TUNIS/WASHINGTON: Tunisian prime minister said on Tuesday that fixing public finances and implementing economic reforms will be a priority — the first sign of the government’s intention to launch reforms demanded by lenders — as Tunisia suffers a financial crisis.
Tunisia’s president unveiled a new cabinet government on Monday, but gave no hint when he would relinquish his near total control after seizing most powers in July.
Under rules President Kais Saied announced last month when he swept aside much of the constitution, the new cabinet will ultimately answer to him rather than Prime Minister Najla Bouden.
Meanwhile, the US on Tuesday praised the appointment of the new Tunisian government as a positive step and encouraged further action three months after a presidential power grab.
“The new government, which includes 10 female ministers, is a welcome step forward toward addressing the significant economic, health and social challenges facing the country,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters.
“We look forward to further announcements to establish a broadly inclusive process for a rapid return to constitutional order,” he said.
Bouden was named Monday as the North African country’s first female prime minister and vowed that she would put a priority on fighting corruption.
Saied in July suspended parliament and sacked a government supported by Islamist-inspired party Ennahdha, following months of growing public anger over an economic crisis and the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
(With Reuters and AFP)
Tunisian PM says implementing economic reforms top government priority
https://arab.news/yzubd
Tunisian PM says implementing economic reforms top government priority
- US praises the appointment of a new Tunisian government as a positive step
Israeli court sentences widow of Walid Daqqa to house arrest
- Sanaa Salameh Daqqa accused of online incitement
- Walid Daqaa died in Israeli custody last year
LONDON: Sanaa Salameh Daqqa, the widow of Palestinian political prisoner Walid Daqaa who died in custody last year, has been sentenced to 10 days’ house arrest by an Israeli court in Hadera.
Daqqa, who lives in the Israeli village of Baqa al-Gharbiyye, was arrested in occupied East Jerusalem last week on a charge of online incitement following a demand by Israel’s Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir for her to be deported.
The court on Thursday sentenced her to 10 days of house arrest at her mother’s home in Tira and imposed a travel ban and bail of 20,000 shekels ($5,700), the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.
However, Sanaa remains in custody, as Israeli police are expected on Friday to appeal the court’s decision to release her.
Walid Daqaa died in Israeli custody in April 2024 after spending 38 years in custody. His body remains held by Israeli authorities.
International community has duty to help achieve a Palestinian state, UN chief tells Arab News
- Antonio Guterres’ comments come ahead of a global summit this month, co-chaired by Saudi Arabia and France, on the implementation of a 2-state solution
- The alternative, a single-state solution in which Palestinians are expelled or forced to live on their land without rights ‘would be totally unacceptable,’ he says
- Guterres also pays tribute to 168 UN workers killed in action in 2024, including 126 UNRWA employees, describing it as the deadliest year for UN personnel
NEW YORK CITY: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday told Arab News that the international community has a duty to do everything in its power to pursue a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestine, and to bring about the conditions that can make it happen.
“It is absolutely essential to keep alive the two-state solution perspective, with all the terrible things we are witnessing in Gaza and the West Bank,” he said.
“And for those who have doubts about the two-state solution, I ask what is the alternative? Is it a one-state solution in which either the Palestinians are expelled or the Palestinians will be forced to live on their land without rights? That would be totally unacceptable.
“I firmly believe that it is the duty of the international community to do everything to keep the two-state solution alive and then to materialize the conditions to make it happen.”
His comments came as Saudi Arabia and France prepare to co-chair a global conference this month in an attempt to hasten the implementation of a two-state solution and end decades of conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
The effort gained further international support this week amid worsening conditions in Gaza as a result of Israel’s continuing intensification of military operations following the collapse in March of a previous ceasefire agreement with Hamas, and its decision to block humanitarian aid from entering the territory.
These actions have resulted in thousands of Palestinian deaths, the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure, further mass displacements, and severe risk of famine, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, an initiative that aims to improve food security analysis and decision-making.
