UAE and Bahrain urge world leaders to act against Iran 

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UAE foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah at the UN General Assembly in New York. (Reuters)
Updated 29 September 2019
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UAE and Bahrain urge world leaders to act against Iran 

  • Sheikh Abdullah tells UN General Assembly that the nuclear agreement failed to change Iran’s behavior
  • Sheikh Khalid said Iran was the biggest threat to a stable and secure Yemen

NEW YORK: The international deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program failed to change Tehran’s behavior, the UAE said on Saturday.

Speaking at the UN General Assembly debate in New York, foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed said those behind the deal should have consulted countries in the region which fully understood.

The “agreement could not achieve the expected change in Iran’s behavior or compel Iran to abide by international law and good neighborliness.

“The nuclear agreement should have taken in to consideration the views of the countries of this vital region who fully understand its history.”

Sheikh Abdullah said the agreement should have included other aspects of Iran's activities, including its interference in other countries, its developmemt of ballistic missiles and its provision of arms to terrorist groups.

Speaking just before the UAE, Bahrain’s foreign minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed accused Iran of decades of terrorism in the region.

He said that in Yemen, where Iran supports the Houthi militia fighting the Arab coalition, Tehran’s interference was the main threat to the country’s stability.

“We shall persevere in our efforts to save Yemen and restore its security and stability,” Sheikh Khalid said in his address.

“We urge all Yemen national parties to unify their efforts with those of their legitimate government and to confront the illegitimate Houthi militia supported by Iran.”

Many Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, have used the General Assembly to highlight what they describe as the ongoing destabilizing activities of Iran.

Tensions have increased throughout the year and peaked when drones and cruise missiles hit two of Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities this month. Iran has been widely blamed for being behind the attack. 

The US pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal last year and reimposed crippling economic sanctions on Iran.

Tehran has been accused of responding by lashing out with attacks on shipping in the Gulf region.


UN convoy attacked on the way to Sudan’s Al-Fashir, UNICEF says

Updated 6 sec ago
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UN convoy attacked on the way to Sudan’s Al-Fashir, UNICEF says

“We have received information about a convoy with WFP and UNICEF trucks being attacked,” UNICEF spokesperson Eva Hinds said
She did not say who was responsible or elaborate on the reported casualties

GENEVA: A UN convoy delivering food into Sudan’s Al-Fashir in North Darfur came under attack overnight, a spokesperson for the UN children’s agency told Reuters on Tuesday, adding that initial reports indicated “multiple casualties.”

“We have received information about a convoy with WFP and UNICEF trucks being attacked last night while positioned in Al Koma, North Darfur, waiting for approval to proceed to Al-Fashir,” UNICEF spokesperson Eva Hinds said in response to questions.

She did not say who was responsible or elaborate on the reported casualties.

Aid has frequently come under the crossfire in the two-year-old war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which has left more than half the population facing crisis levels of hunger.

In a statement, the RSF’s aid commission blamed an airstrike by the army, as did local activists. The army did not respond to a request for comment.

Al Koma is controlled by the RSF, and earlier this week saw a drone strike that claimed several civilian lives, according to local activists.

Famine conditions have previously been reported in Al-Fashir, the capital of North Darfur. The fighting and barriers to the delivery of aid put in place by both sides have cut off supplies.

The attack is the latest of several assaults on aid in recent days. It follows the repeated shelling of UN World Food Programme premises in Al-Fashir by the RSF and an attack on El Obeid hospital in North Kordofan that killed several medics late last month.

Norway fund’s ethics body reviews Israeli bank stakes over West Bank settler loans

Updated 25 min 57 sec ago
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Norway fund’s ethics body reviews Israeli bank stakes over West Bank settler loans

  • Around 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem

OSLO/LONDON/JERUSALEM: The ethics watchdog for Norway’s $1.9 trillion wealth fund is scrutinizing Israeli banks’ practice of underwriting Israeli settlers’ housebuilding commitments in the occupied West Bank in a review that could prompt up to $500 million in divestments.

The Council on Ethics, a public body set up by the Ministry of Finance, has, however, decided not to object to the Fund’s investments in accommodation platforms such as Airbnb that offer rentals in the Jewish settlements.

The body checks that firms in the portfolio of the world’s largest wealth fund meet ethical guidelines set by Norway’s parliament.

In an interview with Reuters on May 22, Council head Svein Richard Brandtzaeg said it was examining how Israeli banks offer guarantees that protect Israeli settlers’ money if the company building their home in the West Bank should fold.

Other practices are also being looked at “but this is what we can see so far,” he said. “That is what is well documented.” He declined to say how long the review would take.

Brandtzaeg did not name the banks but, at the end of 2024, the fund owned about 5 billion crowns ($500 million) in shares in the five largest Israeli lenders, up 62 percent in 12 months, according to the latest data.

The banks — Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, Israel Discount Bank, Mizrahi Tefahot Bank and First International Bank of Israel — did not answer requests for comment.

