Middle East & North Africa

DHAKA, Mar 19 (NNN-BSS) – At least 17 people were killed and more than 26 others injured, when a passenger bus veered off the road and fell into a ditch, in Bangladesh’s central Madaripur district, some 63 km south of the capital, Dhaka, today.

Abdullahel Baki, a local Shibchar Highway Police official, told reporters that, “the passenger bus fell into a roadside ditch, leaving 14 passengers dead on the spot and about 25-26 were injured.”

He said, three of the injured died on the way to local hospitals.

TEHRAN, Mar 19 (NNN-IRNA) – Iran yesterday launched two 800-tonne landing craft vessels, in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas.

The two vessels are identical, with a length of 53 metres, a width of 14.5 metres and a draft of 2.25 metres, Esmaeil Makkizadeh, the deputy for maritime affairs of the southern Iranian Hormuzgan Province Port and Maritime Authority, was quoted as saying.

He added, each vessel has two 830-horsepower engines and is capable of navigating at a speed of 10 knots.

CAIRO, Mar 19 (NNN-MENA) – Egyptian and Turkish leaders have the political will to normalise ties, after years of strained relations, Egyptian Foreign Minister, Sameh Shoukry, said yesterday.

Shoukry made the remarks, during a joint press conference with his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, who arrived in Cairo earlier in the day, and is the highest-ranking Turkish official visiting Egypt in over a decade.

Shoukry said, he discussed with Cavusoglu the steps to restore ties, and the return of each other’s ambassadors will take place at an appropriate time.

BAGHDAD, March 19 (Reuters) - Iraq and Iran signed a border security agreement on Sunday, a move Iraqi officials said aimed primarily at tightening the frontier with Iraq's Kurdish region, where Tehran says armed Kurdish dissidents pose a threat to its security.

The joint security agreement includes coordination in "protecting the common borders between the two countries and consolidating cooperation in several security fields", a statement from the Iraqi prime minister's office said.

JERUSALEM, March 19 (Reuters) - A group of Israelis describing themselves as reservists in elite military and intelligence units said they would not turn up for some duties from Sunday, escalating protests at the hard-right government's planned judicial overhaul.

Members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition, which wields a Knesset majority, say they want bills that would limit the authority of the Supreme Court to be written into law by April 2.

DUBAI, March 19 (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al Assad arrived in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Sunday for an official visit, accompanied by his wife Asma al Assad, at a time when more Arab states have signalled openness to easing the isolation of Damascus.

The visit was marked with more ceremony than his previous trip to the UAE last year, which had been his first to an Arab state since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, when Gulf states including the UAE backed rebels fighting to overthrow Assad.

DUBAI, March 19 (Reuters) - The Iranian government has proposed to Saudi Arabia three locations for a meeting at foreign minister level, Iran's foreign minister said on Sunday, citing the latest messages with Riyadh since the countries agreed to re-establish ties.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian told a news conference in Tehran his country had agreed to such a meeting, although he did not list the three locations or say when such a meeting might take place.

CAIRO, March 19 (Xinhua) -- Egypt hosts on Sunday a quintet meeting in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to calm a surge of violence in the West Bank ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

High-level security and political officials from Egypt, Palestine, Israel, Jordan and the United States took part in the meeting, said the Egyptian Foreign Ministry in a statement.

The meeting aimed to support dialogue between the Israeli and Palestinian sides to "stop unilateral actions and escalation and break the existing cycle of violence," it added.

KUWAIT, March 19 (Xinhua) -- Kuwait's Constitutional Court on Sunday annulled the 2022 National Assembly and brought back the 2020 parliament, Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) reported.

The ruling, which took immediate effect, saw members of the previous parliament, including Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanem, resumed office.

The decision came after the constitutional court ruled that the election process in September 2021 in all the five electoral districts was null and void.

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the military’s chief of staff on Sunday to contain a wave of protest from within the ranks over a contentious government plan to overhaul the judiciary.