Region

BAGHDAD — Iraqi anti-government protesters clashed with security forces and kept up their sit-ins Sunday, as a rights group warned a deadly crackdown could spiral into a "bloodbath".

Mass rallies calling for an overhaul of the ruling system have rocked the capital Baghdad and the Shiite-majority south since early October, but political forces closed ranks this week to defend the government.

The consensus seems to have paved the way for a crackdown, and 12 protesters were killed on Saturday when security forces cleared out protest sites, medical sources said.

Nine were killed in Baghdad, most struck in the head by tear gas canisters, and three died in the southern city of Basra.

Demonstrators tried to regroup on Sunday in Baghdad's main protest camp at Tahrir (Liberation) Square, but crowds were smaller than previously.

"Since last night, security forces have been trying to advance into Tahrir to empty it," said a protester draped in an Iraqi flag.

Protesters could be seen trying to bring down large concrete walls that security forces had erected to cut off Tahrir from nearby Khallani Square. 

A medical source said around 30 people were wounded in Khallani on Sunday, while volunteer medic Azhar Qassem said doctors would stay put in Tahrir to treat any wounded.

"We won't pull out," he insisted.

"This is turning into nothing short of a bloodbath," said rights group Amnesty International, calling on authorities to "immediately rein in security forces".

"All government promises of reforms or investigations ring hollow while security forces continue to shoot and kill protesters," said its regional director Heba Morayef.

Tear gas 'inside hospital' 

In the first official toll in days, parliament's human rights committee said 319 people have been killed since protests first erupted on October 1, including demonstrators and security forces. 

It also documented sniper shots and the use of hunting rifles and "sound bombs" — large stun grenades that are planted, not thrown — near protest sites being cleared.

In Basra, around 30 people marched towards their usual protest site outside the provincial headquarters on Sunday but police kept them hundreds of metres away.

Security sources stormed the Habboubi Children’s Hospital in Nasiriyah to track down staff who had been protesting and “fired tear gas inside the hospital”, health directorate chief Abdelhussein Al Jaberi told AFP.

“We had to move the child patients to the Moussawi hospital to save their lives,” Jaberi said.

Police also blocked pupils from leaving their classrooms in Diwaniyah to join striking university students, but demonstrators rallied in Hillah and Kut.

Public anger erupted early last month over rampant corruption and lack of jobs but then spiralled into calls to overthrow a regime blamed for perpetuating graft and clientelism.

Oil-rich Iraq is OPEC’s second biggest producer, but one in five people live in poverty and youth unemployment stands at 25 per cent, the World Bank says.

The government has suggested a series of reforms, including hiring drives, welfare plans, a revamp of the electoral law and constitutional amendments.

But it has resisted calls to overhaul the system, with rival political forces rallying around embattled Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi. 

‘Climate of fear’ 

Abdel Mahdi, President Barham Saleh and Parliament Speaker Mohammed Al Halbusi met on Sunday and reiterated plans to move forward with reforms.

They also insisted security forces had been instructed “not to use live fire or excessive violence” against protesters.

The United Nations warned that a “climate of fear” was taking hold in Iraq amid “daily reports of killings, kidnappings, arbitrary arrests, beatings and intimidation of protesters”.

Rights defenders meanwhile slammed the government for restricting the Internet, which returned intermittently to parts of Iraq on Sunday before being shut off again.

Abdel Mahdi, 77, came to power last year through a shaky alliance between populist cleric Moqtada Al Sadr and Hadi Al Ameri, a leader of the Hashed Al Shaabi paramilitary network.

When the protests started in October, Sadr threw his weight behind them while the Hashed backed the government. 

But a series of meetings led by Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ foreign operations arm, produced an arrangement to save the government, senior political sources told AFP.

“Those meetings resulted in an agreement that Abdel Mahdi would remain in office,” the source said.

ALGIERS — Five candidates, including two former prime ministers under deposed president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, have been selected to run in Algeria’s December presidential poll, the country’s consitutional council confirmed on Saturday.

