Middle East & North Africa

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq’s leading Shi’ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, on Friday condemned the use of force to disperse protest camps across the country, and renewed calls for early elections to be held in a free and fair manner.

Sistani, who delivered his message through a representative at Friday prayers in the holy city of Kerbala, also “heavily condemned” U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan.

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 30 (NNN-BERNAMA) –Turkish Airlines will introduce an addition of four flights weekly into Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia as of June 9, 2020, increasing its scheduled flights to 11 times weekly.

To celebrate the additional flights, Turkish Airlines is launching an exclusive offer of fares from Kuala Lumpur to worldwide destinations.

The offer is available till March 9, with special Economy class fares from RM2,090 and exclusive Business class fares from RM6,790.

IDLIB (Syria), Jan 31 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Russian air strikes near a bakery and a medical clinic in Syria’s rebel-held Idlib region killed 10 civilians on Thursday as government forces kept up a ground offensive.

The government and its allies have upped their deadly bombardment of the last major rebel bastion, slowly chipping away at it from the south.

ADEN, Yemen, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Yemen's President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi on Thursday met with commanders of the joint forces of the Saudi-led Arab coalition, the state-run Saba News Agency reported.

President Hadi visited the command center of the joint military forces operating in Yemen at the Defense Ministry of Saudi Arabia in Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia.

Hadi, accompanied by Yemen's Vice President Ali Mohsen Saleh, held a meeting with Prince Fahad bin Turki bin Abdul Aziz, commander of the joint forces of the Saudi-led Arab coalition.

30 Jan 2020; MEMO: Data issued by the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB) revealed that the number of companies established in Turkey during the previous year with joint Turkish and foreign capital has reached 12,634.

The capital of these companies came mainly from Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia.

30 Jan 2020; MEMO: Secretary of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO)’s Executive Committee, Saeb Erekat, announced yesterday that US President Donald Trump’s deal was not new and had been proposed to the Palestinians in 2011 by Israel and was rejected.

30 Jan 2020; MEMO: Israeli human rights organisation Gisha described the newly-published US “peace plan” as “a plan for ongoing conflict”, in a press release issued yesterday.

According to Gisha, which has a particular focus on freedom of movement for Palestinians living under occupation, the Trump administration’s plan “aims to make permanent a reality of fragmentation, isolation and division in the occupied Palestinian territory”.

30 Jan 2020; MEMO: The Saudi Kingdom announced on Wednesday its support for the US president, Donald Trump’s “deal of the century”, as announced in the White House and endorsed by Israel.

30 Jan 2020; MEMO: Israeli occupation forces in Jerusalem have shut off access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and the Old Jerusalem area this afternoon, further increasing tensions in the city amid the proposed ‘peace plan’ offered to the Palestinians by the US and Israel.

KHOMEIN, Iran (Reuters) - Business is booming at Iran’s largest flag factory which makes U.S., British and Israeli flags for Iranian protesters to burn.

At the factory in the town of Khomein, southwest of the capital Tehran, young men and women print the flags by hand then hang them up to dry. The factory produces about 2,000 U.S. and Israeli flags a month in its busiest periods, and more than 1.5 million square feet of flags a year.