Middle East & North Africa

JERUSALEM, April 11 (Xinhua) -- Official results of Israel's elections were published on Thursday night, showing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's party has beaten the main rival, the Blue and White party.

The results were released by the Central Election Committee after two days of counting ballots and delays caused by computer malfunctions, according to the committee chairman, Judge Hanan Melcer.

Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party won 36 seats while the centrist Blue and White, led by an ex-army chief, gained 35 seats, the results showed.

YEHUD, Israel (AP) — An Israeli spacecraft crashed into the moon Thursday just moments before touchdown, failing in an ambitious attempt to make history as the first privately funded lunar landing.

The spacecraft lost communication with ground control during its final descent. Moments later, the mission was declared a failure.

“We definitely crashed on the surface of the moon,” said Opher Doron of Israel Aerospace Industries.

ANKARA; 11 Apr 2019; AA: Turkey's Supreme Election Council (YSK) on Wednesday announced do-over elections in Yusufeli district of northeastern Artvin province on June 2.

In the local elections held on March 31, ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party candidate Eyup Aytekin won the race by three votes, followed by main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) candidate Baris Demirci, according to unofficial results.

MOSCOW, April 11. /TASS/. Between 10 and 20 people, many of them children, die each day in Syria’s Al-Hawl refugee camp on the US-controlled territory, the head of the Russian reconciliation center in Syria, Maj. Gen. Viktor Kupchishin, said on Wednesday.

MOSCOW, April 11. /TASS/. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and his colleagues have been placed under house arrest, former Sudanese Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi told the Al-Hadath TV channel on Thursday.

"Al-Bashir and other top officials are under house arrest," the TV channel quotes him as saying.

CAIRO, April 11. /TASS/. The Sudanese Military Transitional Council headed by First Vice President and Defense Minister Awad Mohamed Ahmed Ibn Auf is making arrangements to assume the power in the country for a year, the local Baj News website says. According to the officially unconfirmed reports, a group of military officials has staged a coup d’etat in the country, completely ousting President Omar al-Bashir from power.

CAIRO, April 11. /TASS/. Sudanese Prime Minister Mohamed Tahir Ayala, who assumed the post less than two months ago, has been arrested in Khartoum, the Al-Mashhad Al-Sudany news website reported on Thursday.

TASS, April 11. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has stepped down, and consultations are now being held to set up a transitional council, the Reuters news agency reported on Thursday, citing government sources.

According to the news agency, Minister of Production and Economic Resources in the North Darfur State Adel Mahjoub Hussein told the Dubai-based Al-Hadath TV channel that "there are consultations to form a military council to take over power after President Bashir stepped down."

11 Apr 2019; AFP: A Sudanese woman propelled to internet fame earlier this week after leading powerful protest chants in the capital told AFP Wednesday that women are key to the uprising against President Omar al-Bashir's iron-fisted rule.

"Sudanese women have always participated in revolutions in this country," Alaa Salah said after footage went viral of her standing on a car, singing and conducting crowds outside the army headquarters in Khartoum.

BAGHDAD, April 10 (Xinhua) -- The Iraqi Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Antiquities received Wednesday 300 artifacts excavated by an American-Iraqi joint team from the ancient city of Ur in southern Iraq.

A statement by the ministry said the minister Abdul Amir al-Hamdani expressed his pleasure to receive the artifacts excavated from Ur and described them as important.