Middle East & North Africa

ISTANBUL, Nov. 8 (Xinhua) -- The Turkish Red Crescent Society has recently started to produce tents for around 40,000 refugees as part of a deal signed with the United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Turkish agency said on Thursday.

"The production of a total of 8,000 tents which were ordered by the IOM has been launched recently and continues at full pace," Kerem Kinik, the agency's president, told Xinhua.

The agency plans to complete the production process at the beginning of next year when its contract with the IOM ends.

ISTANBUL; 6 Nov 2018; AA: Turkey has become a country that gives the greatest contribution to European air traffic, the country's Directorate General of Civil Aviation (SHGM) announced on Tuesday.

Eamonn Brennan, director general of the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation (Eurocontrol), sent a letter to SHGM regarding Turkey's contribution to Europe's aviation incomes and decrease in flight delays in the country, the SHGM said.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Members of a team from Saudi Arabia sent to help Turkish authorities investigate the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi worked instead to remove evidence of the slaying, a senior Turkish official said Monday.

The official confirmed a report in Turkey’s Sabah newspaper that an 11-member team of Saudi investigators that arrived in Turkey nine days after Khashoggi was killed to take part in a joint Turkish-Saudi probe included experts on chemistry and toxicology who were reportedly charged with obfuscating the evidence.

Washington, Nov 5 (AFP) The sons of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi have asked Saudi authorities to return the body of their father so the family can properly grieve, they told CNN in an interview aired Sunday.

Khashoggi was killed inside the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul by a team sent from Riyadh on October 2, a murder Turkey's president said was ordered from "the highest levels" of Saudi Arabia's government.

Tehran, Nov 5 (AFP) Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said the Islamic republic "will proudly bypass sanctions" by the United States that took effect on Monday targeting the country's oil and financial sectors.

"I announce that we will proudly bypass your illegal, unjust sanctions because it's against international regulations," Rouhani said in a televised speech.

GAZA, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- The easement of Israeli restrictions on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip aims at preventing the explosion of the situation in the Palestinian enclave, according to Palestinian analysts.

In recent days, the 2 million population in Gaza have witnessed a significant improvement in power supplies after Israel allowed the shipment of the Qatar-funded industrial fuel for the operation of the sole power plant in the territory.

Israel also expanded the fishing area to nine nautical miles and improved the functioning of the border crossing points.

TEHRAN, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismissed on Saturday the U.S. fresh sanctions on Iran as the failed experience, official IRNA news agency reported.

The U.S. has sought "to cripple and hold back Iran's economy" by resorting to sanctions, "but the outcome is that the country moves broadly towards self-sufficiency," Khamenei was quoted as saying.

"In the past, Iranians had become accustomed to importing everything, but now, they are used to producing those things," he said.

AL-RAM, Palestine; 4 Nov 2018; AA: Israeli forces on Sunday raided the Jerusalem governor’s office in the occupied West Bank, according to local residents. 

“An Israeli force stormed the governor’s office in the town of al-Ram, northeast of Jerusalem, and searched it,” a local resident told Anadolu Agency. 

He said Israeli soldiers assaulted a number of employees inside the office. 

4 Nov 2018; DW: Iran has started manufacturing its own locally designed fighter jet for use in its air force, state TV reported. It comes as Donald Trump's administration prepares to impose another set sanctions on Tehran.

Iran launched production of the domestically designed Kowsar fighter plane on Saturday, state television reported, after the United States announced the reimposition of sanctions on Tehran.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — It was a scene unthinkable just weeks ago: an Israeli Cabinet minister, tears of joy filling her eyes, proudly singing her country’s national anthem at a sports event in the heart of the Arab world.

The spectacle of Miri Regev singing “HaTikva,” which describes the Jewish yearning for a homeland in Zion, was just one in a series of taboo-busting public appearances by Israeli officials in Gulf Arab states that have thrust the once-secret back channels of outreach into public view.