Middle East & North Africa

Dec 11 (Reuters) - A top Iranian military official warned on Saturday of a "heavy price" for aggressors, state media said, after a report of U.S. and Israeli plans for possible military drills to prepare for strikes against Iran's nuclear sites if diplomacy fails.

"Providing conditions for military commanders to test Iranian missiles with real targets will cost the aggressors a heavy price," Nournews, affiliated with Iran's top security body, said on Twitter, citing an unnamed military official.

TRIPOLI, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Libya's election commission said on Saturday it would not publish a list of presidential candidates until after it settles some legal issues, leaving almost no time to hold the vote as planned on Dec. 24.

While most Libyan and foreign figures involved in the process have continued to publicly call for the election to go ahead on schedule, politicians, analysts and diplomats all say in private that this would be very hard to achieve.

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Palestinians held municipal elections in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Saturday in a rare democratic exercise and amid rising anger with President Mahmoud Abbas after he cancelled planned legislative and presidential votes earlier this year.

More than 400,000 Palestinians were eligible to cast ballots for representatives in 154 village councils in the West Bank, where Abbas' Palestinian Authority has limited self-rule. Municipal votes are typically held every four or five years.

TEHRAN, Dec. 11 (Xinhua) -- If the United States lifts anti-Iran sanctions, a "good agreement," which Iran is looking for, will be reached in nuclear negotiations, Iran's President said on Saturday.

"The Islamic Republic participated in the negotiations with dignity, and showed by presenting the text (proposals) that it is serious in the negotiations," Raisi was quoted as saying by the presidential website.

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described social media Saturday as one of the main threats to democracy.

Erdogan’s government plans to pursue legislation to criminalize spreading fake news and disinformation online, but critics say the proposed changes would tighten restrictions on free speech.

“Social media, which was described as a symbol of freedom when it first appeared, has turned into one of the main sources of threat to today’s democracy,” Erdogan said in a video message to a government-organized communications conference in Istanbul.

BEIRUT (AP) — The Palestinian Hamas group said Saturday that explosions that shook a refugee camp in southern Lebanon were caused by an electrical short-circuit in a storage area for oxygen bottles used to treat coronavirus patients.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency had reported that arms stored for Hamas exploded Friday in the Burj Shamali camp, killing and injuring a number of people. A security official also said the explosions caused casualties but did not give a breakdown.

10 Dec 2021; MEMO: Israeli government discussions on the massacres perpetrated by Israeli soldiers in 1948 were declassified for the first time this week in an investigative report published by Haaretz and the Akevot Institute for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Research.

10 Dec 2021; MEMO: Tunisia has effectively left the club of democratic countries after the country's President assumed executive authority earlier this year, precipitating in a complicated political crisis, a former senior official said on Friday, Anadolu News Agency reports.

10 Dec 2021; MEMO: Turkey, on Thursday, observed the International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime on the sixth anniversary of the UN General Assembly resolution that marked the day, which was co-sponsored by Turkey.

11 Dec 2021; MEMO: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed on Friday that the only way to achieve stability and peace in Palestine is to create an independent and sovereign Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as its capital, Anadolu Agency reported.