Twenty-three candidates had registered for the election which comes as Algeria has been mired in months of street protests demanding an overhaul of the entire political system.

Kamel Feniche — head of the constitutional council, which validates candidates for the election — said on Saturday that only five of those candidates have been selected to run in the December 12 polls, confirming a decision announced by the elections authority a week ago.

Protesters are opposed to any Bouteflika-era figures taking part in the election, fearing the elite will use the poll to choose his successor.

Among the five cleared to run, Bouteflika era prime ministers Ali Benflis and Abdelmadjid Tebboune are considered the front-runners.

Benflis, 75, served as a premier under Bouteflika from 2000 to 2003 and ran as his main opponent in the 2004 and 2014 elections.

Tebboune, 73, was a senior civil servant and served as Bouteflika’s communications minister when he came to power in 1999.

Among the other candidates is Azzedine Mihoubi, leader of the Democratic National Rally Party which was the main ally of the former president’s party.

Islamist former tourism minister Abdelkader Bengrina, whose party backed Bouteflika, and Abdelaziz Belaid who belongs to a youth organisation that supported the former president, are also in the race.

The election to find a successor to Bouteflika — who was forced to resign in April under pressure from the protest movement — was originally planned for July.

But the date was postponed due to a lack of viable candidates.

BEIRUT — Marching along with hundreds of other women in Lebanon's capital, 41-year-old Sahar says she had twice the reasons to join in the nation's mass anti-system protests than any man.

"As women, we're doubly oppressed," she said passionately, while around her hundreds waved Lebanese flags and chanted against the patriarchy.

Women have been at the forefront of Lebanon's mass street movement since October 17 demanding an overhaul of a political system seen as incompetent and corrupt.

Like their male counterparts, they have denounced their inability to alleviate a raft of woes from a deteriorating economy to unclean water and endless power cuts.

But in a country viewed as one of the most liberal in the region, they are also crying out against discriminatory laws and religious courts governing their lives.

"On top of everything we suffer as Lebanese people, there's a whole bunch of laws that are unfair for women," said Sahar, bouncing on her toes in a green T-shirt and jeans.

In a country where 37 women have died from domestic violence since the start of 2018, female protesters are demanding better prevention and application of a 2014 law to punish battery.

Instead of what they see as antiquated religious courts, they want a national law for all Lebanese — whatever their sect — to grant civil marriage, and rule on issues of divorce and child custody.

They ask for the amendment of a century-old law governing citizenship that does not allow Lebanese women to pass down their nationality to their children.

Custody battles 

During a women's march on Sunday, protesters held up a long banner inscribed in red paint with the words: "Our revolution is feminist".

"I can't get my mother's nationality, but I can defend her revolution," read another sign, referring to the 1925 law that deprives children of Lebanese women from their rights as citizens.

Zoya Jureidini Rouhana, head of the Kafa non-governmental organisation, explained the challenges ahead in the tiny multi-confessional country.

"There is no single law for personal status but different legislation for each court from 15 different religious sects in Lebanon," she said.

Among the most contentious issues is child custody, with religious authorities for each community applying a different limit to a divorced mother's custody.

In the Roman Catholic Church, children in theory must be handed over after the end to breastfeeding or at around two years of age, but a court decides in the interest of a child.

For Greek Orthodox Christians, a mother loses permanent care of the child when they reach 14 years old for boys and 15 for girls.

After widespread pushback, Sunni Muslim divorcees have been granted full custody until their children turn 12.

But in the Shiite community, children are whisked away to live with their fathers when they turn two for boys and seven for girls.

Similar differences also apply on matters of inheritance, as well as in setting the minimum age to wed, with no national law to ban unions under the age of 18.

‘Part of the revolution’ 

Rim, a 24-year-old student, said she has been taking to the streets since October 17 — for cleaner water, fewer power cuts and an end to perceived state graft.

“As a young Lebanese woman, I demand a secular system and for religious courts to be abolished,” she said.

