Region

BASRA, Iraq — Several dozen foreign workers were evacuated from Iraq following protests at a gas facility in the southern province of Basra, industry sources confirmed to AFP on Thursday.

Five planes carrying around 40 foreign nationals working alongside the Basra Gas Company were flown out of the country on Wednesday, an industry source and an airport source said.

The industry source said it was due to days of protests over late salary payments at one of the fields where BGC, a joint operation between Shell, Mitsubishi and Iraq's state-owned South Gas Company, is extracting gas.

"As a result of a security breach at the accommodation camp of Basra Gas Company, we have temporarily relocated Shell secondees," a spokesman for Shell said.

"All staff and contractors are safe and BGC production is not impacted," the spokesman added, declining to specify how many employees were evacuated and where they were flown to.

Commercial flights in Iraq have been halted since late March as part of a nationwide lockdown to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus, which has killed more than 130 people and infected more than 3,000 across the country.

Iraq has been hit hard by the collapse of world crude prices in the wake of the coronavirus crisis as it relies on its oil revenues to fund more than 90 per cent of government expenses.

Prime Minister Mustafa Kadhemi said this week that public salaries for the month of May would be paid as usual after fears that last month's record-low oil revenues would force the government to halt public sector wages.

In late March, authorities asked international companies extracting oil and gas in Basra to accept a delay in payments for the first two quarters of this year.

They also requested companies cut their work budgets by 30 per cent, prompting fears of lay-offs.

In Basra, Iraqi gas workers have been protesting for several days as a dispute over payments has delayed their salaries.

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories — Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has warned that Israeli annexations in the occupied West Bank would spell the end of all security coordination, as international opposition to the plans grows.

US Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Tuesday became the latest high-profile figure to oppose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to apply Israeli sovereignty to Jewish settlements and the strategic Jordan Valley, which makes up around 30 percent of the West Bank.

Palestinians say any annexation would put an end to their hopes of an independent state alongside Israel, the so-called two-state solution.

In a speech late Tuesday, Abbas said the annexation plans showed Israel was no longer abiding by peace accords between the two.

As such, he said, the Palestinian government was "absolved, as of today, of all the agreements and understandings with the American and Israeli governments and of all the obligations based on these understandings and agreements, including the security ones".

Abbas did not go into detail about the implications of such a step, but it is his strongest card in a very weak hand as he seeks to pressure Israel to hold back.

Mahmoud Aloul, vice-president of Abbas's Fateh Party, told AFP that implementation of the decisions would be finalised in the coming days but "as of last night all communications with the Israeli side, including security cooperation, were stopped".

Abbas, 85, has been in power since 2005 and has made multiple previous threats to end security cooperation with Israel without ultimately following through.

A genuine end to such coordination could jeopardise the relative calm in the West Bank, where 2.7 million Palestinians live alongside more than 400,000 Israeli settlers.

Israel controls all access to the territory where Abbas's government is based and even basic tasks require coordination between the two sides.

Abbas even needs coordination to travel from Ramallah, where the government is based, to any other Palestinian city.

Tareq Baconi of the International Crisis Group think-tank said the Palestinian leadership had provided little clarity about what ending security coordination would mean.

"The impact isn't just freedom of movement, it is everything, even where food supply lines come from," he said. "It can't be dismantled overnight."

In reality, he said, Abbas was seeking to build pressure on Israel to tone down annexation plans.

Hugh Lovatt, Israel-Palestine analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations, agreed.

"We have been here before, many times. Abbas has yet to follow through, emptying such threats of any potential deterrence," he said.

"Yet, as annexation looms his declaration should nonetheless be interpreted as one last desperate shot across the bow."

International opposition 

Netanyahu has been emboldened by the staunch support of President Donald Trump, whose controversial peace plan released in January gave Israel US blessing to annex swathes of the West Bank.

But the Republican's challenger in November's presidential election, Biden, on Tuesday declared his opposition to annexation, saying it would undermine hopes for peace.

Under the coalition agreement Netanyahu signed with rival-turned-partner Benny Gantz, the two can bring annexation to cabinet for discussion from July 1.

The European Union, Arab League and individual European governments have also come out in firm opposition to the annexation plans.

Netanyahu's centrist coalition partner Gantz is seen as less keen on annexation than the right-wing prime minister.

