Region

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel’s supreme court on Tuesday upheld a government decision to expel a senior Human Rights Watch (HRW) official over his alleged support of a boycott of the country, the ruling said.

Israel has sought to expel Omar Shakir, the New York-based rights group’s director for Israel and the Palestinian territories, for more than a year.

It will now be up to the government whether to follow through and deport Shakir, a US citizen, who brands the move a bid by Israel to silence and delegitimise critics of its treatment of the Palestinians.

It would be the first expulsion of its kind under a 2017 law allowing the deportation of foreigners who support boycotting Israel, although there have been cases of people being denied entry under the measure.

Israeli Interior Minister Aryeh Deri said he was “delighted that the supreme court this morning has validated my decision to not extend the visa of Omar Shakir, one of the leaders of the BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] movement, for his support for boycotting Israel”.

“All those who work against Israel must know that we will not let them live or work here,” he added.

HRW said it urges businesses to stop operating in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank in order to avoid complicity in human rights abuses, but insisted it does not advocate a boycott of Israel itself.

It said it had “vigorously contested” claims Shakir had done so since joining the organisation.

Kenneth Roth, its executive director, condemned the court’s decision and warned that more such rulings would follow.

“The supreme court has effectively declared that free expression in Israel does not include completely mainstream advocacy for Palestinian rights,” he said.

“If the government now deports Human Rights Watch’s researcher for asking businesses to respect rights as we do across the world, there’s no telling whom it will throw out next.”

The case against Shakir was initially based on alleged statements in support of a boycott he made “in the distant past”, prior to taking up his post, HRW says.

The government later added new statements it alleges are in support of a boycott.

Israel’s ministry of strategic affairs, which probes potential violations of the 2017 law, alleges Shakir’s activism, particularly related to the country’s occupation of the West Bank, has amounted to calls for a boycott.

The BDS movement calls for a broad-ranging boycott of Israel over its treatment of the Palestinians.

Israel sees the movement as a strategic threat and accuses it of “anti-Semitism” — a claim activists strongly deny.

KHARTOUM — Sudanese rebel groups engaged in peace talks with Khartoum insisted on Wednesday that the country’s new parliament be formed only after an agreement is reached to end long-running conflicts in three border regions.

A power-sharing deal signed on August 17 between protest leaders and the generals who ruled Sudan after the April overthrow of longtime president Omar Al Bashir stipulates that a 300-member parliament be formed within three months.

Since the signing of the so called “Constitutional Declaration”, the transitional government, led by Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, has engaged in talks with three rebel groups to reach a peace deal to end the wars in Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan.

Rebel groups said that during talks in the South Sudanese capital of Juba, the two sides had agreed to delay the formation of a new parliament until a peace deal has been reached.

The groups said they would not give up their demand despite the protest movement’s insistence on the original November 17 deadline stipulated by the so-called “Constitutional Declaration”.

“The Sudanese Revolutionary Front [SRF] rejects any unilateral attempt to violate the Juba declaration that aims to build confidence measures,” the rebel alliance said in a statement.

The SRF called on Khartoum to “stick to what has been agreed on” in Juba.

It urged Khartoum not to set off any “upheaval that might disturb the atmosphere and create a state of mistrust that will delay the reaching of peace, which our country is in desperate need of”.

Hamdok’s government has made reaching a peace deal to end conflict in the country’s three war zones a priority.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced in the rebellions by ethnic minority groups in the three conflict zones that met with an iron fist from Bashir’s ousted regime.

Time not enough’ 

Bashir himself is wanted by the Hague-based International Criminal Court for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his alleged role in the war in Darfur. He denies the charges.

Veteran Sudanese journalist Khalid Tijani said the forming of parliament by November 17 was now difficult.

“The time left is not enough as there is still no agreement on the mechanism of appointing the lawmakers within the protest movement itself,” Tijani told AFP.

