Middle East & North Africa

TUNIS, May 24 (Xinhua) -- Tunisian Prime Minister Elyes Fakhfakh said on Sunday that his country is preparing to exit the stage of COVID-19 outbreak with the slightest damage.

The official TAP news agency quoted the prime minister as saying that "Tunisia, which has succeeded in controlling COVID-19, is about to exit from the outbreak stage with the slightest damage after registering more than 1,000 cases and most them have recovered."

He also stressed the continuation of the national effort to fight against COVID-19 during the summer period.

BAGHDAD, May 24 (Xinhua) -- The Iraqi Health Ministry on Sunday said that further health preventive measures will be taken next week after the holiday of Eid al-Fitr, including maintaining the partial curfew to curb the spread of coronavirus pandemic.

"The health measures after Eid al-Fitr holiday ... will include continuing the partial curfew, and the ministry will assess the epidemiological situation after the holiday to take measures appropriate to the health situation," the health minister Hassan al-Tamimi said in a statement.

RABAT, Morocco (AP) — It’s a reverse migrant crisis: Moroccan workers trapped in Spain are begging their own government to let them come back home.

Construction worker Mohammed Benali is among hundreds of Moroccans who headed to their jobs in Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta one day in March thinking they’d be home for dinner — but instead they found themselves trapped for more than two months by Morocco’s abrupt and unusually strict border closures to keep out the virus.

JERUSALEM (AP) — To the sounds of his impassioned supporters chanting outside, a defiant Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strode into a Jerusalem courtroom Sunday to face corruption charges in a long-awaited trial that has overshadowed three inconclusive elections and deeply divided the country.

(Reuters) - An earthquake of magnitude 5.1 struck the province of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer Ahmad in western Iran on Sunday, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

State TV gave no immediate information about possible casualties or damage.

JERUSALEM, May 24 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's long-awaited criminal trial is set to begin in a Jerusalem courtroom on Sunday, marking the first time Israel will see an incumbent prime minster stand trial.

Netanyahu will face the opening hearing of his corruption trial at the Jerusalem District Court at 3 p.m. local time (1200 GMT), after a three-judge panel rejected last week his request to skip the opening hearing.

ISTANBUL, May 23 (Xinhua) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and U.S. President Donald Trump discussed regional issues "particularly the situations in Syria and Libya" on a phone conversation, local media reported on Saturday.

Erdogan and Trump agreed to maintain the close political and military cooperation between the two countries to promote peace and stability in the region, the state-run Anadolu agency said.

They further reaffirmed the importance of cooperation and solidarity in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Anadolu.

24 May 2020; MEMO: A flotilla of five tankers carrying Iranian fuel for gasoline-starved Venezuela is approaching the Caribbean, with the first vessel expected to reach the South American country’s waters on Sunday, according to Refinitiv Eikon tracking data.

24 May 2020; MEMO: Libya’s internationally-recognised government retook parts of southern Tripoli on Friday from the eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) of Khalifa Haftar, whose 13-month campaign to seize the capital is under ever-greater pressure.

Fighters for the Government of National Accord (GNA) said they had advanced into several districts and overrun a military camp. The LNA said it had already pulled out of those areas in what it said was a humanitarian gesture for Ramadan.

24 May 2020; MEMO: Militias loyal to Libya’s renegade commander Khalifa Haftar Sunday hit the capital Tripoli with a rocket attack, Anadolu Agency reports.

The attack targeted Mitiga International Airport, according to a statement by the press center of the Libyan army-led Operation Volcano of Rage.

The statement gave no information on injuries or deaths.

According to the United Nations, since the beginning of this year, seven health centers in the country have been struck 12 times.