AMMAN: Jordan’s Prime Minister Bisher Khasawneh submitted his resignation on Sunday to King Abdullah II, state media reported, after parliamentary elections dominated by frustration over the Gaza war.
Under the kingdom’s constitution, the government usually resigns after legislative elections. It is the king who appoints the prime minister, not parliament which has limited powers.
The country’s leading Islamist party, the Islamic Action Front, came out top in Tuesday’s poll, winning 31 out of the 138 seats in parliament.
The IAF is a political offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, and the result gives the Islamists their largest representation since 1989.
Despite a low turnout of 32 percent, the party’s success came with voters frustrated about economic woes and Israel’s war against the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Jordan in 1994 signed a peace treaty with Israel, becoming only the second Arab state to do so after Egypt, but regular protests have called for its dissolution since the war erupted last October.
Nearly half of the country’s population is of Palestinian origin.
Khasawneh, 55, had headed the government since October 2020.
Jordan’s parliament is bicameral. In addition to the elected parliament there is also a senate with 69 members appointed by the monarch.
The Gaza war has hit tourism to Jordan, which relies on the sector for about 14 percent of its gross domestic product.
The kingdom is heavily dependent on foreign aid, especially from the United States and the International Monetary Fund.
In the first quarter of 2024, the unemployment rate was 21 percent.
Jordan PM resigns after general election
https://arab.news/vd6qx
Jordan PM resigns after general election
Essex fined 100,000 pounds over racism at club between 2001-2010
- Disciplinary body finds Essex guilty of failing to address racist or discriminatory language and conduct
- Last year, Yorkshire were fined 400,000 pounds for their handling of racism allegations by a former player
Essex have been fined 100,000 pounds ($132,190) after admitting to a charge of racism at the county club which they failed to address between 2001 and 2010, England’s Cricket Regulator said on Wednesday.
Essex were charged in June after an investigation undertaken by the Cricket Regulator, a body responsible for monitoring compliance with the sport’s rules which operates independently from the rest of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB).
An independent Cricket Discipline Commission (CDC) panel held a sanctions hearing and published its decision on Wednesday.
“Essex County Cricket Club has admitted a charge in breach of Directive 3.3, in relation to the systemic use of racist and/or discriminatory language and/or conduct during the period between 2001 and 2010 which Essex failed to address,” it said in a statement.
The CDC panel also cautioned and reprimanded Essex while 50,000 pounds of the fine was suspended for two years.
“There is deep regret for what occurred in the past but these events do not reflect the Essex Cricket of today,” Essex chair Anu Mohindru said.
“The club have accepted the sanctions and remains committed to tackling all forms of discrimination, and is fully aligned with the ECB’s goal of making cricket the country’s most inclusive team sport.
“We have made significant progress in achieving these aims in the communities we represent through our excellent outreach work, as well as building a workplace that values and respects every individual.”
Dave Lewis, the interim director of the Cricket Regulator, said the racism experienced at Essex was “abhorrent” while the evidence was “deeply disturbing.”
Lewis added that the sanctions had been decided following a “long and complex investigation” after the club had conducted its own investigation.
The people subjected to abuse had “shown real bravery in speaking out,” Lewis said, adding: ” I hope that this prosecution will help ensure that no one suffers again as they did and that racism of this kind is never normalized.
“The CDC panel took into account the fact that Essex had pleaded guilty to the charge and has already taken significant action to address these issues and become a more inclusive club.”
Last year, Yorkshire were fined 400,000 pounds and given a 48-point deduction in the County Championship by the CDC over their handling of racism allegations made by Azeem Rafiq.
The former England Under-19s captain, who is of Pakistani descent, told a British parliamentary committee in 2021 of ‘inhuman’ treatment at Yorkshire and said he had been a victim of institutional racism at the club.
($1 = 0.7565 pounds)
Germany has stopped approving war weapons exports to Israel, source says
- A source close to the ministry cited a senior government official as saying it had stopped work on approving export licenses for arms to Israel pending a resolution of legal cases
- Legal challenges across Europe have also led other allies of Israel to pause or suspend arms exports
BERLIN: Germany has put a hold on new exports of weapons of war to Israel while it deals with legal challenges, according to a Reuters analysis of data and a source close to the Economy Ministry.
