Region

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia on Tuesday reported two new deaths from the MERS coronavirus, taking to 175 the overall number of fatalities from the respiratory disease in the world’s worst-hit country.

The latest victims were a man in Riyadh and a woman in the port city of Jeddah, both in their 70s, the health ministry website said.

It said the total number of infections was now 540.

Other nations including Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates and the United States have also recorded cases, mostly in people who had been in Saudi Arabia.

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome is considered a deadlier but less transmissible cousin of the SARS virus that appeared in Asia in 2003 and infected 8,273 people, 9 per cent of whom died.

Like SARS, MERS appears to cause a lung infection, with patients suffering coughing, breathing difficulties and a temperature. But MERS differs in that it also causes rapid kidney failure.

TARTUS, Syria — Tartus has itself largely escaped the conflict in Syria, but posters of its sons killed fighting for the regime elsewhere in the country line the western city’s main road.

A wall in the central bus station is a tapestry of pictures of the dead, most of them young, posing in fatigues with Kalashnikovs.

There are also photographs of President Bashar Assad, and his father and predecessor Hafez Assad, as well as the Syrian flag and sometimes images of Jesus Christ.

One shows a young man posing like Rambo, a cartridge belt around his bare torso as he cradles a machinegun.

Many shops in the city of 90,000 display large posters proclaiming the “Glory of the Unknown Soldier”. In Martyrs Square, banners list those who fell battling “terrorism”, the regime term for Assad’s opponents.

More than 162,000 people have been killed since Syria’s conflict began in March 2011 with a harsh government crackdown on anti-Assad protests.

While coastal Tartus has remained relatively insulated from actual fighting, its residents have swelled the ranks of the army and pro-regime militia, the National Defence Force (NDF).

“Tartus has been called the capital of martyrs because it’s the province with the highest proportional number of casualties in the army and the NDF — 4,200 killed, 2,000 wounded and 2,000 missing,” Tartus governor Nizar Mussa said.

“There isn’t a district, a village that doesn’t have its share of victims,” he told AFP.

The director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor tracking the war’s casualties, puts the number even higher, saying around half of the 60,000 regime fighters killed come from Tartus.

They have died in clashes countrywide.

“Tartus’s borders are limited not by those of the province, but of Syria as a whole,” said Ahmed Khaddur Abu Hadi after burying his brother Hassan, 40, an NDF fighter.

He was killed in Kasab near the border with Turkey.

“People from Tartus are fighting in Latakia and Aleppo provinces or in Qalamun [near Damascus]. They go everywhere and fall as martyrs in defence of the nation,” he added, his sister-in-law weeping beside him.

Mussa says that more than a dozen ambulances go daily to Latakia’s Bassel Al Assad airport, named after the president’s older brother who died in a 1994 car crash, to collect the bodies.

A ‘human reservoir’ 

Observatory director Abdel Rahman calls Syria’s coastal area, where most residents share Assad’s Alawite faith, “the human reservoir for the regime”.

“They have taken advantage of the confessional discourse of certain Islamist groups who talk about fighting the Nusayris [a derogatory term for Alawites] to promote Alawite recruitment,” he said.

“They fight to the end, convinced that it’s either Bashar or the end of the Alawites.”

In Tartus cemetery, Syrian flags flutter above dozens of graves, many bearing photos of the deceased. Some are marked only with numbers because the victims are unidentified.

The governor says residents sign up to fight for economic and ideological reasons.

“The region is poor. There’s not much agricultural land, no factories and few service sector jobs, so many people join the army,” he said.

But, he added: “We mustn’t forget that this is the only province where illiteracy has been eradicated.

“People who know how to read and write have understood the scale of the conspiracy against their country, and want to stop it.”

In September 2013, the government created a “martyrs’ affairs” office in each province to help relatives of those killed.

“Every day around 100 widows and orphans come to me and I try to help them with what the state has allocated,” said Mona Ibrahim who heads the Tartus bureau.

Her own husband was killed in 2011 in Baba Amr in Homs.

