Region

TUNIS — A veteran Tunisian opposition figure announced on Tuesday the creation of a new alliance to "save" the country from deep crisis following President Kais Saied's power grab last year.

Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, 78, a prominent left-wing politician who opposed dictator Zine Al  Abidine Ben Ali's rule, said the new National Salvation Front aimed to unite political forces, reestablish constitutional and democratic processes and guarantee freedoms and rights in the country.

"We want a return to legitimacy and democracy," he told a news conference in the capital Tunisia.

Saied — a former law professor elected in 2019 amid public anger against the political class — on July 25 last year sacked the government, suspended parliament and seized wide-ranging powers.

He later gave himself powers to rule and legislate by decree and seized control over the judiciary.

He dissolved parliament last month, dealing another blow to the political system put in place after the North African country's 2011 revolution.

Chebbi opposes Saied's moves and describes them as a "coup".

The new alliance comprises five political parties including Saied's nemesis the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha Party, along with five civil society groups involving independent political figures.

The Front's priority is to rescue an economy ruined by a "rotten" political system that puts off investors, Chebbi said.

It also aims to involve other political groups and "influential" figures before launching a national dialogue on reforms to "save the country", he added.

Chebbi called for a "salvation government" to lead the country during a "transition period" before new elections.

Last week Saied assigned himself the power to appoint the head of the electoral commission, a move critics say aims to create a tame electoral body ahead of a referendum slated for July on constitutional reforms, and legislative elections due in December.

Last month, Saied also inaugurated a "temporary" council of judges to replace an independent watchdog he abolished when seizing sweeping powers over the judiciary.

Saied's initial power grab last year was welcomed by many Tunisians sick of the often-stalemated post-revolution political system.

But an increasing array of critics say he has moved the country down a dangerous path back towards autocracy.

Saied has argued that the North African country's 2014 constitution allowed him to take "exceptional measures".

The country is also in talks with the International Monetary Fund aimed at securing a financial bailout.

TRIPOLI, Lebanon — Lebanese rescue teams searched the Mediterranean for survivors Monday after an overloaded people-smuggling boat capsized while being pursued by naval forces, with dozens unaccounted for still missing at sea.

At least seven people died as a result of the tragedy, which occurred late Saturday just off the coast of the northern port city of Tripoli.

It was Lebanon's worst such disaster in years, igniting widespread rage just three weeks before May 15 parliamentary elections.

The latest body was retrieved on Monday morning.

"The body of a woman from the Al Nimr family was recovered today from the Tripoli beach," the director general of Tripoli Port Ahmed Tamer told AFP, adding that rescue efforts were ongoing.

The Lebanese army said on Sunday that 48 people had been rescued, but it was not immediately clear exactly how many would-be asylum seekers were crammed onto the boat when it set off.

The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said the boat was carrying at least 84 people when it capsized, about 3.5 miles, 5.5 kilometres off the coast of Tripoli.

According to UNHCR figures, that means potentially some 30 people are still unaccounted for.

The passengers included Syrian and Palestinian refugees but most were Lebanese, local media reported.

Migration wave 

The circumstances that led the small and overloaded craft to sink were not entirely clear, with some survivors claiming the navy rammed into their boat, and officials insisting the smuggler attempted reckless escape manoeuvres.

Lebanon was once a transit point for asylum seekers from elsewhere in the region who were hoping to reach the shores of European Union member Cyprus by sea, an island 175 kilometres away.

However, an unprecedented economic crisis that has caused hyper-inflation and plunged millions into poverty is driving growing numbers of Lebanese to attempt the perilous crossing.

The UN says more than 1,500 would-be asylum seekers tried to leave Lebanon illegally by sea since the start of 2021.

“Lebanon’s economic crisis has triggered one of the largest waves of migration in the country’s history,” said Mathieu Luciano, Lebanon head of the International Organisation for Migration.

Mounting anger 

At Tripoli’s port, brothers Abdelkarim and Mahmud Dandashi were anxiously waiting for news of eight relatives.

“They were trying to find refuge in European countries, countries that take pity on people. They kill people here,” Abdelkarim said.

“If you don’t die of hunger here, you die at sea,” he said.

The tragedy triggered small protests on Saturday, one by people who cut off one the main roads leading to Tripoli, and another in front of the morgue where the bodies of the victims were brought.

Overnight, activists removed electoral posters from the walls of Tripoli, a city ravaged by unemployment but also home to some of Lebanon’s wealthiest politicians.

On Sunday evening, a video started circulating on social media showing Energy Minister Walid Fayad being taken to task on the street over living conditions and shoved hard against a wall.

