Middle East & North Africa

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran named seven candidates Tuesday for its June 18 presidential election, approving the candidacy of the hard-line cleric running the country’s judiciary while barring a former parliament speaker allied to the country’s current president.

The decision by Iran’s Guardian Council puts judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi, who ran against President Hassan Rouhani in 2017, in a dominant position for the upcoming vote. He’s the most-known candidate of the seven hopefuls, with opinion polling previously showing his anti-corruption campaign drew Iranian support.

JERUSALEM (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken vowed Tuesday to “rally international support” to aid Gaza following a devastating war, as he began a regional tour to shore up last week’s cease-fire.

Blinken, who spoke after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said the U.S. would work to address the “grave humanitarian situation” in the coastal territory but would also ensure that Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers do not benefit from reconstruction assistance.

DUBAI, May 24 (NNN-WAM) – The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and China, yesterday announced the official launch of a regional vaccination site in Dubai, for Chinese nationals.

The site was jointly launched by the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the Chinese embassy in the UAE.

This follows an agreement reached in Mar, between Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation, and visiting Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Minister, Wang Yi.

24 May 2021; MEMO: The Kuwait Red Crescent Society yesterday announced that its first relief plane has taken off from the Abdullah Al-Mubarak Air Base to Egypt's Cairo International Airport to deliver medical supplies to the Palestinian people in the occupied Gaza Strip.

24 May 2021; MEMO: Israeli Settlement Minister Tzachi Hanegbi has said that Israel will carry out preemptive strikes on Hamas, the Times of Israel reported.

Hanegbi, who is a senior aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told Channel 13 that Israel will stop waiting for Hamas to restock its rocket arsenal.

24 May 2021; MEMO: An Israeli security source revealed yesterday that occupation forces have left the Karm Abu Salem and Beit Hanoun (Erez) crossings closed as part of a new policy on dealing with the Gaza Strip, news agencies reported.

The Israeli security source reported that the two crossings would remain closed until further notice, pointing out that occupation authorities have been blocking the entry of any food or other commercial goods to Gaza.

24 May 2021; MEMO: Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani arrived in Khartoum late yesterday for talks with Sudanese officials on ways of enhancing bilateral relations.

During his two-day visit, the top Qatari diplomat will meet with the head of Sudan's Sovereignty Council, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, and other senior officials, according to the official news agency SUNA.

24 May 2021; MEMO: Israeli warplanes destroyed the Gaza Strip during their latest aggression on the besieged enclave, but they failed to stop Hamas' rockets, Anadolu news agency reported Israeli army Ombudsman, Major- General Yitzhak Brick, saying yesterday.

In an interview with the Israeli Army Radio, Brick said: "The theory that wars can be won only by warplanes has completely collapsed."

(Reuters) --- A Palestinian stabbed and wounded two Israelis, one of them a soldier, on Monday near a flashpoint area of East Jerusalem that has been the focus of Palestinian protests, medics said, and police said officers shot the assailant.

The Palestinian health ministry said it was "looking into the condition of a citizen who was shot in Jerusalem". Video on social media appeared to show the knifeman lying motionless and covered with a sheet on the ground at a street intersection.

24 May 2021; MEMO: Iraqi President Barham Salih revealed yesterday that nearly $150 billion has been smuggled out of the country since 2003, adding that he had prepared a bill to recover the smuggled funds, Anadolu reported.

"Government and international statistics and data estimate that Iraq's financial revenues from oil since 2003 are close to $1 trillion," Salih said in a televised speech on combating financial and administrative corruption.