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BEIRUT — Lebanese political leaders and thousands of other people gathered on Thursday for the funeral of the former Maronite patriarch, Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir, who pushed for Syrian forces to leave Lebanon after its civil war. 

Ten black-clad priests with purple scarves bore his wooden coffin, marked with a cross, out of a chapel and along a purple carpet through crowds of mourners as incense wafted around. 

They were led by the current Patriarch Boutros Al Rahi, wearing his burgundy mitre and robes and carrying a large cross, and by other priests holding the vestments of Sfeir, who died on Sunday aged 98. 

"Everyone agrees he is a national loss and they saw in him the patriarch of a second independence, the patriarch of iron and a grip of stone, patriarch of national reconciliation, the patriarch who will not be repeated," Rahi said in his eulogy. 

Earlier, harmonious religious chanting echoed in the bright sun at the eastern church's seat in a pine forest overlooking the Mediterranean on the coast north of Beirut. 

Sfeir, born in the mountain village of Reifoun in 1920, was elected the Maronite patriarch in 1986 and was invested as a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 1994 before retiring as patriarch in 2011.

Having cast himself as a defender of Christian rights during the 1975-90 civil war, he was instrumental afterwards in effecting reconciliation between Christians and the Druze sect. 

After the withdrawal of Israeli forces in 2000, following an 18-year occupation of south Lebanon, Sfeir demanded that Syria also pull out its troops who had been in the country since 1976.

President Michel Aoun, a Maronite, Sunni Muslim Prime Minister Saad Al Hariri, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a Shiite Muslim, and numerous political party leaders sat among the mourners on Thursday. 

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian also attended, as did many foreign ambassadors and a Papal representative. 

The Shiite Hizbollah movement, a close ally of Syria's government and an opponent of the United States, was not going to take part in the funeral, Lebanese TV channel MTV reported. 

The US State Department described Sfeir on Wednesday as "a courageous leader and a champion for the idea of a sovereign and independent Lebanon". 

Hariri declared Wednesday and Thursday as official days of mourning and May 16 was also made a national holiday this year. 

TRIPOLI — Peering through the gate of a home in the western suburbs of Libya's war-torn capital, seven-year-old Chehab shyly looked on as children streamed down the nearby street.

"I'll just play by myself," he muttered, holding a ball under one arm.

"I don't know anyone in this neighbourhood."

He is one of the more than 60,000 civilians who have fled their homes in Tripoli since early April, when forces loyal to commander Khalifa Haftar began their push to take the capital.

While some have found refuge at shelters throughout the city, many more have instead turned to relatives and even mere acquaintances as Libyans band together to find homes for the displaced.

Chehab and his family arrived at his uncle's home in Janzur in mid-April after fleeing the southern suburb of Ain Zara as it turned into a front-line battlefield.

Nearly a month later, his 10-year-old sister Alia misses the comforts of home.

"I want to go home and go back to school," she sighed.

"The school closed again because of the war and I had to leave my friends, my room and my toys."

Their father Abdelhafid would have liked to find a furnished apartment for the family to rent for the holy month of Ramadan, but it proved too expensive.

"I don't know what I would have done if my brother hadn't opened his door," the high school geography teacher said. 

 ‘Battlefield’ neighbourhoods 

An initial lightning advance by Haftar's forces on April 4 was quickly bogged down by militias loyal to the UN-recognised unity government — which is based in Tripoli — as they rushed to defend the capital.

The fighting has killed 454 people and wounded more than 2,000 others, according to the World Health Organisation.

The European Union warned on Monday that Haftar's offensive on the capital was a threat to international peace.

But front lines have since largely frozen and the intensity of the fighting has dipped with the beginning of Ramadan.

The clashes are centred along the capital's southern gates, particularly in Ain Zara.

But the fighting also extends elsewhere, including the districts of Salaheddin and Khalat Al Ferjan, as well as Tripoli's international airport which was destroyed in 2014 fighting.

"Our main concern is with civilians living near the front lines," said Youness Rahoui, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Tripoli. 

"Densely populated neighbourhoods are gradually becoming battlefields."

‘Lucky’ 

Habiba left her home near the airport in a hurry after neighbours told her they were fleeing the area. 

For her, finding room with relatives or at a shelter were not options.

But her husband's friends came to the rescue, securing the family an apartment in the western neighbourhood of Siyahia that had once been used as an office by a foreign company. 

The family sleeps on mattresses nestled between a clutter of desks and chairs, but Habiba still believes they are "lucky".

"Our loved ones often don't have the space or the means to welcome an entire family," she said, adding she hoped to join her husband who lives abroad. 

"The school year is ruined anyway," she said, hinting that taking her children along for the journey would not affect their studies. 

Classes have been suspended across the capital, and schools in several districts have been transformed into makeshift shelters for the displaced.

Many homes in the southern suburbs have been damaged or completely destroyed by the fighting. 

Gasr Ben Ghachir, one of the heaviest hit areas, lies almost completely abandoned.