Women have been at the forefront of the protests since they started last month, sparked by a proposed tax on phone calls via free applications like WhatsApp before blowing up into general rage against the system.

In the movement’s first few days, a woman who kicked an armed ministerial bodyguard in the groin became a symbol of the growing protests.

In recent days, female high school and university students have eagerly spoken to local television stations to ask for politicians to stop wasting their future.

Women have taken to Beirut’s main square after dark holding candles and banging pots and pans, in a clamouring racket that echoed around the capital’s homes.

Debate around women’s rights has gained momentum in recent years, but activists say much remains to be done.

In 2014, parliament passed a law to punish domestic violence, but rights advocates have demanded it be reformed to accelerate trials and increase sentences.

Among the protesters, Roba, 33, a lawyer, said women’s rights were crucial for radical change.

“Women’s issues are an integral part of the revolution,” she said. “Any revolution that doesn’t address women’s issues is wanting.”

By Laure El Khoury

ISTANBUL — A Syria summit will be held in early December between the leaders of Turkey, France, Germany and Britain in London, the Turkish presidency said on Friday.

"It was decided to organise this four-way summit on the sidelines of the NATO summit scheduled in London on December 3 and 4," Anadolu state news agency quoted President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's advisor Ibrahim Kalin as saying.

Erdogan is expected to sit down with Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel and Boris Johnson at a time of high tensions in the NATO alliance over Turkey's offensive last month against Kurdish militants, who had been a key ally for the West against the Daesh terror group. 

Erdogan has accused Western governments of “siding with terrorists” over their NATO ally.

Turkey sees the Syrian Kurdish militants as an off-shoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which has waged a bloody insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 and is considered a terrorist organisation by the European Union and United States. 

The Turkish offensive was halted by two ceasefires organised with Moscow and Washington, but Ankara has threatened to resume hostilities if Kurdish forces do not fully withdraw from an agreed 30-kilometre-deep zone along the Turkish border.

BEIRUT — The smells of grilled cheese and cooked corn waft over the protesters in the Lebanese capital — with daily crowds filling the the capital’s main squares, the movement has been a boon for street vendors.

Ibrahim is a plasterer by trade, but when he saw crowds flocking by the tens of thousands to Beirut’s Martyrs’ Square to protest against government corruption and incompetence, he knew it was not an opportunity to be missed.

One day, he’s selling “kaak”, a round, savoury Lebanese bread covered in sesame seeds. The next, it’s corn on the cob or small trays of lupin beans dressed with cumin and lemon juice.

“It’s better than being out of work,” the stocky 27-year-old said.

Times have been tough for many months, he said, with the country hit by an economic crisis that has not spared the construction sector.

‘New livelihood’ 

“For us, the revolution represents a new livelihood, and at the same time we are protesting with the people,” Ibrahim said.

On good days, he earns between $35 and $40 with his food cart.

Forced to abandon his education before age 18, he has been taking care of his sick mother since his father passed away.

“She has no social security or pension, I spend my life paying for doctors and medicines,” he said.

A short distance away, the square resounds to the rallying cries of the protest movement which has rocked Lebanon since October 17: “Revolution! Revolution!” and “the people want the fall of the regime”.

A new group of protesters march past and Ibrahim quickly gets back to business, grabbing his cart from the car park where he had hidden it.

When the demonstrations swell, police do not bother with street vendors, Ibrahim said.

But when rallying points empty out, security forces confiscate vendors’ goods and remind them that their activities are illegal.

A little further on, several protesters have gathered around a cart serving punnets of corn and beans that its owner has dubbed the “revolution wagon”.

Normally, Emad Hassan Saad plies his business on the corniche, Beirut’s seaside promenade.

“We sell more here because there are more people,” the 29-year-old said.

He has brought on three friends to help him out. The first peels lemons, the second chops them and the third pulls ears of corn from a pot of boiling water.

“The rallies are a job opportunity for these young people, even if it’s only temporary,” Dana Zayyat, 21, said, munching on lupin beans.

