20 July 2020; MEMO: Syria held a parliamentary election on Sunday, gripped by a collapsing economy and new US sanctions after President Bashar al-Assad clawed back control of most of the country.
Reuters reported people voting across Assad-held territory at more than 7,000 polling stations, including for the first time in former rebel bastions that the army has recaptured over the last two years.
20 July 2020; MEMO: An Iranian accused of spying for US and Israeli intelligence was executed on Monday, according to Iran’s official IRIB news agency, Reuters reports.
Last month, the judiciary said Mahmoud Mousavi-Majd, who was arrested in 2018, had spied on former Revolutionary Guards commander Qassem Soleimani, adding however that the case was not connected to Soleimani’s killing earlier this year.
Dubai, Jul 20 (PTI) Emiratis brimmed with joy and pride as the UAE made history on Monday by successfully launching its spacecraft "Al Amal" towards Mars from a Japanese launch centre, marking the Arab world's first interplanetary mission, according to media reports.
Al Amal, or Hope Probe, weighing 1.3 tonnes was launched from the H-2A rocket from Japan's remote Tanegashima spaceport at 1.58 am local time.
Dubai, Jul 20 (AP/PTI) Saudi Arabia's King Salman has been admitted to a hospital in the capital, Riyadh, for medical tests due to inflammation of the gallbladder, the kingdom's Royal Court said Monday in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.
The statement said the 84-year-old monarch is being tested at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital.
The brief statement did not provide further details.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia’s King Salman has been admitted to a hospital in the capital, Riyadh, for medical tests due to inflammation of the gallbladder, the kingdom’s Royal Court said Monday in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.
The statement said the 84-year-old monarch is being tested at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital. The brief statement did not provide further details.
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish police said on Sunday they had detained 27 people with links to the Islamic State militant group whom they suspect were preparing for an attack.
Police said they had learned that the people had been ordered to carry out an attack in retaliation for social media posts that insulted Prophet Muhammad. The operation targeted addresses in 15 districts of Istanbul, police said.
(Reuters) - An explosion occurred at a power plant in Iran’s central Isfahan province on Sunday but there were no casualties, the official IRNA news agency reported.
The blast was caused by the wear and tear of a transformer at the power plant in Islamabad, the managing director of the Isfahan power company told IRNA.
Power was interrupted for two hours, he said.
There have been several explosions and fires around Iranian military, nuclear and industrial facilities since late June.
(Reuters) --- The Iranian judiciary has suspended the executions of three men linked to anti-government protests in November, one of their attorneys, Babak Paknia, said on Sunday.
Rights activists had criticized the death sentences saying they were aimed at intimidating future protesters.
TEHRAN, July 18 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will visit neighboring Iraq on Sunday for talks on diverse issues of mutual interest, official IRNA news agency reported on Saturday.
During his one-day visit, Zarif will meet senior Iraqi officials, including his counterpart Fuad Hussein and Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, according to the report.
He will discuss bilateral relations as well as regional and international developments with Iraqi officials.
19 July 2020; MEMO: Zawqan Abdelkhalek, a nurse at the American University of Beirut’s (AUB) medical centre since 2012, was laid off on Friday along with hundreds of colleagues as even hospitals buckle under the weight of Lebanon’s economic collapse.
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