Kuwait says government spending must be fixed to control budget growth
Its statement added expenses were estimated at 24.5 billion dinars and revenues at 18.9 billion dinars
Updated 14 July 2024
Arab News
KUWAIT CITY: Kuwait's budget is projected to show a deficit of 5.6 billion dinars ($18.33 billion) for the 2024-2025 fiscal year, the Kuwait News Agency reported on Sunday citing the Ministry of Finance.
Its statement added expenses were estimated at 24.5 billion dinars and revenues at 18.9 billion dinars.
Government spending must be fixed at 24.5 billion Kuwaiti dinars in the 2027-2028 budget to control budget growth, the ministry also said.
The liquidity of the General Reserve Fund, from which the budget deficit is financed, decreased to 2 billion dinars last March from 33.6 billion ten years ago due to increasing withdrawals, it added.
Israel carries out intense strikes in central Syria, killing 4, state media says
In the most high-profile attack on Syria since the war in Gaza began, suspected Israeli warplanes bombed Iran’s embassy in April, a strike that Iran said killed seven military advisers, including three senior commanders
Updated 58 min 16 sec ago
AP
DAMASCUS: A series of Israeli strikes hit multiple areas in central Syria late Sunday, killing at least four people, wounding 13 and sparking fires, state media reported.
Syria state news agency SANA reported that Syrian air defenses “confronted an aggression that targeted several points in the central region,” damaging a highway in Hama province and sparking fires that firefighting teams were battling to control early Monday.
At least four dead and 13 wounded people arrived at the Masyaf National Hospital in western Hamas province, SANA said, citing hospital head Faysal Haydar. It was not immediately clear if they were civilians or militants.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor, reported that one of the strikes targeted a scientific research center in Maysaf and other sites where “Iranian militias and experts are stationed to develop weapons in Syria.” Local media also reported strikes around the coastal city of Tartous.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of war-torn Syria in recent years, but it rarely acknowledges or discusses the operations.
The strikes often target Syrian forces or Iranian-backed groups. Israel has vowed to stop Iranian entrenchment in Syria, particularly since Syria is a key route for Iran to send weapons to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
Hezbollah has been clashing with Israeli forces for the past 11 months against the backdrop of Israel’s war against Hamas — an ally of Hezbollah — in Gaza.
Algeria’s Tebboune: reassuring to some but criticized over rights, freedoms
Tebboune claims he has since put Algeria, Africa’s third-largest economy, back on track, with the Ukraine-Russia war boosting natural gas prices to the country’s benefit as the continent’s top exporter
Tebboune, 78, was elected in December 2019 with 58 percent of the vote, despite a record abstention rate exceeding 60 percent, amid the massive Hirak pro-democracy protests
Updated 09 September 2024
AFP
ALGIERS: Abdelmadjid Tebboune, re-elected for a second five-year term, has sought to reshape his bureaucratic image into that of a reassuring figure, though his record remains tarnished by criticism over freedoms and human rights.
He was re-elected Sunday with almost 95 percent of the vote and a “provisional average turnout” of 48 percent, according to the electoral authority ANIE.
He was facing moderate Islamist Abdelaali Hassani, 57, who won 3.17 percent of the vote, and socialist candidate Youcef Aouchiche, 41, who won 2.16 percent.
Tebboune, 78, was elected in December 2019 with 58 percent of the vote, despite a record abstention rate exceeding 60 percent, amid the massive Hirak pro-democracy protests.
The demonstrations, which began in February of that year and led to the ousting of former president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, under whom Tebboune served in various ministerial roles, sought a sweeping political overhaul.
With a calm demeanour and, to some, an affable appearance, Tebboune attempted to appease the protests, pardoning a few dozen jailed activists.
He has claimed to uphold the Hirak’s “blessed” spirit, which he says freed the North African country from an oppressive past.
Yet he oversaw the imprisonment of hundreds of other activists, banned the movement’s weekly rallies, and cracked down on dissent with support from the military.
Five years on, Tebboune’s tenure still reflects “a democratic deficit,” said Hasni Abidi, an analyst at the Geneva-based CERMAM Study Center.
Algerian authorities “have maintained their repression of civic space by continuing their brutal crackdown on human rights,” Amnesty International said.
The London-based rights group denounced “a zero-tolerance approach to dissenting opinions” in “a climate of fear and censorship.”
Tebboune, however, has avoided addressing such accusations, instead touting his social and economic credentials and pledging more if re-elected.
The incumbent president frequently refers to Bouteflika’s final years in power as the “mafia decade,” when control of Algeria’s energy wealth was concentrated in the hands of a “gang.”
During his tenure, several key figures from that era, including Bouteflika’s brother Said, were convicted on corruption charges and imprisoned.
