Iran celebrates ancient fire festival ahead of Persian New Year

A man in Tehran jumps over a firework celebrating Chaharshanbe Souri, or Wednesday Feast, an ancient festival of fire on the eve of the last Wednesday of the Persian year. (AP)
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Updated 19 March 2025
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Iran celebrates ancient fire festival ahead of Persian New Year

  • To celebrate, people light bonfires, set off fireworks and send wish lanterns floating off into the night sky

TEHRAN: Iran’s fire festival offers a great opportunity to show the world what life looks like in the country.

Known as “Chaharshanbe Souri” in Farsi, the festival comes in the hours just before the Wednesday before Nowruz, which is the Persian New Year.

To celebrate, people light bonfires, set off fireworks and send wish lanterns floating off into the night sky. 

Others jump over and around fires, chanting “My yellow is yours, your red is mine,” invoking the replacement of ills with warmth and energy.

The fire festival also features an Iranian version of trick-or-treating, with people going door to door and being given a holiday mix of nuts and berries, as well as buckets of water. It’s not necessarily an easy assignment though. 

Here in Iran, some people remain sensitive about having their photograph taken, particularly women who aren’t wearing Iran’s mandatory headscarf.

The joy sometimes overcomes safety concerns as smoke fills the air and fireworks explode at random overhead. There are injuries every year and sometimes deaths. Being careful is necessary as a piece of a burning firecracker might injure one in a crowd. 

Nowruz marks the start of spring. Soon, leaves will sprout again.


Gaza rescuers say 80 killed in Israeli strikes amid hostage release talks

Updated 3 sec ago
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Gaza rescuers say 80 killed in Israeli strikes amid hostage release talks

Civil defense official Mohammed Al-Mughayyir told AFP 80 people had been killed by Israeli bombardment since dawn, including 59 in the north
From the occupied West Bank, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said Wednesday he favored a “ceasefire at any price” in Gaza

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Gaza rescuers said at least 80 people were killed in Israeli bombardment across the Palestinian territory on Wednesday, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to US envoy Steve Witkoff about the release of hostages.

Negotiations for the release of the captives held in Gaza have been ongoing, with the latest talks taking place in the Qatari capital Doha, where US President Donald Trump was visiting on Wednesday.

Netanyahu’s office said the premier had discussed with Witkoff and his negotiating team “the issue of the hostages and the missing.”

Witkoff later said Trump had “a really productive conversation” with the Qatari emir about a Gaza deal, adding that “we are moving along and we have a good plan together.”

Fighting meanwhile raged in Gaza, where civil defense official Mohammed Al-Mughayyir told AFP 80 people had been killed by Israeli bombardment since dawn, including 59 in the north.

AFP footage from the aftermath of a strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza, showed mounds of rubble and twisted metal from collapsed buildings. Palestinians, including young children, picked through the debris in search of belongings.

Footage of mourners in northern Gaza showed women in tears as they kneeled next to bodies wrapped in bloodstained white shrouds.

“It’s a nine-month-old baby. What did he do?” one of them cried out.

Hasan Moqbel, a Palestinian who lost relatives, told AFP: “There are no homes fit for living. I have no shelter, no food, no water. Those who don’t die from air strikes die from hunger, and those who don’t die from hunger die from lack of medicine.”

Israel’s military on Wednesday urged residents in part of a Gaza City neighborhood to evacuate, warning that its forces would “attack the area with intense force.”

From the occupied West Bank, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said Wednesday he favored a “ceasefire at any price” in Gaza, accusing Netanyahu of wanting to continue the war “for his own reasons.”

Mohammad Awad, an emergency doctor in northern Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital, told AFP that supply shortages meant his department could not properly handle the flow of wounded from the Jabalia strike.

“There are not enough beds, no medicine, and no means for surgical or medical treatment, which leaves doctors unable to save many of the injured who are dying due to lack of care,” he said.

Awad added that “the bodies of the martyrs are lying on the ground in the hospital corridors after the morgue reached full capacity. The situation is catastrophic in every sense of the word.”

Israel imposed an aid blockade on the Gaza Strip on March 2 after talks to prolong a January 19 ceasefire broke down.

The resulting shortages of food and medicine have aggravated an already dire situation in the Palestinian territory, although Israel has dismissed UN warnings that a potential famine looms.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday called for “the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, unimpeded humanitarian access and an immediate cessation of hostilities,” in Gaza.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said the humanitarian situation in Gaza was “ever more dramatic and unjustifiable.”

A US-led initiative for aid distribution under Israeli military security drew international criticism as it appears to sideline the United Nations and existing aid organizations, and would overhaul current humanitarian structures in Gaza.

Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said the plan would make “aid conditional on forced displacement” and vetting of the population.

It added in a statement that Israel was creating “conditions for the eradication of Palestinian lives in Gaza.”

Israel resumed major operations across Gaza on March 18, with officials later talking of retaining a long-term presence in the Palestinian territory.

Following a short pause in air strikes during the release of US-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander
on Monday, Israel resumed its pounding of Gaza.

Netanyahu said on Monday that the military would enter Gaza “with full force” in the coming days.

He added that his government was working to find countries willing to take in Gaza’s population.

The Israeli government approved plans to expand the offensive earlier this month, and spoke of the “conquest” of Gaza.

Of the 251 hostages taken during Hamas’s October 2023 attack, 57 remain in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.

The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 52,928 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to figures from the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry, which the United Nations considers reliable.

Turkiye eyes legal steps after Kurdish militant group PKK disbands

Updated 4 min 29 sec ago
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Turkiye eyes legal steps after Kurdish militant group PKK disbands

  • The pro-Kurdish DEM party urged Ankara on Tuesday to take 'confidence-building steps' such as freeing political prisoners
  • Government plans to release to house arrest those who are sick, or women with children, if they are serving sentences of less than five years

ANKARA: After the decision by the Kurdish militant group PKK to disband, Turkiye was eyeing Wednesday a raft of legal and technical measures to ensure its full implementation and finally end a four-decade insurgency.
Monday’s announcement sought to draw a line under a bloody chapter that began in 1984 when the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) took up arms, triggering a conflict that cost more than 40,000 lives.
“What matters most is the implementation,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday, pledging to “meticulously monitor whether the promises are kept.”
The pro-Kurdish DEM party, a key player that facilitated contact between jailed PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan and the political establishment, urged Ankara on Tuesday to take “confidence-building steps” such as freeing political prisoners.
So far, Turkish officials have said little but the government is working on a proposal that could ease prison sentences in general.
The text, which should be submitted to parliament by June at the latest, provides for the conditional release of all those in pre-trial detention for offenses committed before July 31, 2023.
There are also plans to release to house arrest those who are sick, or women with children, if they are serving sentences of less than five years.

There are nearly 10,000 political prisoners in this country. If a peace process is ever to get under way, they must be released as soon as possible

DEM co-chair Tulay Hatimogullari

The moves could affect more than 60,000 people, Turkish media reports say.
But the authorities are reportedly being careful not to frame it as an “amnesty.”
“Sick prisoners should not die in prison... These measures should not be interpreted as a general amnesty, which is not on the agenda,” Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said.
But DEM co-chair Tulay Hatimogullari said a move to free prisoners was essential.
“There are nearly 10,000 political prisoners in this country... If a peace process is ever to get under way, they must be released as soon as possible,” she said Monday.
For DEM, that must include prisoners like Selahattin Demirtas, the charismatic former leader of a former pro-Kurdish party who has been jailed since 2016.
“With the complete elimination of terror and violence, the door to a new era will open,” Erdogan said Monday.
Some prisoners, such as Demirtas or the philanthropist Osman Kavala, who is serving life on charges of “trying to overthrow the government,” could in theory be quickly freed if Turkiye heeded rulings by the European Court of Human Rights, which has repeatedly demanded their release.
PKK’s fighters and weapons
But before that, Ankara is awaiting concrete proof that the PKK has actually laid down its weapons, Abdulkadir Selvi, a columnist close to the government, wrote in the Hurriyet newspaper.
“The democratic changes will start after the head of the MIT (intelligence services) has submitted his report to President Erdogan,” he wrote.
According to Turkish media reports, the MIT will supervise the weapons handover at locations in Turkiye, Syria and Iraq.
It will register the weapons handed in and the identity of the fighters in coordination with the Syrian and Iraqi authorities.
“Our intelligence service will follow the process meticulously to ensure the promises are kept,” Erdogan said Wednesday.
Most of the PKK’s fighters have spent the past decade in the mountains of northern Iraq.
Those who have committed no crime in Turkiye will be allowed to return without fear of prosecution.
But the PKK’s leaders will be forced into exile in third-party states such as Norway or South Africa, media reports suggest.
Duran Kalkan, a member of the PKK’s executive committee, said Tuesday that renouncing armed struggle “can only be implemented under (Ocalan’s) leadership” and when he is guaranteed “free living and working conditions.”
Experts say prison conditions for Ocalan, 76, will be “eased” but he is unlikely to leave the Imrali prison island where he has been held since 1999, largely because his life would be threatened.
“Naming trustees (to replace deposed mayors) will become an exceptional measure... after the terrorist organization is dissolved,” Erdogan said, suggesting that Kurdish mayors removed from office over alleged ties to the PKK would be reinstated.
In total, 16 opposition mayors from the DEM and the main opposition CHP have been removed since local elections in March 2024.


