Middle East & North Africa

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s prime minister said Tuesday that the country has reached a “historic agreement” with neighboring Lebanon over their shared maritime border after months of U.S.-brokered negotiations.

It’s a rare agreement between two countries that are bitter enemies. But the deal still faces some obstacles, including some expected legal challenges in Israel. There was no immediate confirmation by Lebanon that a deal had been reached.

11 October 2022; MEMO: Turkiye's unemployment rate fell to 9.6 per cent in August, according to data released by TurkStat, Anadolu News Agency reports.

According to the report, Turkiye's unemployment rate dropped the lowest since March 2014.

The number of unemployed people aged 15 and over dropped by 100,000 month-on-month to 3.3 million as of August, report says.

In 2022, inflation in Turkiye has climbed above 83 per cent – a 24-year-high.

11 October 2022; MEMO: The annual consumer price inflation rate in Egyptian cities reached 15 per cent in September, its highest level in nearly four years, the state-run Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) reported yesterday.

This is the highest annual rate of consumer price inflation in Egypt's cities since November 2018, when it recorded a rise to 15.7 per cent.

11 October 2022; MEMO: The Turkish Ambassador to Iraq yesterday met with the President of Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government, Nechirvan Barzani, and discussed Ankara's relations with the Kurdistan region as well as the political situation in Iraq.

Ambassador Ali Riza Guney wrote in a tweet on Twitter that he discussed domestic and foreign political issues with Barzani.

11 October 2022; MEMO: The Council of the Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem has expressed "grave concern" over Britain's intention to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to occupied Jerusalem, warning that the move would "severely undermine the key principle" of corpus separatum, which relates to Jerusalem's special status as a city holy to Christians, Jews and Muslims alike.

11 October 2022; MEMO: Lebanon and Israel have received a final draft of a US-mediated maritime border deal that satisfies all of their requirements and could imminently lead to a "historic deal", negotiators from the two countries said today, according to Reuters.

11 October 2022; MEMO: The Syrian lira hit a record low on Sunday after the price of one US dollar increased by 50 lira costing over 5,000 lira, Arabi21 reported.

11 October 2022; MEMO: Palestinian Authority (PA)'s Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh yesterday described the Israeli aggression in the occupied Palestinian territories as organised state terrorism and called for settlers to be added to terror lists.

"What is happening on the ground is organised state terrorism, which the Israeli occupation government is solely responsible for," Shtayyeh said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting in Ramallah.

AMMAN, Oct 10 (NNN-PETRA) – Jordan, yesterday, expressed regret that the truce in Yemen was not renewed, according to a Foreign Ministry statement.

The truce, which originally came into effect in Apr, 2022, and expired on Oct 2, has helped in alleviating Yemenis’ suffering, notably by providing humanitarian assistance, the statement quoted ministry spokesperson, Haitham Abu Al Foul, as saying.

The spokesperson also reiterated Jordan’s support for efforts to end the Yemeni crisis, through a political solution, based on all agreed-upon initiatives.

ANKARA, Oct 10 (NNN-XINHUA) – Turkish National Intelligence Organisation (MIT), yesterday, killed a senior member of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and his bodyguard, in northern Iraq, the semi-official Anadolu Agency reported.

Okkes Deveri, codenamed Kendal Pirsus, was responsible for the health committee of the PKK, the news agency reported, quoting anonymous Turkish security officials.

Deveri and his bodyguard, Kayhan Kartal, were killed in a cross-border operation in Gara.