“The military too is of the opinion that forming a parliament at this stage might lead to more complications as these lawmakers would be appointed and not elected.”

Tijani said the near-term developments in Sudan are expected to be influenced by what happens with the peace negotiations.

“If a peace deal is reached, it will lead to restructuring of the government and possibly even the sovereign council,” he said, referring to the 11-member ruling body that is currently governing the northeast African country.

“And if peace is not achieved, then it will affect the entire transitional period.”

Protest leader Satea al-Haj acknowledged that there were “obstacles” in forming of parliament before November 17.

RIYADH — Yemen's internationally recognised government signed a power-sharing deal with southern separatists Tuesday, in a Saudi-brokered initiative to end a conflict simmering within the country's civil war.

Unrest in the south, which saw secessionist forces seize control of Yemen's interim capital Aden, distracted the Saudi-led coalition from its battle against Houthi rebels and raised fears the country could fall apart entirely.

"This agreement will open a new period of stability in Yemen. The kingdom of Saudi Arabia stands with you", Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman said at a signing ceremony in Riyadh aired on state television.

The deal will reportedly see the secessionist Southern Transitional Council (STC) handed a number of ministries, and the government return to Aden, according to officials and reports in Saudi media.

The UN special envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, congratulated the two sides on the deal which he said would propel efforts to end the wider civil war that has devastated the country.

“The signing of this agreement is an important step for our collective efforts to advance a peaceful settlement to the conflict in Yemen,” he said in a statement.

“Listening to southern stakeholders is important to the political efforts to achieve peace in the country.”

Security Belt Forces — dominated by the STC — in August took control of Aden, which had served as the beleaguered government’s base since it was ousted from the capital Sanaa by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in 2014.

The clashes between the separatists and government forces, who for years fought on the same side against the Houthis, had raised fears the country could split apart with disastrous effects.

The warring factions in recent weeks held indirect talks mediated by Saudi Arabia in the kingdom’s western city of Jeddah, which culminated in the deal signed in Riyadh.

Both Yemen’s President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and STC leader Aidarous Al Zoubeidi attended the ceremony.

Analysts said the deal prevented the violent disintegration of Yemen but that secessionist sentiment could resurface in the future.

“In the short term, the agreement will allow the coalition to stick together and focus their efforts on fighting the Houthis instead of each other,” said Elisabeth Kendall, senior research fellow at Oxford University.

“In the long term, it simply kicks the can down the road on southern secession. Southern ambitions won’t just go away. The question is, can they be temporarily reined in.”

Mistrust abounds 

The military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) intervened in Yemen in 2015 as the Houthi rebels closed in on Aden, prompting Hadi to flee into Saudi exile.

The conflict has since killed tens of thousands of people — most of them civilians — and driven millions more to the brink of famine in what the United Nations calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The south was an independent state before being forcibly unified in 1990, and the STC has said it wants to regain its lost status.

The mistrust between the allies has posed a headache for regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia, which remains focused on fighting the Houthis who are aligned with Riyadh’s archfoe Iran.

The Houthis have offered to halt all attacks on Saudi Arabia as part of a wider peace initiative, later repeating their proposal despite continued air strikes from the Saudi-led coalition.

The offer came after the Huthis claimed responsibility for attacks on September 14 against two key Saudi oil installations that temporarily knocked out half of the OPEC giant’s production.

Riyadh and Washington, however, blamed Iran for the attacks — a charge denied by Tehran.

TEHRAN — President Hassan Rouhani said Tuesday that Iran would resume uranium enrichment at an underground plant south of Tehran in its latest step back from a troubled 2015 agreement with major powers.

The suspension of all enrichment at the Fordow Plant in the mountains near the Shiite holy city of Qom was one of the restrictions on its nuclear activities that Iran accepted in return for the lifting of international sanctions.

But Washington's abandonment of the deal in May last year followed by its reimposition of crippling sanctions prompted Iran to begin a phased suspension of its own commitments in May this year.

