Region

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Sunday called for an end to violence in occupied  East Jerusalem, where clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police have left scores of Palestinians injured.

After delivering his Regina Caeli prayer from the window overlooking St Peter’s Square, the Pope said he was “following with particular concern the events that are happening in Jerusalem”.

“I pray so that this might be a place of encounter and not violent clashes, a place of prayer and of peace,” he said.

“I invite everyone to seek shared resolutions so that the multireligious identity and multiculture of the holy city might be respected and so that fraternity might prevail.”

“Violence only generates violence. Let’s stop these clashes.”

Tensions ran high on Sunday in East Jerusalem after hundreds of Palestinians were wounded in a weekend of clashes between protesters and Israeli security forces, sparking global concern that the unrest could spread further.

The violence around Jerusalem’s revered Al Aqsa Mosque compound and the Old City, mostly at night, is the worst since 2017, fuelled by a years-long bid by Jewish settlers to take over Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem.

The Pope also offered his prayers for the victims of the attack on Saturday on a school in Kabul, describing it as “an inhumane action that killed many girls as they were leaving school”.

“Let us pray for all of them and for their families, and that God might grant peace to Afghanistan,” he said.

A series of blasts outside the school during a peak holiday shopping period killed more than 50 people, mostly girl students, and wounded over 100 in Dasht-e-Barchi, a west Kabul suburb populated mostly by Hazara Shiites.

Finally, the Argentine Pontiff offered some words for a small crowd of people bearing Colombian flags who had come to St Peter’s Square hoping for some reference to the demonstrations and clashes in their country.

“I would also like to express my concern for the tension and violent clashes in Colombia which have left many wounded. There are many Colombians here, let’s pray for your country,” he said.

JUBA — South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir has dissolved parliament, opening the way for lawmakers from opposing sides of the country’s civil war to be appointed under a 2018 peace accord.

Kiir’s decision was announced on public television on Saturday evening but no date was given as to when the new parliament will begin working.

The setting up of a new legislative body was part of an accord signed in September 2018 between Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar, for years on opposition sides during the five-year civil war that left 380,000 people dead and four million displaced.

Activists and civil society groups welcomed the dissolution of parliament, saying it was long overdue but also expressing distrust.

“It is a welcome development and we hope that the dissolution [will not] also open the way to a lengthy process towards reconstituting the parliament,” Jame David Kolock, chairman of the South Sudan Civil Society Forum.

“The civil society is getting frustrated and no longer believes that even if the parliament is reconstituted it will be a very viable parliament.”

In accordance with the 2018 accord, the new assembly will number 550 lawmakers, the majority — 332 — from Kiir’s governing SPLM party. The parliamentarians will not be elected but nominated by the different parties.

The dissolution of parliament came on the eve of a visit to the capital Juba by US special envoy to South Sudan Donald Booth.

“Of particular concern to the United States is the slow implementation of the Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan, ongoing violence, and deteriorating economic and humanitarian conditions,” the US State Department said in a statement.

Kiir and Machar formed a coalition government on February 22, 2020 after nearly a year of delays.

However, few provisions of the truce have been honoured, and analysts have warned of a return to war.

The oil-rich country remains severely underdeveloped and poorly managed.

Despite the peace deal, brutal communal conflicts — often over cattle raiding — continue, with more than 1,000 killed in violence between rival communities in the last six months of 2020.

TUNIS — Tunisia on Sunday started a week of coronavirus restrictions covering the Eid holiday, as hospitals battle to stay afloat as COVID-19 cases soar.

Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi said on Friday that Tunisia was going through “the worst health crisis in its history” and that health facilities were at risk of collapse.

Until next Sunday, mosques, markets and non-essential shops must close, gatherings and family or cultural celebrations are banned, and people are forbidden from travelling between regions.

An overnight curfew begins at 7:00pm (18:00 GMT) instead of 10pm, and is in force until 5am.

Schools have been closed since mid-April.

Shops along Tunis’s central Habib Bourguiba Avenue and in the old city were all closed on Sunday, an AFP correspondent said.

But videos shared on social media appeared to show almost-normal activity in several other parts of the country, including people without masks and failing to respect social distancing.

The Eid Al Fitr holidays that mark the end of Ramadan are traditionally a time when Muslim families and friends gather together.

This year, the holiday is expected to begin on Thursday.

Tunisia, a country of almost 12 million, has officially recorded more than 319,000 coronavirus cases and 11,350 deaths.

Over 500 people are currently in intensive care, a level previously unseen in the North African country.

The country has set up field hospitals to deal with the influx of patients.

It is also struggling to meet its oxygen needs, and has appealed for assistance from European countries and even neighbouring Algeria, struggling with its own health crisis.

A vaccination campaign launched in mid-March, a month later than planned, is moving more slowly than anticipated.

“The number of patients in hospitals has almost doubled in just a month,” said Amen-Allah Messadi, a doctor on the country’s COVID-19 scientific taskforce.

He added that oxygen consumption had “multiplied by four or six”.

“The situation is very serious,” he said.

AMMAN - Upholding the people-centered philosophy, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has kept the Chinese people as the top priority and striven to serve them wholeheartedly, Secretary General of Jordan's Communist Party Faraj Itmeiza has said.

In a recent interview with Xinhua on the occasion of the 100th founding anniversary of the CPC, Itmeiza praised China's comprehensive achievement under the CPC's leadership, noting that he could feel that the CPC and the Chinese people have been engaged in unceasing endeavors for a better future.

"What struck me the most was that some projects that usually take several years in other countries can be finished only in a few months or weeks in China," he said.

"It seems that China is in a race against time for realizing the best future for the Chinese people and humanity," he added.

