Region

TEHRAN — Iran’s ultraconservative President Ebrahim Raisi said on Saturday his government will prioritise tackling COVID and accelerating vaccinations ahead of an economic revival, as he defended his Cabinet choices before parliament.

The conservative-dominated parliament began debating the male-only, largely conservative lineup, ahead of a vote of confidence expected by Wednesday.

“The government’s first priority is controlling the coronavirus, improving the health situation and widespread vaccination,” Raisi said.

“The economy and the livelihood situation is the second” priority, he added, noting that his lineup is meant to bring about “justice and progress”.

Some lawmakers during Saturday’s session criticised the president for a failure thus far of his economic team to present policy plans, but Raisi said a detailed strategy will be released “soon”.

Since late June, Iran has seen what officials have called a “fifth wave” of COVID-19 infections, the country’s worst yet, which they have largely blamed on the more contagious Delta variant of the virus.

Daily infections and deaths have hit record highs several times this month, raising total cases since the pandemic started to over 4.5 million and fatalities to more than 100,000.

Battling the Middle East’s deadliest COVID outbreak, the country launched a vaccination drive in February but it has progressed slower than authorities had hoped.

‘Knowledge 

and experience’ 

Choked by US sanctions that have made it difficult to transfer money abroad, Iran says it has struggled to import vaccines.

Raisi has tapped 63-year-old optometrist Bahram Eynollahi as his health minister.

He defended his pick as “a figure who can rally forces in the fight against coronavirus”.

Eynollahi was named by local media as a signatory of a January open letter that warned former president Hassan Rouhani against importing vaccines made by the United States, Britain and France, as they may cause “unknown and irreversible complications”.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had in the same month banned the use of vaccines made by the US and Britain, calling them “completely untrustworthy”.

More than 16.3 million people out of the country’s 83 million inhabitants have been given a first vaccine dose, but only 5.4 million have received the second, the health ministry said on Friday.

The president also on Saturday defended his foreign ministry pick, the conservative Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, as a “well-known” figure with the required “knowledge and experience”.

He is seen by local media as an establishment figure with close ties to Iran’s regional allies.

Raisi on Saturday said his foreign policy will expand “neighbourly ties” and prioritise the economy.

Iran and world powers are trying to revive a 2015 nuclear deal, which was torpedoed by the administration of former US president Donald Trump, who withdrew and reimposed sanctions on Tehran.

Six rounds of nuclear talks were held in Vienna between April and June in an attempt to revive the accord. The last round concluded on June 20, with no date set for another.

Raisi made no mention of the nuclear talks or neighbouring Afghanistan, where the Taliban are consolidating power after seizing Kabul nearly a week ago.


KARBALA, Iraq — Masks were almost nowhere to be seen Thursday as millions of pilgrims thronged the Iraqi shrine city of Karbala for the Shiite commemoration of Ashura, ignoring Covid fears.

Six million pilgrims marked Ashura this year, the official Iraqi news agency reported, quoting authorities in Karbala.

They came from across the country but also from neighbouring Iran and from Pakistan, despite concerns over the pandemic.

Iraqi pilgrim Ali Al Assadi said faith in God was stronger than fear that such a large gathering could spark the spread of the virus.

"Despite the emergency situation facing Iraq due to the coronavirus pandemic, the people's faith in Imam Hussein means they are not afraid," he said.

Ashura commemorates a defining moment in the birth of the Shiite branch of Islam that is the majority faith in both Iraq and Iran.

It marks the killing of the Prophet Mohammed's grandson, Imam Hussein, by troops of Caliph Yazid in 680 AD in the Karbala desert.

Pilgrims traditionally walk to Karbala, sleeping in roadside camps set up along the way, in summer temperatures that regularly top 45 degrees Celsius.

In the run-up to Ashura, mourning rituals are also held in Shiite cities and neighbourhoods across Iraq.

In Karbala, the most zealous flagellated themselves with flails or blades until their heads and backs were raw and streaming with blood, a practice frowned on by Shiite spiritual leaders.

