bombings on Friday that killed a policeman in the capital and a soldier in the Sinai Peninsula.

The lawless north of the peninsula bordering Israel and the Palestinian Gaza Strip has become a haven for Islamist militants, who launched a low level insurgency following Morsi’s overthrow.

Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood and the militants are expected to increase protests and attacks should Sisi win, despite the widest crackdown on Islamists in decades.

At least 1,400 people, mostly Islamists, have been killed in street clashes, including hundreds on August 14 alone, while thousands have been jailed and placed on trials.

Vote amid crackdown 

The crackdown has extended to target secular activist groups that supported Morsi’s overthrow but have since turned on the army-installed military as it tightens the clamps on dissent.

Last week, a court banned the April 6 movement, which spearheaded the revolt against Mubarak. Its leader Ahmed Maher is already in prison for participating in an unlicenced protest last year.

Another court that day sentenced to death 683 people, including the Brotherhood’s supreme guide Mohamed Badie, for deadly riots in August.

The ruling, the latest in a flurry of mass trials of Islamists, sparked an international outcry and sent a chill through the opposition and human rights advocates in Egypt.

But many in the Egyptian media, which is almost universally hostile to the Islamists, welcomed the verdict.

The government and much of the media say the Brotherhood is a terrorist group responsible for much of the attacks since Morsi’s overthrow, which have killed almost 500 security personnel.

And many Egyptians are more concerned with a return to stability and law and order to restore the battered economy following a sharp drop in foreign investments and tourism.

If he wins, Sisi, who promises to salvage the economy, is expected to slash a bloated subsidy system that has kept some food items and gas at extremely low prices.

Such a move may fuel unrest by erstwhile supporters as prices and inflation rise.

Sisi has not yet unveiled his election programme, with campaign officials saying he wanted to wait until campaigning begins. The campaigning period ends on May 23.

He is scheduled to give his first interview in months on Monday to two Egyptian television anchors, their broadcasters announced in a statement.

TUNIS — Tunisia’s next presidential and parliamentary elections will probably be held in the second half of November, the election agency chief said on Saturday, about polls that will mark the country’s final step towards full democracy.

Tunisia’s often turbulent political transition began after a 2011 uprising that ousted autocrat Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali and inspired the “Arab Spring” revolutions across the region.

Since then, Tunisia has been led by a caretaker government and has adopted a new constitution. But the transition process has been threatened by a crisis between ruling Islamists and secular opposition parties that has at times turned violent.

Islamist party Ennahda rose to power in the first election after the uprising, held in October 2011, and Tunisia, one of the Arab world’s most secular countries, has struggled with growing divisions over the role of Islam in politics.

Chafik Sarsar, head of the Instance Superieure Independante pour les Elections (ISIE), told Reuters he would propose next week that the elections be held November 16 or 23.

“There is a strong probability that the elections will be the third or fourth Sunday of November in the case that the presidential and parliamentary votes are together,” he said.

Tunisian lawmakers are due to meet next week to decide whether or not to hold the two votes on the same day.

“We don’t really have much choice because time is running out,” Sarsar said, referring to a previous agreement to hold the elections this year.

He said a less likely option would be to split the two elections and to hold the first in the last week of October.

“The final date should be finalised in a week or so after the political parties hold their national dialogue over the next week,” he said.

Tunisia has mostly managed to overcome post-revolt turmoil, unlike Libya, Yemen and Egypt which still struggle with unrest and political instability after toppling their leaders in 2011.

Ennahda and rivals Nidaa Tounes alliance managed to compromise to pass the constitution and finish a new electoral law which cleared the way for ISIE to set a date for elections — the second since the 2011 uprising.

Those two political blocks are expected to lead in the election. Ennahda won most seats in the first vote after Ben Ali’s fall, but Nidaa Tounes has since become a rallying point for opposition parties.

Sarsar said the vote’s transparency would be guaranteed by the new electoral law and by more than 1,000 international observers who had been invited to monitor the ballot.