Algeria buys milling wheat in tender, traders say

Updated 43 min 44 sec ago
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Algeria buys milling wheat in tender, traders say

  • The precise size of the purchase in tonnage terms was not initially clear
  • Algeria often buys considerably more than the indicative volume

HAMBURG/PARIS: Algeria’s state grains agency OAIC has bought milling wheat in an international tender which closed on Wednesday, European traders said.

Purchases were initially reported at around $244.50 a metric ton cost and freight (c&f) included, they said.

The precise size of the purchase in tonnage terms was not initially clear. But preliminary trader estimates were of a large purchase of between 600,000 and 700,000 metric tons.

Reports reflect assessments from traders and further estimates of prices and volumes are still possible later.

The tender sought a nominal 50,000 metric tons but Algeria often buys considerably more than the indicative volume. Sellers can supply wheat from a range of approved origins.

The wheat is sought for shipment in two periods from the main supply regions including Europe: July 1-15 and July 16-31. If sourced from South America or Australia, shipment is one month earlier.

Algeria is a vital customer for wheat from the European Union, especially France, but Russian and other Black Sea region exporters have been expanding strongly in the Algerian market.

Traders say a diplomatic rift between France and Algeria led the grains agency to tacitly exclude French wheat and trading companies from its purchase tenders, with relations between the two countries remaining tense.


MSF says Israel creating conditions for ‘eradication of Palestinian lives’ in Gaza

Updated 46 min 28 sec ago
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MSF says Israel creating conditions for ‘eradication of Palestinian lives’ in Gaza

  • MSF: ‘We are witnessing, in real time, the creation of conditions for the eradication of Palestinian lives in Gaza’
  • MSF: ‘Gaza has become a hell on earth for Palestinians’

GENEVA: Doctors Without Borders slammed Israel Wednesday for creating a “deliberate humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza and accused it of trying to make aid conditional on forced displacement of Palestinians.

“We are witnessing, in real time, the creation of conditions for the eradication of Palestinian lives in Gaza,” the medical charity, known by its French acronym MSF, said in a statement.

“Gaza has become a hell on earth for Palestinians.”

Israel imposed an aid blockade on the Gaza Strip on March 2 after talks to prolong a January 19 ceasefire broke down.

The resulting shortages of food and medicine have aggravated an already dire situation in the Palestinian territory, although Israel has dismissed UN warnings that a potential famine looms.

MSF warned that its medical teams on the ground had “seen a 32-percent increase in the number of patients presenting with malnutrition over the past two weeks.”

“Dwindling fuel stocks are limiting the ability to desalinate and distribute water,” it said in its statement.

“Those health facilities that still function — already critically inadequate in number and capacity for the population — are still being attacked and are suffering from rapidly diminishing stocks of medications and other essential supplies.”

MSF highlighted that its “teams in Gaza have received no supplies for 11 weeks and face critical shortages of essential medical items such as sterile compresses and sterile gloves.”

The organization flatly rejected a US proposal, backed by Israel, for the creation of a new foundation to lead aid distribution in Gaza, in an overhaul seen sidelining the UN and existing aid organizations and essentially handing control to Israel.

“The US-Israel proposition to control the distribution of supplies under the guise of humanitarian aid raises grave humanitarian, ethical, security and legal concerns,” MSF said.

“Making aid conditional on forced displacement and vetting of the population is another tool in the ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population,” it said.

“MSF firmly rejects and condemns any plan that further reduces availability of aid and subjugates it to Israeli military occupation objectives.”

The organization called on the “UN, EU member states, and all those with influence over Israel” to “urgently use their political and economic leverage to stop the instrumentalization of aid.”

“Israeli’s plan to instrumentalize aid is a cynical response to the very humanitarian crisis they created,” it said.

“If they wished, Israel and its allies could lift the blockade today and let humanitarian aid reach all those in Gaza whose survival depends on it.”


What would lifting US sanctions on Syria mean to the war-torn country?

Updated 14 May 2025
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What would lifting US sanctions on Syria mean to the war-torn country?