Divine providence 

For the faithful, religious devotion far outweighs any concerns about Covid-19 infection, despite warnings from authorities and the World Health Organisation.

"We have warned the [Iraqi] ministry of health against any kind of religious tourism," said Ahmed Zouiten, the WHO's representative for Iraq.

He told AFP the UN agency was "more concerned about Arbaeen", one of the world's largest religious gatherings -- due to take place in September -- when millions of Shiites from around the world descend on Karbala.

Even though only a little over five percent of Iraqis have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, pilgrims questioned by AFP brushed aside concerns.

"We're not bothering with masks, because our faith in Imam Hussein protects us from everything," said an unmasked pilgrim, who gave his name only as Dholam.

Kamel Mohammed, who likewise wore no face covering, added: "I have great faith in God."

Huge crowds of pilgrims began gathering around Imam Hussein's golden-domed mausoleum in the heart of the city from Wednesday evening.

Drummers banged out a rhythm as the faithful chanted prayers and poems commemorating Hussein's martyrdom.

Super-spreader? 

Before the pandemic, the main Shiite pilgrimages in Iraq were among the largest religious gatherings in the world, and there have been concerns they could act as super-spreader events.

Indian health officials have said that the Hindu pilgrimage of Kumbh Mela, an event held every three years that drew millions to the Himalayan city of Haridwar in January, may have helped fuel a surge in infections earlier this year.

Iraq is currently registering about 10,000 new coronavirus cases a day from its population of around 40 million.

Recorded Covid-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic number a little under 20,000, according to health ministry figures.

The assistant director of the Imam Hussein Mausoleum, Afzal Shami, insisted steps had been taken to avoid a major outbreak among pilgrims.

"Masks have been provided for visitors and anyone else who needs them for hygiene purposes," Shami said.

"Mobile teams have been deployed around the holy places to keep them sterilised and reduce the risks."

Disinfectant dispensers had been installed at the entrances to the shrine, lit up in red to draw attention. But there weren't nearly enough of them for the vast crowds camped outside.

"It's down to individual citizens to protect themselves by adopting preventive measures," Shami said.

Even before the pandemic began early last year, security was tight for the Shiite pilgrimages for fear of attack by Sunni extremists inspired by Al Qaeda or the Islamic state group, which regard Shiites as heretics.

Roadblocks were again set up this year on all roads into Karbala, and access to the city was closed off completely from Wednesday.

Abbas, a pilgrim in his 60s, who spent Wednesday night inside the mausoleum, said it was the price of religious duty.

"This night comes but once a year," Abbas said. "You have to make sacrifices to perform the rituals."

BEIRUT — Hizbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said on Thursday a tanker would set off from Iran imminently to bring desperately needed fuel supplies to Lebanon, in defiance of US sanctions.

The Lebanese presidency, in an apparent response to the claim, quoted the US ambassador as saying that efforts were under way with other regional powers to ease Lebanon's energy crisis.

Many questions remain as to how the Iranian shipment could reach its destination and alleviate the shortages that are crippling Lebanon, forcing hospitals, businesses and government offices shut.

The move, prohibited by American sanctions on Iran's oil industry, could drag Lebanon into the covert naval war between Tehran and Israel. Nasrallah dared Iran's foes to stop the shipment.

"The vessel, from the moment it sails in the coming hours until it enters [Mediterranean] waters, will be considered Lebanese territory," he said during a televised speech to mark the Shiite Muslim commemoration of Ashura.

"To the Americans and Israelis, I say: It's Lebanese territory."

He said a first ship would bring fuel for "hospitals, manufacturers of medicine and food, as well as bakeries and private generators".

More vessels would follow to address shortages that have brought Lebanon grinding to a halt, he added.

Neither the Iranian nor the Lebanese governments have confirmed the paramilitary organisation's claim.

Nasrallah also did not specify where or how the shipment would reach Lebanon and be offloaded.