Tebboune claims he has since put Algeria, Africa’s third-largest economy, back on track, with the Ukraine-Russia war boosting natural gas prices to the country’s benefit as the continent’s top exporter.
He has capitalized on this by promising free housing, more jobs, a higher minimum wage and increased social pensions.
During campaigning, Tebboune aimed to appear close to the people, even wearing traditional Tuareg clothing while rallying in the southern Sahara region.
He has also courted the young vote — about a third of registered voters — and pledged to create 450,000 jobs and increase monthly unemployment benefits if re-elected.
In March, he expressed pride in being called “ammi Tebboune” (“Uncle Tebboune“), deeming it even “a paternal relationship.”
Running as an independent, Tebboune has sought to distance himself from political parties, which have lost credibility among many Algerians.
His supporters say he has revived the presidency, which became largely invisible under Bouteflika after his 2013 stroke.
“The presidency has shifted from being a phantom institution to a real center of power,” said the analyst Abidi.
However, critics argue that Tebboune rose to power with military backing.
Like Bouteflika, he serves as defense minister and supreme commander of the armed forces and has never challenged the military’s political role, calling it “the backbone of the state.”
He is often seen with chief of staff Said Chengriha at public events.
A graduate of the National School of Administration, Tebboune climbed the ranks in the 1980s as a prefect in several provinces, eventually becoming part of the state apparatus that the Hirak protests later wanted to be reformed.
In 1991, he served as minister of local communities under president Chadli Bendjedid, who was ousted in early 1992 as the Algerian civil war began.
Dubbed the Black Decade, the war saw the military step in to halt legislative elections after the Islamic Salvation Front won the first round and vowed to establish religious rule.
Tebboune largely disappeared from the political scene during the war, which ended in 2002, but returned when Bouteflika was elected in 1999, briefly serving as communications minister.
He held various other portfolios until 2002, followed by a decade-long hiatus.
Tebboune returned in 2012 as housing minister and became prime minister in 2017, though he was dismissed after only three months, allegedly confronting oligarchs close to Bouteflika.
Many of those oligarchs were later jailed for corruption during Tebboune’s presidency.
Once a heavy smoker with a thin moustache, Tebboune, now married with three sons and two daughters, quit smoking in 2020 after contracting Covid-19 and spending two months hospitalized in Germany.
He returned to Germany in 2021 for foot surgery.
14 killed in a car crash in war-torn Yemen, state media report
The crashes claim thousands of lives every year and are mostly caused by speeding, bad roads, or poor enforcement of traffic laws
Updated 09 September 2024
AP
SANAA, Yemen: A passenger bus overturned while driving Sunday in a mountainous area in southwestern Yemen, killing at least 14 people, state-run media reported.
The vehicle was traveling on a highway overlooking a rocky area in the Maqatra district when it suffered a mechanical failure and tumbled to the ground, according to the state-run SABA news agency.
The bus was transporting 14 passengers from the southern province of Aden, the seat of the internationally recognized government, to the southwestern province of Taiz, the agency reported.
It said only one person survived the crash and was taken to hospital for treatment.
Deadly traffic crashes are not uncommon in Yemen, where a decade of civil war wrecked the country’s infrastructure. The crashes claim thousands of lives every year and are mostly caused by speeding, bad roads, or poor enforcement of traffic laws.
Yemen plunged into civil war in 2014, when Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels took control of the capital, Sanaa, and much of the country’s north, forcing the government to flee to the south, then to Saudi Arabia.
A Saudi-led coalition entered the war in March 2015, backed at the time by the US, in an effort to restore the internationally recognized government to power.
The war has killed more than 150,000 people including civilians and combatants. In recent years the situation has deteriorated and the conflict has largely turned into a stalemate and caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Usually arid areas in southern Morocco and Algeria have been drenched in floods caused by massive rainfall since Friday, officials told AFP Sunday
Updated 09 September 2024
AFP
OUARZAZATE, Morocco: Moroccan authorities on Sunday told AFP that 11 people died and nine were missing in flooding caused by an “exceptional” climate phenomenon in southern areas.
Interior ministry spokesman Rachid Khalfi said authorities recorded an initial “toll of 11 deaths” after “heavy thunderstorms” that hit “17 prefectures and provinces in the kingdom.”
Among the victims, seven died in the province of Tata, some 740 kilometers south of Rabat, and two in Errachidia, almost 500 kilometers east of Marrakech, according to Khalfi.
He said one of the victims had foreign citizenship, without providing further details.
Khalfi also said “the volume of precipitation recorded in two days is equivalent to that which these regions normally experience during an entire year.”