Fabrice Balanche, a French geographer who specialises in Syria, says Tartus is 80 per cent Alawite, 10 per cent Sunni, 9 per cent Christian and 1 per cent Ismaili.

Of the Alawites, 90 per cent are employed by the state, in the bureaucracy or the army.

“When the crisis began, the [pro-regime] ‘shabiha’ militias were created and then the National Defence Force to support the army,” Balanche said.

“Then the reservists were called up. All the men between 20 and 40 in Alawite areas are serving under the flag,” he added.

“They respond to the call because defending the regime means defending their community.”

DUBAI — King Abdullah has approved a five-year plan worth more than 80 billion riyals ($21.33 billion) to develop Saudi Arabia’s education sector, state news agency SPA reported on Monday.

The plan includes building 1,500 nurseries, providing training for about 25,000 teachers and establishing educational centres and other related projects, Education Minister Prince Khaled Al Faisal was cited by SPA as saying.

The 80 billion riyals are in addition to what is being allocated annually to the education ministry, SPA said.

The state education system’s traditional focus on religious and Arabic studies means Saudi has struggled to produce the scientists, engineers, economists and lawyers that it needs.

King Abdullah had launched an overhaul of state schools and universities, part of a raft of reforms designed to ease the influence of religious clerics, build a modern state and diversify the economy away from oil to create more jobs.

Saudi Arabia’s 2014 state budget projects a modest 4.3 per cent rise in spending compared with last year, the slowest rate in a decade, although the ministry’s own budget shows  heavy spending on social welfare projects.

An increase in welfare spending has helped buy social peace in the kingdom and spared the world’s top oil exporter the kind of upheaval that toppled governments in the Middle East and North Africa during the “Arab Spring” that began in 2011.

The ministry’s budget includes funds to build 465 schools and 11 hospitals and a 3 per cent rise in education spending to 210 billion riyals. Infrastructure spending is set to jump 25 per cent, with money earmarked for new roads and railways as well as upgrades of ports and airports.

SANAA — Yemen put its security forces on high alert Monday over fears of possible terrorist attacks in the capital, the interior ministry said.

The measures came after a nearly three-week government offensive to root out suspected Al Qaeda militants from southern cities and towns where they have a strong presence.

In a statement, the ministry said authorities had received tips of Al Qaeda plots in which militants were to attack government agencies while disguised in military uniform. It said it instructed checkpoints to inspect identification cards of military personal.

Yemen’s President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi said last week that his country is in “open war” with the group and that it would expand its operations in the south from areas where it has been making gains. Militants have responded with attacks
on security forces.

The US considers Yemen’s local Al Qaeda branch, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as the terror group’s most dangerous offshoot worldwide. It is blamed for a number of unsuccessful bomb plots aimed at Americans, including an attempt to bring down a US-bound airliner with explosives hidden in the bomber’s underwear and a second plot to send mail bombs hidden in the toner cartridges on planes headed to the US.

The US embassy in Sanaa shut down its premises this month as a precaution against possible retaliatory attacks.

Also Monday, the defence ministry announced death of Galbeeb Al Yamani, a militant it described as an Al Qaeda leader in the central province of Baida, in clashes with armed forces. It did not provide any further details.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel’s chief negotiator Tzipi Livni on Monday defended a decision to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after peace talks collapsed, in a move that drew sharp criticism from ministers.

“I would like to remind everyone that the conflict isn’t over,” Justice Minister Tzipi Livni told her HaTnuah Party at a weekly meeting, according to a statement.

“We’re still here and the Palestinians are still here. Our interest is to resolve the conflict, and ignoring reality is not an option,” she said.

Livni came under fire for holding talks in London with Abbas on Thursday, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office and ministers distancing themselves from the meeting, insisting it was private and did not signal official intention to resume talks.

Israel pulled out of the talks in mid-April, saying it would not negotiate with any Palestinian government supported by Hamas after the leadership in the West Bank signed a unity deal with the rival Islamist rulers of Gaza, who are committed to the destruction of Israel.

“Ignoring the other side, not listening or talking, is irresponsible,” Livni said.

“A resolution is best achieved through direct negotiations, but we can’t ignore the agreement between Hamas and Fateh,” she said, referring to Abbas’ ruling party which dominates the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority.

