Middle East & North Africa

BEIRUT, Jul 8 (NNN-NNA) – The UN-Habitat and the Lebanese environment ministry, yesterday, launched a project aimed to reduce marine litter in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Funded by Germany’s Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection, at a budget of 4.57 million euros (5.2 million U.S. dollars), the project will “engage municipal authorities and local communities, to devise local plans to reduce marine litter and manage their waste in an integrated manner,” according to a statement from the UN-Habitat.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s army announced Friday that it has disciplined five officers, but would not file criminal charges for their actions during Israel’s 2021 war in the Gaza Strip — a conflict in which human rights advocates say Israel committed war crimes.

The soldiers, who received army reprimands for their actions, did not obey standard procedures when striking Gaza, the army statement said. It did not say when the incidents took place, what occurred or whether they involved civilian deaths.

BEIRUT, July 7 (Reuters) - As Wagner mercenaries advanced on Moscow in an attempted mutiny in late June, authorities in Syria and Russian military commanders there took a series of swift measures against local Wagner operatives to prevent the uprising spreading, according to six sources familiar with the matter.

ISTANBUL, July 7 (Xinhua) -- The police have tightened the crackdown on undocumented immigrants in Istanbul, Türkiye's largest city, arresting 1,615 individuals over the last three days, local media reported Friday.

The police have carried out massive raids in several neighborhoods, including Esenyurt, Fatih, and Zeytinburnu, where illegal immigrants were found highly concentrated, the Hurriyet newspaper reported.

BEIRUT, July 7 (Xinhua) -- A Lebanese citizen on Friday opened fire at worshipers as they were leaving a mosque in the town of Bar Elias in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, killing one and injuring several others, local media reported.

The Lebanese army rushed to the area and exchanged fire with the gunman, which led to his injury, the state-run National News Agency reported.

The shooter, reportedly in critical condition, was transported to hospital.

The cause of the incident was still unknown, the report added.

ADDIS ABABA, July 7 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopia's first-ever securities exchange will be a "game-changer" for the country and the region, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) said at a workshop that concluded Friday.

Efforts are underway to develop Ethiopia's financial market as the East African country prepares to launch its first-ever securities exchange over the next two years. The project team of the Ethiopian Securities Exchange (ESX) launched the capital raises request in May, according to the official Ethiopian News Agency.

DUBAI, July 6 (Reuters) - Iran said on Thursday it had a court order to seize a tanker in Gulf waters a day earlier after it collided with an Iranian vessel, one of two tankers the U.S. Navy said it prevented Iran from commandeering.

The Richmond Voyager, a Bahamas-flagged oil tanker, had collided with an Iranian vessel and the Iranian navy had a court order to seize it, the Maritime Search and Rescue Center of Iran's Hormozgan Province told the official IRINN news agency.

RAMALLAH, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Engulfed by sadness, Om Hussain Dibaba, an elderly Palestinian woman, and the other nine members of her family sit in one of the courtyards of a hospital in the West Bank city of Jenin, without knowing their fate.

"Without any prior alarm, my family and I became displaced," the 62-year-old woman spoke to Xinhua as she clung to two of her grandchildren's hands, referring to the clashes between the Israeli army and Palestinian militants in the city that have stripped her family of any chance to straighten their lives out.

05 July 2023; MEMO: In the latest sign that the French language and influence is on the decline in former North African colony, Algeria, the authorities are reportedly set to replace French with English at Algerian universities, starting with the new academic year in September.

05 July 2023; MEMO: Israel is advancing plans with Greece and Cyprus to build the world's longest undersea electric cable which will connect European and Gulf countries through Jordan and Egypt. The project was approved by the Israeli national planning and building council yesterday. It will see the construction of a 150-kilometre (93-mile) cable to distribute renewable energy efficiently.