Middle East & North Africa

(Reuters) --- Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiei said on Tuesday he was optimistic over Tehran reaching an agreement soon at talks with world powers to revive a 2015 nuclear deal, although Iran's top negotiator cautioned that serious issues remained.

Iran and global powers have held several rounds of negotiations since April in Vienna, working on steps that Tehran and Washington must take on sanctions and nuclear activities to return to full compliance with the nuclear pact.

25 May 2021; MEMO: Jordan's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said yesterday that cessation of Israeli violations and finding the required political means to support Palestinians and meet their legitimate rights is important to achieving peace, news agencies reported.

25 May 2021; MEMO: Libya announced that Egyptian, Turkish, Italian, German and Tunisian companies have the biggest chance of taking part in the reconstruction of the country.

In statements the Minister of State for Economic Affairs, Salama Al-Ghwail, said: "The Egyptian, Turkish, Italian, German and Tunisian companies will have the best chances to participate in the reconstruction projects in Libya."

25 May 2021; MEMO: Egyptian Higher Council of Universities yesterday said it would exempt Palestinian students from the occupied Gaza Strip coming to study in country's public universities from tuition fees.

25 May 2021; MEMO: A former prime minister of Israel believes that there are two winners of the latest conflict in which Hamas has instilled fear and insecurity in the hearts of many Israelis. Ehud Olmert has said that it is time to move forward and prevent the next round of rocket attacks that could also reach northern Israel.

Jerusalem, May 25 (AP-PTI) US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in Israel at the start of a Middle East tour aimed at shoring up the Gaza cease-fire.

He will face the same obstacles that have stifled a wider peace process for more than a decade, including a hawkish Israeli leadership, Palestinian divisions and deeply rooted tensions surrounding Jerusalem and its holy sites.

(Reuters) --- At the entrance to Bab Tadmor, a neighbourhood of Homs that was once a rebel stronghold, an election billboard showing a smiling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad hangs down the side of a bombed out building.

Homs, 160 kilometres (100 miles) north of Damascus, suffered severe damage during Syria's ten years of war. The city centre and several neighbourhoods were almost entirely destroyed after years of air strikes and barrel bombs, and still lie in ruin and deserted.

"We say yes to Bashar", the poster reads.

(Reuters) --- A U.N. tribunal set up to prosecute those behind the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has run out of funding amid Lebanon's economic and political crisis, threatening plans for future trials, people involved in the process said.

Closing the tribunal would dash the hopes of families of victims in the Hariri murder and other attacks, but also those demanding that a U.N. tribunal bring to justice those responsible for the Beirut port blast last August that killed 200 and injured 6,500.

CAIRO, May 25 (Xinhua) -- Egypt offered to cut its compensation claim down to 550 million U.S. dollars against the impounded Ever Given vessel that blocked the Suez Canal in March, the canal authority chief Osama Rabie said on Tuesday.

"We reduced the value of the required compensation by 40 percent from 916 million U.S. dollars to 550 million U.S. dollars after we obtained the estimated financial value of the goods on the ship," Rabie said in a statement.

In April, an Egyptian court ordered the owners of Ever Given to pay 916 million U.S. dollars in compensation.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Dozens of protesters angry over firings and the poor economy of Oman marched through a major city Tuesday, marking a third day of demonstrations in the typically subdued sultanate.

The protests took place in Sohar, a city some 200 kilometers (125 miles) northwest of the capital, Muscat, which has become a flashpoint for the demonstrations.