'Dangerous' -

Lebanese energy expert Laury Haytayan said major questions hung over the purported Iranian shipment, including the amount to be delivered, who would pay, where the ship would dock and whether the details of the transaction had been disclosed to the Lebanese government.

"It is a possibility that these tankers will go to Syria and shipments will be refined there," Haytayan said.

"But this is all prohibited by sanctions, it's not that easy, and since Hizbollah is doing it in public, there is a lot of danger on Lebanon, we are in danger of being sanctioned, or being attacked."

Since February this year, Iran and Israel have been engaged in a "shadow war" in which vessels linked to each nation have come under attack in waters around the Gulf in tit-for-tat exchanges.

Hizbollah, designated as a terrorist group by much of the West, is a major political force in Lebanon and is the only group to have kept its arsenal of weapons following the end of the country's 1975-1990 civil war.

The Lebanese presidency later issued a statement thanking the United States ambassador, Dorothy Shea, for what would be an alternative solution to Lebanon's fuel shortages.

The US embassy did not issue any statements, but Shea was quoted by news channel Al Arabiya as saying that talks were under way with Egypt, Jordan and the World Bank.

"I'm trying to find solutions for the Lebanese people," she was quoted as saying.

A high-ranking Lebanese official who is privy to the negotiations said that the talks centred on waiving US sanctions that are blocking deliveries to Lebanon.

Lebanon has been negotiating for a year with Egypt for gas and electricity to be supplied via Jordan and Syria, but the deal was frozen by US sanctions on Syria, the official said.

Another file is the World Bank financing of that project and of other infrastructure upgrades that could guarantee energy supplies, but that was also threatened by US sanctions.

"Today the US ambassador informed President [Michel] Aoun that the United States would help us on both issues," the official told AFP.

Oil company halts supply 

Lebanon is grappling with an economic crisis branded by the World Bank as one of the planet's worst since the mid-19th century.

The bankrupt state can no longer afford key imports, nor can it subsidise essential goods, leading to crippling and sometimes deadly shortages of electricity, petrol and medicines among other things.

A key oil company in Lebanon said on Thursday it would stop supplying its filling stations with fuel for the first time since it started operations in 1926.

The Coral Oil Company said its stocks in the country were running out, and that the government had so far failed to take steps to offload shipments that arrived in territorial waters more than a week ago.

International donors have pledged hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance to the country but have conditioned this on the creation of a cabinet capable of spearheading reforms.

Lebanon's bitterly divided political leaders have repeatedly failed to agree on a new line-up a year after the previous cabinet resigned.

AL-DAOUSEH, Lebanon — Families laid to rest Wednesday victims of a fuel tank blast that killed at least 28 people in northern Lebanon amid anger and sorrow over the crisis-hit country's latest tragedy.

The explosion on Sunday in Al Tleil in the Akkar region scorched crowds clamouring for petrol that the army was distributing in light of severe fuel shortages that have paralysed a country also beset by medicine, gas and bread shortages.

The victims included soldiers and Akkar residents who darted to Al Tleil after midnight to fill gasoline in plastic containers straight from a fuel tank that exploded in circumstances that remain unclear.

The tank was among supplies confiscated by the military, which has lately wrested supplies from alleged fuel hoarders across the country.

The disaster came on top of an economic crisis branded by the World Bank as one of the world's worst in modern times and follows an explosion of poorly stored fertiliser at Beirut Port last summer that killed more than 200 people.

Akkar, one of Lebanon's poorest regions, buried several blast victims on Wednesday, according to an AFP correspondent.

The village of Al-Daouseh held funerals for four of its dead, all of whom are from the Shraytih family.

"They died for petrol, if we had fuel this would have never happened," said Mouin Shraytih who was burying two sons, one 16 and the other 20.

"Political leaders and officials should consider what it is like to have two young boys and find them burned and charred in front of your own eyes," the man in his fifties told AFP at the funeral.

Corpses from the tanker blast had been identified in and transported from hospitals hit by power and telecom outages, with even landlines disrupted. 

