KUWAIT CITY: Iran’s neighbors have pledged they will not allow the use of their “soil or airspace” for any attack, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tuesday, as Israel weighs a retaliation for the Islamic republic’s missile strike.
“All our neighbors have assured us that they won’t allow their soil or airspace to be used against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Araghchi told a press conference in Kuwait, weeks after Iran’s October 1 missile attack on Israel.
Before Kuwait, Araghchi was in Bahrain on Monday as part of a regional tour that has also taken him to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Iraq, Egypt and Turkiye.
“We are monitoring closely the movements of American bases in the region and are aware of all their movements and flights,” Araghchi said, adding: “If Israel attacks Iran in any form, Iran will respond in the same format.”
The United States, Israel’s staunch ally, has military resources across the region including in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Araghchi also repeated Iran’s warnings against Israel not to attack its nuclear facilities.
“Attacking nuclear sites is a big international crime; even threatening (to attack) nuclear sites is a crime and against international rights,” he said.
“To defend ourselves and our nuclear sites, we have our own tools and methods, and we count on them,” the minister added.
Iran says neighbors won’t allow use of their ‘soil or airspace’ for attack
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Iran says neighbors won’t allow use of their ‘soil or airspace’ for attack
- Iran’s main envoy makes announcement as Israel weighs a potential retaliatory strike for Tehran’s October 1 missile attack
Qatar supplies Syria’s White Helmets with vehicles, logistical equipment
- Consignment of fire engines, mobile water tanks will be used in search and rescue operations
- White Helmets’ director praises Qatari support
LONDON: Qatar has provided a consignment of vehicles, water pumps and other logistical equipment to the Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, to support its humanitarian and rescue efforts.
Since the collapse of Bashar Assad’s regime late last year, the White Helmets have been at the forefront of rescue and first aid operations in Syria, providing essential relief services and contributing to rebuilding efforts.
The consignment was received at the Internal Security Force headquarters in Al-Duhail on Wednesday in the presence of Syrian Minister of Emergency and Disaster Management Raed Al Saleh and Qatari Brig. Gen. Nawaf Majed Al-Ali, assistant commander for security operations at the internal force.
The equipment included fire engines, mobile water tanks, high-altitude rescue vehicles, water pumps and personnel transport vehicles that will be used in search and rescue operations and emergency response, the Qatar News Agency reported.
Mounir Moustafa, director of the White Helmets, praised Qatar’s support and said the equipment and training programs would significantly enhance their daily operations.
Sudan’s army leader Burhan appoints an acting prime minister, statement says
- Dafallah Al-Hajj Ali appointed on Wednesday as acting prime minister
Sudan’s army leader Abdel Fattah Burhan appointed diplomat Dafallah Al-Hajj Ali as acting prime minister on Wednesday, weeks after the army’s recapture of Khartoum.
Burhan, chairman of Sudan’s transitional sovereign council, also approved the appointment of Omar Seddik, a current ambassador, as foreign minister, a council statement said.
In March, the Sudanese army drove Rapid Support Forces militia from most of Khartoum after two years of devastating conflict that split the country into rival zones of control. The RSF is still deeply embedded in western Sudan.
The war erupted in April 2023 over disputes about the integration of the two forces after they worked together to oust civilians with whom they had shared power after the uprising that toppled autocrat Omar Al-Bashir.
In February, Burhan said there would be changes to the country’s interim constitution, which military sources said would remove all references to partnership with civilians or the RSF, placing authority solely with the army which would appoint a technocratic prime minister who would then appoint a cabinet.
Moroccan-based cardinal says Church does not need Francis ‘impersonator’
- “It doesn’t necessarily have to be a Francis mark II, a Francis impersonator,” said Lopez
- Born in Spain, Lopez has been the archbishop of the Moroccan capital Rabat since 2017
ROME: Cardinal Cristobal Lopez Romero, the Spanish-born archbishop of Rabat, admits he is a little anxious ahead of his first conclave, although also curious.
The 72-year-old is among 133 cardinals from around the world who will vote for a successor to Pope Francis starting May 7.
“I haven’t decided anything,” he told AFP when asked whom he would vote for as the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.
“We believe in the Holy Spirit and we will see what it shows us and where we have to go.”
“It doesn’t necessarily have to be a Francis mark II, a Francis impersonator,” said Lopez, who the Argentine pontiff appointed as a cardinal in 2019.
“I am happy for him to be a good impersonator of Christ, that he is a good Christian, a good person and pays attention to what happens in the world.”
Born in Spain, Lopez has been the archbishop of the Moroccan capital Rabat since 2017.
There, he claims to have experienced a “conversion” — not to Islam, the overwhelming majority religion in the North African country, but in his approach to his work.
“I hear confession barely once every six months,” Lopez said. Christians make up less than one percent of Morocco’s population of 38 million people.
“That helped me to realize that I wasn’t there to serve the Church but rather, as the Church, to serve the world — in this case the Muslim world.”
Lopez has been taking part in the daily cardinal meetings, known as “general congregations,” in which those present discuss the priorities for the new pope and future direction of the 2,000-year-old Church.
