Sudan declares UN envoy Volker Perthes ‘persona non grata’

Volker Perthes (C), Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General, oversees the evacuation of internationally-recruited personnel in Port Sudan on April 25, 2023 amid a US-brokered ceasefire between the country's warring generals. (AFP)
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Updated 09 June 2023
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Sudan declares UN envoy Volker Perthes ‘persona non grata’

KHARTOUM: The Sudanese government has declared United Nations envoy Volker Perthes “persona non grata,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced.
“The Government of the Republic of Sudan has notified the Secretary-General of the United Nations that it has declared Mr. Volker Perthes ... persona non grata as of today,” the ministry said in a statement on Thursday, just weeks after army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan accused Perthes of stoking the country’s conflict and requested his removal.
Perthes was in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Thursday for a series of diplomatic talks, according to the UN mission’s Twitter feed.
Since late last year, Perthes and the UN mission he heads in war-torn Sudan have been targeted by military and Islamist-backed protests denouncing perceived foreign interference.
In a letter to the UN last month, Sudan’s de facto leader Burhan blamed the envoy for exacerbating fighting between the army and the paramilitaries, accused him of not respecting “national sovereignty” and demanded he be replaced.
UN chief Antonio Guterres and members of the UN Security Council have stood by Perthes.
But last week, the Security Council voted to extend the UN Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS)’s mandate for just six months.
Created in June 2020 to support Sudan’s democratic transition after the fall of Omar Al-Bashir a year earlier, UNITAMS had previously been renewed annually for a year.
 


Lebanon state media says new Israeli strikes hit south Beirut

Updated 3 sec ago
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Lebanon state media says new Israeli strikes hit south Beirut

“Enemy aircraft launched three strikes on (Beirut’s) southern suburbs,” NNA reported
A source close to the group said the strike “targeted a building housing Hezbollah’s media relations office“

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s state-run media said three Israeli air strikes hit Hezbollah’s south Beirut stronghold on Thursday, the latest raids following a night of intense bombardment.
“Enemy aircraft launched three strikes on (Beirut’s) southern suburbs,” the official National News Agency (NNA) reported.
A source close to the group told AFP the strike “targeted a building housing Hezbollah’s media relations office,” which had already been “evacuated.”
This week, Israel announced that its troops had started “ground raids” into parts of southern Lebanon, a stronghold of Hezbollah, after days of heavy bombardment of areas across the country where the militant group holds sway.
After nearly a year of low-intensity cross-border fighting, Israel has shifted the focus of its operation from Gaza to Lebanon, where heavy bombing has killed more than 1,000 people and forced hundreds of thousands to flee.
Last week, Israel killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in the group’s southern Beirut bastion, a densely packed residential area before residents fled the violence.

Lebanon says it’s monitoring border crossings after Israeli accusations of weapon smuggling

Updated 11 min 1 sec ago
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Lebanon says it’s monitoring border crossings after Israeli accusations of weapon smuggling

  • All border crossings were under government monitoring

DUBAI: Lebanon’s transport minister Ali Hamieh said on Thursday that all border crossings were under government monitoring following Israeli accusations that Hezbollah was smuggling weapons from Syria through the Masnaa border crossing.


Airlines avoid Iranian airspace, hiking up flight times and fuel costs

Updated 20 min 15 sec ago
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Airlines avoid Iranian airspace, hiking up flight times and fuel costs

  • “Most airlines have rerouted flights away from Iran,” said FlightRadar24 spokesperson Ian Petchenik
  • Some airlines have said they have resumed most of their operations across the Middle East

LONDON: Airlines are largely avoiding Iranian airspace in their flights over the Middle East, according to flight tracker FlightRadar24, lengthening flight times and hiking up fuel costs as worries over a retaliatory attack from Israel targeting Iran grow.
Turmoil in the Middle East in the last year has led to confusion and upheaval for aviation, prompting airlines to frequently change routes as they reassess the safety of the airspace in the region.
“Most airlines have rerouted flights away from Iran, with the northern route taking flights through Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India on their way to Asia, and the southern route flying over Egypt and Saudi Arabia,” said FlightRadar24 spokesperson Ian Petchenik.
Some airlines have said they have resumed most of their operations across the Middle East since Iran hit Israel with a ballistic missile attack on Tuesday, leading to flight cancelations and delays.
Petchenik said most strategic changes to flights to avoid parts of the Middle East have been lifted in direct connection with the Tuesday attack.
Late on Wednesday, German group Lufthansa said it would resume flights to Irbil in Iraqi Kurdistan using a limited amount of Iraqi airspace, and will resume using Jordanian airspace on Thursday.
It added that flights to Tel Aviv, Beirut and Tehran will remain suspended for the time being.