Yossi Beilin, an Israeli architect of the early 1990s Oslo peace accords with the Palestinians, said the cumulative effect of the EU and Arab League criticism, as well as statements by Biden, Abdullah and now Abbas, "will have an impact, in my view, on the Israeli government".

"It might at least sharpen the internal debate between the two main parties."

TEHRAN — Iran on Wednesday said it was close to "curbing" the new coronavirus outbreak even as it reported more than 2,000 fresh infections for the third day in a row.

"We have been progressing at every step in the past three months... in fighting this dangerous virus and are nearly on the verge of curbing this disease," said President Hassan Rouhani.

Iran would "even not have these problems" if health protocols "were more closely observed in some of the provinces that are currently in an unfavourable situation", he told a televised cabinet meeting.

At least 24 of Iran's 434 counties were "red" -- the highest level on the country's colour-coded risk scale, according to deputy health minister Alireza Raisi.

He said at a virus taskforce meeting broadcast on Tuesday that 218 counties were still deemed low-risk, which could drop to 183 since the virus had "started peaking" in some regions.

He added that most of the fatalities since Iran reported its first two deaths in February were above 70 years old, and that younger Iranians were in less danger.

Health Ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said 2,346 new infections were confirmed across the country in the past 24 hours, raising the total to 126,949.

More than 98,800 of those hospitalised had recovered and were discharged, while 2,673 were in critical condition.

He also raised the death toll to 7,183 with 64 fatalities in the past day.

According to Jahanpour, there were no deaths over the same period in nearly a third of Iran's provinces, while eight others only had one.

Khuzestan province was still the worst-hit, and the rest of the country was in "relative stability", he added.

Iran's virus cases have been on a rising trajectory since May 2, when it reported its lowest new infections since March 10.

A taskforce official said Sunday that the rise was due to a surge in testing as Iran started "looking at those infected and not hospitalised".

"It is possible that the reported number of infections have gone up, but this in no way means more have been infected with COVID-19," said Ali Akbar Haghdoost.

Experts both at home and abroad have voiced scepticism about Iran's official figures, saying the real toll could be much higher.

TUNISIA — Tunisia on Tuesday launched a contact-tracing mobile phone app that identifies and alerts users who may have had contact with others infected with the new coronavirus.

The E7mi application, available on Android and awaiting validation for Apple's iOS, was developed by a Tunisian start-up specialised in digital marketing tools for foreign companies, the health ministry told AFP.

Like the French StopCovid application, E7mi -- Arabic for "protect" -- is not based on contact-tracing technology developed by Apple or Google.

If a user tests positive for COVID-19, Tunisia's Observatory of Emerging Diseases (ONME) contacts other users whose telephones have been detected close to the infected user's device.

"We started in March when we heard about the TraceTogether app in Singapore, but we wanted to do something suitable for Tunisia," said Akil Agati, head of the Wizz Labs start-up behind the app.

Users "will not report themselves infected, to avoid false alarms, and users who have been notified of being in contact with a sick person will also receive a phone call from the ONME so there can be follow-up", he said.

"We have been faster than many other countries" in launching such an app, he added.

In France, the government plans to launch its StopCovid app on June 2.

Tunisia's health ministry approved E7mi after three weeks of testing.

An awareness campaign will encourage people to install the application, but "if download rates remain low, we may change our strategy",  health ministry official Bassem Kchaou told AFP.

This could include making downloading the application compulsory for people to enter large public spaces.

Personal data will be archived for 14 days under the control of the National Personal Data Protection Authority and will only be used by ONME for contacting people about coronavirus, Nagati said.

ALGIERS — Algerian courts have handed tough jail sentences to three opposition activists whose Facebook posts they deemed potentially damaging to the national interest, human rights groups said on Wednesday.

Soheib Debaghi was sentenced in Algiers to one year in prison on charges of encouraging an illegal gathering, insulting an official body and publishing potentially damaging material, the National Committee for the Release of Detainees (CNLD) announced on its Facebook page.

Human rights group Amnesty International said two other activists, Larbi Tahar and Boussif Mohamed Boudiaf, were handed 18-month prison sentences by a court in the western town of El Bayadh, also for posts on Facebook.

The prosecution had called for three-year jail terms, at the hearing held by videoconference, the CNLD said.

Their lawyer, Abdelghani Badi, said on Facebook that Tahar was accused of having insulted President Abdelmadjid Tebboune by calling him "illegitimate", while Boudiaf had criticised the "injustice" of Algeria's judicial system.