“To all those politicians up in arms, I want to be clear — we’ll continue doing what we believe in, and that’s what I did last week by meeting the president,” Livni said.

RIYADH — Saudi health authorities reported Monday new deaths from the MERS coronavirus, taking to 173 the overall number of fatalities from the disease in the world’s worst-hit country.

The health ministry said on its website that five people have died, including a 28-year-old woman in the port city of Jeddah, and a 32-year-old man in northern Tabuk.

A woman aged 69 died in Riyadh and a 55-year-old man died in the city of Mecca, home to Islam’s holiest site which is visited by millions of pilgrims each year.

A fifth man, 59 died on Sunday in the western city of Taif.

The ministry said the total numbers of infections has reached 537 case.

Other nations including Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates and the United States have also recorded cases, mostly in people who had been to the desert kingdom.

MERS is considered a deadlier but less transmissible cousin of the SARS virus that appeared in Asia in 2003 and infected 8,273 people, 9 per cent of whom died.

Like SARS, it appears to cause a lung infection, with patients suffering coughing, breathing difficulties and a temperature. But MERS differs in that it also causes rapid kidney failure.

The top commander of the Libyan army’s special forces said on Monday his troops had joined forces with renegade general Khalifa Haftar, who has said he wants to purge the North African country of militant Islamists, Reuters reported.

The announcement gives a boost to a campaign by Haftar, who has been denounced by the Tripoli government as attempting to stage a coup in the oil producer.

It had been unclear how many troops supported Haftar, whose forces launched an attack on Islamist militants in Benghazi on Friday in which more than 70 people died.

Militiamen apparently allied to Haftar also stormed parliament in Tripoli on Sunday and fought for hours with rival militiamen.

“We are with Haftar,” Wanis Bukhamada told Reuters in the eastern city of Benghazi. On live television he had earlier announced his forces would join “Operation Dignity”, as Haftar calls his campaign.

The special forces are the best trained troops of Libya’s nascent army. They have been deployed since last year in Benghazi to help stem a wave of car bombs and assassinations, but struggled to curb the activities of heavily armed Islamist militias roaming around the city.

An air base in Tobruk in Libya’s far east also said it had joined Haftar’s force — a significant move since it remains unclear how much backing Haftar has within Libya’s regular armed forces and the powerful brigades of former rebels who toppled Muammar Qadhafi in 2011.

A statement from the air base said its personnel wanted to fight “extremists”, echoing Haftar’s rhetoric.

“The Tobruk air force base will join ... the army under the command of General Khallifa Qassim Haftar,” the statement said. Staff at the air base confirmed its authenticity.

Also on Monday Libya extended the closure of Benghazi airport until May 25 for security reasons, Reuters reported quoting an official.

Since the end of Qadhafi’s one-man rule, the main rival militias of ex-rebels have become powerbrokers in Libya’s political vacuum, carving out fiefdoms and flexing their military muscle.

Meanwhile, the Libyan government on Monday proposed an initiative aimed at saving the country from plunging into civil war, calling on the disputed parliament to go into recess, Agence France-Presse reported.

An open letter published on the government’s website said the General National Congress should “take a recess after the vote on the 2014 budget and until new parliamentary elections” within three months so the country does not descend into civil war.

The budget vote had been expected to take place this week amid a dramatic spike in lawlessness in Libya’s two largest cities.

The government plea comes a day after the GNC was attacked by armed groups demanding its dissolution and after Haftar launched the offensive targeting Islamists in Benghazi on Friday.

The initiative also calls for a new vote of confidence in the GNC for new Premier Ahmed Miitig following a chaotic and contested first vote at the beginning of the month, according to AFP.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — When Pope Francis arrives in the Holy Land on his “pilgrimage of prayer”, Israelis and Palestinians will both be looking to use the visit to score a few political points.

Although the Vatican has said the emphasis of the Pope’s visit is to heal a centuries-old rift between the Catholic and Orthodox worlds, every gesture he makes is likely to come under close scrutiny by both sides.