The devastating toll of Israel’s resumed assault on Gaza has sparked international anger, and Arab representatives have said the upcoming conference must look beyond mere diplomacy and deliver tangible steps on a path toward peace.
Speaking at a meeting of the UN General Assembly this month in preparation for the forum, Saudi Arabia said official recognition of the State of Palestine was a “strategic necessity” as “the cornerstone of a new regional order based on mutual recognition and coexistence.”
It added: “Regional peace begins with recognizing the State of Palestine, not as a symbolic gesture but as a strategic necessity.”
The high-level conference, scheduled to take place from June 17 to 20 at the UN headquarters in New York, aims to urgently adopt concrete measures to achieve the implementation of a two-state solution.
Palestine is officially recognized by 147 of the UN’s 193 member states and has held the status of nonmember observer state within the organization since 2012, but has not been granted full membership.
More than 53,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israeli authorities unleashed its military operations in Gaza following a Hamas-led attack that killed 1,200 people in Israel in October 2023.
On Wednesday, Guterres led a solemn tribute to 168 UN workers killed during 2024, describing the ceremony as not only a moment of mourning but a call for global reflection on the dangers faced by humanitarian workers. Of those who were honored, 126 were killed in Gaza and all but one of them served with the UN Relief and Works Agency.
Guterres said 2024 was the deadliest year for UN staff in the organization’s history and added: “More than one in every 50 UNRWA staff in Gaza has been killed in this atrocious conflict. Some were killed delivering life-saving aid, others alongside their families, and others while shielding the vulnerable.”
Families of the fallen were present at the annual memorial ceremony, during which Guterres described those who lost their lives as “extraordinary individuals, each one a story of courage, compassion and service.”
He emphasized the enduring commitment of UN workers despite growing global instability and said: “They do not seek recognition. They seek to make a difference. When conflict erupts, they work for peace. When rights are violated, they speak out.”
Guterres condemned the targeting of humanitarian workers and civilians in conflict zones and warned against what he called a growing tolerance for impunity.
“We will not accept the killing of UN personnel, of humanitarians, journalists, medical workers, or civilians as the new normal,” he said. “There must be no room for impunity.”
Despite increasing criticism of international institutions and growing shortfalls in funding for aid, Guterres said the dedication of UN staff remains unwavering.
“In a world where cooperation is under strain, we must remember the example set by our fallen colleagues,” he added.
He pledged to uphold the core values of the UN, stating: “We will not waver in our principles. We will not abandon our values. And we will never, ever give up.”
After decades in Assad jails, political prisoner wants justice
- He has made it out alive after 43 years in jail, but tens of thousands of Syrian families are still searching for their loved ones who disappeared long ago in Syria’s hellish prison system
- Showing old pictures of him in his pilot uniform, Tatari said he was not seeking revenge, but stressed that “everyone must be held accountable for their crimes“
DAMASCUS: Syrian fighter pilot Ragheed Tatari was 26 when he was arrested. Now 70, the country’s longest-serving political prisoner is finally free after Bashar Assad’s fall, seeking justice and accountability.
Tatari, arrested in 1981 and sentenced to life behind bars, was among scores of prisoners who walked free when longtime ruler Assad was overthrown on December 8 in an Islamist-led offensive.
He has made it out alive after 43 years in jail, but tens of thousands of Syrian families are still searching for their loved ones who disappeared long ago in Syria’s hellish prison system.
“I came close to death under torture,” Tatari told AFP in his small Damascus apartment.
Since a military field court gave him a life sentence for “collaborating with foreign countries” — an accusation he denies — Tatari was moved from one prison to another, first under late president Hafez Assad and then his son Bashar who succeeded him in 2000.
Showing old pictures of him in his pilot uniform, Tatari said he was not seeking revenge, but stressed that “everyone must be held accountable for their crimes.”
“We do not want anyone to be imprisoned” without due process, said Tatari.