Her friend Jana Kharzal agrees. “This revolution has allowed young people who are poor to work, those who don’t have the chance to study or to rent a shop.”

Youth unemployment is chronic in Lebanon, with more than 30 per cent out of work, while almost a third of of Lebanon’s population lives in poverty.

Fines 

Some vendors complain of the treatment they receive at the hands of security forces, even at their usual selling spots like the corniche, popular with Sunday strollers.

One of their number, who did not want to give his name, said he had had to pay dozens of fines the equivalent of $300, or 20 day’s take.

Despite the risks, the manager of a hookah rental service took his chances and set up shop among the protesters.

He gets to work in the evenings, when the demonstrations swell and police attention is elsewhere.

Fifteen or so of his water pipes are lined up near a concrete wall in a car park in Martyrs’ Square, where his employees are busy serving customers.

He’ll leave “when the political class leaves”, he says between draws on a hookah.

Not far away, a frail elderly woman offers red roses for sale to passers-by from where she is seated on the ground, despite the late hour.

A brown scarf encircles her weathered face and when protesters ask why she is out so late, she answers that she has no choice.

“This country pushes the poor into the grave,” she says in a weak voice.

By Amanda Mouawad

TEHRAN — Iran resumed uranium enrichment at its Fordow plant on Thursday, in the fourth step back from its commitments under the landmark 2015 nuclear deal.

How did this come about and what is left of the troubled agreement?

Here is a look back at the accord and the setbacks since:

Diplomatic success 

The Iran nuclear deal is agreed on July 14, 2015, in Vienna between Tehran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) plus Germany.

On July 20, 2015, UNSC resolution 2231 endorses the deal, which aims to end 12 years of crisis around Iran’s nuclear programme.

The preamble of the deal notes that Tehran “reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons”.

Iran agrees to demonstrate the exclusively civilian nature of its programme by drastically reducing its nuclear activities.

It also agrees to submit to the strictest inspection regime ever developed by the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

In exchange, crippling economic sanctions on Iran are to be lifted.

 US withdrawal 

On May 8, 2018, US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdraws from the agreement, which was reached under his predecessor Barack Obama.

In August, the United States reactivates sanctions that had been lifted as part of the accord.

Washington then repeatedly strengthens and extends sanctions to force Tehran to agree to a new deal offering “better guarantees”.

The reimposition of sanctions deprives Tehran of the economic benefits it had expected from the deal.

The Iranian economy sinks into a deep recession.

Iran’s response 

On May 8, 2019, Tehran announces that it is progressively reducing its commitments made in Vienna to pressure the remaining parties to the deal to keep their promises to help Iran bypass US sanctions.

The Islamic republic announces that if its demands are not met, it will abandon new provisions of the agreement every 60 days.

The fourth phase of Iran’s “commitment reduction plan” is launched on Tuesday.

What commitments has Iran renounced? 

Iran no longer respects the 300 kilogramme limit that the deal imposed on its stocks of enriched uranium. It has also abandoned the cap on enriching uranium above 3.67 per cent.

Since September, Iran has produced enriched uranium at its plant in Natanz using centrifuges banned by the accord.

The deal allows for a limited number of first generation IR-1 centrifuges, but Iran is now using more modern machines.

Moving away from the research and development provisions of the agreement, Iran has also begun testing even more advanced centrifuges.

On Tuesday, Tehran announces uranium enrichment will be restarted at its underground Fordow facility in central Iran, which the deal banned.

Uranium enrichment resumes at the plant just after midnight on Thursday (20:30 GMT on Wednesday).

Iran had announced in May that it no longer felt bound by the agreement’s 1.3 tonne limit on heavy water reserves, but it has not yet exceeded this threshold.

Is Iran violating the agreement? 

The US says Iran is violating the agreement, which Tehran denies.

Iran criticises its partners for not making “every effort” (as required by article 28) to enable the full implementation of the agreement.

Tehran says it is acting under articles 26 and 36, which allow it to suspend its commitments “in whole or in part” if its partners fail to meet their obligations.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday that Iran had “decided to leave the framework” of the agreement by its decisions on Tuesday.