For Israel, it will be a chance to draw world attention for something other than its ongoing settlement activity.

“The very fact of the visit is a success,” an Israeli official told AFP on condition of anonymity, as the tourism ministry said it was hoping the papal pilgrimage would drive a 10 per cent increase in Christian tourism.

In fact, the Pope’s “pilgrimage of prayer”, which begins in Jordan on Saturday, will leave a relatively faint footprint in Israel.

His visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories will kick off on Sunday in the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem.

“He is taking a helicopter directly from Jordan to Palestine — to Bethlehem. It’s a kind of sign of recognising Palestine,” Father Jamal Khader of the Latin patriarchate in Jerusalem told journalists.

In Bethlehem, the Pope will meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and then celebrate mass in front of the Church of the Nativity, the traditional birthplace of Jesus, before visiting a nearby refugee camp.

“Knowing who he is, and his sensitivity for all those who suffer, I am sure that he will say something defending all those who are suffering, including the Palestinians who live under occupation,” Khader said.

After a short flight to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport where he will be greeted by Israeli President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he will hold a top-level meeting with Orthodox Church leaders, before spending the night in the residence of the papal nuncio in occupied East Jerusalem.

Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967 and calls the entire city its “united, undivided capital”, in a move never recognised by the international community.

It is there that he will spend much of May 26, apart from brief forays into Israel to pay his respects at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and visit Peres and Israel’s two chief rabbis.

He will meet Netanyahu at the Vatican-owned Notre Dame Complex, which lies on the seam line between East and West Jerusalem, for talks which will touch on politics, an Israeli official said.

“We shall be able to explain to him, from our point of view, what’s happening politically in the region,” he said.

“We shall explain to him the Iranian threat.”

During the visit, the Pope is expected to call for a peaceful resolution of the conflict with the Palestinians.

“The purpose of his visit is to encourage us not to be afraid of each other and to talk to each other and live together peacefully,” Papal Nuncio Archbishop Giuseppe Lazzarotto told reporters on Sunday.

Any reference he makes to Israeli settlements, to the West Bank separation barrier, or to the question of Palestinian prisoners or refugees will be closely watched by both sides.

‘Highly charged’

“Everything will be highly charged politically,” said Hind Khoury, a former Palestinian minister for Jerusalem affairs.

Following the collapse of US-led peace talks last month, the Palestinians have resumed moves to seek recognition for their promised state in the international diplomatic arena and will be looking to the papal visit to provide fresh ammunition.

“This visit will help us in supporting our struggle to end the longest occupation in history,” said Ziyyad Bandak, Abbas’ adviser for Christian affairs.

“He will have a lunch with Palestinians, with families suffering from the occupation... then he will visit Dheishe refugee camp to witness the suffering of Palestinian refugees,” he told Voice of Palestine radio.

For Israel, it was a political slight that “the Pope will begin his visit in Palestine and not Israel”, he claimed.

“I know that Israeli officials are not happy with this decision.”

The very fact of the visit is tantamount to Vatican support for an end to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, Bandak said.

“We welcome this visit and consider it as support for the Palestinian people, and confirmation from the Vatican of the need to end the occupation.”

GAZA CITY — Rivals Hamas and Fateh are moving towards a unity government as early as next week, in what seems to be their most promising attempt yet to heal a seven-year split that weakened the case for Palestinian statehood.

Both are propelled by crisis. The Islamist Hamas group, which seized the Gaza Strip from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fateh in 2007, is having trouble governing alone because of crippling financial problems. 

Abbas needs a new political programme after his strategy of statehood through talks with Israel yielded deadlock. 

Yet even if the sides manage to replace their competing governments in the West Bank and Gaza with a joint one, the potential of failure remains high because of their ideological divide and the false starts of the past.

Abbas is to head a temporary government of 15 independent technocrats that prepares for elections for president, parliament and the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), the main Palestinian representative body of which Hamas is currently not a member.

The Hamas-dominated Palestinian parliament, inactive since the 2007 split, is to resume its work until new elections are held.

Abbas returned to the West Bank from abroad Monday, and is to begin selecting government ministers from names accepted by both sides. 

