Region

BEIRUT — Lebanon's parliament failed to elect a new president after a first round of voting on Thursday amid deep divisions over a replacement for Michel Aoun whose term expires next month.

A majority of lawmakers cast blank ballots, suggesting the election process is likely to drag on, an outcome Lebanon can ill afford as it wrestles with a crippling financial crisis.

Speaker Nabih Berri said he would call a new session of parliament "when an agreement is reached on the next president", a process that could take months in a country where constitutional deadlines are routinely missed.

Thursday's session was attended by 122 of parliament's 128 members, of whom 66 cast blank ballots.

Christian politician Michel Moawad, the son of former president Rene Moawad, emerged as the front-runner but his 36 votes fell well short of the 86 needed to win in the first round.

Under Lebanon's longstanding confessional power-sharing system, the presidency is reserved for a Maronite Christian.

A walkout by some MPs meant there was no second round of voting.

Deep divisions among lawmakers have raised fears Lebanon could be left without a president after Aoun’s mandate expires at the end of October.

The incumbent’s own election in 2016 came after a 29-month vacancy at the presidential palace as lawmakers made 45 failed attempts to reach consensus on a candidate.

A statement by Aoun’s office said the president was “satisfied with the launch of the electoral process” and expressed hopes parliament would continue to meet to elect a president within the constitutional timeframe.

‘Clear risk’ 

The political parties that must now agree on the next head of state have yet to appoint a new government to replace the outgoing one after its mandate expired in May.

“If there is a political vacuum, the economic crisis would intensify and there is a clear risk of security incidents,” said analyst Karim Bitar.

The Lebanese pound has lost more than 95 per cent of its value on the black market since 2019 in a financial meltdown branded by the World Bank as one of the worst in modern times.

The crisis has caused poverty rates to reach more than 80 per cent of the population, as food prices have risen by 2,000 per cent, the United Nations has said.

The international community has pressed Lebanese lawmakers to elect a new president in “timely” fashion to avoid plunging the country deeper into crisis.

Last week, France, Saudi Arabia and the United States issued a joint statement urging MPs to “elect a president who can unite the Lebanese people”.

Lebanon is under pressure from the International Monetary Fund to streamline the implementation of reforms required to unlock billions in loans before Aoun’s term expires.

As part of that effort, lawmakers on Monday approved an overdue budget for 2022.

The budget set the exchange rate for revenues from customs duties at 15,000 pounds to the dollar, less than half the black market rate,  contravening calls by the IMF to unify the exchange rates operating in Lebanon.

The finance ministry said Wednesday that the official exchange rate would also drop from 1,507 to the greenback to 15,000 but only after lawmakers pass an overdue financial recovery plan.

French ambassador to Lebanon Anne Grillo called on Thursday for immediate action to lift Lebanon out of its downward spiral.

“Lebanon can get out of the crisis,” she tweeted. “It is a challenge, but can and must be done.”

JENIN, Palestinian Territories — An Israeli raid in a West Bank flashpoint killed four Palestinians on Wednesday, including the brother of a man blamed for a deadly attack in Tel Aviv.

The attack was the latest to hit Jenin, in the north of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, an area that has seen near daily attacks by Israeli forces since an escalation which began in March.

Jenin deputy governor Kamal Abu Al Rub told AFP that Wednesday's raid was "the most violent that the occupation army has carried out since the start of the year".

The Palestinian health ministry recorded four dead and 44 wounded by live fire in the latest Israeli operation.

Among them was Abed Hazem, whose brother Raad was named as the killer of three Israelis in a shooting spree in Tel Aviv's busy nightlife district in April.

Raad Hazem was shot dead after a massive Israeli manhunt. Israeli occupation forces have been pursuing Abed and Raad's father Fathi for months.

At a mosque in Jenin refugee camp, hundreds of people prayed for the slain Abed Hazem, whose body was wrapped in a Palestinian flag, with young male mourners kissing his forehead.

The European Union, in a tweet, said it was "alarmed by the spike in violence today in Jenin following the [Israeli] incursions".

Since March, Israel has launched hundreds of operations in the northern West Bank in pursuit of alleged fighters, including in Jenin and nearby Nablus.

Analysts have warned that the dramatic increase in Israeli West Bank raids is further weakening the unpopular Palestinian Authority (PA), with Palestinians increasingly condemning President Mahmoud Abbas’ administration for its security cooperation with Israel.

Following the latest Jenin unrest, Abbas’ spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeina, accused Israel of “tampering with security and stability through pursuing a policy of escalation”, in a statement published by the official Palestinian news agency, Wafa.

Israel has demanded that the PA security forces do more to crack down on alleged fighters, and Prime Minister Yair Lapid vowed earlier this month that he would “not hesitate to act in any place that the Palestinian Authority does not maintain order”.