Weekly anti-government protests rocked Algeria for more than a year and only came to a halt due to the novel coronavirus outbreak, with the authorities banning marches -- although the opposition had already suspended its gatherings.

A 25-year-old activist, Walid Kechida, has been held since April 27 for having posted memes on social media deemed mocking of Algerian authorities and religion. He risks facing a five-year jail sentence.

Activists and analysts fear Algerian authorities are using the pandemic as a pretext for crushing the "Hirak" protest movement.

According to the CNLD, around 50 people are currently detained over links to the movement.

Late last month, Amnesty urged the authorities to end "arbitrary prosecutions aimed at silencing Hirak activists and journalists" during the pandemic, and called for the release of detainees.

The rights group said that authorities were endangering detainees' health, "given the risks of a COVID-19 outbreak in prisons and places of detention".

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Jerusalem's Al Aqsa Mosque will reopen to worshippers after the eid holiday, a statement from its governing body said on Tuesday, two months after closing due to the coronavirus.

"The council decided to lift the suspension on worshippers entering the blessed Al Aqsa Mosque after the Eid Al Fitr holiday," a statement from the Waqf organisation said, referring to the three-day holiday expected to begin this weekend.

Islam's third holiest site was closed in late March for the first time in more than 50 years as part of measures across the globe to stem the spread of the new coronavirus.

The mosque's director, Omar Al Kiswani, told AFP he hoped for no restrictions on the number of worshippers but said the governing body would announce the exact "mechanisms and measures later".

He said the details would be worked out to "ensure we are not subjected to criticism on the pretext we have broken health rules".

DOHA — Qatar confirmed 12 cases of COVID-19 at a jail on Tuesday as campaign group Human Rights Watch warned other prisoners could be at risk of contracting the disease.

Two inmates were acutely ill but none had succumbed to the respiratory condition, the Government Communications Office said in a statement which denied there was a widespread outbreak among prisoners.

Human Rights Watch had said in a statement that six non-Qatari detainees "described a deterioration in prison conditions" at Doha's Central Prison.

"They said that the prison authorities also further restricted prisoners' limited access to basic medical care," it added describing the situation as "an apparent outbreak".

The campaign group has previously warned that cramped, unsanitary conditions in prisons worldwide and in worker accommodation in the Gulf make social distancing impossible and could accelerate the spread of the new coronavirus.

Almost 34,000 people have tested positive for COVID-19 in the tiny Gulf country -- 1.2 percent of the 2.75 million population -- although just 15 people have died.

The government said the HRW report was "based on unfounded rumours and speculation from a small number of unverified interviews".

"[The] 12 patients were transferred immediately to a secure, purpose-built medical facility... where they have received, or continue to receive, first-class medical treatment," the communications office said.

"Two cases reached the acute phase of the illness and were transferred to a designated off-site treatment centre where they received first-class healthcare before being transferred back to the Central Prison once fully recovered."

Masks have been mandatory in public places in Qatar since Sunday in an effort to stem the spread of the virus.

Violators of the new rules will face up to three years in jail and fines of as much as $55,000, the world's toughest penalties for failing to wear a face covering.

Anyone leaving their home will also be required to install a contact tracing app on their phones from Friday, the Qatar News Agency reported.

Mosques, along with schools, malls, and restaurants remain closed in Qatar to prevent the disease's spread.

Michael Page, HRW's deputy Middle East director, called for the release of "vulnerable prisoners such as older people and those held for low level or non-violent offences".

In April, more than 500 prisoners received official pardons in response to the coronavirus crisis.

KUWAIT CITY — Abu Othman, like thousands of Kuwaiti men, has struggled to split his time between two wives living in separate homes amid the Gulf state's strict lockdown to combat the coronavirus.

"My life has become so complicated," the 45-year-old, who has 10 children between the two women, told AFP.

"I am constantly on the move between them," he said, stressing that he could never choose one wife over the other.

The oil-rich country has imposed some of the strictest measures in the Gulf to combat the spread of the virus, which has so far infected over 15,000 people and claimed 118 lives there.

Last week, Kuwait announced a nationwide "total" lockdown until May 30, suspending all but essential private and public sector activities.

Under the curfew, residents are allowed to shop for food only once every six days, after electronically obtaining official permission, and may otherwise leave home for two-hour evening walks.