The floods also caused the collapse of 40 homes and damaged 93 roads, and “affected electricity, drinking water and telephone networks,” he added.
Usually arid areas in southern Morocco and Algeria have been drenched in floods caused by massive rainfall since Friday, officials told AFP Sunday.
Areas in southern Morocco have been affected “by an extremely unstable tropical air mass,” the spokesman for the Moroccan General Directorate of Meteorology, Lhoussaine Youabd, told AFP.
This “led to the formation of unstable and violent clouds” that caused massive rainfall, he said, describing the phenomenon as “exceptional.”
As a result, the Ouarzazate region received 47 millimeters of water in three hours, and Tagounite, near the Algerian border, some 170 millimeters, according to the Moroccan weather service.
“We haven’t seen such rain for about 10 years,” Omar Gana, an Ouarzazate local, told AFP.
The heavy rains hit regions of Morocco that have been suffering from drought for at least six years.
In a previous toll, Algerian civil defense said one person died in Illizi, some 1,900 kilometers south of Algiers, and one was missing in flooding in the south.
Later in the day, it gave a total of two people missing, in El Bayadh and Tamanrasset.
It also said it had rescued several families trapped by flooded rivers in the south.
Videos posted on social media showed that some areas in the Sahara desert were drenched. In Morocco’s Ouarzazate, entire streets were flooded.
Morocco has been experiencing severe water stress after six consecutive years of drought, shrinking dam levels to less than 28 percent of capacity by the end of August.
West Bank escalation signals potential for a multifront regional conflict
Deadly Israeli military operations and Jewish settler attacks drive unrest in an already volatile occupied territory
Violence shows no sign of ebbing despite elimination of several militant commanders by Israeli security forces
Updated 14 min 40 sec ago
Nadia Al-Faour
DUBAI: Israeli military raids, settler attacks and a vicious cycle of violence have claimed the lives of more than 662 Palestinians and 24 Israelis in the West Bank since Oct. 7, raising the specter of a new active front in a regional conflict.
The West Bank has long been a center of unrest, but recent events have led to unprecedented volatility, with the Israeli government stepping up military operations in the area, including large-scale raids by soldiers backed by armored vehicles and bulldozers in Jenin, Tulkarm and other areas.
One recent raid at a refugee camp in the city of Jenin, which houses more than 4,000 Palestinians, involved hundreds of Israeli troops and armored vehicles. Simultaneous raids were launched in Tulkarm, Tubas, Nablus and Ramallah.
The Israeli army withdrew from Jenin and the refugee camp on Friday after the 10-day operation, which left 36 dead across the occupied West Bank, witnesses said. Residents who had fled began returning to their homes in the camp.
Israeli officials said 14 militants were killed and at least 25 arrested over the course of the Jenin assault, which camp residents say has led to the blockage of essential aid. One Israeli soldier was killed in the operation.
Bulldozers tear up a street during an Israeli raid in the center of Jenin in the occupied West Bank on September 2, 2024. (AFP)
Hamas, whose Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel triggered the ongoing war in Gaza, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have acknowledged the loss of at least 14 fighters. Since Oct. 7, Israeli troops have arrested some 5,000 Palestinians across the West Bank.
“Operation Summer Camps” was the largest incursion since the early 2000s, when the Second Intifada, or uprising, took place. Authorities said the raids are part of a strategy to prevent Iranian-backed militant groups from launching attacks on Israeli citizens.
Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, described the roundup of terrorist suspects as “mowing the lawn” but said the threat to Israel would only be fully neutralized once its forces “pull out the roots.”
Israeli military vehicles deploy during a house demolition operation in the Palestinian village of Kafr Dan, west of Jenin in the occupied West Bank, on Sept. 3, 2024. (AFP)
“The rise of terror in Judea and Samaria is an issue that we need to be focused on every minute,” Gallant said during a meeting with military officials, describing the West Bank by its biblical name.
Videos of the raids shared on social media show deserted streets and colossal damage to buildings. The UN Human Rights Office has accused Israeli forces of using “unlawful force” and called for an “immediate end” to the operation.
Kamal Abu Al-Rub, the governor of Jenin, said the situation was the “most severe, the most painful and oppressive” in years. He said Israeli troops had mounted 12 major raids in the city since Oct. 7.
“Israeli army is preventing food, water and ambulances from reaching besieged areas.”
Governor of West Bank’s Jenin, Kamal Abu Al-Rub, says the situation at the Israeli closed military areas is bad.
Medecins Sans Frontieres, one of the aid agencies operating in the West Bank, said that “repeated attacks by the Israeli military on health workers, ambulances and medical facilities, are severely hindering people’s ability to get access to medical care. There has been very limited medical access in the city of Tulkarm and its refugee camps.”
