Middle East & North Africa

JERUSALEM, Nov. 26 (Xinhua) -- A senior security official of Israel's leading airline El Al was arrested along with three others over suspected involvement in cocaine smuggling, the Israeli police said Monday.

The main suspect, Rami Yogev, serves in a classified and sensitive security position in El Al, with responsibilities including coordination between Israel's Shin Bet security agency and the company's overseas missions. He has been working at El Al for 25 years.

ISTANBUL, Nov. 26 (Xinhua) -- Turkish police on Monday launched a comprehensive search into two adjoining villas in the northwestern province of Yalova over the killing of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi, local media reported.

Crime scene units started their search inside a two-storey building in the Samanli village early in the morning, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency.

The units later expanded their drone-backed exploration into an adjacent villa, conducting a detailed examination of a well in the garden, Anadolu said.

DAMASCUS, Nov. 26 (Xinhua) -- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday ordered a government reshuffle by changing nine ministers, state news agency SANA reported.

The nine ministers of water resources, internal trade, the interior ministry, tourism, education, high education, public works and housing, communication and industry were replaced in the cabinet reshuffle.

The most significant change is the replacement of Minister of the Interior Mohammad al-Shaar, who has been in this position since April 2011, the early days of the Syrian crisis.

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt has created a new high-powered human rights watchdog agency, but its primary mission isn’t to protect Egyptians from violations. Instead, the body is foremost aimed at protecting the government from allegations of rights abuses and defending it on the international stage.

The new body reflects an attitude of the state under President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi that sees criticism over human rights as intended to undermine the government and cause instability at a time when it is facing militant threats and trying to rebuild a battered economy.

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United Arab Emirates said on Monday the country has pardoned British academic Matthew Hedges, sentenced to life in prison for spying, and that he will be set free.

The announcement came after authorities showed journalists a video of Hedges purportedly saying he was a captain in British intelligence. The news conference was hastily called in Abu Dhabi, the UAE capital.

Emirati authorities had come under increasing international pressure over Hedges’ life sentence, handed down last week.

TASS, November 25. At least 14 civilians were killed in an airstrike delivered by the US-led coalition in the settlement of Al-Shaafa in Syria’s Deir ez-Zor governorate, SANA news agency reported on Sunday.

According to SANA’s sources, all those killed were members of one family.

ANKARA, Nov. 24 (Xinhua) -- Turkey is uneasy about U.S.' plans to set up observation posts in northern Syria, Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said on Saturday.

Akar said he told the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Joseph Dunford, during an international conference in Canada that the plans would have a very negative impact on bilateral relations.

"The U.S. move will make the complicated situation in the region even more complicated," he was quoted by state-run Anadolu News Agency as saying.

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Russian warplanes attacked rebel-held areas in northern Syria for the first time in weeks on Sunday, as Syrian officials said more than 100 people were treated at hospitals for a suspected poison gas attack in the northern city of Aleppo that Damascus and Moscow blamed on rebels.

A 20 year old Jewish man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison in Israel for making 2000 hoax calls that forced evacuations of US Jewish community centres and planes. 500 of those calls were made in Australia.

Israeli-American man has been identified as Michael Kadar in separate indictments in the United States for alleged hate crimes.

TEHRAN, Nov. 24 (Xinhua) -- Iran has begun to issue electronic visas for attracting more foreign tourists, Press TV reported on Saturday.

The plan has been implemented since Thursday, Nov. 22, Head of Iran's Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization, Ali Asghar Mounesan, was quoted as saying.

The plan is mainly aimed at facilitating travels to Iran by foreign tourists, Mounesan said.

He expressed hope that the move could play a leading role in attracting more foreign tourists to the country.