Middle East Archives - EUNews24

Turkish Consumer Confidence Drops 2.8% In Feb

David — Fri, 18 Feb 2022 13:59:09 +0000

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ANKARA, Feb 18 (Reuters) – Turkish consumer confidence dropped 2.8% to 71.2 points in February, official data showed on Friday, but remained higher than a record low level it touched in December due to a slide in the value of the lira.

Confidence plunged in 2020 due to fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic before a rebound that began fizzling in October of last year. A confidence level below 100 reflects a pessimistic outlook, while a reading above 100 indicates optimism.

In January, consumer confidence rose 6.2% to 73.2 points, data from the Turkish Statistical Institute shows. It stood at 68.9 in December.

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Iran Not Seeking Nuclear Weapons, Needs Atomic Energy, Says Khamenei

David — Thu, 17 Feb 2022 09:31:39 +0000

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Feb 17 (Reuters) – Iran’s supreme leader said on Thursday that it will further develop peaceful nuclear capacity to preserve independence, amid negotiations with world powers to revive a 2015 nuclear pact.

Indirect talks between Tehran and Washington have been held in Vienna since April amid fears about Tehran’s nuclear advances, seen by Western powers as irreversible unless agreement is struck soon.

Other parties to the deal, which then U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of in 2018, have been shuttling between Iran and the United Sates. Several sources, including Iranian officials, told Reuters that the next couple of days would be crucial in determining whether gaps could be closed.

“We will sooner or later need peaceful nuclear energy. If we do not pursue it … our independence will be harmed,” Iran’s highest authority, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in a televised speech, supporting Tehran’s hardline negotiating team in Vienna.

“Diplomatic efforts by our revolutionary brothers in trying to get rid of the sanctions are also good but the main task is to neutralise the sanctions,” added Khamenei, referring to far-reaching sanctions reimposed by Trump and still in place.

Since 2019, Tehran has gradually breached the old deal’s limits and gone well beyond, rebuilding stockpiles of enriched uranium, refining it to higher fissile purity and installing advanced centrifuges to speed up output.

The 2015 pact limited Iran’s enrichment of uranium to make it harder for Tehran to develop material for nuclear weapons, in return for a lifting of international sanctions.

Khamenei said Iran has never sought nuclear weapons despite such allegations from the Islamic Republic’s “enemies”.

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Syria: Kidnapped Boy Released After Video Of Beating Sparks Outcry

David — Tue, 15 Feb 2022 18:16:37 +0000

Read Time:2 Minute, 2 Second

An eight-year-old boy whose kidnapping caused outrage in Syria when a video of him being tortured by his abductors was posted online has been freed.

Fawaz al-Qataifan was handed over on Saturday after his family paid a ransom to the gang who seized him in Deraa province in November, state media said.

He seemed to be in good health when he recounted his ordeal in a TV interview.

Local police said they had arrested four suspects last week by tracing a telephone number used to send threats.

The kidnappers then twice agreed times and places with Fawaz’s family for a handover, but failed to turn up on both occasions, according to Deraa Police Commander Brigadier Dirar al-Dandal.

On Saturday, they told the boy’s father to take the ransom – reportedly 500m Syrian pounds ($199,000; £147,100) – to a location near the town of Nawa. After receiving the money, they left Fawaz outside a pharmacy.

Brig Dandal told the state-run Sana news agency that “the police did not interfere, with the aim of preserving the child’s life after the kidnappers threatened to kill him”.

Sana said Fawaz’s father, Mohammed, “expressed his great joy at the liberation of his child and his return to the warm embrace of his family in good health”, while his uncle, Musab, was quoted as thanking President Bashar al-Assad “for his great interest in the issue”.

In an interview with al-Watan TV, Fawaz described how he was beaten and threatened by the kidnappers after they seized him as he walked home from school in the town of Ibtaa on 2 November.

In one incident, he was hung from a wall with a rope and whipped with a leather belt before being forced at gunpoint to film a ransom demand, he recalled.

Fawaz’s case gained widespread attention earlier this month after a graphic video showing him screaming out in pain while being beaten by his abductors was circulated on social media.

The hashtag #Save_the_child_Fawaz_Qataifan began trending and the family received messages of support and pledges of help from as far afield as Turkey, Germany and the United States.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, noted that “hundreds” more children had been kidnapped in Syria since the start of the country’s devastating civil war in 2011 and that their fates and whereabouts remained unknown to this day.

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Islamic State Leader Abu Ibrahim Al-Qurayshi Killed In Syria, US says

David — Thu, 03 Feb 2022 16:02:54 +0000

Read Time:2 Minute, 42 Second

The leader of the Islamic State (IS) group has been killed in an overnight US special forces raid in north-western Syria, senior US officials say.

“Thanks to the skill and bravery of our armed forces, we have taken off the battlefield Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi,” President Joe Biden said.

Qurayshi detonated a bomb that killed him and members of his own family, administration officials told US media.

Syrian first responders said they found the bodies of 13 people after the raid.

ANALYSIS: Why getting IS chief mattered so much to the US

Several US helicopters reportedly landed on the outskirts of the opposition-held town of Atmeh, which is in northern Idlib province and is close to the border with Turkey, around midnight on Thursday (22:00 GMT on Wednesday).

