Kuwait, Bahrain, Arab Parliament commend Saudi-Omani efforts to resolve Yemen conflict

Yemen was plunged into war when the Houthis overran the capital Sanaa in a coup in September 2014. (AFP/File)
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Updated 18 September 2023
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Kuwait, Bahrain, Arab Parliament commend Saudi-Omani efforts to resolve Yemen conflict

  • Earlier reports said a 10-strong delegation from the Iran-backed Houthi militia flew to Riyadh for their first talks in the Kingdom since the war began in 2014

RIYADH: Kuwait, Bahrain and the Arab Parliament have welcomed the Saudi-Omani efforts to find a comprehensive solution to the Yemeni crisis, the Saudi Press Agency said early Monday.

Statements by the Kuwaiti and Bahraini foreign ministries commended the mediators' invitation to the rival Yemeni groups to resume talks on the ceasefire agreement and to reach a solution that all sides agree on under the auspices of the United Nations.

Earlier reports said a 10-strong delegation from the Iran-backed Houthi militia flew to Riyadh for their first talks in the Kingdom since the war began in 2014.

The first round of the Oman-mediated consultations between Riyadh and Sanaa, which are running in parallel to UN peace efforts, was held in April when Saudi envoys visited Sanaa.

A UN-brokered ceasefire is largely holding, despite having officially lapsed last October.

Kuwait reiterated its full support for all regional and international efforts to resolve the crisis in accordance with an initiative previously launched by the Gulf Cooperation Council, and in line with relevant UN resolutions.

Bahrain stressed its backing for the initiative announced by Saudi Arabia in March 2021 to end the Yemeni crisis through a comprehensive peace settlement.

Arab Parliament chief Adel Al-Asoumi said he looks forward for things to proceed in a way that enables the Yemenis to end the war they have lived in for years and during which they suffered from difficult humanitarian conditions.

He added that since the beginning of the conflict, Saudi Arabia has been leading great efforts to reach a comprehensive political solution to the Yemeni crisis, and striving to work to defuse the conflict between the Yemenis and bring Yemen to safety and stability.

Al-Asoumi likewise praised the tireless efforts made by Oman to bring the views between all concerned parties.

Yemen was plunged into war when the Houthis overran the capital Sanaa in a coup in September 2014.

A Saudi-led Arab coalition intervened on behalf of the internationally recognized government the following March.

The ensuing fighting has forced millions from their homes, and caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises in a country already devastated by decades of conflict and upheaval.

UN agencies and 91 NGOs said on Thursday that 21.6 million people — 75 percent of the population — needed humanitarian assistance.

The six-month ceasefire that expired last October is still mostly observed but moves towards peace have been slow since the Saudi delegation visited Sanaa in April. 


Lebanon on bumpy road to public transport revival

Updated 4 sec ago
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Lebanon on bumpy road to public transport revival

BEIRUT: On Beirut’s chaotic, car-choked streets, Lebanese student Fatima Fakih rides a shiny purple bus to university, one of a fleet rolled out by authorities to revive public transport in a country struggling to deliver basic services.
The 19-year-old says the spacious public buses are “safer, better and more comfortable,” than the informal network of private buses and minivans that have long substituted for mass transport.
“I have my bus card — I don’t have to have money with me,” she added, a major innovation in Lebanon, where cash is king and many private buses and minivans have no tickets at all.
Lebanon’s public transport system never recovered from the devastating 1975-1990 civil war that left the country in ruins, and in the decades since, car culture has flourished.
Even before the economic crisis that began in 2019 — plunged much of the population into poverty and sent transport costs soaring — the country was running on empty, grappling with crumbling power, water and road infrastructure.
But public buses, now equipped with GPS tracking, have been slowly returning.
They operate along 11 routes — mostly in greater Beirut but also reaching north, south and east Lebanon — with a private company managing operations. Fares start at about 80 cents.