Itmeiza, who has visited China twice in the past years, said that though some Western media slandered and misrepresented the facts about China, the reality he has witnessed is that "China is a large productive country and open to other civilizations and international dialogues."

During the interview, Itmeiza highlighted the distinguished leadership of the CPC, the support of the Chinese people for the party, and the country's sustainable development plans as the pillars to China's achievement "miracle."

"It was apparent that the Chinese people were united under the CPC's leadership in eradicating extreme poverty as well as combating the COVID-19 pandemic," he added.

Notably, he spoke highly of China's contribution to the global fight against the pandemic, adding that China has also made its vaccines accessible as a global public good and provided humanitarian assistance to other countries, especially developing countries.

In terms of bilateral relations, Itmeiza said he looked forward to closer cooperation between the two countries and the two parties, and appreciated China's support and assistance to Jordan, especially in the fields of technology and education.

Suggesting other countries learn from the CPC's governance experience, he said that "it is not to fully copy it, but we have to act like China by first studying issues, and then adopting the positive sides to serve our country and people."

TRIPOLI — Dozens of armed men staged a show of force late Friday at a hotel used as a headquarters by Libya's presidential council as the nation's deep divisions resurface.

The country was plunged into chaos after longtime leader Muammar Qadhafi was ousted and killed in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011, and over the years the conflict has drawn in several foreign powers.

An interim unity government finally came into being in March, replacing rival administrations in east and west, and aims to lead Libya to elections later this year.

The armed men were seen at the entrance of the Hotel Corinthia in the heart of the capital Tripoli, according to images on social media. Local press labelled them militias.

Presidential council spokeswoman Najwa Wheba confirmed that armed men had stormed "one of the headquarters where the council meets".

She told Libya's LANA news agency that "no one was harmed" as the council does not work on Fridays, the weekly day of rest in Libya.

The show of force comes as the implementation of a UN Security Council call for the withdrawal of all foreign troops and mercenaries rekindles divisions within the unity government.

On Monday, Foreign Minister Najla Al Mangoush, who is an easterner, angered many in Tripoli and the west with a call for Turkey to withdraw troops it deployed during the civil war.

Those troops are widely credited in the Libyan capital with finally defeating a devastating year-long offensive by eastern strongman Khalifa Haftar in June last year.

He had received backing from several countries, notably Russia and the United Arab Emirates.

An October ceasefire created a unified government — led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah and the presidential council — as part of a United Nations roadmap for December elections.

In March, the UN Security Council called for the withdrawal of all foreign troops and mercenaries, estimated to number as many as 20,000.

KHARTOUM — The US envoy for the Horn of Africa arrived in Sudan Friday for talks on Ethiopia's controversial Nile dam and rising tensions over a fertile border region, Sudanese state media reported.

Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia have been locked in inconclusive talks over the filling and operation of the huge hydro-power dam since Addis Ababa broke ground on it in 2011.

Cairo views the dam as an existential threat to its water supply, while Khartoum fears its own dams would be harmed if Ethiopia fills the reservoir without a deal.

Addis Ababa insists the barrage is indispensable for its development.

Sudanese Foreign Minister Mariam Al Sadiq Al Mahdi met US envoy Jeffrey Feltman at the airport in Khartoum, according to an AFP correspondent.

Feltman is expected to meet with head of state Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and other senior Sudanese officials on his two-day visit, official news agency SUNA said.

"The talks will tackle the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and the border tensions between Sudan and Ethiopia," it added.

Feltman’s visit comes as part of a regional tour that also takes in Egypt, Eritrea and Ethiopia, according to the US State Department.

Ethiopia, which announced last July it had completed its first-year filling target for the dam, has said it would proceed with the second stage regardless of whether an agreement is in place.

US and European Union observers have attended multiple rounds of negotiations between the three countries that have so far failed to produce a binding deal.

Tensions over the dam come amid souring relations between Sudan and Ethiopia over Al Fashaqa, a fertile border region where Ethiopian farmers have long cultivated fertile land claimed by Sudan.

Khartoum and Addis Ababa have been locked in a tense war of words over the region, trading accusations of violence and territorial violations in the area.

BEIRUT — Lebanese police said on Saturday they had thwarted an attempt to smuggle 51 Syrians to neighbouring Cyprus, weeks after the army foiled a similar operation.

“On May 4th 2021, the Internal Security Force’s information branch stopped 51 Syrian nationals, including 39 men, five women and seven minors, who were heading to Cyprus by sea,” said a police statement.

It said they were stopped while waiting along Lebanon’s northern coast after paying a smuggler $2,500 each for the trip.

Lebanon, home to more than 6 million people, is just 160 kilometres  from Cyprus.

As well as hosting more than 1 million refugees from war-torn neighbouring Syria, Lebanon is grappling with its most severe economic crisis since its own 1975-1990 civil war.

Tens of thousands of people, including Syrian and Palestinian refugees, have lost their jobs or seen their income slashed amid sharp inflation since 2019.

That has pushed many to attempt illicit sea crossings to European Union member Cyprus in recent months.

Nicosia last summer sent a team to Beirut to help authorities stop migrants from fleeing, after several boats arrived from the northern Lebanese coast carrying Syrian, Palestinian and Lebanese nationals.

The latest smuggling attempt comes weeks after the army said it had stopped 69 Syrians in the northern region of Akkar and arrested the smuggler who was planning to take them to Cyprus.

In March, Europe’s top human rights body urged Cyprus to investigate allegations of ill-treatment of migrants arriving by boat from Lebanon last September.

The Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner Dunja Mijatovic cited reports that “boats carrying migrants, including persons who may be in need of international protection, have been prevented from disembarking in Cyprus, and summarily returned, sometimes violently”.

Nicosia insists it respected the law.