Since 2020, they have been included in a list of companies with ties to settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories compiled by a UN mission assessing the implications for Palestinian rights.

Latterly, investor concern has grown around the world over a 19-month-old Israeli onslaught that has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians and devastated the Gaza Strip in response to an attack by Hamas militants that killed more than 1,200 Israelis.

Around 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Many settlements are adjacent to Palestinian areas and some Israeli firms serve both Israelis and Palestinians.
The United Nations’ top court last year found that Israeli settlements built on territory seized in 1967 were illegal, a ruling that Israel called “fundamentally wrong,” citing historical and biblical ties to the land.

ACCOMMODATION RENTALS IN WEST BANK SETTLEMENTS

In mid-2024, the Council on Ethics began a new review of investments linked to the West Bank and Gaza.

It examined 65 companies but recommended only petrol station chain Paz and telecoms company Bezeq for divestment, resulting in share sales.

The Council also scrutinized some multinationals to see if their activities in the West Bank met its guidelines.

Among them were the accommodation platforms, including Airbnb, Booking.com, TripAdviser and Expedia, named on the UN list and accounting for about $3 billion in Fund investments.

But the Council will not recommend watchlisting or divesting from those, Eli Ane Lund, head of its secretariat, said in the joint interview.

“The company’s activity must have some kind of influence on the (ethical) violations,” she said. “It’s not (enough) to have a connection, it has to have something to do with the violation, it must contribute to it.”

The Council’s recommendations go to the central bank, which is not obliged to follow them but generally does.

If investments are sold, it is done gradually to avoid alerting markets, and the decision is then made public.

Pro-Palestinian campaigners say the Council sets its bar too high for recommending divestments, and that the Norwegian government should instruct the fund to conduct a general divestment from Israel just as it did for Russia in 2022, three days after Moscow invaded Ukraine.

But most lawmakers support the Council’s approach, and are set on Wednesday to formally endorse a parliamentary finance committee’s decision not to order a wholesale boycott.


Syrian pro-Assad fighter jailed for life in Germany for crimes against humanity

Updated 03 June 2025
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Syrian pro-Assad fighter jailed for life in Germany for crimes against humanity

BERLIN: A German court on Tuesday convicted a Syrian man of crimes against humanity and jailed him for life over offenses committed during his time fighting for former President Bashar Assad.
The court in the city of Stuttgart found the former militiaman guilty of crimes including murder and torture after a trial which involved testimony from 30 witnesses.
Shortly after the outbreak of anti-Assad protests in early 2011, the man joined a pro-government Shia militia in the southern town of Bosra Al-Sham.
He proceeded to take part in several crimes against the local Sunni population with the aim of “terrorizing” them and driving them from the town, the court found.
German authorities have pursued several suspects for crimes committed in Syria’s civil war under the principle of universal jurisdiction, even after Assad’s ouster last December.
In 2022, former Syrian colonel Anwar Raslan was found guilty of overseeing the murders of 27 people and the torture of 4,000 others at the notorious Al-Khatib jail in 2011 and 2012.
That was the first international trial over state-sponsored torture in Syrian prisons and was hailed as “historic” by human rights activists.


More than 4 million refugees have fled Sudan since war began, UN says

Updated 03 June 2025
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More than 4 million refugees have fled Sudan since war began, UN says

GENEVA: The number of people who have fled Sudan since the beginning of the war has surpassed 4 million, a spokesperson for the UN refugee agency said on Tuesday.
UNHCR spokesperson Eujin Byun told a Geneva press briefing that the milestone was reached on Monday and that the scale of displacement was “putting regional and global stability at stake.”


US to eventually reduce military bases in Syria to one: US envoy

Updated 03 June 2025
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US to eventually reduce military bases in Syria to one: US envoy

ISTANBUL: The United States has begun reducing its military presence in Syria with a view to eventually closing all but one of its bases there, the US envoy for the country has said in an interview.
Six months after the ouster of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar Assad, the United States is steadily drawing down its presence as part of Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR), a military task force launched in 2014 to fight the Daesh group (IS).
“The reduction of our OIR engagement on a military basis is happening,” the US envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, said in an interview with Turkiye’s NTV late on Monday.
“We’ve gone from eight bases to five to three. We’ll eventually go to one.”
But he admitted Syria still faced major security challenges under interim leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa, whose Islamist-led coalition toppled Assad in December.
Assad’s ouster brought an end to Syria’s bloody 14-year civil war, but the new authorities have struggled to contain recent bouts of sectarian violence.
Barrack, who is also the US ambassador to Turkiye, called for the “integration” of the country’s ethnic and religious groups.
“It’s very tribal still. It’s very difficult to bring it together,” he said.
But “I think that will happen,” he added.
The Pentagon announced in April that the United States would halve its troops in Syria to less than 1,000 in the coming months, saying the IS presence had been reduced to “remnants.”