Under the terms of the agreement, Iran has retained more than 1,000 first-generation centrifuges at the Fordow Plant, which have been running empty or remained idle since it took effect.

"Starting from tomorrow [Wednesday], we will begin injecting [uranium hexafluoride] gas at Fordow," Rouhani said in a speech broadcast by state television.

His announcement came a day after tensions flared anew on the 40th anniversary of the US embassy siege and hostage crisis, with thousands in Tehran taking to the streets and Washington imposing fresh sanctions.

Iran said the resumption of enrichment at Fordow would be carried out transparently and witnessed by inspectors from the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

But the European Union voiced disquiet at the new step away from the 2015 deal.

“We are concerned by President Rouhani’s announcement today to further reduce Iran’s commitments,” EU spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic told reporters.

France urged Iran to “go back on its decisions, which contradict the accord”.

Russia too expressed worry, despite its good relations with Iran.

“We are monitoring the development of the situation with concern,” President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

“We support the preservation of this deal.”

At the same time, Peskov said Moscow understood Tehran’s concerns over the “unprecedented and illegal sanctions” imposed by Washington.

The move is the fourth announced by Iran since it began responding to Washington’s abandonment of the agreement.

‘Committed to negotiations’ 

Iran has repeatedly warned the remaining parties to the deal — Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia — that the agreement can only be rescued if they help it circumvent US sanctions.

European governments have strived to come up with a mechanism that would allow foreign firms to continue to do business with Iran without incurring US penalties.

But to Iran’s mounting frustration, their efforts have so far failed to have any significant impact.

Rouhani stressed that Iran remained committed to efforts to save the 2015 agreement, despite its phased suspension of some of its commitments.

“The fourth phase, like the three previous ones, is reversible,” he said.

“We are committed to all the behind-the-scenes negotiations we have with some countries for a solution.

“Over the next two months, we will negotiate more.”

Rouhani said Iran wanted to return to a situation in which “we can easily sell our oil, we can easily use our money in banks”.

If that were achieved, “we will completely go back to the previous situation”.

The EU warned on Monday that its continued support for the deal depended “on full compliance by Iran”.

“We have continued to urge Iran to reverse such steps without delay and to refrain from other measures that would undermine the nuclear deal,” Kocijancic said.

But Ellie Geranmayeh, an Iran expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the measures were designed to increase Iran’s leverage in future talks and to pressure Western countries to provide Iran with economic relief.

“This is not attempt to inch towards nuclear weapon,” she wrote on Twitter. “#IAEA continues to provide intrusive monitoring.”

On July 1, Iran said it had increased its stockpile of enriched uranium to beyond a 300kg maximum set by the deal.

A week later, it announced it had exceeded a 3.67 per cent cap on the purity of its uranium stocks.

On September 7, it fired up advanced centrifuges to boost its enriched uranium stockpiles.

On Monday, Iran announced a more than tenfold increase in enriched uranium production as a result of the steps back from the nuclear deal it had already undertaken.

The country’s enriched uranium production has reached 5 kilogrammes per day, said Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, compared with 450 grammes per day two months ago.

BEIRUT — For 32-year-old Uhood from Beirut's Tariq Al-Jdideh district, corruption in Lebanon's leadership is the reason she has to shower at a friend's house when water pipes run dry at home.

It's also why she has to pay what she calls a "mafia" of private electricity providers to cover for poor state supplies.

"Access to water and electricity are the most basic of rights, but ever since childhood we've become used to frequent cuts," she said.

"We are sick of the lies and of the corruption. We don't trust political leaders anymore," Uhood yelled, as riot police streamed into a Beirut thoroughfare to contain violence as rioters attacked demonstrators.

An unprecedented protest movement has gripped Lebanon since October 17, demanding an overhaul of a political class that has remained largely unchanged since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war.