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, has been named prime minister, a post traditionally held by the king, in a government shuffle announced on Tuesday.

The move effectively formalises power already wielded by Prince Mohammed, who has been the kingdom’s de facto ruler for several years, analysts said.

The heads of other critical ministries, including interior, foreign and energy, remained in place, according to a royal decree from King Salman published by the official Saudi Press Agency.

Prince Mohammed, who turned 37 last month, has been first in line to succeed his father as king since 2017.

EAST GANIS, Sudan — Near the lush fields of his village in Sudan’s southern Blue Nile state, Youssef Ismail has crafted a traditional horn-like instrument used for generations to usher in the harvest season.

“We make new wazza instruments every year,” Ismail, in his 70s, told AFP about the wooden wind instrument that is often longer than a grown man.

“We learned this craft from our parents.”

He assembled pieces of the conical gourd plant, meticulously cut and washed, to create a long trumpet with a bell-shaped end which produces a bright, loud and festive sound.

In the village of East Ganis, like in some other Blue Nile communities, “we use it to celebrate the harvest season”, which typically begins in November after the wet season, Ismail explained.

Agriculture is a major economic sector in Sudan, a country of 45 million people and one of the world’s poorest.

About 43 per cent of its labour force works in agriculture which makes up 30 per cent of the economy according to UN and World Bank estimates.

After more than 120 people were killed in clashes over access to land in Blue Nile state in July, the wazza was also played to celebrate a halt in violence, resident Ahmed Idriss said.

Little is known about its history, but the wazza “has strong links to rituals performed by the communities of the Blue Nile”, explained Mohammed Soliman, a music professor at Sudan University of Science and Technology.

Dafallah Ali Mustafa, 51, founder of the Sudanese Traditional Music Centre in the capital’s twin city of Omdurman, has reserved pride of place for the wazza.

Wazzas, which are particularly common among the ethnic Funj people in Sudan’s south, vary in size, with some as long as two metres.

The size of each instrument determines its tone range, and wazza players perform in a band of up to 13 members.

The band leader “usually plays the smallest instrument”, Soliman said.

Some of the players would also use animal horns to tap their wazza for percussive effect.

Ismail, himself a member of a wazza band, said he expects future generations will carry on the tradition.

“We taught our children how to make and play the instrument,” he said. “They will keep it alive after we are gone.”

PARIS — Iran has arrested more than 1,200 protesters, officials said on Monday, in its lethal crackdown on 10 nights of unrest driven by outrage over the death of Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in the custody of the notorious morality police.

At least 41 people have been killed as Iran has heavily deployed security forces against nationwide demonstrations sparked by the death of Amini, 22, following her arrest for allegedly breaching Iran's strict rules on hijab headscarves and modest clothing.

Tensions grew between the Islamic republic and Western nations as Germany summoned the Iranian ambassador, a day after the European Union protested the "widespread and disproportionate use of force" and Tehran called in the British and Norwegian envoys.

Protests flared again across Iran overnight as a Tehran crowd shouted "death to the dictator", calling for the end of the more than three-decade rule of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 83, in footage shared by Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights.

"Woman, Life, Freedom!" the crowds have chanted as female protesters have defiantly burnt their hijabs in bonfires and blazing rubbish dumpsters — a rallying cry that has been echoed at solidarity protests worldwide, including in London and Paris at the weekend.

Iranian riot police in black body armour have beaten protesters with truncheons in running street battles, and students have torn down large pictures of the supreme leader and his predecessor Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei, in recent video footage published by AFP.

In Iran's biggest protests in almost three years, security forces have used water canon but also fired birdshot and live rounds, according to rights groups, while protesters have hurled rocks, torched police cars and set public buildings ablaze.

The IHR rights group said Sunday at least 57 protesters have been killed.

The total number of officially reported arrests rose above 1,200, according to state media reports citing various officials, including about 450 in northern Mazandaran province, over 700 reported Saturday in neighbouring Gilan and dozens in several other regions.

‘Police on duty 24 hours’ 

“Rioters have attacked government buildings and damaged public property,” Mazandaran’s chief prosecutor, Mohammad Karimi, was quoted as saying by official news agency IRNA, charging that they were steered by “foreign anti-revolutionary agents”.

Tehran police have been deployed “24 hours a day”, said the Iranian judiciary chief, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, thanking exhausted officers and the capital’s police chief during a visit to their headquarters Sunday, in a video posted by Mizan Online.

Many police officers “did not sleep last night and the nights before... and they must be thanked”, said Ejei, who earlier stressed “the need for decisive action without leniency” against the protest instigators. Several security officers have also died, according to Iranian media.

Despite sweeping internet restrictions, including blocks on Instagram and WhatsApp, new videos shared widely on social media showed protests on Sunday night in Tehran and cities including Yazd, Isfahan and Bushehr on the Persian Gulf.