Under previous understandings, he would retain his job as president and also serve as prime minister, but the possibility has been raised that he might name someone else as prime minister to ease his work load. 

The government should be formed by May 27, or five weeks after the latest reconciliation deal was struck, though an extension is possible. 

The government is to remain in power for at least six months. Parliament should resume work a month after the Cabinet is formed.

For Hamas, reconciliation offers a possible entry to the PLO and with that greater political legitimacy.

The two groups’ security forces are to merge under terms negotiated by an Egyptian-led committee.

The Hamas government has a security force of 16,500. 

Separately, the Hamas movement commands a 20,000-strong military wing. 

In the West Bank, Abbas’ 34,000-strong security force, including officers trained by the US, coordinates with Israel in security operations.

Gaza analyst Adnan Abu Amer says Hamas will never accept the dismantling of its military wing, the base of its power in Gaza, while Israel and the US will not accept bringing Hamas loyalists into the West Bank security forces.

After the formation of the new government, 3,000 Fateh loyalists who worked for Gaza security before the Hamas takeover are to return to their jobs. 

BAGHDAD — Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki won by far the most seats in parliamentary elections, results showed Monday, putting him in the driver’s seat to retain his post for a third term.

Despite the strong performance, Maliki’s State of Law alliance fell short of an overall majority, meaning he will have to court rivals from across the communal spectrum, some of whom have sharply criticised Maliki and refused to countenance his bid for reelection.

Results from the election commission showed State of Law garnered 92 out of 328 parliamentary seats, with the incumbent himself winning more than 721,000 personal votes.

Both were by far the highest such figures from the April 30 vote — the first since US troops withdrew from Iraq at the end of 201 — and marked significant increases compared to Maliki’s performance in the last general election in 2010.

Maliki’s bloc won 30 seats in Baghdad alone, and came first in 10 out of 18 provinces overall, all of them in the premier’s traditional heartland in the Shiite-majority south of the country.

His main rivals all finished with between 19 and 29 seats overall, according to an AFP tally of election commission results.

The results announced Monday can still be challenged and could change before they are finally certified by the country’s supreme court.

Both the US embassy in Baghdad and the UN mission to Iraq welcomed the results, with Washington saying it was “a testament to the courage and resilience of the Iraqi people, and another milestone in the democratic development of Iraq”.

Iraq’s political parties have for weeks been meeting and manoeuvring as they seek to build post-election alliances, but the formation of a new government is still expected to take several months.

As in previous elections, the main blocs are expected to agree on an encompassing package that ensures the prime minister, president and parliament speaker are all selected together.

Under a de facto agreement established in recent years, Iraq’s prime minister is a Shiite Arab, the president is a Kurd and the speaker of parliament is a Sunni Arab.

Violence and opposition 

Following Iraq’s last elections, it took nine months to form a government as parties engaged in protracted horse-trading and several blocs tried to oppose Maliki’s bid for re-election.

Voters often complain of poor electricity and sewerage services, rampant corruption, high unemployment and a litany of other concerns, but the monthlong campaign preceding the vote concentrated on Maliki’s bid for a third term.

Maliki’s critics accuse him of consolidating power, particularly within the security forces, and blame him for a yearlong deterioration in security, and say there has not been enough improvement in the quality of life.

The election and its aftermath came amid a surge in violence that has killed more than 3,500 people this year, fuelling fears that Iraq could be slipping back into the all-out conflict that cost tens of thousands of lives in 2006 and 2007.

In particular, the 63-year-old faces strong and vocal opposition in the Sunni-dominated west and the Kurdish north, with rivals there insisting they will not agree to a third term.

Maliki, who has been in charge since 2006, blames external factors such as the war in neighbouring Syria for the surge in unrest, and says his so-called partners in government snipe at him in public and block his legislative efforts in parliament.

The run-up to the election was plagued by attacks on candidates and campaign rallies, as well as allegations of malpractice that apparently contributed to lower turnout in areas populated by disgruntled minority Sunnis.

More than 9,000 candidates ran for the 328 seats in parliament, with about 62 per cent of eligible voters casting ballots.