But 29-year-old Hamza has stayed behind to "stand guard" against looters, while his family takes refuge with relatives.

He does not "feel comfortable staying at other people's homes", he told AFP by phone.

But he will need a break from guard duty in a few days, when his supplies run out.

"The past few weeks have been tough and I need a rest," he said.

SEJNANE, Tunisia — With bucket and spade in hand, Sabiha Ayari from Sejnane in northern Tunisia is among the women keeping alive an ancient tradition of creating pottery with all-natural materials.

Using skills handed down from generation to generation, she extracts red and white clay from local wadis to craft terracota artefacts, such as dolls and animal figurines as well as cooking utensils for the kitchen.

The pottery, mostly cream-coloured with black and red motifs, was added in 2018 to the prestigious "Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity" of UNESCO, the United Nations cultural organisation.

"These are Berber motifs, the same as those found on traditional outfits and tattoos," says Ayari, a respected potter in her 50s committed to preserving the ancestral tradition.

Seated in her lean-to overlooking the family lands, she scoops up the clay and spends most of her time fashioning utensils as well as stylised tortoises and horses.

The women of Sejnane make and decorate their artisan pottery with natural elements from the agricultural region.

Ayari, who is unmarried, mixes the clay with crushed brick, prepared by her sister-in-law, to strengthen the raw material. 

The bricks are a rare nod to modern methods, as in the past shattered old pots were used.

After a days-long drying process, the pots are varnished with a thin coat of white clay. Some are then decorated with red-ochre earth.

Ayari's mother, with her worn-out hands, joins in by polishing the plates. They have to be smoothed out several times to achieve a glazed look.

No sophisticated tools are used, no modern ovens, just the sole of a shoe for the burnishing process and a stick for decorating the pieces with the juice of leaves collected from mastic trees.

The items are then heated on an open hearth fired by dried dung, turning the juice from green to black.

"This is how all kitchen utensils were made when I was little," says Ayari. "They didn't realise the value of these objects."

She shows off a large earthenware jar modelled by her grandmother. Other ancient objects have already been shattered to make new items.

Change with the times 

Her pottery handicraft, dating back to 3500BC, has remained intact "without great technical or aesthetic changes", explains Naceur Baklouti, a researcher into Tunisia's heritage.

But changing lifestyles and the availability of low-price kitchen and household items over the past 50 years have led artisans "to switch production from utensils to the decorative", says Baklouti.

Potters sell their wares from roadside shacks. The best of them are invited to display at exhibitions in Tunis, a two-and-a-half-hour drive away, and in Europe.

As for Ayari, she may not know how to read or write, apart from signing her work, but her pots are in demand and her flow of orders keeps her household going.

"I'm an ambassador for Tunisia," says the proud potter, who wears a traditional red costume and flowery scarf at her sales.

But her status is fairly unique among the hundreds of potters in the green valleys surrounding the town of Sejnane. For most, it's only a secondary source of income.

Young Tunisians do not have the patience to learn and perfect the art, according to Ayari. They prefer to use black ink and chemicals, rather than take the time to collect and extract natural materials.

The challenge remains to hand down the skills. Sejnane has plans to build a museum and training centre to preserve its local know-how.

Ayari has already trained her sister-in-law Khadija and given courses to several other local women.

Also to keep it in the family, the plan is to pass down her skills to her nephew's future wife after she quits her factory job.

But the future is not assured. "You have to be passionate about the work. You can't force it, you have to want it," Khadija frets.

ANKARA — Ten days after it annulled Turkey's most dramatic election upset in years, the country's electoral authority faces a barrage of questions from opposition parties who say there was no legal basis to cancel the vote.

The high election board (YSK) said irregularities affected the outcome of the March 31 mayoral election in Istanbul, when the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) narrowly defeated President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AK Party (AKP).

It ruled that the vote in Turkey's largest city and commercial hub, the biggest prize in the nationwide local elections, be rerun next month because some polling officials were not civil servants, as required by voting regulations.

The decision to reverse Erdogan's rare election setback was described by Turkey's Western allies as incomprehensible. Critics said one of the last checks on his ever-tighter hold on power had suffered a damaging blow.

"The most fundamental value of our political tradition is that the last word belongs to the national will, which is manifested in the ballot box," Erdogan's erstwhile ally Ahmet Davutoglu, a former AKP prime minister, said last week.

 "The annulment decision has opened the way to damaging these fundamental values of ours."

Erdogan has ruled Turkey since 2003, first as prime minister and then as president, winning more than a dozen elections. 

He remains Turkey's dominant politician, but economic recession and a slump in the lira have eroded support for his Islamist-rooted AKP. 

"A game where those who come with elections don't leave with elections was approved by a gang influencing the YSK," CHP spokesman Faik Oztrak said last week. "A coup was carried out on the ballots, which are the last bastion of democracy."

Erdogan's party says it provided concrete evidence of wrongdoing in the electoral process and the election board acted solely on the information available. "The power of the ruling party was never used on the YSK," an AKP official told Reuters.