Norway-based Kurdish rights group Hengaw said a protest was held in Amini’s home town of Saqqez “despite a heavy military presence”, and there were reports a 10-year-old girl being hospitalised after she was shot in the northern town of Bukan.

The Tasnim news agency published photos of about 20 “riot leaders”, including several women, taken in the holy shrine city of Qom, and said the military and security forces were calling on citizens to “identify them and inform the authorities”.

Other reports said that students at Tehran and Al Zahra Universities and the Sharif Institute have gone on strike, refusing to attend lessons and urging their professors to join.

‘Disproportionate force’ 

The European Union has slammed Iran, charging that “the widespread and disproportionate use of force against nonviolent protestors is unjustifiable and unacceptable”, in a statement by its foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Sunday.

He said the EU would “continue to consider all the options at its disposal... to address the killing of Mahsa Amini” and the state response to the protests in Iran, a country already under punishing sanctions over its nuclear programme.

Germany on Monday said it had summoned the Iranian ambassador over the crackdown on the protests.

“I can confirm that we have summoned the Iranian ambassador... and the conversation will take place this afternoon,” a foreign ministry spokesman said in Berlin.

Tehran, for its part, said Sunday it had summoned Britain’s ambassador to protest what it called an “invitation to riots” by London-based Farsi language media, and Norway’s envoy over the parliamentary speaker’s “unconstructive comments” on the protests.

US President Joe Biden last week saluted the Iranian protesters, telling the UN General Assembly that “we stand with the brave citizens and the brave women of Iran who right now are demonstrating to secure their basic rights”.

BEIRUT — Depositors scuffled and long lines formed at Lebanese banks on Monday as they partially reopened after a week-long closure following a slew of heists by customers desperate to access their money.

But most banks remained shut, welcoming only a handful of depositors on appointment, and there was anger from those seeking to withdraw frozen funds desperately needed to weather a crushing economic crisis.

At a closed Beirut branch of Fransabank, dozens of soldiers, internal security forces members and customers had queued for hours.

"I don't care about anything, I need my salary," one ISF member yelled from behind the locked gates.

Banks started imposing draconian restrictions on withdrawals after Lebanon’s economy collapsed in 2019.

Since then, the Lebanese pound has lost more than 95 per cent of its market value, meaning public sector salaries have slumped to as low as $40 a month.

Earlier this month five banks were stormed in one day with depositors seeking to unlock frozen savings, after a string of similar holdups in past weeks.

The Lebanese banks association said on Sunday that banks will reopen in a limited capacity to businesses, educational institutions and hospitals. Many banks have also now hired security guards.

ATMs will be available “for everyone else”, to allow public and private sector institutions to transfer salaries, they said.

Georges Hajj of Lebanon’s bank employees union said that some branches did not reopen, but those that did increased security.

“This week is a test to see how things will unfold,” he said.

In the southern city of Sidon, heavy security has been deployed at several banks, an AFP correspondent reported, after a security forces member tried to get into a BLOM bank branch by force to retrieve his salary.

In the queue outside Fransabank, Yolla Sawan, a 67-year-old retired teacher, waited for her appointment, hoping to withdraw roughly $130, her bank’s maximum monthly allowance.

“I don’t know what will happen [if I can’t withdraw],” she said in a soft voice.

Near the bank, more servicemen and ordinary depositors queued in front of an ATM which was empty of any cash.

One ISF member, who declined to give his name, said he had been waiting for two hours to withdraw his meagre salary.

“I have nothing to say, I am drained,” he said.

DOHA — Yusuf Al Qaradawi, a prominent Sunni scholar and spiritual leader of Egypt's outlawed Muslim Brotherhood movement, has died aged 96, his Twitter account announced on Monday.

Qaradawi was imprisoned several times in his home country of Egypt over his links to the Brotherhood. He was naturalised as a citizen of Qatar, where he had been based since 1961.

"Imam Yusuf Al Qaradawi has died after dedicating his life to making Islam known and defending his community," said the tweet on his official account. It did not provide details on the cause of his death.

Founded in 1928, the Brotherhood established itself in the mid-20th century as the main opposition movement in Egypt, as well as in other countries in the region.

Cairo blacklisted the movement as a "terrorist" organisation in 2013, and has since jailed thousands of its members and supporters and executed dozens.

The Islamist group has consistently denied any link to violence.

Qaradawi's daughter, Ola, was detained in Egypt for four and a half years over her links to the Brotherhood. She was released last year but still faces charges.

The cleric led the International Union of Muslim Scholars, a Sunni association, and the Qatar-based Al Jazeera network regularly broadcast his sermons.

In recent years, Qatar has moved to reconcile with the government of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, who as army chief led the 2013 overthrow of late president Mohamed Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood member.