Last year, Germany approved arms exports to Israel worth 326.5 million euros ($363.5 million), including military equipment and war weapons, a 10-fold increase from 2022, according to data from the Economy Ministry, which approves export licenses.
However, approvals have dropped this year, with only 14.5 million euros’ worth granted from January to Aug. 21, according to data provided by the Economy Ministry in response to a parliamentary question. Of this, the “weapons of war” category accounted for only 32,449 euros.
A source close to the ministry cited a senior government official as saying it had stopped work on approving export licenses for arms to Israel pending a resolution of legal cases arguing that such exports from Germany breached humanitarian law.
The ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
In its defense of two cases, one before the International Court of Justice and one in Berlin brought by the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), the government has said no weapons of war have been exported under any license issued since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, apart from spares for long-term contracts, the source added.
Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians since Oct. 7, according to the local Hamas-controlled health ministry. It has also displaced most of the population of 2.3 million, caused a hunger crisis and led to genocide allegations at the World Court, which Israel denies. No case challenging German arms exports to Israel has yet succeeded, including a case brought by Nicaragua at the ICJ.
DISAGREEMENT ON ARMS EXPORTS IN GERMAN GOVERNMENT
But the issue has created friction within the government as the Chancellery maintains its support for Israel while the Greens-led Economy and Foreign ministries, sensitive to criticism from party members, have increasingly criticized the Netanyahu administration.
Legal challenges across Europe have also led other allies of Israel to pause or suspend arms exports.
Britain this month suspended 30 out of 350 licenses for arms exports to Israel due to concerns that Israel could be violating international humanitarian law.
In February, a Dutch court ordered the Netherlands to halt all exports of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel over concerns about their use in attacks on civilian targets in Gaza.
President Joe Biden’s administration this year paused — but then resumed — shipments of some bombs to Israel after US concerns about their use in densely populated Gaza.
Approvals and shipments of other types of weapons, in more precise systems, continued as US officials maintained that Israel needed the capacity to defend itself.
Alexander Schwarz, a lawyer at ECCHR, which has filed five lawsuits against Berlin, suggested that the significant decline in approvals for 2024 indicated a genuine, though possibly temporary, reluctance to supply weapons to Israel.
“However, I would not interpret this as a conscious change in policy,” Schwarz added.
Iran condemns attacks in Lebanon involving exploding communications devices
- “The terrorism of the Zionist regime causes aversion and disgust,” MoHajjerani said
- Tehran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was injured in the explosion of his pager on Tuesday
DUBAI: Iran condemned attacks in Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday that involved exploding communications devices, government spokesperson Fatemeh MoHajjerani said in a post on the X social media platform on Wednesday, offering help to the wounded.
Hand-held radios used by Hezbollah detonated on Wednesday across Lebanon killing at least three people and more than 100 injured, further stoking tensions with Israel a day after similar explosions launched via the group’s pagers which caused 12 fatalities.
“The terrorism of the Zionist regime causes aversion and disgust. Iran strongly condemns yesterday’s criminal explosion of communication devices and today’s criminal explosion of walkie-talkies, which resulted in the death and injury of hundreds of Lebanese civilians,” MoHajjerani said.
Earlier in the day, according to state media, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian had said: “The incident in Lebanon shows once again that Western countries and the United States, despite claiming to seek a ceasefire, fully support the crimes, massacres and blind terrorism of the Zionist regime in practice.”
Tehran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was injured in the explosion of his pager on Tuesday, and shared on Wednesday a message of solidarity to Lebanon on his X account.
Iran’s Minister of Health Mohammadreza Zafarqandi said a team of Iranian ophthalmologists and nurses were dispatched to Lebanon on Wednesday and that several injured Lebanese would be transferred to various hospitals in Tehran.
Jordan’s king receives delegation from Joint Arab Islamic Extraordinary Summit on Gaza
- Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan headed the delegation
- Jordanian royal warned of the impact of the war on Gaza and dangers of Israeli attacks in the West Bank
AMMAN: King Abdullah II received a delegation from the ministerial committee assigned by the Joint Arab-Islamic Extraordinary Summit on developments in the Gaza Strip at Al-Husseiniya Palace on Wednesday.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan headed the delegation, which discussed regional developments with King Abdullah during the meeting — also attended by Crown Prince Al-Hussein bin Abdullah, the Jordan News Agency reported.