“We are listening to people who we have never listened to before... and that guides you,” said Lopez, who is a Paraguayan citizen, having lived there for almost two decades.
The cardinals taking part in the conclave — those aged under 80 and able to attend — are staying in the relatively modest Casa Santa Marta on the Vatican’s grounds where Francis lived during his papacy.
They are, however, sworn to lifelong secrecy about what happens inside the Sistine Chapel during the conclave.
Smartphones are banned, the room will be swept for listening devices and cardinals are barred from reading newspapers, listening to the radio or watching television.
“I’m not worried, but I am curious,” said Lopez. “A little apprehensive because I know the responsibility that this entails, but calm because I believe in the Holy Spirit.”
In fact, Lopez even feels “a certain happiness” about the whole process — but hopes it will not last more than “two or three days.”
There are up to four votes a day until at least two-thirds of the cardinals agree on a single candidate.
Two days were needed to elect Francis and his predecessor Benedict XVI, but the longest ever conclave lasted three years.
“It’s already many days that I have been out of Morocco and I’m eager and need” to return, said Lopez.
Like Francis, Lopez wants a missionary Church pushing out especially into areas where Catholicism has few adherents, such as Morocco.
“Thanks to Pope Francis this has become much clearer, that the Church is universal, Catholic, that there are no geographic borders that limit us,” he said.
And Lopez has not ruled out the next pope hailing from outside the traditional Catholic heartlands.
“After 50 years of a Polish pope, a German pope and an Argentine pope, why not think about a pope from Myanmar, East Timor or Australia, or North America, or Africa. It’s all open,” he said.
However, he is ruling himself out of the running.
“It’s as if I said (Lionel) Messi is going to retire and I’m going to replace” the Argentine football legend, he joked.
Algeria drafts wartime mobilization bill amid regional tensions
- The text was approved by government ministers earlier this month
- The draft law is raising concerns among ordinary Algerians
ALGIERS: Algeria’s government proposed a law to streamline military mobilization amid tensions with neighboring countries Morocco and Mali, as well as former colonial ruler France.
The text, set to be unveiled on Wednesday by the North African country’s minister of justice, was approved by government ministers earlier this month.
Relations between France and Algeria sharply deteriorated last summer when France shifted its position to support Morocco’s autonomy plan for Western Sahara.
The debate on the general mobilization law comes as Algeria’s strongman leader, army chief of staff Said Changriha, makes a series of trips to military regions in the border areas to oversee military manouvers.
It also comes after Algeria, which has one of Africa’s largest militaries, said earlier this month it had shot down a military drone near the country’s border with Mali.
The text of the draft law, a copy of which was seen by The Associated Press, aims “to define the provisions for organizing, preparing and carrying out the general mobilization provided for in Article 99 of the Constitution,” which authorizes the mobilization of all the nation’s forces in the event of a major crisis.
The draft law is raising concerns among ordinary Algerians.
“I did not understand what’s behind this project,’ Aziza Sahoui, a retired teacher, said on social media. “I’m really worried, especially as it comes after the incursion of a Malian drone into our territory.”
Droughts in Iraq endanger buffalo, and farmers’ livelihoods
- “People have left ... We are a small number of houses remaining,” said farmer Sabah Ismail
- Buffalo have been farmed for centuries in Iraq for their milk
DHI QAR, Iraq: Iraq’s buffalo population has more than halved in a decade as the country’s two main rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, suffer severe droughts that endanger the livelihood of many farmers and breeders.
“People have left ... We are a small number of houses remaining,” said farmer Sabah Ismail, 38, who rears buffalo in the southern province of Dhi Qar.
“The situation is difficult ... I had 120 to 130 buffalo; now I only have 50 to 60. Some died, and we sold some because of the drought,” said Ismail while tending his herd.
Buffalo have been farmed for centuries in Iraq for their milk, and are mentioned in ancient Sumerian inscriptions from the region.
According to Iraqi marshland experts, the root causes of the water crisis driving farmers out of the countryside are climate change, upstream damming in Turkiye and Iran, outdated domestic irrigation techniques and a lack of long-term management plans.
The country has also endured decades of warfare, from conflict with Iran in the 1980s, through two Gulf Wars to the recent rise and fall of the Daesh group.
Located within the cultivable lands known as the Fertile Crescent that have been farmed for millennia, the Iraqi landscape has suffered from upstream damming of the Tigris and Euphrates and lower rainfall, threatening the lifestyle of farmers like Ismail and leading many to move to the cities.
Iraqi marshland expert Jassim Assadi told Reuters that the number of buffalo in Iraq had fallen since 2015 from 150,000 to fewer than 65,000.
The decline is “mostly due to natural reasons: the lack of needed green pastures, pollution, illness ... and also farmers refraining from farming buffalos due to scarcity of income,” Assadi said.
A drastic decline in crop production and a rise in fodder prices have also left farmers struggling to feed their animals.
The difficulty of maintaining a livelihood in Iraq’s drought-stricken rural areas has contributed to growing migration toward the country’s already-choked urban centers.
“This coming summer, God only knows, the mortality rate may reach half,” said Abdul Hussain Sbaih, 39, an Iraqi buffalo breeder.
