Middle East & North Africa

TEHRAN, April 27 (NNN-XINHUA) — Iran and Kazakhstan reached Wednesday five cooperation agreements in various fields.

The memorandums of understanding cover cooperation in trade, tourism, sports and youths, as well as customs affairs, the Iranian official news agency IRNA reported.

Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber and visiting Kazakh Prime Minster Alikhan Smailov attended the signing ceremony in Tehran, said the report.

BABOLSAR (Mazandaran, Iran), April 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A senior Iranian Shia Muslim cleric and member of the powerful Assembly of Experts has been killed in a gun attack in northern Iran, state media report.

Ayatollah Abbasali Soleimani died in hospital after being shot at a bank in Babolsar, in Mazandaran province.

Its governor said the attacker, who has been arrested, was a bank security guard and that the motive was unclear.

Ayatollah Soleimani was one of 88 clerics on the Assembly of Experts, which appoints the Supreme Leader.

KHARTOUM, April 27 (Reuters) - Sudan's army and a paramilitary force battled in Khartoum on Thursday, testing U.S. and African efforts to pause a conflict that has turned residential areas into war zones and sent tens of thousands of people fleeing for their lives.

Hundreds of people have been killed in nearly two weeks of conflict between the army and a rival paramilitary force - the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) - which are locked in a power struggle threatening to destabilise the wider region.

TEHRAN, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman on Thursday condemned certain German officials' "meddlesome and tyrannical" remarks about Iran's upholding of the death sentence of the Tondar (Thunder) "terror" group's ringleader.

Nasser Kanaani made the remarks in response to the calls from a number of German officials for the reversal of the ruling against Tondar group's ringleader Jamshid Sharmahd, who has a dual Iranian-German nationality.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s navy seized a Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday amid wider tensions over Tehran’s nuclear program, the latest-such capture in a waterway crucial for global energy supplies.

The Navy’s Mideast-based 5th Fleet identified the vessel as the Advantage Sweet. Satellite tracking data for the vessel from MarineTraffic.com showed it in the Gulf of Oman just north of Oman’s capital, Muscat, on Thursday afternoon. It had just come from Kuwait and listed its destination as Houston, Texas.

CAIRO (AP) — Armed fighters rampaged through a main city in Sudan’s war-ravaged region of Darfur on Thursday, battling each other and looting shops and homes, residents said. The violence came despite a fragile three-day truce between Sudan’s two top generals whose power struggle has killed hundreds.

The mayhem in the Darfur city of Genena pointed to how the rival generals’ fight for control in the capital, Khartoum, was spiraling into violence in other parts of Sudan.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday shrugged off Disney’s lawsuit against him as politically motivated, and that it was time for the iconic company to stop enjoying favorable treatment in his state.

Disney sued DeSantis on Wednesday over the Republican’s appointment of a board of supervisors in its self-governed theme park district, alleging the governor waged a “targeted campaign of government retaliation” after the company opposed a law critics call, “Don’t Say Gay.”

27 Apr 2023; MEMO: Israel is trying to persuade country representatives not to attend the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba at the UN headquarters in New York, Israeli TV Channel 13 has reported. The event is scheduled to be held on 15 May.

27 Apr 2023; MEMO: Saudi Aramco is now the world's second largest company in terms of value, overtaking Microsoft and behind Apple. The company has been valued at $2.11 trillion (7.92 trillion Saudi riyals).

26 Apr 2023; MEMO: A museum will be opened in eastern Turkiye, where the legendary Noah's Ark is believed to have come to rest after the great flood, Anadolu News Agency reports.

Dosso Dossi Holding, a Turkish company, and the Agri Governorship have collaborated to build a complex, including a museum, in the Telceker village.

The complex will include halls, a cafeteria, a gift shop, open and closed viewing terraces and a private park area.