Middle East & North Africa

Tabriz, IRNA – Bolivia’s Ambassador to Tehran Romina Pérez said on Sunday that La Paz is willing to launch an Iranian tractor assembly line in the country.

Perez made the remarks during her visit to Iran Tractor Manufacturing Industrial Group in Tabriz, northwestern Iran.

Referring to 700 Iranian tractors being used in Bolivia’s agricultural farms, the ambassador said that a huge part of her country’s agriculture is dependent on those tractors.

She, then, appreciated Iran Tractor Manufacturing Industrial Group for its technology and achievements.

8 October 2022; MEMO: Two Palestinians were killed in an Israeli military raid in the West Bank city of Jenin on Saturday, according to the Health Ministry, Anadolu reports.

A ministry statement said 11 other Palestinians were injured in the raid in the Jenin refugee camp, including three seriously.

According to local residents, clashes erupted in the camp when Israeli forces pushed deep into the area.

8 October 2022; MEMO: Tunisia's Ennahda movement has renewed calls for rallying efforts to confront what it termed "coup" in the North African country, Anadolu reports.

"The existing authority headed by [President] Kais Saied is responsible for spoiling political life and turning the economic crisis into a catastrophe that threatens the people's livelihood," the movement said in a statement.

8 October 2022; MEMO: Saudi Arabia has reopened a number of Turkish schools closed by the kingdom last year, according to a Turkish diplomat, Anadolu reports.

"A number of schools run by the Turkish Education Ministry began to operate since Sept. 2," Huseyin Eren Yildiz from the Turkish Consulate in Jeddah city told Anadolu Agency.

He said Turkish primary schools in the cities of Jeddah, Dammam and Tabuk have been reopened.

9 October 2022; MEMO: Palestinian groups will hold talks in Algeria on Tuesday to end their rift, the Palestinian ambassador said on Saturday, Anadolu reports.

Fayez Abu Aita said the two-day talks will be attended by representatives of 12 Palestinian groups, including rival Hamas and Fatah movements.

"The talks were the fruit of Algerian efforts to reach a common vision for boosting the Palestinian national action," he told the official Palestine Voice Radio.

8 October 2022; MEMO: Fifteen irregular migrants were shot dead by traffickers in Sabratha city in western Libya, according to a local NGO on Saturday, Anadolu reports.

Ahmed Hamza, head of the Libyan National Commission for Human Rights, said the migrants were killed in a dispute between traffickers before their boat were set ablaze.

He said the slain migrants were from different nationalities.

There was no comment yet from Libyan authorities.

BAGHDAD, Oct 8 (NNN-NINA) – A security officer, in Iraq’s Kurdistan region, was killed yesterday, by the explosion of two bombs attached to his car, the Kurdish Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) said in a statement.

The statement named the assassinated officer as Colonel Hawkar Abdullah, a Kurdish security officer, adding that, the attack took place in Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.

JERUSALEM, Oct 8 (NNN-PNA) – Israeli Defence Minister, Benny Gantz, instructed the regime’s army, to prepare for any possible escalation with Lebanon, hours after Israel rejected Lebanon’s amendments to the U.S.-brokered proposal for demarcating a maritime border.

“In light of the developments in the maritime border negotiations with Lebanon, Gantz instructed the defence ministry, to prepare for any scenario, in which tensions increase in the northern arena, including defensive and offensive readiness,” his office said in a statement.

DAMASCUS, Oct 8 (NNN-SANA) – The U.S. forces, yesterday, sent 50 tankers of stolen oil from Syria’s north-eastern province of Hasakah, towards U.S. bases in neighbouring Iraq.

The oil tankers were sent to Iraq in batches, through the illegal al-Mahmoudiyeh crossing.

The state news agency said, the U.S. forces have intensified its theft of Syrian oil over the past few weeks, with the help of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

DUBAI, Oct 8 (Reuters) - Female students in Tehran chanted "get lost" as Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi visited their university campus on Saturday and condemned protesters enraged by the death of a young woman in custody, activists said.

Raisi addressed professors and students at Alzahra University in Tehran, reciting a poem that equated "rioters" with flies, as nationwide demonstrations entered a fourth week.