Israel calls for evacuations from south Lebanon, explosions in Beirut

Updated 35 min 38 sec ago
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Israel calls for evacuations from south Lebanon, explosions in Beirut

  • The call for evacuations from southern towns included the provincial capital Nabatieh
  • “Only that uncertainty lies ahead. Anxiety and fear are omnipresent,” UN special coordinator in Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, said

BEIRUT/JERUSALEM: Israel’s military urged residents of over 20 towns in south Lebanon to evacuate their homes immediately on Thursday as it pressed on with an incursion after suffering its worst losses in a year of fighting the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah.
The call for evacuations from southern towns included the provincial capital Nabatieh, suggesting another Israeli operation designed to further weaken Hezbollah is imminent.
Israel, which has been fighting with Hamas in Gaza for almost a year, sent its troops into southern Lebanon after two weeks of intense airstrikes, escalating tensions in a conflict that risks drawing in the United States and Iran.
In Beirut’s southern suburb, a Hezbollah stronghold, three explosions were heard on Thursday and several large plumes of smoke were rising after heavy Israeli strikes.
While Hezbollah said it detonated an improvised explosive device against Israeli forces infiltrating a southern Lebanese village.
Overnight, Israel bombed central Beirut in an attack the Lebanese health ministry said killed nine people.
Reuters witnesses reported hearing a massive blast, which a security source said had targeted a building in the district of Bachoura a few hundred meters from parliament, the closest an Israeli strike has come to the central downtown district.
“Another sleepless night in Beirut. Counting the blasts shaking the city. No warning sirens. Not knowing what’s next. Only that uncertainty lies ahead. Anxiety and fear are omnipresent,” UN special coordinator in Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, said on X on Thursday.


A Hezbollah-linked civil defense group said seven of its staff, including two medics, had been killed in the Beirut attack, which Israel said was a “precise” airstrike.
Israel also said it targeted a municipality building in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil killing 15 Hezbollah members, while more than a dozen Israeli missiles also hit the southern suburb of Dahiyeh, where Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed last week.
Eight Israeli soldiers were killed in ground combat on Wednesday in south Lebanon as its forces thrust into its northern neighbor.
As it pushes into south Lebanon, Israel is also weighing its options for retaliation against its arch-foe Iran.

ISRAEL, US VOW TO STRIKE BACK
The Islamic Republic launched its largest ever assault on Israel on Tuesday in what it said was retaliation for Israel’s assassination of senior Hamas and Hezbollah leaders and its operations in Gaza and Lebanon.
On Thursday, Israel’s military said it had “eliminated” Rawhi Mushtaha, the head of the Hamas government in Gaza, along with senior security officials Sameh Al-Siraj and Sami Oudeh in strikes three months ago.
Tehran said its attack was over, barring further provocation, but Israel and the United States have promised to hit back hard.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, speaking at an event in Doha, said Iran would be ready to respond and warned against “silence” in the face of Israel’s “warmongering.”
“Any type of military attack, terrorist act or crossing our red lines will be met with a decisive response by our armed forces.” Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani called for serious ceasefire efforts to stop Israel’s “aggression” in Lebanon and said no peace was possible in the Middle East without the creation of a Palestinian state.
What is happening in the Middle East is a “collective genocide” he said at the same Doha event, adding that his country has always warned of Israel’s “impunity.”
The Lebanese border front opened after Hezbollah fired missiles at Israel on Oct. 8 in support of Hamas in its war with Israel in Gaza.
Iran’s other regional allies — Yemen’s Houthis and armed groups in Iraq — have also launched attacks in the region in support of Hamas.
The Houthis, who have been firing missiles, sending armed drones and launching boats laden with explosives at commercial ships with ties to Israeli, US and UK entities since last year, said they launched a successful attack on Israel’s commercial capital Tel Aviv with drones. Israel said it intercepted a suspicious aerial target in the area of central Israel early on Thursday.
SHELTERING IN A NIGHTCLUB More than 1,900 people have been killed and over 9,000 wounded in Lebanon in almost a year of cross-border fighting, with most of the deaths occurring in the past two weeks, according to Lebanese government statistics.
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said about 1.2 million Lebanese had been displaced by Israeli attacks.
More than 300 of those displaced have taken shelter in a Beirut nightclub, once known for hosting glitzy parties and where staff are now using their guest-list clipboards to register residents.
“We’re trying to keep strong,” said Gaelle Irani, who was formerly in charge of guest relations, taking a brief break from finding people a corner to live in.
“It’s just overwhelming. So overwhelming and sad. But just as this was a place for people to come enjoy themselves, it’s now a place to shelter people and we are doing everything we can to help and be there for them.”
Hassan Shaaban, a fisherman from Sidon, said he has been struggling to make a living as the fighting rages.
“What can we do, we need to be able to live, we are working while they are striking, yesterday night was very intense,” he said.


Morocco to spend $260 mln on flood relief

Updated 03 October 2024
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Morocco to spend $260 mln on flood relief

  • Government will offer 80,000 Dirhams for partially demolished homes and 140,000 dirhams for totally collapsed ones

RABAT: The Moroccan government said on Thursday it plans to spend 2.5 billion dirhams ($ 260 million) on a flood relief plan that includes reconstruction aid, infrastructure upgrades and farming support.
Floods ravaged several villages in the country’s south-east last month, killing at least 28 people and destroying roads.
The government will offer 80,000 Dirhams for partially demolished homes and 140,000 dirhams for totally collapsed ones, the prime minister’s office said.
The plan includes upgrading destroyed infrastructure and support to affected farmers.
Separately, the government said it will continue, for the next five months, to offer cash handouts of 2500 dirhams to some 60,000 households affected by an earthquake that hit the High Atlas mountains in September 2023.
One year on, just 1000 homes have been built, according to official data, as the government continues its gradual construction aid plan for some 57,000 damaged or totally destroyed homes.