Those who break the rules, which also include mandatory use of face masks outside the home, can be fined as much as $16,000 and jailed for up to three months.

But in response to appeals by scores of polygamists like Abu Othman to ease their restrictions on movement, the Kuwaiti authorities on Sunday introduced electronic permits to men married to more than one woman for one-hour visits twice a week.

 'Family emergency' 

Traditional Islamic jurisprudence allows Muslim men to marry up to four women -- a custom initially meant to ensure the welfare of widows and orphans of those who had died fighting for Islam.

A strict requirement is that men treat all their wives equally and fairly.

Abu Othman married his first wife in 2001 and his second wife in 2006.

The two women live in separate houses in Al Jahra, a predominantly Bedouin area 40 kilometres  west of Kuwait City.

Polygamy has become increasingly uncommon in much of the Muslim world. Tunisia was the first predominantly Muslim country to abolish the practice in 1956.

Kuwait had one of the highest rates of polygamy in the Gulf between 2010 and 2015, at over eight percent of marriages, according to a study by the Doha International Family Institute.

Abu Othman said he was trying hard to make sure neither of his wives feels neglected, especially amid a crisis that has seen much of the world virtually shut down.

But with all the restrictions in place to curb COVID-19, he said he has struggled to divide his time equally between the two homes.

"Sometimes police patrols understand my situation, while at other times I have to apply for permission claiming there is a 'family emergency'," said Abu Othman before the new "second wife" permission was introduced.

Separated from children 

The Kuwaiti state's Islamic scholars have taken pains to clarify the marriage rules amid the lockdown.

According to Ahmad Al Kurdi, a member of the Fatwa Committee at Kuwait's Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, the notion of justice between wives focuses on "marital spending and good treatment, not sexual relations and love".

"A polygamist who is forced to live at one of his wive's houses because of the curfew must give the other [or others] a choice between accepting it or agree to a divorce[if they so wish]," he said, according to Kuwait's Al Rai newspaper.

Another committee member, Issa Zeki, told the daily that a man can "make it up" to his other wives by spending more nights at their homes after the lifting of restrictions to "equal the number" spent with each wife.

He suggested that the man blindly draw one of the wives' names to simplify the decision of which one to spend the quarantine period with.

Abu Othman said he tries to spend equal numbers of nights in both homes, saying he considers himself lucky that the two women live in the same area.

Other men are not so lucky, such as Abu Abdulaziz, 35, who now lives with his parents, second wife and two children in Al Jahra.

His first wife and their three children reside in the Saad Al Abdullah area, about 15 kilometres away.

"For the first time, I haven't seen some of my children," Abu Abdulaziz told AFP, adding that his first wife was "understanding".

However, Abu Abdulaziz's first wife, who requested anonymity, said that despite trying to be understanding, she was struggling on her own amid the current situation.

"He could have chosen to stay with me," she said.

BEIRUT — While a ceasefire in Syria has reduced combat between rebels and government forces, mercenaries from the two sides are still fighting in Libya on behalf of their Russian and Turkish backers.

Turkey supports some Syrian rebels and Libya's UN-recognised Government of National Accord(GNA), while Russia supports Syria's President Bashar Assad and Libya's eastern-based strongman Khalifa Haftar.

Ankara and Moscow brokered the recent truce in Syria but fighting is ongoing in Libya, where Haftar's forces have been trying to seize Tripoli for over a year.

A recent rapprochement between Assad and Haftar shows the increasing overlap between the two conflicts.

In March, Libya's parallel eastern government reopened the Libyan embassy in Damascus after it was closed in 2012, while flights resumed recently between the Syrian capital and Benghazi, Haftar's domain 1,000 kilometres east of the Libyan capital.

A recent confidential United Nations report identified 33 flights by Syria's private Cham Wings Airline to Libya this year, believed to be carrying Syrian mercenaries.

"It is estimated from ground sources that the number of Syrian foreign fighters supporting [Haftar's] operations is less than 2,000," wrote the UN experts, who are monitoring an arms embargo on Libya.

The experts alleged that Cham Wings flew the Syrians to Libya for three-month contracts with Russian private military company Wagner, who reportedly recruited the mercenaries to fight for Haftar. Moscow denies any role in the presence of Russian mercenaries in Libya.

When the UN panel asked Damascus about the flights to Benghazi, the Syrian government said the flights were for civilians, "particularly those Syrians living in Libya".

"The panel is unconvinced of the veracity of that response," the UN experts wrote.

