Region

ALGIERS — Raucous, expressive and revolutionary: Algeria’s Rai music took its place on the United Nations’ list of intangible cultural heritage on Thursday.

“New inscription on the #IntangibleHeritage List: Rai, popular folk song of #Algeria,” UN cultural agency UNESCO announced in a tweet.

Rai, whose biggest stars include Cheb Khaled and Cheb Mami, emerged in the closing decades of French colonial rule in Algeria, confronting social taboos and dealing with themes such as love, freedom, despair and the struggle against social pressures. 

It was originally a rural art form, with singers performing poetic texts in vernacular Arabic, accompanied by a traditional band.

But from the 1980s onwards, it surged in popularity, centring around the western city of Oran.

The city hosted Algeria’s first Rai festival in 1985 and the next year the genre reached France, home to a large Algerian diaspora.

That took singers including Cheikha Rimitti to global fame and attracted the attention of major record labels.

In 1992, Cheb Khaled became the first artist from the Maghreb region of North Africa to reach the global Top 50 with his song “Didi”.

But the same year, Algeria descended into a devastating decade-long war between authorities and extremist militants, who assassinated several Rai singers including the star of “sentimental Rai”, Cheb Hasni.

As the violence faded in the early 2000s, Rai began to struggle for its place amid other genres including hip hop and R&B, as well as being hit by scandal with Cheb Mami’s conviction for violence against his ex-girlfriend.

But this year it saw a new breath of life with the phenomenal success of Franco-Algerian DJ Snake’s “Disco Maghreb”, a tribute to the emblematic Oran record company at the heart of the genre.

TUNIS — Arab football fans have flooded social media with satire, celebrating unexpected victories and poking fun at their own misfortunes as Qatar hosts the Middle East’s first World Cup.

Argentina star Lionel Messi was the butt of region-wide jokes after his team’s shock 2-1 defeat by Saudi Arabia last week.

One video shows a tearful Messi addressing journalists, dubbed in Arabic.

“Hello. Honestly, we got destroyed,” the voice sobs over emotional footage taken from Messi’s goodbye press conference on leaving Barcelona last year

“We got humiliated. They ridiculed us and demolished us without mercy. I never imagined this could happen.”

A viral meme took a Louis Vuitton advertisement showing Messi and Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo playing chess, but replacing Messi with Saudi player Salem Al Dawsari.

And along with the satire came farce, in a widely shared clip showing a group of Saudi fans celebrating Dawsari’s stunning goal that secured the Green Falcons’ victory.

One fan got so excited he ran out of the room, tore the metal door off its hinges and threw it in the yard.

While Argentina’s fortunes later turned with emphatic victories over Mexico and Poland, the four Arab teams in the tournament have had mixed results.

Tunisia, in a tough group including title-holder France, had few reasons to celebrate and its fans turned to self-deprecating humour even before the tournament started.

One group of Tunisians shared a video of themselves in traditional Sufi clothes singing a sad, religious-style funeral chorus.

“Nil would be okay against these unbeatable teams,” the lyrics go. 

“I have so many woes, but I hope [Tunisian player] Msakni is on form.”

Another one posted a video blog begging France star Kylian Mbappe not to play against Tunisia in Wednesday’s match.

“The Tunisian people needs some joy, why do you want to play against us? Do you have a problem with us? Don’t play against us! Go to the hammam!”

Mbappe took to the field for only part of the match, which ended in a shock 1-0 Tunisia victory. After earlier defeats, though, it wasn’t enough for them to advance to the next round.

Host Qatar has also suffered repeated losses on the pitch. 

After it became the first World Cup host to lose the opening match, against Ecuador, one Facebook user parodied a fact-checking service: “Not true: Qatar did not buy the match.”

Another meme featured an idle goalkeeper smoking a shisha pipe in front of the goal, with the caption “Ecuador’s keeper”.

‘You listen through your nose!’ 

The satire has not been limited to events on the pitch.

An official theme anthem of the tournament, a thumping and largely tuneless pop song featuring Lebanese pop diva Myriam Fares, has been widely criticised by Arab fans.

One video takes a clip of Fares herself saying, “As soon as I heard the first little section, ‘tukoh tukoh taka tukoh’, I said: That’s the song!”

The video then cuts to an actor from an old television series.

“That’s because you’re deaf!” he shouts. “You don’t listen through your ear. You listen through your nose!”

One meme shows a group labelled “foreigners” dancing to “Tukoh Taka”, while next to them “Arabs” listen in disgust.

Other posts have touched on sensitive social issues, in a region where many young people struggle to find work and financial security.

“People will do anything to get a [World Cup] ticket,” one woman said in a video post. “But money for a dowry? No way.”

Regional politics are, of course, ever present.

One Lebanese meme joked that Iran’s match against the United States on Tuesday would be “the first time they play outside Lebanon”, referring to the country’s long history as a stage for proxy wars.

And after England’s blistering 6-2 victory over Iran last week, one meme quoted a supposed security source echoing a formula much-used in statements by Iranian authorities: “We will respond to the six goals at the appropriate time and in the appropriate place.”

TUNIS — UNESCO on Thursday added Tunisia’s spicy national condiment Harissa to its list of intangible cultural heritage, saying it was part of the North African country’s identity.

The United Nations’ cultural agency is meeting in Morocco to examine proposals for its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage, which aims to protect cultural traditions, practices and knowledge. 

“Just inscribed on the #IntangibleHeritage List: Harissa, knowledge, skills and culinary and social practices,” it tweeted on Thursday.