The organization said its teams had ceased operations in Jenin and Tulkarm, citing restrictions to their movements.
Ori Goldberg, a lecturer at Israel’s Reichman University, regards Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s actions in the West Bank as an act of desperation designed to rally public support amid mass protests over his handling of the Gaza hostage crisis.
INNUMBERS
• 650 Palestinians killed in West Bank and East Jerusalem since Oct. 7 (Palestinian Ministry of Health).
• 1,300 Attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in Oct. 7, 2023-Sept. 2, 2024 period
Source: UN OCHA
The strategy could be backfiring, however, as the Israeli occupation of the West Bank appears to be “teetering” on the brink of all-out chaos.
“Israeli citizens support the war on terror,” Goldberg told Arab News, referring to the West Bank raids, but “they don’t see the connection between the dead hostages and the Israeli rampage. They think we have to do this. But I don’t think Israel can contain the violence.”
The military operation inside the Jenin refugee camp has left many Palestinian homes damaged or destroyed by army bulldozers and pavement stripped from roads.
A Palestinian boy sits on the rubble of a damaged shop, next to a street that was torn up by bulldozers during an Israeli raid in the center of Jenin in the occupied West Bank on Sept. 2, 2024. (AFP)
On Friday, agencies said residents used bulldozers of their own to begin clearing the rubble after Israeli armored vehicles left.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and its forces regularly make incursions into Palestinian communities, but the latest raids as well as the hawkish comments by Gallant signaled an escalation, residents told AFP news agency.
The Israeli military has maintained a strong footing in the occupied territory for decades to protect the roughly 500,000 Israeli citizens living in settlements there.
Activists confront Israeli land-grabbers who tried to build a new outpost in the land of the Kisiya family in al-Makhrour, occupied West Bank, on August 22, 2024. After Israeli security forces turned the settlers away, peace activists and members of the Kisiya family retreated to their makeshift base. (AFP)
Despite international condemnation, the Netanyahu government has allowed illegal settlements to continue to expand across the West Bank.
In March this year, the Israeli government announced it was confiscating an area of roughly 1,980 acres in the northern Jordan Valley with a view to expanding Jewish settlements there.
On Friday, a 26-year-old Turkish American woman was killed in the West Bank during a protest where Israeli forces opened fire. Aysenur Ezgi Eygi was taking part in a protest against settlement expansion in Beita, a town near Nablus.
Palestinians and international activists carry portraits of slain Turkish-American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a member of Turkish-American International Solidarity Movement, who was shot dead on Sept. 7, 2024, while demonstrating against Israeli settlements in Beita in the occupied West Bank. (AFP)
Settler violence in the area also is nothing new. However, there has been a sharp increase in the number of attacks on Palestinians since the war in Gaza began.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, there were at least 1,300 attacks between Oct. 7 and Sept. 2 this year.
The raids and settler violence have been taking place against the backdrop of the war in Gaza, which has left more than 40,000 Palestinians dead, according to Gaza’s health ministry, and created a major humanitarian crisis.
Despite international pressure, Netanyahu has resisted calls to strike a ceasefire deal with Hamas, which would see the return of the remaining hostages, the release of Palestinian prisoners, and an end to the fighting.
Opinion
This section contains relevant reference points, placed in (Opinion field)
Last week, Netanyahu presented a plan that included the destruction of the Netzarim Corridor — an 8-km stretch of land that connects the Mediterranean Sea with the former Karni crossing in northeastern Gaza.
He said reconstruction would not be permitted and that Palestinians would not be allowed to return to their homes in northern Gaza to prevent Hamas from establishing “nests” in the area.
Meanwhile, the Philadelphi Corridor, which separates Gaza from Egypt, would remain under Israeli control, and a third corridor would be built between Khan Younis and Rafah, which would also be under Israeli military control.
Israeli PM Netanyahu holding a press conference explaining his plan to put the so-called Philadelphi Corridor, which separates Gaza from Egypt, under Israeli control tok contain Hamas. (AFP)
What was perhaps more striking about the map used by Netanyahu during his news conference, however, was that the West Bank appeared to be completely annexed by Israel.
Asked by a reporter to elaborate on this, Netanyahu said: “I didn’t get into that. I was talking about Gaza. There is a whole issue of how to achieve peace between us. That’s another press conference.”
Whether Netanyahu’s government intends to open a new front in its war with the Palestinians and seize complete control of the West Bank remains unclear.
Reichman University’s Goldberg is skeptical about Netanyahu’s appetite for risk given the magnitude of unfinished business both in Gaza and the Lebanon border. “I doubt that Israel will bring larger forces into the West Bank,” he said. “It cannot afford to lose on yet another front.”