NEW — U.S. forces & helicopters have opened fire on the surrounded house in Dayr Balut, #Atmeh.

Audio clear here:pic.twitter.com/5zDPFSOz5R

— Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) February 2, 2022

Local sources said the troops faced stiff resistance on the ground, and that they came under fire from heavy anti-aircraft guns mounted on vehicles.

Gunfire and shelling were heard for two hours before the helicopters left.

The New York Times reported that one helicopter was abandoned after suffering a mechanical problem, and that it was later destroyed in a US air strike. Photos of the wreckage have been posted online.

President Biden said all Americans involved had returned safely from the operation, which he declared would “protect the American people and our allies, and make the world a safer place”.

An AFP news agency correspondent who visited a two-storey home that appeared to be targeted in the raid said it bore the scars of an intense battle – with blood-splattered walls, torn window frames, charred ceilings and a partly collapsed roof.

The White Helmets, also known as the Syria Civil Defence, said in a statement that its first responders reached the building at 03:15 and recovered the bodies of 13 people, including six children and four women.

They also found an injured girl whose other family members were killed in the raid, the organisation said. She was taken to hospital along with a man who was injured when he approached the building during the clashes to see what was happening, it added.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, also put the death toll at 13, but said four children and three women were killed.

The senior US official told Reuters news agency: “At the beginning of the operation the terrorist target exploded a bomb that killed him and members of his own family, including women and children.”

“While we are still assessing the results of this operation, this appears to be the same cowardly terrorist tactic we saw in the 2019 operation that eliminated al-Baghdadi,” he added.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Qurayshi’s predecessor, killed himself and three children in October 2019 by detonating an explosive vest during a US special forces raid on a hideout that was only 16km (10 miles) away from Atmeh.

North-western Syria is a stronghold of jihadist groups and Turkish-backed rebel factions that are fierce rivals of IS.

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US Special Forces Launch Major Raid In North West Syria

David — Thu, 03 Feb 2022 08:30:56 +0000

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US special forces have carried out a counter-terrorism raid in opposition-held north-western Syria, close to the Turkish border, the Pentagon has said.

A spokesman said the mission was successful and that there were no US casualties, but gave no other details.

The White Helmets rescue service reported that at least 13 people, including six children and four women, were killed in the town of Atmeh.

The area is believed to be home to foreign jihadists linked to al-Qaeda.

Residents of Atmeh said several helicopters landed there around midnight on Thursday (22:00 GMT on Wednesday) and that they heard gunfire and shelling for two hours.

Photographs posted on social media afterwards showed destroyed buildings

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, said the US operation was the largest in north-west Syria since Islamic State (IS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi died in a special forces raid in October 2019.

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Lioness Mauls Zookeeper To Death In Iran

David — Mon, 31 Jan 2022 18:20:15 +0000

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A lioness has killed a keeper who was feeding it at a zoo in central Iran, the country’s state media says.

It happened on Sunday in Arak, 280km (175 miles) south of Tehran, Islamic Republic News Agency (Irna) reported.

Irna said the lioness then escaped the enclosure and roamed the zoo with another escaped lion for several hours.

The pair were recaptured after police, firefighters and local government officials mounted an operation, Arak’s mayor said.

“This afternoon one of the carers entered the cage to feed the lion and sadly lost their life after being attacked and suffocated,” Mayor Alireza Karimi was quoted by Irna as saying.

Irna said a lioness had pushed an iron lever to open a door of the enclosure, releasing herself and attacking the carer.

It is unclear whether the zoo was open to the public at the time.

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Hundreds Of Houthi Rebel Child Soldiers Dead In Yemen War – UN

David — Mon, 31 Jan 2022 07:33:50 +0000

Read Time:2 Minute, 58 Second

Nearly 1,500 children recruited by Yemen’s Houthi rebels died in fighting in 2020, and hundreds more the following year, the UN says.

In a report to the Security Council, experts said rebels were still recruiting children, using summer camps and a mosque to spread their ideology.

They added that air strikes on the rebels by Saudi-led forces were still inflicting many civilian casualties.

More than 10,000 children have been killed in the war that began in 2015.

Tens of thousands of adults have also died as a direct result of the fighting, with millions displaced and on the brink of famine.

In the 300-page report, the panel said it had received a list of 1,406 children recruited by the Houthis who had died on the battlefield in 2020 and 562 between January and May the following year.

“The children are instructed to shout the Houthi slogan ‘death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews, victory to Islam’,” the Associated Press news agency quoted the four-member panel of experts as saying.

“In one camp, children as young as seven years of age were taught to clean weapons and evade rockets.”

It called on all parties “to refrain from using schools, summer camps and mosques to recruit children” and recommended sanctions for anyone who did not.

Yemen crisis: Why is there a war?

It also said the rebels, who control the capital Sanaa, were using a complex network of global intermediaries to source critical components for their weapons systems to get around a UN arms embargo.

“All military and paramilitary forces loyal to the Sanaa-based authorities fall under this definition,” it added.

There has been an upsurge in fighting following a Houthi drone attack on government allies the United Arab Emirates two weeks ago.