Middle East & North Africa

GAZA, May 26 (NNN-MENA) – Egypt invited leaders of Hamas, to hold talks in Cairo, on stabilising a ceasefire with Israel in the Gaza Strip, officials said yesterday.

Spokesman of Hamas in Gaza, Hazem Qassem, said, the movement’s politburo chief, Ismail Haniyeh, received the invitation, adding that, the talks will also focus on the process of reconstructing the Gaza Strip, following 11 days of Israeli airstrikes, which caused massive damages to the Palestinian enclave.

DAMASCUS, May 26 (NNN-SANA) – Syria’s Interior Minister, Mohammad al-Rahmoun, announced yesterday that, over 12,000 polling stations have been set up across the country, for today’s presidential elections.

The minister said, all logistic preparations have been finalised to ensure smooth elections, noting that, it is estimated that over 18 million citizens across the country are eligible to vote.

(Reuters) --- Iraqi security forces on Wednesday arrested senior militia commander Qasim Muslih under the country's anti-terrorism law, three security sources said.

Muslih was arrested in Baghdad for involvement in several attacks including recent assaults on Ain al-Asad air base, which hosts U.S. and other international forces, two of the security sources with direct knowledge of the arrest told Reuters.

(Reuters) --- Syria's President Bashar al-Assad cast his vote on Wednesday in an election expected to win him a fourth term, choosing the former rebel stronghold of Douma where a suspected chemical weapons attack in 2018 prompted Western air strikes.

The government says the election shows Syria is functioning normally despite a decade-old conflict. The fighting has killed hundreds of thousands of people and driven 11 million people - about half the country's population - from their homes.

SANAA, May 26 (Xinhua) -- The Saudi-led Arab coalition waged a series of airstrikes on reinforcements of the Houthi rebels in Yemen's central province of Marib on Wednesday morning, a Yemeni government military source told Xinhua.

"The strikes hit several pick-up vehicles carrying fighters from the western district of Sirwah to the frontlines of al-Mashjah and al-Kassarah," the source in Marib said on condition of anonymity.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday said a series of severe allegations made against members of his entourage by a fugitive mafia boss were a plot against Turkey, and vowed to fight criminal gangs.

In a stream of videos posted on social media in recent weeks, convicted mob leader Sedat Peker has made stunning claims against ruling party figures that include alleged corruption, drug trafficking and a murder cover-up — maintaining there were close ties between senior officials and the underworld.

CAIRO (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Egypt on Wednesday on the next leg of a diplomatic mission aimed at shoring up a cease-fire that ended an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas.

Blinken was scheduled to hold talks with Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, Foreign Minister Sameh Shukry and the country’s chief spy Abbas Kamel.

Blinken wrapped up extensive talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, and is scheduled to travel to Amman, Jordan late Wednesday to meet with the Jordanian king and other officials.

BEIRUT (AP) — Auto magnate-turned-fugitive Carlos Ghosn is campaigning to clear his name, and hopes a visit by French investigators to his home in exile in Lebanon will be his first real opportunity to defend himself since the bombshell arrest that transformed him from a visionary to a prisoner overnight.

ADDIS ABABA, May 25 (NNN-ENA) – The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Africa has reached 4,759,772 as of yesterday noon, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), said.

The Africa CDC, the specialised healthcare agency of the African Union, said, the death toll from the pandemic stood at 128,463, while 4,303,326 patients across the continent, had recovered from the disease.

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

GAZA, May 25 (NNN-WAFA) – The death toll from the Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip that ended on Friday, reached 253, medics said yesterday.

In an update on the death toll, the health ministry in Gaza said that, 253 Palestinians were killed, including 66 children, 39 women and 17 elderly people, and 1948 were injured, including 20 in critical conditions.

Yesterday, the ministry said that, two young men succumbed to their critical wounds, as a result of the Israeli airstrikes, adding that, the bodies of four Palestinians were retrieved from under building rubbles.