Middle East & North Africa

BEIRUT, June 20 (Reuters) - The leader of Lebanon’s biggest Christian political party said on Sunday he still wanted Prime Minister-designate Saad al-Hariri to form a new government, and blamed political opponents for months of political paralysis.

Lebanon's politicians have argued over the structure of a new government since the last one quit in the aftermath of the devastating August 2020 Beirut port explosion, leaving the country adrift as it sinks deeper into economic crisis.

20 June 2021; MEMO: Forces loyal to Libya's eastern-based commander Khalifa Haftar have closed the border with Algeria, they said on Sunday, after major deployments of his forces to the south underscored his continued role despite efforts to unify the country, reports Reuters.

Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA) last week sent troops into the southern city of Sebha, which was already allied to eastern forces, and then on Saturday to a southern border crossing with Algeria.

ISMAILIA, Egypt June 20 (Reuters) - The owners of a giant container ship that blocked the Suez Canal in March have made a new offer in a compensation dispute with the canal authority, a lawyer for the authority said on Sunday, as a court ruling on the case was postponed for two weeks.

The Ever Given container ship has been anchored in a lake between two stretches of the canal since it was dislodged on March 29. It had been grounded across the canal for six days, blocking hundreds of ships and disrupting global trade.

JERUSALEM, June 20 (Reuters) - Israel's new government approved on Sunday an official inquiry into a stampede in April in which killed 45 people at a Jewish pilgrimage site long deemed dangerously crowded by authorities.

Though it was the country's worst civilian disaster, a full-scale investigation into the Mount Meron deaths and dozens of injuries had lagged under the previous government amid feuding between its ultra-Orthodox Jewish and opposition politicians.

20 June 2021; MEMO: Turkish Cypriots are in favor of "the new policy", a two-state solution, on Cyprus as decades of negotiations for a federation failed to resolve the Cyprus issue, said the president of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), reports Anadolu Agency.

ADDIS ABABA, June 20 (Xinhua) -- The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Africa reached 5,185,617 as of Sunday noon, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said.

The Africa CDC, the specialized healthcare agency of the African Union, said the death toll from the pandemic stood at 137,253 while 4,607,454 patients across the continent had recovered from the disease.

South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, Ethiopia and Egypt are among the countries with the most cases in the continent, according to the Africa CDC.

14 June 2021; MEMO: New details have emerged about the alleged plot to overthrow Jordan's King Abdullah, indicating that former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu played a starring role along with senior officials within the Trump administration, prominent Jordanians, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.

TRIPOLI, June 20 (Xinhua) -- Libyan experts have hold a three-day discussion to review a draft law on combating violence against women, said the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL).

A group of lawyers, judges, activists and human rights defenders met in Tunis from Wednesday to Friday "to review the draft law on Combating Violence Against Women," the UN agency said in a statement.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Sunday opened his first Cabinet meeting since swearing in his new coalition government last week with a condemnation of the new Iranian president. He said Iran’s presidential election was a sign for world powers to “wake up” before returning to a nuclear agreement with Tehran.

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — Jordan’s version of a trial of the century gets under way this week when a relative of King Abdullah II and a former chief of the royal court are ushered into the defendants’ cage at the state security court to face charges of sedition and incitement.

They are accused of conspiring with a senior royal — Prince Hamzah, a half-brother of the king — to foment unrest against the monarch while soliciting foreign help.