The man who assaulted him posted the video, and criticised Fayad and the government for being insensitive to the fate of millions of desperate Lebanese.

Social media was also abuzz with a picture of Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s 79 metre-long $100 million yacht docked in the French city of Nice, with a cardboard banner alongside that read: “The people of Tripoli are being assassinated by this yacht’s owner.”

Mikati hails from Tripoli and is also Lebanon’s richest man, with a net worth estimated at around $3.2 billion, slightly more than the International Monetary Fund aid package agreed earlier this month to rescue the country.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — UN peacekeepers said on Monday they were investigating overnight rocket fire from Lebanon into Israel that prompted the occupation forces to retaliate with dozens of rounds of shelling.

Israel’s occupation forces said that they responded with artillery fire to a “projectile launched from Lebanon”, which crashed into an open field near a kibbutz.

There were no reports of casualties or damage, and the attack was not claimed by any group.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon said that, after detecting a “rocket being launched from south Lebanon towards Israel”, its commander made contact with both sides “to urge restraint”.

“Nonetheless, the [Israeli army] fired back several dozen shells into Lebanon,” UNIFIL said in a statement, adding that it had begun “an investigation to determine the facts”.

Lebanon’s National News Agency said the rocket fire was carried out by unidentified groups and that Lebanese forces had deployed to the area, with calm restored before sunrise.

Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz called on Lebanon’s government “to take responsibility for what happens on its territory”.

“If terrorism and violence continue, we know how to use the necessary force against the right targets.”

Lebanon and Israel are technically in a state of war.

Israel and Lebanon’s Hizbollah exchanged fire across the heavily guarded border last summer.

The two sides fought a devastating war in 2006 after Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers.

The 34-day conflict killed 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

It ended with a UN-backed ceasefire that saw the Lebanese army deploy in border areas.

BAGHDAD — Verdant landscapes, stylised portraits of peasant women, curved sculptures, an exhibition in Baghdad is allowing art aficionados to rediscover the pioneers of contemporary Iraqi art.

Around one hundred items are on display in the capital, returned and restored nearly two decades after they were looted.

Many of the works, including pieces by renowned artists Jawad Selim and Fayiq Hassan, disappeared in 2003 when museums and other institutions were pillaged in the chaos that followed the US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.

Thousands of pieces were stolen, and organised criminal networks often sold them outside Iraq.

Tracked down in Switzerland, the US, Qatar and neighbouring Jordan, sculptures and paintings dating between the 1940s and 1960s have been on display since late March at the ministry of culture, in a vast room that used to serve as a restaurant.

"These works are part of the history of contemporary art in Iraq," ministry official Fakher Mohamed said.

Artistic renaissance 

Pictures and sculptures were in 2003 spirited away from the Saddam Arts Centre, one of Baghdad's most prestigious cultural venues at the time.

While he crushed all political dissent, Saddam cultivated the image of a patron of the arts. The invasion and years of violence that followed ended a flourishing arts scene, particularly in Baghdad.

Now, relative stability has led to a fledgling artistic renaissance, including book fairs and concerts, of which the exhibition organised by the ministry is an example.

It helps recall a golden age when Baghdad was considered one of the Arab world's cultural capitals.

Among canvases of realist, surrealist or expressionist inspiration, a picturesque scene in shimmering colours shows a boat sailing in front of several "mudhif", the traditional reed dwellings found in Iraq's southern marshes.

Other paintings, in dark colours, depict terrified residents surrounded by corpses, fleeing a burning village.

Elsewhere, a woman is shown prostrate in a scene of destruction, kneeling in front of an arm protruding from stones.

There is also a wooden sculpture of a gazelle with undulating curves, and the “maternal statue”, a work by Jawad Selim that represents a woman with a slender neck and raised arms.

The latter, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, was rediscovered in a Baghdad district known for its antiques and second-hand goods shops. It was in the possession of a dealer unaware of its true value, according to sculptor Taha Wahib, who bought it for just $200.

‘Priceless works’ 

Looters in some cases had taken pictures out of their frames, sometimes with cutters, to steal them more easily.

“Some pieces were damaged during the events of 2003, or they were stored in poor conditions for many years”, Mohamed, the culture ministry official, told AFP.

But “they were restored in record time”, he said.

Other works are being held back for now, with some waiting to be restored, but they will be exhibited once more, Mohamed pledged.

He wants to open more exhibition rooms to show the entire collection of recovered items.

“Museums must be open to the public, these works shouldn’t remain imprisoned in warehouses,” he said.