Passengers told AFP the buses were not only safer and more cost-effective, but more environmentally friendly.
They also offer a respite from driving on Lebanon’s largely lawless, potholed roads, where mopeds hurtle in all directions and traffic lights are scarce.
The system officially launched last July, during more than a year of hostilities between Israel and militant group Hezbollah that later slammed the brakes on some services.
Ali Daoud, 76, who remembers Lebanon’s long-defunct trains and trams, said the public bus was “orderly and organized” during his first ride.
The World Bank’s Beirut office told AFP that Lebanon’s “reliance on private vehicles is increasingly unsustainable,” noting rising poverty rates and vehicle operation costs.
Ziad Nasr, head of Lebanon’s public transport authority, said passenger numbers now averaged around 4,500 a day, up from just a few hundred at launch.
He said authorities hope to extend the network, including to Beirut airport, noting the need for more buses, and welcoming any international support.
France donated around half of the almost 100 buses now in circulation in 2022.
Consultant and transport expert Tammam Nakkash said he hoped the buses would be “a good start” but expressed concern at issues including the competition.
Private buses and minivans — many of them dilapidated and barrelling down the road at breakneck speed — cost similar to the public buses.
Shared taxis are also ubiquitous, with fares starting at around $2 for short trips.
Several incidents of violence targeted the new public buses around their launch last year.


Student and worker Daniel Imad, 19, said he welcomed the idea of public buses but had not tried them yet.
People “can go where they want for a low price” by taking shared taxis, he said before climbing into a one at a busy Beirut intersection.
Public transport could also have environmental benefits in Lebanon, where climate concerns often take a back seat to daily challenges like long power blackouts.
A World Bank climate and development report last year said the transport sector was Lebanon’s second-biggest contributor to greenhouse gas and air pollution, accounting for a quarter of emissions, only behind the energy sector.
Some smaller initiatives have also popped up, including four hybrid buses in east Lebanon’s Zahle.
Nabil Mneimne from the United Nations Development Programme said Lebanon’s first fully electric buses with a solar charging system were set to launch this year, running between Beirut and Jbeil (Byblos) further north.
In the capital, university student Fakih encouraged everyone to take public buses, “also to protect the environment.”
Beirut residents often complain of poor air quality due to heavy traffic and private, diesel-fueled electricity generators that operate during power outages.
“We don’t talk about this a lot but it’s very important,” she said, arguing that things could improve in the city “if we all took public transport.”

UN says deadly attacks around Gaza aid sites ‘a war crime’

Updated 30 sec ago
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UN says deadly attacks around Gaza aid sites ‘a war crime’

GENEVA: UN human rights chief Volker Turk said on Tuesday that “deadly attacks” on civilians around aid distribution sites in the Gaza Strip constituted “a war crime.”
Rescuers in the Palestinian territory said Israeli fire targeting civilians near an aid distribution center in the southern city of Rafah killed 27 people on Tuesday, raising an earlier toll.
It came after a similar incident on Sunday when rescuers said 31 people were killed at the same location, witnesses saying they had been on their way to collect aid.
“Deadly attacks on distraught civilians trying to access the paltry amounts of food aid in Gaza are unconscionable,” Turk said in a statement.
“For a third day running, people were killed around an aid distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. This morning, we have received information that dozens more people were killed and injured.”
The US-backed GHF is a recently formed group that Israel has cooperated with to implement a new aid distribution mechanism in Gaza.
The United Nations does not work with the foundation because of concerns that it does not meet core humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence.
Turk called for a prompt and impartial investigation into each attack, and for those responsible to be held to account.
“Attacks directed against civilians constitute a grave breach of international law, and a war crime,” he said.
“Palestinians have been presented the grimmest of choices: die from starvation or risk being killed while trying to access the meagre food that is being made available through Israel’s militarised humanitarian assistance mechanism.
“This militarised system endangers lives and violates international standards on aid distribution, as the United Nations has repeatedly warned.”

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

Updated 8 min 34 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 38 min 58 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.