Middle East & North Africa

16 June 2022; MEMO: Israeli authorities have refused to disclose the details of an internal investigation into misconduct by occupation forces during Palestinian-American Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh's funeral.

Despite learning that Israeli forces had attacked the pallbearers as the procession during Abu Akleh's funeral travelled through occupied East Jerusalem, the investigation concluded that no officer is to be punished.

17 June 2022; MEMO: The fiancée of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Hatice Cengiz, has slammed US President Joe Biden over his plan to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS), who according to US intelligence authorised the killing in 2018.

BEIRUT, June 16. /TASS/: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday said the US controls both terrorists and neo-Nazis, meaning Russia and Syria are in battle against the same enemy.

"Russia and Syria are in battle against the same enemy. Both terrorists and neo-Nazis are controlled by the same country: the US," he said at a meeting with Dmitry Sablin, deputy chairman of the State Duma committee on defense, and a delegation of the Donetsk People’s Republic, according the SANA news service.

TEHRAN, Jun 16 (NNN-IRNA) – Iran and Turkmenistan signed nine cooperation agreements here, in the Iranian capital, yesterday, vowing to expand ties.

Under the agreements, the two countries will boost their partnership in the fields of transportation, scientific and cultural exchanges, environmental protection, trade, and economic ties, the Iranian state TV reported.

CAIRO, Jun 16 (NNN-MENA) – Egyptian President, Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, and visiting Chief of Staff of the United Arab Emirates Armed Forces, Hamad Mohammed Thani Al Rumaithi, discussed here yesterday, ways to promote bilateral military and security cooperation.

“The two sides agreed to continue strengthening coordination and regular consultation, with regard to military and security cooperation, in a manner that also supports the bonds of Arab solidarity,” the spokesperson of the Egyptian presidency, Bassam Rady, said.

AMMAN, Jun 16 (NNN-PETRA) – King Abdullah II of Jordan, yesterday, called for more cooperation between Jordan and the European Union (EU), when he held a meeting with visiting European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, according to a Royal Hashemite Court statement.

During the meeting, the Jordanian king stressed the need to end the violence threatening regional stability and security.

BEIRUT, Jun 16 (NNN-NNA) – Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), urged yesterday, countries to increase financial contributions, as the agency suffers from a 100-million-U.S.-dollar funding gap.

Philippe Lazzarini said, at a press conference, held on the occasion of UNRWA’s Advisory Commission meeting in Beirut that, “We are facing a major financial crisis, which reduced our ability to deal with the Palestinian refugees’ crisis.”

JIJI, Taiwan, June 16 (Reuters) - Taiwan's military showed off its latest domestically produced armoured vehicle on Thursday, the CM-34 Clouded Leopard, at a remote manufacturing site in the mountains of the central part of the island.

Taiwan has been keen to demonstrate its resolve to defend itself should China, which claims the democratically governed island as its own territory, ever attack. Those fears have become more pronounced over the past two years or so as Beijing steps up military activities near Taiwan.

TEHRAN, June 16 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said on Thursday that its intelligence forces have smashed a major fuel smuggling network.

The IRGC said on its official Sepha news website that the intelligence's "accurate and smart operations" identified and disbanded the country's biggest networks to smuggle subsidized fuel.

TEHRAN, June 16 (Xinhua) -- Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said the Islamic republic maintains that foreign powers' presence and interference in the region fail to resolve any issue, and only complicate regional problems, the Iranian president's website reported on Thursday.

Making the remarks in a meeting with visiting President of Armenia's National Assembly Alen Simonyan in Tehran on Wednesday, Raisi stressed that dialogue among regional countries is the sole path to the resolution of the problems.