A long list of grievances have spurred exasperated Lebanese to protest, but poor public services are among the key complaints.

They symbolise to the Lebanese people the profound challenges of governance and accountability in a country ranked 138 out of 180 in Transparency International's 2018 corruption index.

Many say they are fed up with paying the state for intermittent tap water they describe as undrinkable.

Most also pay for drinking water and private tankers to deliver water when pipes run dry.

'Too late' 

The vast majority of Lebanese also pay two bills for their power — the first to an ailing state electricity company, and the second to expensive private generators for the three to 12 hours each day when mains supply cuts out.

"There is a lot of corruption," said Hussein Ghandour, his voice muffled by the sound of heavy roadblocks being moved to allow ambulances and security forces to pass.

"Politicians steal public funds meant for water and electricity projects... this is why these projects are not being implemented," said the 24-year-old.

According to consultancy firm McKinsey, Lebanon has the world's fourth worst electrical supply, ranked only above Haiti, Nigeria and Yemen.

Reforms to the electricity sector have not been implemented for the past three decades since the civil war.

A new electricity plan promising uninterrupted supply was approved by the government in April, but has yet to be implemented.

The national utility receives one of the largest slices of the government’s budget after debt servicing and salaries.

According to the World Bank, “sector subsidies averaged 3.8 per cent of GDP during 2008-2017, aggregating over the years to account for close to half of Lebanon’s overall external debt”.

Last month, an economic rescue plan issued by the government in response to street pressure said permits would be granted within four months for the construction of power plants to tackle chronic blackouts.

But demonstrators have little faith in a government they say has botched several attempts to improve a grid notorious for blackouts.

“We gave political leaders a lot of chances to provide us with 24/7 electricity supply,” said Alaa, sitting on a chair placed on the middle of a congested road.

“Now it’s too late,” the 24-year-old added, waving angry motorists away from a tunnel blocked by demonstrators some 10 metres ahead.

Following the government’s resignation last month in response to street pressure, plans to boost power supply within the coming months and hike the electricity tariff, are now harder to realise, according to Jessica Obeid, an energy expert.

The government could take a series of measures to provide electricity 24 hours a day within the second half of 2020 but it would have to “compromise sustainability, good governance and cost-effectiveness”, she added.

A more sustainable and cost-effective solution, would require the government to implement an already approved project to shift from relying on diesel and fuel oil to natural gas.

It would also need to cut down drastically on technical and non-technical losses, and focus on engaging citizens which will take some time, said Obeid.

“The next government may try to look for a quick fix, but that will open up a whole new set of challenges,” she told AFP.

By Hachem Osseiran

CAIRO — Egypt's army said Monday it had killed 83 militants in clashes in the restive Sinai Peninsula, where a Daesh terrror group affiliate has waged a long-running insurgency.

Security forces "eliminated 77 takfiris", referring to Sunni Muslim extremists, who were found with stacks of weapons and ammunition in north and central Sinai, the army said.

Six other "highly dangerous" militants were killed in shootouts in the region, the army said in a statement on a nationwide anti-militant operation between September 28 and November 4.

Three soldiers were killed or wounded in the fighting, the statement added, without elaborating.

About 61 "criminals, wanted individuals and suspects" were arrested, it said.

Security forces also destroyed dozens of hideouts and vehicles as part of the ongoing operation, according to the statement.

Egypt has for years been fighting an insurgency in North Sinai that escalated after 2013 ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi following mass protests.

In February 2018, the army and police launched a nationwide operation against militants, mainly focused on North Sinai.

The operation also targets other areas including the Western Desert along the porous border with Libya.

The latest army figures brings the death toll of suspected militants in the Sinai region to more than 830.

About 60 security personnel have been killed since the start of the offensive.

Following the death of Daesh chief Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi late last month, the group’s North Sinai affiliate has pledged allegiance to his successor, Abu Ibrahim Al Hashimi Al Quraishi.