Middle East & North Africa

05 Aug 2021; MEMO: The 35-year-old coal-fired Kemerkoy Power Station in south-west Turkey's Mugla region and a nearby town on the Aegean Sea were evacuated late yesterday as deadly wildfires reached the plant.

Babies, children and people over the age of 65 were removed from the area, local media reported.They have been taken to shelters.

In a statement the Kemerkoy Electric Distribution Company said the power plant is not at risk of explosions.

05 Aug 2021; MEMO: Israeli defense minister said Tel Aviv is "ready to attack Iran", adding Iran represented "a global challenge", reported Anadolu Agency.

Benny Gantz's comments came in an exclusive interview with the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth published on Thursday.

"Iran seeks to pose a multi-front challenge to Israel by building up its power in Lebanon and Gaza, deploying militias in Syria and Iraq, and establishing supporters in Yemen," Gantz said.

WAD EL HILU, Sudan (AP) — From time to time, a body floating down the river separating Ethiopia’s troubled Tigray region from Sudan was a silent reminder of a war conducted in the shadows. But in recent days, the corpses became a flow.

Bloated, drained of color from their journey, the bodies were often mutilated: genitals severed, eyes gouged, a missing limb. The Sudanese fishermen who spotted them, and the refugees from Tigray who helped pull them to shore, found many corpses’ hands bound. Some of them had been shot.

BEIRUT (AP) — The militant Hezbollah group said it fired a barrage of rockets near Israeli positions close to the Lebanese border on Friday, calling it retaliation for Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon a day earlier.

Israel said it was firing back after at least 10 rockets were launched from Lebanon, and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett swiftly convened a meeting with the country’s top defense officials.

ISMAILIA, Egypt, Aug 5 (NNN-MENA) – Egypt’s Suez Canal Authority (SCA), held a ceremony yesterday, to celebrate the recent arrival of a cutter suction dredger (CSD) named, Hussein Tantawy.

The ceremony was attended by SCA Chairman, Osama Rabie, and Egyptian Prime Minister, Mostafa Madbouly, who hoisted the national flag on the new dredger.

“The dredger is the largest and most advanced in the Middle East and Africa,” said Rabie during the ceremony, describing the new dredger as “an unprecedented addition to the SCA fleet.”

CAIRO, Aug 5 (NNN-MENA) – An Egyptian-South Sudanese joint ministerial committee, discussed in Cairo, cooperation between the two countries, in several sectors, said Egypt’s international cooperation minister, who chaired the meeting.

The Egyptian-South Sudanese Joint Higher Committee meetings, addressed prospect cooperation between Cairo and Juba, in the fields of agriculture, water, irrigation, trade and education, Egyptian International Cooperation Minister, Rania al-Mashat said, in a statement posted on her Twitter page.

ADDIS ABABA, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Forces from Ethiopia's Tigray region have taken control of the town of Lalibela, whose famed rock-hewn churches are a United Nations World Heritage Site, and residents were fleeing, two eyewitnesses told Reuters on Thursday.

Lalibela, also a holy site for millions of Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, is in the North Wollo Zone of the Amhara region in Ethiopia's north. In recent weeks fighting has spread from Tigray into two neighbouring regions, Amhara and Afar, forcing around 250,000 people to flee.

05 Aug 2021; MEMO: Israeli forces yesterday carried out three large-scale demolitions in different areas of the occupied West Bank.

The head of the Palestinian Committee Against the Wall and Settlements in Bethlehem, Hassan Breija, said an Israeli army bulldozer demolished five agricultural structures in the Shaab Sultan area in the town of Wadi Rahal, south of the governorate.

05 Aug 2021; MEMO: The administration of US President Joe Biden has extended the exemption period granted to Iraq from sanctions related to dealing with Iran for a period of four months, an Iraqi official said yesterday.

AFP quoted an unnamed Iraqi official as saying that under the new exception, Iraq will be able to continue importing electricity and gas from Iran for an additional four months, ending in early December.

05 Aug 2021; MEMO: Egypt's State Security Prosecution has accused former presidential candidate Abdul Moneim Aboul Fotouh of ties to a terror group and spreading fake news, lawyer Khaled Ali revealed yesterday.

Taking to Facebook, Ali wrote that the hearing held for Aboul Fotouh, the head of the Strong Egypt Party, lasted five hours.

Aboul Fotouh was arrested in February 2018 upon his return to Cairo from London. The lawyer was investigated on the case 440/2018, which links him to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.