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi and other officials attended the meeting, during which King Abdullah stressed the importance of stepping up efforts to reach an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, and increasing humanitarian aid to Gaza.
The Jordanian royal warned of the impact of the war on Gaza and the dangers to regional stability and security of Israeli attacks and violations in the West Bank.
King Abdullah also stressed the important role of the committee in communicating the stance of Arab and Muslim countries to the international community, as well as pushing for international action to stop the Gaza war and create a political environment to achieve a comprehensive peace on the basis of a two-state solution.
Musk’s Starlink launches satellite internet service in Yemen
- In a post on his social media platform, Musk said on Wednesday that the Starlink internet is now accessible in Yemen
- Government-run Public Telecommunications Corporation in the southern port city of Aden confirmed the launch of the Starlink service in a Facebook post
AL-MUKALLA: Elon Musk said that his Starlink satellite internet provider will begin offering services in Yemen, eliciting enthusiastic reactions in the war-torn country, where the internet penetration rate is very low.
In a post on his social media platform, Musk said on Wednesday that the Starlink internet is now accessible in Yemen, sharing a post from the company that depicted Yemen in blue on its availability map as the sole Middle Eastern country in which the company will provide its services.
Yemen’s internationally recognized government announced earlier this month that the Starlink satellite internet would be officially launched in the country after the government signed a deal with the company, putting an end to the Houthi militia’s longstanding monopoly on Yemen’s telecommunications sector.
The government-run Public Telecommunications Corporation in the southern port city of Aden confirmed the launch of the Starlink service in a Facebook post on Wednesday.
“The Starlink service has been officially launched in the Republic of Yemen … Get ready for an unparalleled Internet experience,” the Yemeni said.
The Houthis, who militarily took power in Yemen a decade ago, have taken control of state-run landline and mobile providers, which generate billions of Yemeni riyals in revenue each year.
Yemen’s government has been able to end the Houthis’ monopoly on the internet and mobile sectors, establishing Aden Net, an internet company that provides 4G internet services to government-controlled areas.
TeleYemen, the Houthi-controlled company, is Yemen’s sole provider of landline, mobile and satellite internet services.
According to DataReportal, an online researcher, figures from online advisory company Kepios showed that 17.7 percent of Yemen’s 34.83 million population was connected to the internet in January 2024, with the internet penetration rate increasing by 2.2 percent between January 2023 and January 2024.
“For perspective, these user figures reveal that 28.67 million people in Yemen did not use the internet at the start of 2024, suggesting that 82.3 percent of the population remained offline at the beginning of the year,” DataReportal said in a report in February.
Yemenis, who have long complained about poor internet access in the war-torn country, reacted positively to Starlink’s announcement.
Akram Saleh, a Yemeni journalist, said that Starlink’s services will reach isolated and remote areas in Yemen, forcing Yemeni internet companies to improve their services and lower their prices.
He said that high-speed internet access in Yemen would result in social and economic transformation.
“In Yemen, having access to fast internet means experiencing significant social and economic transformations. Educational and professional opportunities will increase as high-speed internet becomes more widely available,” Saleh said on Facebook.
Despite welcoming the launch of Starlink’s services in the country, other Yemenis, such as political analyst Yasser Al-Yafae, expressed concern that the cash-strapped country would be deprived of the huge revenues from the mobile and telecom sector that would go to Starlink, causing Yemeni internet companies to shut down and that Starlink’s “unmonitored” internet services would provide Yemenis with access to “indecent” online content.
“As reliance on satellite internet services such as Starlink grow, local businesses may struggle to compete, jeopardizing their market future,” Al-Yafae said on X.
At the same time, the US Embassy in Yemen congratulated Yemenis on the start of the Starlink service.
“Congratulations to #Yemen on becoming the first Middle Eastern country with full #Starlink satellite internet access! This milestone demonstrates how technology can unlock new opportunities and drive progress,” it said on X.