More than two million Syrians were jailed under the Assad dynasty’s rule, half of them after anti-government protests in 2011 escalated into civil war, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.
The Britain-based monitor says around 200,000 died in custody.
Diab Serriya, co-founder of the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Saydnaya Prison, said that Tatari was “the longest-serving political prisoner in Syria and the Middle East.”
Rights group Amnesty International has called the notorious Saydnaya prison outside Damascus a “human slaughterhouse.”
Tatari had been detained there, but he said his 15 years in the Palmyra prison in the Syrian desert were the most difficult.
The Palmyra facility operated “without any discipline, any laws and any humanity,” Tatari said.
Detainees were “not afraid of torture — we wished for death,” he added.
“Everything that has been said about torture in Palmyra... is an understatement.”
“A guard could kill a prisoner if he was displeased with him,” Tatari said, adding that inmates were forced under torture to say phrases like “Hafez Assad is your god,” although he refused to do so.
In 1980, Palmyra witnessed a massacre of hundreds of mostly Islamist detainees, gunned down by helicopters or executed in their cells after a failed assassination attempt on Hafez Assad.
Tatari said he was completely disconnected from the outside world there, only learning of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union through a prisoner who had returned from a hospital visit.
In Sweida prison in the south, where Tatari was transferred after the 2011 revolt began, some inmates had phones that they would keep hidden from the guards.
“The cell phone gets you out of prison, it makes you feel alive,” he said, recalling how he used to conceal his device in a hole dug in his cell.
But after his phone was discovered, he was transferred to a prison in Tartus — his final detention facility before gaining freedom.
Tatari was one of several military officers who were opposed to Syria’s intervention in Lebanon in 1976, and to the violent repression in the early 1980s of the Muslim Brotherhood, Syria’s main opposition force at the time.
“Many of us were against involving the army in political operations,” he said.
After two of his fellow pilots defected and fled to Jordan in 1980, he escaped to Egypt and then on to Jordan.
But he returned when security forces began harassing his family and was arrested on arrival.
His wife was pregnant at the time with their first and only son.
For years, the family assumed Tatari was dead, before receiving a proof of life in 1997 after paying bribes, a common practice under the Assads’ rule.
It was then that Tatari was finally able to meet his son, then aged 16, under the watchful eye of guards during the family’s first authorized prison visit that year.
“I was afraid... I ended the meeting after 15 minutes,” Tatari said.
His wife has since died and their son left Syria, having received threats at the start of the protest movement, which had spiralled into war and eventually led to Assad’s overthrow.
During his time behind bars, Tatari said he “used to escape prison with my thoughts, daydreams and drawing.”
“The regime getting toppled overnight was beyond my dreams... No one expected it to happen so quickly.”
Without meat, families in Gaza struggle to celebrate Islam’s Eid Al-Adha holiday
- No fresh meat has entered Gaza for three months
- Some of the little livestock left was on sale at a makeshift pen set up in the vast tent camp of Muwasi in the southern part of Gaza’s Mediterranean coast
MUWASI, Gaza Strip: With the Gaza Strip devastated by war and siege, Palestinians struggled Thursday to celebrate one of the most important Islamic holidays.
To mark Eid Al-Adha – Arabic for the Festival of Sacrifice — Muslims traditionally slaughter a sheep or cow and give away part of the meat to the poor as an act of charity. Then they have a big family meal with sweets. Children get gifts of new clothes.
But no fresh meat has entered Gaza for three months. Israel has blocked shipments of food and other aid to pressure Hamas to release hostages taken in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that started the war. And nearly all the territory’s homegrown sheep, cattle and goats are dead after 20 months of Israeli bombardment and ground offensives.
Some of the little livestock left was on sale at a makeshift pen set up in the vast tent camp of Muwasi in the southern part of Gaza’s Mediterranean coast.
But no one could afford to buy. A few people came to look at the sheep and goats, along with a cow and a camel. Some kids laughed watching the animals and called out the prayers connected to the holiday.