'Deprivation'

Dozens had gathered at the family's home when a convoy of vehicles carrying the corpses arrived from a nearby hospital, an AFP correspondent said.

Shots were fired into the air as residents threw rice and flowers over the coffins.

Fawaz Shraytih, a relative of Mouin, was burying two brothers, both army soldiers.

“What happened is because of deprivation, Akkar is a deprived region,” he said.

But “all we do is pay with our blood,” he added, explaining that soldiers make up the bulk of Al Daouseh’s male population.

There are eight soldiers among his own immediate family, he said.

Nearly 80 people were injured in the blast, medics said, many with burns that further overwhelmed hospitals struggling to function without electricity.

Foreign countries and UN agencies have scrambled emergency aid to help exhausted health workers cope with the new influx of serious injuries and run DNA tests to identify charred remains.

A plane was due to arrive in Lebanon on Wednesday to evacuate severe burns victims to Turkey, the official National News Agency said.

Lebanon, a country of more than six million, is grappling with soaring poverty rates, with 78 per cent of the population living below the poverty line, according to the United Nations.

The Lebanese pound has lost 90 per cent of its black market value against the dollar while food prices have shot up by up to 400 per cent.

The country braced for higher inflation rates after central bank governor Riad Salameh said last week that the lender can no longer afford fuel subsidies.

Despite the spiralling crisis, bitterly divided leaders have yet to agree on a new Cabinet a year after the previous one resigned in the wake of the Beirut blast.

DAMASCUS — It’s a typical Arabic song of forlorn love and heartache but it was power cuts that added low-lit romance to the music video of Syria’s latest hit.

In Damascus, the economic situation is worse now than at the height of the decade-old conflict that is still ravaging parts of Syria, and electricity has become a rare commodity.

When singer Shadi Safadi and the band he co-founded, “Safar”, brainstormed over a low-budget video, the only way not to be defeated by power outages was to embrace them.

The result is filled with humour and relatable to most of the Syrian population, who spend long unventilated summer evenings in the dark.

The video for the song “Ya Weel Weely”, which topped 5 million views on YouTube within days of its release, was shot entirely in a small room lit by battery-powered devices.

The all-male band stand donning black shirts, their instruments and microphone festooned with LED strip lights.

“The electricity situation is so bad we had to rely entirely on batteries to shoot our video,” Safadi told AFP. “Some days the electricity would barely come on for an hour.”

The conflict since 2011 in Syria has left key infrastructure in tatters and displaced half of the population.

Key oil fields were damaged or lost to the regime’s rivals and Syria with its massively devalued national currency can scarcely purchase electricity from abroad.

The national grid once provided steady power to the population but rationing is now peaking at over 20 hours a day in most regions.

“The song was done with love and for sure people liked the lyrics and music, but what connected the most with our audience was the video,” said Wafi Al Abbas, another of the band’s founding members.

The video’s success marks a breakthrough for Safar, an outfit formed two decades ago but little known to the wider Syrian public until last month.

In the sea of escapist music videos out there, director Yazan Shorbaji said, a script that reflects people’s daily lives could be just as potent to carry a love song.

“Whenever I visit young people, the electricity is always off. So this idea of filming this song with real-life electricity lit up in my head.”

BEIRUT — Hospitals in the Akkar region of north Lebanon where a fuel tank explosion killed at least 28 people this week struggled to operate on Tuesday as life-threatening power cuts and telecom outages swept the area.

Lights and phone lines went out across the impoverished and marginalised region that has long suffered from an ailing power grid but that is now grappling with an unprecedented crisis due to severe diesel shortages nationwide.

The outages come less than two days after a fuel tank exploded in the village of Al Tleil, scorching people clamouring to fill petrol that the army was distributing.

Around 80 people, including several soldiers, were injured, many of them left with severe burns, overwhelming hospitals.

Fuel shortages since the start of summer have aggravated hardship in Lebanon, a country of more than 6 million that is in the throes of an economic crisis branded by the World Bank as one of the worst since the mid-19th century.

