Middle East & North Africa

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran dismissed as “immature” a statement by a U.N. investigator that inconsistencies in its explanation of the shooting down of a Ukrainian passenger plane last year raised questions over whether the act was intentional, Iranian media said on Thursday.

All 176 people aboard the Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752, most of them Canadian, were killed when the plane crashed shortly after takeoff en route from Tehran to Kiev on Jan. 8, 2020.

25 Feb 2021; MEMO: Senior officials from Israel and Saudi Arabia have recently held a series of calls to discuss US President Joe Biden's administration's plans to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, Israeli media outlets reported.

25 Feb 2021; MEMO: Israeli Defence Minister and Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz on Tuesday threatened the Lebanese people over repeated remarks made by Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, i24 reported.

"If Nasrallah and Hezbollah's threats translate into action, the outcome will be painful for Hezbollah," Gantz said during a tour of northern Israel.

25 Feb 2021; MEMO: The government reshuffle in Algeria has sparked a wave of controversy in political circles due to the ambiguity accompanying it, combined with the delay of the date set by the president himself.

25 Feb 2021; MEMO: A Turkish court convicted an executive of Turkish jet company MNG and two pilots for migrant smuggling over their role in flying former Nissan Motor Co Ltd Chairman Carlos Ghosn out of Japan during his escape to Lebanon just over a year ago, reports Reuters.

25 Feb 2021; MEMO: Hamas yesterday criticised the Palestinian Authority (PA)'s "monopoly" over Palestinian decisions, spokesman Hazem Qassem said.

Taking to Twitter, Qassem wrote: "It is a shame that the PA and Fatah officials in Ramallah are selling the delusion to the Palestinian people that they are running a state."

Adding that the PA has failed to achieve any of the national aspiration of the Palestinian people.

25 Feb 2021; MEMO: The head of the Palestinian National Independent Assembly, Munib Al-Masri, said a London- based law firm has been hired to prosecute the British government over the Balfour Declaration, which established the UK's support for a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine and the violations committed by Britain during its mandate over Palestine.

ISTANBUL, Feb. 25 (Xinhua) -- Turkish security forces on Thursday arrested a suspected member of the Islamic State over spying on a military command post in Istanbul, local media reported.

Police units acted upon a tipoff that a man who climbed a tree was secretly monitoring the Yenibosna Military Police Battalion Command on the European side of the city, the state-run Anadolu agency reported.

Istanbul is Turkey's largest city and built on two continents, divided by the Bosphorus Strait.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A secretive Israeli nuclear facility at the center of the nation’s undeclared atomic weapons program is undergoing what appears to be its biggest construction project in decades, satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press show.

HASAKA, Feb 24 (NNN-SANA) – To support their illegitimate bases, the U.S. occupation forces, brought in yesterday, military armoured vehicles and logistic materials to Rmeilan, in Hasaka countryside, coming from northern Iraq.

Local sources in Assweidyah village, in the north-east countryside of Hasaka, told reporters that, a convey of 40 tankers and vehicles, entered at 12.00 p.m. today (yesterday), from the north of Iraq, with 20 military armoured vehicles, logistic materials and equipment, and headed for  their illegitimate base in Rmeilan.