Middle East & North Africa

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey plans to host Afghanistan peace talks in Istanbul in April, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Friday, and Ankara will appoint an Afghanistan special envoy.

Cavusoglu’s comments come after the United States shared a draft peace plan calling for replacing Afghanistan’s government with a power-sharing interim administration pending elections under a new constitution.

The U.S. proposal is intended to jump-start stalled talks in Doha between the Taliban and a team including Afghan officials on a political settlement to decades of conflict.

ANKARA, March 11 (Xinhua) -- It has been one year since Turkey announced the first confirmed COVID-19 case in the country on March 11, 2020. The pandemic has so far infected more than 2.8 million Turks and killed over 29,000 others.

Going all the way back to last March, the first reaction of the government to the outbreak of the pandemic was to ban international flights and close land borders with first Iran and then other neighboring countries.

TRIPOLI, March 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Libya’s long-divided parliament approved an interim government mandated to bring the fractured country together after a decade of chaos and violence, and to oversee elections in December as part of a UN-backed peace plan.

The parliament’s approval of Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibeh’s cabinet by 132 votes to two against, at a session in a war-battered frontline city, represents the biggest opportunity in years for a resolution to Libya’s conflict.

11 Mar 2021; MEMO: Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), announced yesterday that it had agreed to a $15 billion multi-currency revolving credit facility with 17 banks.

In a statement reported by news agencies, the PIF said that this load would give it access to extra capital that can be deployed quickly when needed.

11 Mar 2021; MEMO: Israel's Minister of Intelligence has said that Egypt is doing everything possible to make Sinai safe for Israeli tourists, local media have reported. Eli Cohen made his comments during meetings with Egyptian Deputy Intelligence Minister Nasser Fahmi in the Sinai resort of Sharm El-Sheikh earlier this week.

11 Mar 2021; MEMO: Thirty-nine migrants have died while 160 were rescued after two boats carrying migrants from several African countries sank off the coast of Tunisia.

11 Mar 2021; MEMO: Egypt yesterday said that France would take part in the East Mediterranean Gas Forum (EMGF), adding that the United States will join as an observer.

"The fourth ministerial periodic meeting of the EMGF has seen France become a member and the US join as an observer," Egyptian Petroleum Minister, Tarek El-Molla, told reporters.

11 Mar 2021; MEMO: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani yesterday said that conditions are right for all parties to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal, adding that the United States should take the first step, Al Jazeera reported.

11 Mar 2021; MEMO: Saudi Arabia yesterday allowed foreign diplomats to meet human rights activist Loujain Al-Hathloul before she appeared in the appeals court in the capital Riyadh.

Video clips showed the Saudi activist greeting diplomats before entering the court building.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - President Tayyip Erdogan will attempt on Friday to make good on his pledge of a new economic era for Turkey, with a package of reforms that he says will tackle chronically high inflation, currency depreciation and financial instability.

After 18 years leading a major emerging market prone to booms and busts, Erdogan faces a sceptical audience of local savers, foreign investors and ratings agency analysts who say such market-friendly promises have rung hollow in the past.