With its political transition well on track, Tunisia’s government has turned its attention to two major challenges: taking on high public spending, and battling Islamist militants who threaten attacks.

But the electoral chief said Tunisian authorities were prepared to counter any increased risk of violence during the elections.

“There are risks that are more elevated this time,” he said. “One can see in Egypt, Libya and Iraq the attacks against polling stations, so we have to avoid that risk.”

ADDIS ABABA — US Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday put fresh pressure on South Sudan’s president and rebel leader to hold face-to-face peace talks, urging them to pull the world’s youngest nation “back from the abyss”.

In a policy speech in the Ethiopian capital and headquarters of the African Union, Kerry also vowed to remain personally engaged in efforts to end South Sudan’s four-month-old civil war.

“Yesterday I was in South Sudan. I saw how a new nation and once hopeful vision for the future can be challenged by old grudges degenerating into violence,” he said of the rivalry between President Salva Kiir and former vice president turned rebel leader Riek Machar.

“I expressed my grave concerns to President Kiir about the deliberate killings of civilians on both sides of the conflict and he agreed to embark on negotiations to form a transitional government that can lead this new nation back from the abyss. I also called the former vice president Riek Machar and urged him to do the same,” Kerry added.

“If both sides do not take bold steps to end the violence, they risk plunging South Sudan into greater desperation and even famine. They will completely destroy what they claim they are fighting for,” he said.

“In the days to come, I will continue my personal engagement with both sides.”

Officials said Kerry has brandished the threat of targeted sanctions against Kiir and Machar, and hopes are high that the two leaders will meet in the Ethiopian capital in the coming days — for the first time since the fighting began on December 15.

After their talks in South Sudan’s capital Juba on Friday, Kerry said President Kiir had expressed his willingness to meet with Machar under Ethiopian mediation.

Kerry spoke by telephone late Friday with Machar — who has always said he was open to talks to end the conflict — but he has yet to officially confirm attendance.

The United States has also been under pressure to intervene, having been a key backer of South Sudan’s push for independence from Khartoum and having poured in billions of dollars in aid to the country since it split from Sudan in 2011.

The conflict started with Kiir accusing Machar of attempting a coup. Machar then fled to the bush to launch a rebellion, insisting the president had attempted to carry out a bloody purge of his rivals.

The violence has left thousands dead — and possibly tens of thousands — with at least 1.2 million people forced to flee their homes, many living in appalling conditions in overstretched UN bases.

Aid agencies are also warning that South Sudan is on the brink of Africa’s worst famine since the 1980s, with the United Nations demanding at least a one-month-long truce so that crops can be planted and food stocks boosted.

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia has found 25 more cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) as the rate of infections rises and two more people have died from the new disease, the kingdom’s health ministry said.

On Friday, seven people were confirmed as having MERS, followed by 18 more on Saturday, the biggest daily increase in new infections so far. The total number of cases in the kingdom is 396, of whom 109 have died.

The new cases include nine in Riyadh, 10 in Jeddah, four in Mecca and two in Medina. In July many foreign pilgrims are expected to visit Mecca and Medina during the holy month of Ramadan. Millions more are expected in early October for the Hajj (the greater Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca).

On Friday, the United States said it had discovered its first confirmed case of the disease in a man who had recently been in Saudi Arabia. Egypt said it discovered its first case, also in a man who had been in Saudi Arabia, on Thursday.

Infections of MERS in Saudi Arabia, where it was discovered two years ago, have more than doubled since the start of April, but the total number of deaths has increased at a slower rate.

A higher number of people without symptoms are also being found with the disease, suggesting that the rapid increase in recent weeks is partly due to wider testing of people who have been in close contact with MERS patients.

MERS, a form of coronavirus like the more deadly SARS, can cause fever, coughing, shortness of breath and pneumonia. However, it is not easy to transmit between people and the World Health Organisation has not advised any travel restrictions for Saudi Arabia.

Scientists say the most likely animal reservoir, from which new cases are becoming infected, is Saudi Arabia’s population of camels.