Without the diesel fuel needed to power private generators, businesses, hospitals and even the country's main telecom operator have been forced to scale back operations or close entirely due to outages lasting up to 22 hours a day.

In Akkar, hospitals still storing corpses of victims charred in Sunday's blast were left without power, internet and working landlines, as health officials pleaded for help from the authorities.

"We have a stock of 700 litres of diesel fuel which will last for only one day," said Riad Rahal, director of Rahal Hospital in the Akkar town of Halba.

The nearby El-Youssef hospital also had enough stock of diesel to last until Wednesday morning and no working phone lines, said Nathaline el-Chaar, assistant to the director.

"Since yesterday, landlines have been out of service... and we are trying hard to secure diesel," she told AFP.

She said the hospital's diesel provider had delayed deliveries fearing attacks on a north Lebanon highway where incidents in recent days have seen angry groups seize fuel from trucks.

The official National News Agency said on Tuesday that diesel fuel shortages and power outages had forced the Ogero telecom provider to cut internet, landlines and mobile phone services in several parts of Akkar, effectively paralysing banks, businesses and state offices.

Ogero head Imad Kreidieh warned that other regions in Lebanon would have to follow suit unless the situation improved.

In the southern suburbs of Beirut, live shots were fired at a gas station, the latest in a series of lethal incidents rattling motorists lining up in long petrol queues.

The NNA said the army deployed in the area after several people were injured in the shoot-out, but it did not provide more details.

A security source told AFP that people who had illegally stored petrol at a pumping station fired live rounds as army soldiers tried to confiscate their stock.

They also started a fire at the gas station, accusing its owner of having tipped off the army.

Videos and pictures circulating on social media showed men opening machine-gun fire. AFP could not independently verify the authenticity of the footage.

The army on Saturday started raiding gas stations and confiscating stocks of fuel that distributors have been hoarding to sell at a higher price in the black market or across the border in Syria.

BEIT LAHIA, Palestinian Territories — Eight-year-old Mohammed Shaban dreamed of returning to the classroom in Gaza for the start of the school year. But after an exploded missile blinded him in May, he is staying home.

Mohammed used to attend school with his cousins and neighbours in the town of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip.

He is one of hundreds of children the United Nations says were injured during fighting in May between Israel and the Hamas Islamists who control the Palestinian enclave.

From May 10 to 21, the Israeli forces pummelled the Gaza Strip in response to rocket fire by Hamas.

Mohammed said he was walking to a market to buy clothes during the conflict when a missile exploded.

As a result of the blast, his father Hani said, “Mohammed was injured in the eyes, which led to the loss of his eyes, and Mohammed became completely blind.”

The Shabans say Mohammed was injured by a missile fired by the Israelis, although AFP could not independently verify it.

The boy still hoped to return to school, Hani said, and his new disability left him moody and unpredictable.

“He sometimes asks me, ‘When will I see’, or ‘When will I go back to school with the children’, or ‘When will I go out to the street alone’,” Hani said.

Human Rights Watch(HRW) has accused both Israel and Gaza of war crimes during the conflict.

Israeli air strikes killed 260 Palestinians, including fighters, while munitions fired by militants in Gaza killed 13 people in Israel, including a soldier.

HRW said Israeli strikes were not always directed at military targets.

Also it said Palestinians fired indiscriminately at Israeli cities, with rockets that fell short killing at least seven Palestinians in Gaza and wounding others.

For now, Mohammed grips his father’s hand, his head facing down, as they walk through their neighbourhood.

They step along narrow dirt streets lined by cinderblock walls covered in graffiti.

At home, Hani Shaban guided his son to sit down on cushions and showed him the collared shirts of his school uniform.

Mohammed gripped a pen and tried to form letters in a notebook as his parents encouraged him.

“In the future, I hope he can go to a special school for the disabled,” said Somaya Shaban, Mohammed’s mother.

She took her son in her arms and burst into tears.

“I wish to go to school and see the children, and wish see my sisters, and I wish to see my mother and father, and to play with the children,” Mohammed said.