The 7,000 items stolen in 2003 included “priceless works”, and about 2,300 have been returned to Iraq, according to exhibition curator Lamiaa Al Jawari.

In 2004, she joined a committee of artists committed to retrieving the many stolen national treasures.

“Some have been recovered through official channels” including the Swiss embassy, she said, but individuals also helped.

Authorities coordinate with Interpol and the last restitutions took place in 2021.

The selection on display will be changed from time to time, “to show visitors all this artistic heritage,” Jawari said.

Ali Al Najar, an 82-year-old artist who has lived in Sweden the past 20 years, has been on holiday in his homeland.

He welcomed the exhibition.

“The pioneers are those who initiated Iraqi art. If we forget them, we lose our foundations” as a society, Najar said.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Thousands on Saturday celebrated the traditional "Holy Fire" ceremony of blazing candles at Christianity's holiest site in Jerusalem to mark the eve of Orthodox Easter.

Tens of thousands of faithful have attended the ceremony in earlier years, but coronavirus constraints severely limited attendance on the past two occasions.

This year, joyous, shouting faithful crowded together unmasked, holding aloft wads of thin candles bound together to produce thick orange flames that danced inside the darkened Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

The church is built on the site where according to Christian tradition Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected.

Israel's foreign ministry gave a crowd estimate of thousands, who celebrated in a tense Jerusalem after days of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces at the nearby Al Aqsa Mosque compound.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the rest of the Old City lies in East Jerusalem, occupied and later occupied by Israel following the Six-Day War of 1967.

Worshippers had waited from the morning hours with candles in hand. They cheered with excitement and bells rang in the early afternoon when Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III exited the Edicule, traditionally believed to be Christ's burial place, holding burning candles.

The flames spread from believer to believer, filling the ancient church with light.

Anthony Botros, who came all the way from Canada, said that being able to participate in the ceremony was "honestly surreal".

"I would not have imagined I would ever be here. It's something you can't describe. You just have to be there and experience it. Just tears. So peaceful," the 25-year-old told AFP.

Church leaders had initially been at odds with Israel over the event's size, after authorities sought to limit the number of participants to ensure their safety.

The Patriarchate petitioned the police decision at the supreme court, with a compromise allowing 4,000 believers to attend the ceremony in the church and square outside, a police spokeswoman told AFP.

The Greek Orthodox, Armenian and Roman Catholic denominations share custody of the church.

Christians made up more than 18 per cent of the population of the Holy Land when Israel was founded in 1948, but now form less than 2 per cent, mostly Orthodox.

KHARTOUM — Sudanese artist Mutaz Al Fateh creates vibrant pictures with special ingredients; the paint he uses is made with colours derived from coffee grounds, tea leaves and shavings of fruit peel.

"I have a special vision in art," the 39-year-old said, surrounded by his eclectic art hung on the walls of his gallery in the capital Khartoum. "I am particularly interested in using natural materials."

Many of his paintings feature colours derived from the fruits of the doum palm tree, and ground up fruit from the bulbous baobab tree.

Fateh has spent his career crafting everything from everyday life images of Sudanese men and women in traditional dress to abstract drawings.

He takes pride in extracting pigments of blue, purple, and red from hibiscus leaves, shades of brown, beige, and gold from coffee grounds, and hues of black and grey from date seeds.

'Spectacular colours' 

For many, these materials are simply food products, Fateh said. "But we can extract spectacular colours from them," he added.

Fateh says he mixes the colour extracts with gum arabic and other organic substances to ensure their durability on surfaces.

The artist has been using his special recipes to create his unique paint for years, producing a wide selection of paintings.

His quiet art seems a far cry from his activities three years ago, when Fateh was among the artists who painted street slogans on walls during a mass sit-in outside the army headquarters in Khartoum.

Even then, Fateh used his natural paint to daub on the walls.

The street mural backed the mass protests to end the three-decade rule of hardline president Omar Al Bashir, who was eventually toppled in April 2019.

"My mural there carried the slogan of 'Freedom, Peace, Justice' but it has been largely removed since," he said. "I can't remake this mural nowadays, I tried — but I was stopped."

Political unrest deepened in Sudan over the years, especially following the military power grab led by army chief Abdel Fattah Al Burhan last October.

The 2021 coup, one of several to have rocked Sudan since its independence, was followed by a wave of steep price hikes of basic goods including food, fuel, electricity and other essentials.

Fateh says his way of extracting colours to make paint is a good way for aspiring artists in Sudan to cut the cost of expensive materials.

"The natural materials I use are very cheap," he said. "They are widely available on the market, some could be even acquired for free."