Middle East & North Africa

14 Sep 2021; MEMO: Turkey began normalisation talks with Egypt, Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) spokesperson Omer Celik said in a press conference yesterday, the Anadolu Agency reports.

Celik stressed that there are important issues the two countries need to discuss and find solutions for, including developments in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, and the Eastern Mediterranean.

14 Sep 2021; MEMO: Turkey yesterday sent military reinforcements into the Idlib governorate, northwest of Syria after two of its soldiers were killed and three others were injured in the area.

14 Sep 2021; MEMO: Russian security forces have completed the search for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers missing since 1982 in a cemetery near the Palestinian Yarmouk refugee camp outside the Syrian capital Damascus.

14 Sep 2021; MEMO: The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said on Monday that it has received 50,000 expired Covid-19 vaccine doses sent by the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. It blamed Israel for the fact that the vaccine's effectiveness had expired.

14 Sep 2021; MEMO: The former Deputy Director of the Israeli Communications Ministry Haim Garon died yesterday after the light aircraft he was in crashed into the sea close to the Greek island of Samos, authorities have said.

Haim was killed along with his wife, Esti. He was due to appear as a prosecution witness in the trial of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in what has become known as Case 4000.

TEHRAN, Sept. 14 (Xinhua) -- The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Iran reached an agreement on Sunday, in possibly an instrumental step for the continuation of nuclear talks.

The Iran-IAEA agreement, described by both the Islamic republic and the United Nations nuclear watchdog as "constructive," has raised hopes ahead of the agency's ongoing Board of Governors meeting with a focus on Iran's cooperation, experts said.

QLEIAT, Lebanon (AP) — Saydi Mubarak and her mother share a bond that goes beyond a close mother-daughter relationship: They were both diagnosed with breast cancer a year ago and underwent months of chemotherapy at a Beirut hospital, together facing the anxiety, the hair loss and the uncertainty for the future.

Now they share the fear of not being able to get the medication they need to complete their treatment because in Lebanon, where a devastating economic crisis has upended daily life, there are almost no drugs to be found.

CAIRO, September 13. /TASS/: Russian and Turkish officials have notified the Taliban radical movement (outlawed in Russia) of their plans to deliver humanitarian aid to Kabul airport in the near future, newly-appointed head of the airport's administration Abdul Hadi Hamdani said on Monday.

ANKARA, Sept 13 (NNN-ANADOLU) – One Turkish soldier was killed and another wounded, in an attack by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in northern Iraq, Turkey’s defence ministry said yesterday.

The PKK attacked a Turkish military vehicle, outside Turkey’s base in the “Operation Pence-Simsek” zone, the ministry said in a statement.

The attack came, one day after three Turkish soldiers were killed and two others injured, in an attack in Idlib, north-western Syria.

Turkey regularly conducts cross-border operations on PKK bases in northern Iraq.

JERUSALEM, Sept 13 (NNN-PNN) – Israel’s Ministry of Health, yesterday reported 10,084 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the tally of infections in the regime to 1,169,217.

The ministry also reported one new death from the virus, taking the death toll to 7,338, while the number of patients in serious condition increased from 696 to 697, the ministry said.

The total recoveries from the virus climbed to 1,077,949, after 1,167 newly recovered cases were recorded, while active cases increased to 83,930, it added.