Middle East & North Africa

MANAMA, Dec 10 (NNN-BNA) – Bahrain and Saudi Arabia yesterday signed key agreements, involving a Saudi investment of five billion U.S. dollars in development projects across Bahrain, according to an official statement.

The agreements came, during the second meeting of the Saudi-Bahraini Coordination Council, in Bahrain’s Sakhir Palace, co-chaired by Bahraini Crown Prince and Prime Minister, Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, and visiting Saudi Crown Prince, Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister, Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud.

BEIRUT, Dec 10 (NNN-NNA) – Lebanon’s Health Ministry said yesterday that, it has detected the first two cases of the COVID-19 Omicron variant, when passengers were tested, upon arrival at the Beirut airport.

“Two cases detected in airport testing were confirmed to be the Omicron variant,” Health Minister, Firas Abiad, said at a press conference.

The two passengers arrived in Lebanon from the African continent, and had been placed in quarantine, he added.

DAMASCUS, Dec 10 (NNN-SANA) – Syria will host the Arab energy conference in the capital, Damascus, in 2024, it was reported yesterday.

Following the approval of the members of the Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC), Damascus will host the 2024 Arab energy conference, said the Syrian Oil Ministry.

The decision was announced after Syria’s Oil Minister, Bassam Radwan Toumeh, attended an online meeting with the council of ministers of the OAPEC, according to the ministry.

GASHENA, Ethiopia, Dec 9 (Reuters) - In a roadside village shattered by one of Africa's bloodiest current conflicts, a donkey and its young, turbaned master tiptoe past an unexploded shell rusting by the blasted remnants of a tank, its turret and tracks tossed sideways.

9 Dec 2021; MEMO: The United States will send a senior government delegation to the United Arab Emirates next week to meet with banks over concerns about Iran sanctions compliance, a State Department spokesperson said on Thursday, as nuclear talks with Iran stall.

The move suggests Washington is looking to crank up economic pressure on Tehran amid Western doubts about Tehran's determination to salvage the 2015 nuclear accord, Reuters reports.

10 Dec 2021; MEMO: Iraq, on Thursday, announced the end of the combat mission of the US-led international coalition forces against Daesh, Anadolu News Agency reports.

"Today we ended the last round of dialogue with the international coalition, which we started last year, to officially announce the end of the combat missions of the coalition forces and their withdrawal from Iraq," Iraq's National Security Adviser, Qassem Al-Araji said in a tweet.

09 Dec 2021; MEMO: Israeli settlers, today, cut down 70 olive trees in Masafer Yatta, south of the West Bank city of Hebron, reported Wafa News Agency.

According to Fouad Al-Imour, a local activist, dozens of settlers from the illegal settlement of Mitzpe Yair chopped down 70 olive trees owned by a local resident in Khillit Al-Dabe village of Masafer Yatta.

Morever, the settlers took their herd of sheep to the Palestinian farmland and let them loose so they could damage the crops.

10 Dec 2021; MEMO: Some 3,000 Turkish police officers will help secure the 2022 FIFA World Cup scheduled to take place next year in Qatar, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said yesterday.

Soylu made the remarks on the sidelines of the closing meeting of the Project to Strengthen Civilian Oversight on the Internal Security Sector held in the capital, Ankara.

JERUSALEM, Dec 9 (NNN-PNN) – The Israeli police said, it arrested a 14-year-old Palestinian girl, who carried out a stabbing attack in East Jerusalem, yesterday.

The police said in a statement that, the minor is suspected of stabbing a 26-year-old Israeli woman, who was walking with her children, using a 30-cm-long knife.

The woman sustained light injuries and needed hospital care, according to a statement issued by the Hadassah Hospital, where she has been treated.

TEHRAN, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- Iran will announce the names of American individuals and entities it will sanction for involvement in human rights violations, deputy minister for international affairs of Iran's Judiciary said on Thursday.

Kazem Gharibabadi said that the recent U.S. sanctions against some Iranian individuals and legal entities under the pretext of human rights violations was "a continuation of the same failed policy of maximum pressure against the Iranian nation and the use of sanctions as a tool to achieve political goals."