'Common enemy' 

Damascus and Haftar have a "common enemy" in Turkey, Oxford University researcher Samuel Ramani notes.

Russia may be behind the warming relationship between Syria and the Libyan strongman, Ramani said.

For Moscow, "the aim would be to warn Turkey that it could retaliate asymmetrically against Turkish military actions in Syria with a reciprocal escalation in Libya, creating two fronts for Turkey and forcing it to overstretch",  he told AFP.

The UN experts estimated that up to 5,000 Syrian mercenaries may be in Libya, including "those fighters recruited by Turkey in support of the GNA".

Turkey has acknowledged sending fighters to support the GNA in Libya, but has not specified the number.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights believes the number to be much higher and says Turkey has sent 9,000 Syrian mercenaries to Libya, including 150 minors.

Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said "3,300 more fighters are being trained in Turkish bases" before being sent to front lines south of the Libyan capital.

Abdel Rahman said the Syrian mercenaries belong to the National Army, a coalition of pro-Turkish Syrian rebels based in Idlib province, and estimated that 298 of them have been killed in Libya, including 17 child soldiers.

He was unsure of the number of Syrian mercenaries supporting Haftar.

Oxford academic Ramani said many of the mercenaries were motivated to escape "poverty, unemployment and socioeconomic deprivation in Syria".

Russia had recruited the mercenaries, who fought alongside Wagner group in Libya, Ramani said.

Foreign involvement in Libya and Syria has exacerbated both conflicts, in which hundreds of thousands have been killed and millions displaced.

AMMAN — The Emirates Mars Mission, the first interplanetary exploration undertaken by an Arab nation, on Tuesday announced the scheduled launch of its Mars Hope Probe in a 495,000,000km journey to reach and orbit the Red Planet, according to a mission statement.

The countdown to the launch begins after the probe’s successful transfer from the UAE to Japan, in a journey that spanned more than 83 hours by land, air and sea.

As planned, the world will see the Hope Probe launch into space on Wednesday, July 15, 2020 at 00:51:27 UAE time (05:51:27, Japan time) from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Centre, leveraging the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI H2A) platform, the statement said.

The scheduled launch date represents the opening of the launch window for the Emirates Mars Mission, which extends to August 13, 2020.

The Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ (MHI H2A) platform was chosen as a result of its “proven expertise and reputation” in space technology around the world, and its high success rates in launching spacecraft and satellites globally, read the statement.

The UAE, for its part, has previously collaborated with MHI to successfully launch the Khalifa Sat satellite.

Since its arrival at TNSC in Japan, the Hope Probe has undergone detailed processing operations for the launch. This process completed over 50 working days, entails filling the fuel tank with about 700 kilogrammes of hydrogen fuel and ensuring there are no leaks.

The process also requires testing the communication and control devices, moving the probe to the launch pad, installing the probe on the rocket that will carry it to space, and ensuring the probe batteries are fully charged, the statement said.

A team of Emirati nationals is leading the operation and supervising every aspect of the probe’s preparation for its launch, noted the statement.

Sarah Bint Youssef Al Amiri, Minister of State for Advanced Sciences and Emirates Mars Mission Deputy Project Manager, said in the statement: “The challenges overcome by the Hope Probe team amidst the global pandemic confirm the UAE mission’s commitment to achieve the impossible. It is a mentality that has now been embedded within the current and future generations. This mission embodies the nation’s aspirations, sends a positive message to the world and demonstrates the importance of carrying on unabated despite barriers and challenges.”

She continued: “Our team continues to work diligently to ensure the mission’s success, and we look forward to collectively celebrate the arrival of the probe on Mars in February 2021 – also coinciding with our 50-year anniversary.”

The Hope Probe is a national project that translates the vision of the UAE’s leadership to build an Emirati space programme that reflects the country's commitment to strengthening frameworks of international cooperation and finding solutions to global challenges for humanity’s benefit, according to the statement.

The first Arab-Islamic project to explore other planets, the mission carries a message of hope to revive a history rich in Arab achievements in science. Embodying the aspiration of the UAE, and its leadership to overcome the impossible, the Hope Probe is the nation’s contribution to shaping and making a promising future for humanity, read the statement.

The Hope Probe is anticipated to enter Mars’ orbit in February 2021, coinciding with the UAE's golden jubilee celebrations to mark the historic union of the emirates, the statement said.