  • After Trump’s announcement, Syria’s currency gained 60 percent on Tuesday night
  • Experts says the process for lifting the US sanctions is unclear
  • Syria needs tens of billions of dollars to restore its battered infrastructure and pull an estimated 90 percent of population out of poverty

BEIRUT: President Donald Trump’s announcement that the US will ease sanctions on Syria could eventually facilitate the country’s recovery from years of civil war and transform the lives of everyday Syrians.
But experts say it will take time, and the process for lifting the sanctions — some of which were first introduced 47 years ago — is unclear.
“I think people view sanctions as a switch that you turn on and off,” said Karam Shaar, a Syrian economist who runs the consultancy firm Karam Shaar Advisory Limited. “Far from it.”
Still, the move could bring much-needed investment to the country, which is emerging from decades of autocratic rule by the Assad family as well as the war. It needs tens of billions of dollars to restore its battered infrastructure and pull an estimated 90 percent of population out of poverty.
And Trump’s pledge has already had an effect: Syrians celebrated in streets across the country, and Arab leaders in neighboring nations that host millions of refugees who fled Syria’s war praised the announcement.
What are the US sanctions on Syria?
Washington has imposed three sanctions programs on Syria. In 1979, the country was designated a “state sponsor of terrorism” because its military was involved in neighboring Lebanon’s civil war and had backed armed groups there, and eventually developed strong ties with the powerful militant Hezbollah group.
In 2003, then-President George W. Bush signed the Syria Accountability Act into law, as his administration faced off with Iran and Tehran-backed governments and groups in the Mideast. The legislation focused heavily on Syria’s support of designated terror groups, its military presence in Lebanon, its alleged development of weapons of mass destruction, as well as oil smuggling and the backing of armed groups in Iraq after the US-led invasion.
In 2019, during Trump’s first term, he signed the Caesar Act, sanctioning Syrian troops and others responsible for atrocities committed during the civil war.
Caesar is the code name for a Syrian photographer who took thousands of photographs of victims of torture and other abuses and smuggled them out of the country. The images, taken between 2011 and 2013, were turned over to human rights advocates, exposing the scale of the Syrian government’s brutal crackdown on political opponents and dissidents during countrywide protests.
What has been the impact of US sanctions on Syria?
The sanctions — along with similar measures by other countries — have touched every part of the Syrian economy and everyday life in the country.
They have led to shortages of goods from fuel to medicine, and made it difficult for humanitarian agencies responding to receive funding and operate fully.
Companies around the world struggle to export to Syria, and Syrians struggle to import goods of any kind because nearly all financial transactions with the country are banned. That has led to a blossoming black market of smuggled goods.
Simple tasks like updating smartphones are difficult, if not impossible, and many people resort to virtual private networks, or VPNs, which mask online activity, to access the Internet because many websites block users with Syrian IP addresses.
The impact was especially stark after a devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Turkiye and northern Syria in February 2023, compounding the destruction and misery that the war had already brought.
Though the US Treasury issued a six-month exemption on all financial transactions related to disaster relief, the measures had limited effect since banks and companies were nervous to take the risk, a phenomenon known as over-compliance.
Interim Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa — who led the insurgency that ousted President Bashar Assad — has argued the sanctions have outlived their purpose and are now only harming the Syrian people and ultimately preventing the country from any prospect of recovery.
Trump and Al-Sharaa met Wednesday.
Washington eased some restrictions temporarily in January but did not lift the sanctions. Britain and the European Union have eased some of their measures.
What could lifting the sanctions mean for Syria?
After Trump’s announcement, Syria’s currency gained 60 percent on Tuesday night — a signal of how transformational the removal of sanctions could be.
Still, it will take time to see any tangible impact on Syria’s economy, experts say, but removing all three sanctions regimes could bring major changes to the lives of Syrians, given how all-encompassing the measures are.
It could mean banks could return to the international financial system or car repair shops could import spare parts from abroad. If the economy improves and reconstruction projects take off, many Syrian refugees who live in crowded tented encampments relying on aid to survive could decide to return home.
“If the situation stabilized and there were reforms, we will then see Syrians returning to their country if they were given opportunities as we expect,” says Lebanese economist Mounis Younes.
The easing of sanctions also has an important symbolic weight because it would signal that Syria is no longer a pariah, said Shaar.
Mathieu Rouquette, Mercy Corps’ country director for Syria, said the move “marks a potentially transformative moment for millions of Syrians who have endured more than 13 years of economic hardship, conflict, and displacement.”
But it all depends on how Washington goes about it.
“Unless enough layers of sanctions are peeled off, you cannot expect the positive impacts on Syria to start to appear,” said Shaar. “Even if you remove some of the top ones, the impact economically would still be nonexistent.”