Harissa is a paste made with sun-dried hot peppers, freshly prepared spices and olive oil, which preserves it and slightly reduces its spiciness. It is found in almost every restaurant in Tunisia and also exported worldwide.

Tunisia’s application for the status notes that Harissa is “an integral part of domestic provisions and the daily culinary and food traditions of Tunisian society”, usually prepared in a family or community setting.

“Harissa is used as a condiment, an ingredient and even a dish in its own right, and is well-known throughout Tunisia, where it is consumed and produced, particularly in the regions where chilli peppers are grown,” it said.

“It is perceived as an identifying element of national culinary heritage, and a factor of social cohesion.”

The 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage aims to safeguard and raise awareness about the “intangible cultural heritage of the communities, groups and individuals concerned”.

UNESCO stresses that the list honours traditions, practices and knowledge and all such forms of culture that are “human treasures” that must be protected.

On Wednesday the organisation also recognised French baguettes, adding them to more than 530 items on the list.

YABAD, Palestinian Territories — Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian on Wednesday in the occupied West Bank during a raid to arrest a suspect, medical and military officials said.

The latest violence comes a day after five Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces across the West Bank, one of whom wounded an Israeli soldier in an alleged car-ramming.

The Palestinian health ministry said Wednesday “a citizen succumbed to critical wounds, after he was hit by live occupation [Israeli] bullets in the chest in the town of Yabad”.

He was named as Mohammed Tawfiq Badarneh, 25, by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Israel’s military said it had entered Yabad, near Jenin in the northern West Bank, where forces arrested Abd Al-Ghani Harzallah who is “suspected of terrorist activity”.

The army added that it opened fire after “armed suspects fired at the soldiers and explosive devices were hurled in the area”.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since the 1967 war.

More than 140 Palestinians and at least 26 Israelis have been killed so far this year across the West Bank, Israel and occupied Jerusalem. 

Washington’s envoy for Palestinian affairs, Hady Amr, on Wednesday said the US administration is “closely tracking every reported incident every day”.

“We are deeply aware of the tragic loss of life we are seeing in the [Palestinian] territories,” he told reporters.

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories —  Israeli forces shot dead four Palestinians in the occupied West Bank Tuesday, Palestinian officials said, and a suspected car-ramming attacker was killed after wounding an Israeli soldier, Israeli medics and the army said.

Israeli forces confirmed its troops had fired on "rioters" who attacked soldiers in two separate incidents in the West Bank overnight.

A 20-year-old woman soldier was "moderately injured and evacuated to a hospital for medical treatment" following a suspected car-ramming north of Jerusalem, according to Israeli forces. Medics confirmed the alleged attacker had been killed.

The West Bank has suffered spiralling violence this year, with near daily Israeli raids leading to scores of deaths.

In Kafr Ein, near Ramallah, two brothers were killed by Israeli fire, the Palestinian health ministry said. 

A third man died of bullet wounds to the head fired by Israeli forces in Beit Ummar, while a fourth Palestinian died after being shot in the chest by Israeli soldiers on Tuesday afternoon during confrontations north of Ramallah, the ministry said in separate statements.

Palestinian news agency Wafa named the man killed near Ramallah as Raed Ghazi Al Naasan.

On Monday, the United Nations envoy for Middle East peace, Tor Wennesland, warned the situation in the West Bank was “reaching a boiling point”.

“High levels of violence in the occupied West Bank and Israel in recent months, including attacks against Israeli and Palestinian civilians, increased use of arms and settler-related violence, have caused grave human suffering,” he told the Security Council.

The UN says more than 125 Palestinians have been killed across the West Bank this year.

Tuesday’s violence came as veteran hawk Benjamin Netanyahu continued negotiations to form what could be the most right-wing government in Israel’s history, following a general election earlier this month.

On Friday, Netanyahu signed an agreement with lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir that promised the far-right firebrand the new post of national security minister, with responsibility for the border police in the West Bank.

Ben-Gvir, known for anti-Arab rhetoric, has repeatedly called on soldiers to use more force when confronting Palestinian unrest.

PARIS, France — Iranian security forces have killed at least 448 people in a crackdown on protests that began in mid-September, over half in ethnic minority regions, a rights group said on Tuesday.

Of the 448 people confirmed to have been killed, 60 were children aged under 18, including nine girls, and 29 women, the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) group said.

It said 16 people were killed by security forces in the past week alone, of whom 12 were slain in Kurdish-populated areas where protests have been particularly intense.

The toll has also risen after the deaths of people killed in previous weeks were verified and included, it added. The toll only includes citizens killed in the crackdown and not members of the security forces.

Brigadier General Amirali Hajizadeh of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps earlier Tuesday said more than 300 people had been killed, the first time the authorities have acknowledged such a figure.

The UN Rights Council last week voted to establish a high-level fact-finding mission to probe the crackdown in a move angrily rejected by Iran.

"Islamic republic authorities know full well that if they cooperate with the UN fact-finding mission, an even wider scale of their crimes will be revealed," said IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam.

"That's why their non-cooperation is predictable," he added.

The protests erupted after the September 16 death of Kurdish Iranian Mahsa Amini who had been arrested by the Tehran morality police and have become the biggest challenge to the regime since the 1979 revolution.

Amiry-Moghaddam said more than half the deaths were recorded in regions populated by the Sunni Baluch or Kurdish ethnic minorities.

The most deaths were in the southeastern region Sistan-Baluchistan where 128 people were killed after protests which had a separate spark but have fed into the nationwide anger, IHR said.

After that the most deaths were recorded in the western Kurdish-populated Kurdistan and West Azerbaijan provinces where 53 and 51 people were killed respectively, it said.