What is left of the agreement? 

A key element of the deal still in force is the IAEA inspections regime.

Provisions concerning the Arak reactor, 240 kilometres  southwest of Tehran, are still in force. Foreign experts are supposed to help convert it into a research facility incapable of producing plutonium for military use.

The five states still party to the accord all say they want to save the deal, even though they agree it is becoming harder by the day.

Finally, Iran is far from having returned to its pre-agreement behaviour.

It still limits uranium enrichment to 4.5 per cent, below its previous 20 per cent threshold and far below the 90 per cent needed for a nuclear weapon.

And the total installed capacity of Iranian centrifuges remains officially lower than it was before the agreement was reached.

BEIRUT — Thousands of students took to the streets across Lebanon on Thursday to demand a better future as anti-government protests now entering their fourth week continued to spread.

Pupils carrying their schoolbags picked up the baton from thousands of women who ignited the main protest site in Beirut on Wednesday evening by banging pots and pans to demand their rights.

In Tripoli, where mobilisation has been relentless since the protests erupted on October 17, demonstrators planned to take down the giant portraits of politicians plastered all over the city's buildings.

Grievances initially focused on poor infrastructure and abysmal public services quickly grew into an unprecedented nationwide push to drive out an elite protesters say has ruled the country like a cartel for decades.

Thousands of university and high school students streamed into the streets of Beirut and other towns to boost the protests.

"All of them, all of them are thieves," chanted one pupil, perched on the shoulders of a schoolmate outside the education ministry.

Setting off coloured flares and waving Lebanese flags, students blocked off traffic to demand the wholesale removal of the current political class and its sectarian-based power-sharing system.

"What if we had a young, educated, ethical and competent political leadership?" was the question asked on one placard.

Political posters 

"We go to school, we work hard and in the end we pick up diplomas so we can just hang around and stay at home doing nothing," said Marwa Abdel Rahman, 16.

Youth unemployment stands at more than 30 per cent in Lebanon, from which many young people were seeking to emigrate until last month's rallies created a rare moment of national hope and unity in a country often characterised by its divisions.

What started as a spontaneous, apolitical and leaderless popular movement, is becoming increasingly organised, with activists coming together to synchronise marches and stunts across the country.

After blocking off roads for days, protesters have switched to preventing access to institutions seen as the most egregious examples of mismanagement and corruption.

Students in Tripoli blocked employees from clocking in for work at the telecommunications ministry building.

"We want to keep up the pressure on our corrupt political leaders, who are not addressing our demands," said Samir Mustafa, an unemployed 29-year-old.

Prime Minister Saad Hariri tendered his government's resignation on October 29 in response to pressure from the street.

The Cabinet has stayed on in a caretaker capacity but efforts to form a new line-up seem to be stalling, with each faction in the outgoing coalition arrangement seeking to salvage some influence.

"They want to name a prime minister from the old guard, from the corrupt class," Mustafa ranted. 

"We will continue to block banks and key administrations until the president and the parliament fall," he said.

Women lead 

The World Bank on Wednesday warned that the failure to quickly form a government that meets protesters' demands could lead to an even sharper economic downturn.

President Michel Aoun is reported to remain bent on keeping Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, his son-in-law and arguably the most reviled politician among the protesters, in a key position.

For his part parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a veteran player whose supporters tried to disrupt the protests last month, has not publicly commented at all on the protests sweeping the country.

In a country where weapons are widespread and leading political parties routinely resort to hired thugs, the protests — and attempts by the security forces to quell them — have been remarkably bloodless.

On Wednesday night, thousands of women staged a candle-lit rally on Martyrs Square, banging pots and pans with wooden spoons to set downtown Beirut abuzz.

The commotion, broadcast live on several television channels, turned contagious and for several minutes residents could be heard across the city chiming in from home with their own utensils.

"Revolution is a woman," read one of the banners in the crowd, which launched into a rousing rendition of the national anthem, adapting the lyrics to include women.