“I can’t even buy bread. No meat, no vegetables,” said Abdel Rahman Madi. “The prices are astronomical.”
The Eid commemorates the test of faith of the Prophet Ibrahim – Abraham in the Bible – and his willingness to sacrifice his son as an act of submission to God. The day is usually one of joy for children – and a day when businesses boom a bit as people buy up food and gifts.
But prices for everything have soared amid the blockade, which was only slightly eased two weeks ago. Meat and most fresh fruits and vegetables disappeared from the markets weeks ago.
At a street market in the nearby city of Khan Younis, some stalls had stuffed sheep toys and other holiday knickknacks and old clothes. But most people left without buying any gifts after seeing the prices.
“Before, there was an Eid atmosphere, the children were happy … Now with the blockade, there’s no flour, no clothes, no joy,” said Hala Abu Nqeira, a woman looking through the market. “We just go to find flour for our children. We go out every day looking for flour at a reasonable price, but we find it at unbelievable prices.”
Israel’s campaign against Hamas has almost entirely destroyed Gaza’s ability to feed itself. The UN says 96 percent of the livestock and 99 percent of the poultry are dead. More than 95 percent of Gaza’s prewar cropland is unusable, either too damaged or inaccessible inside Israeli military zones, according to a land survey published this week by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
Israel barred all food and other supplies from entering Gaza for more than two months. It eased the blockade two weeks ago to allow a trickle of aid trucks in for the UN to distribute. The trucks have brought in some food items, mainly flour. But the UN says it has struggled to delivery much of the incoming aid because of looting or Israeli military restrictions.
Almost the entire population of more than 2 million people have been driven from their homes, and most have had to move multiple times to escape Israeli offensives.
Rasha Abu Souleyma said she recently slipped back to her home in Rafah — from which her family had fled to take refuge in Khan Younis — to find some possessions she’d left behind.
She came back with some clothes, pink plastic sunglasses and bracelets that she gave to her two daughters as Eid gifts.
“I can’t buy them clothes or anything,” the 38-year-old said. “I used to bring meat in Eid so they would be happy, but now we can’t bring meat, and I can’t even feed the girls with bread.”
Near her, a group of children played on makeshift swings made of knotted and looped ropes.
Karima Nejelli, a displaced woman from Rafah, pointed out that people in Gaza had now marked both Eid Al-Adha and the other main Islamic holiday, Eid Al-Fitr, two times each under the war. “During these four Eids, we as Palestinians did not see any kind of joy, no sacrifice, no cookies, no buying Eid clothes or anything.”
Iraq holds Kurdish government legally responsible for continued oil smuggling
- The ministry reserves the right to take all legal measures in the matter, it added
- Control over oil and gas has long been a source of tension between Baghdad and Irbil
BAGHDAD: Iraq’s oil ministry said on Thursday it holds the Kurdish regional government (KRG) legally responsible for the continued smuggling of oil from the Kurdish region outside the country.
The ministry reserves the right to take all legal measures in the matter, it added.
Control over oil and gas has long been a source of tension between Baghdad and Irbil.
Iraq is under pressure from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to cut output to compensate for having produced more than its agreed volume. OPEC counts oil flows from Kurdistan as part of Iraq’s quota.
In a ruling issued in 2022, Iraq’s federal court deemed an oil and gas law regulating the oil industry in Iraqi Kurdistan unconstitutional and demanded that Kurdish authorities hand over their crude oil supplies.
The ministry said the KRG’s failure to comply with the law has hurt both oil exports and public revenue, forcing Baghdad to cut output from other fields to meet OPEC quotas.
The ministry added that it had urged the KRG to hand over crude produced from its fields, warning that failure to do so could result in significant financial losses and harm the country’s international reputation and oil commitments.
Negotiations to resume Kurdish oil exports via the Iraq-Turkiye oil pipeline, which once handled about 0.5 percent of global oil supply, have stalled over payment terms and contract details.