The AKP described the irregularities in the mayoral vote as "organised crime" which affected the outcome. The AKP has said the rerun of the mayoral election was aimed at ensuring the public will was reflected in the ballot.

Election impact

The YSK decision was passed by a 7-4 majority. Its 11 members, all judges, are chosen by Turkey's two highest courts whose members are selected by a judicial council appointed partly by parliament and partly by the president.

 The election board has yet to publish a detailed explanation for its decision. "When the reasoning is finished, we'll share it," YSK head Sadi Guven, who was part of the dissenting minority, told reporters on Wednesday.

 In a May 6 statement, it said the ruling was based on the fact that some polling stations in Istanbul were "formed illegally by the district electoral board, and this issue impacted the results of the elections".

A day after the announcement, a Turkish lawyers group said the irregularities cited in the YSK ruling should have been challenged before the vote, when they were apparent. 

 The Union of Turkish Bar Associations said the YSK had also failed to explain how those violations had changed the result of the election, and the ruling contradicted several previous YSK decisions.

Two years ago the YSK angered Erdogan's opponents when it ruled, in the midst of voting on a tightly fought referendum to grant the president sweeping executive powers, that unstamped ballot papers would be accepted — a decision which the bar associations said lifted a safeguard against voter fraud.

Aylin Ozgul Kirmizioglu, one of the four party representatives who are allowed to observe YSK meetings, said she was stunned to hear one of the judges first support cancelling and re-running the election.

 "When I heard the first annulment vote, I had the shock of my life," Kirmizioglu, from the opposition Iyi (Good) Party which was allied to the CHP, said. "I was truly very surprised and we, as the representatives, all looked at each other to see if we had heard right."

Kirmizioglu said it was illogical for the YSK to rule the mayoral election invalid when three other votes for local councils and administrators submitted in the same envelopes at the same polling stations on the same day were deemed valid

The AKP argued it was reasonable to focus on the mayoral election because the victory margin — 13,000 votes in a turnout of nearly 9 million — was so thin.

Kirmizioglu said: "it's very wrong to expect the public to understand this, since even we as lawyers don't get it.”

"If a legal rule is against logic, then it's not legal". 

SALE, Morocco — Two dozen suspects charged over the brutal murder of two Scandinavian women hiking in Morocco appeared in court on Thursday with the main accused facing possible death sentences.

Danish student Louisa Vesterager Jespersen, 24, and 28-year-old Norwegian Maren Ueland had their throats slit while camping in an isolated area of the High Atlas Mountains in December.

The main suspects, who allegedly pledged allegiance to the Daesh  group, are all from the Marrakesh region near the site of the killings, which shocked the north African country.

Abdessamad Ejjoud, a 25-year-old street vendor, is the alleged leader of the group. He had been jailed for trying to join Daesh in Syria but was released in 2015.

Younes Ouaziyad, a 27-year-old carpenter, and 33-year-old street vendor Rachid Afatti have also been named as key suspects.

The defendants were taken from prison to an anti-terrorism court in Sale, near Rabat, in vans escorted by police on motorcycles for the resumption of their trial, an AFP reporter said.

They face charges including promoting terrorism, forming a terrorist cell and premeditated murder.

 The families of the accused did not attend the court session.

 The main suspects "spontaneously admitted their crime during the investigation, and today they regret what they did", their lawyer Hafida Mekessaoui told AFP.

An opening hearing was held on May 2 but immediately postponed for two weeks after defence lawyers requested more time to prepare their case.

A Spanish-Swiss convert to Islam is among the suspects on trial, accused of teaching the main accused how to use encrypted communications and how to fire a gun.

Nature lovers Jespersen and Ueland shared an apartment and went to Norway's Bo University where they were studying to be guides.

They had travelled together to Morocco for their Christmas holidays.

Their lives were cut short in the foothills of Toubkal, the highest summit in north Africa, some 80 kilometres  from the city of Marrakesh, a tourist magnet.

According to the charge sheet, the assailants travelled to the High Atlas mountains on December 12 on a mission to kill tourists.

Several potential targets were passed over because the foreigners were accompanied by guides or local residents.

It was four days before they selected their targets. Two of them carried out the killings while the third filmed them on a telephone, according to the prosecution.

After the bodies were discovered, the Moroccan authorities were initially cautious, referring to a "criminal act" and wounds to the victims' necks.

Investigators said the "cell" was inspired by Daesh ideology, but Morocco's anti-terror chief insisted the accused had no contact with the militant group in conflict zones.

Daesh has never claimed responsibility for the double-murder.

Police quickly arrested a first suspect in the suburbs of Marrakesh, and three others were caught a few days later when they tried to leave the city by bus.

The suspects had recently embraced Salafism,  according to friends, neighbours and some family members.

A lawyer for one of the victim's families told AFP he would seek the death penalty for the murders.

A de facto suspension on executions has been in place in Morocco since 1993.

A second Swiss citizen arrested after the double-murder was tried separately and jailed in mid-April for 10 years on charges including "forming a terrorist group".

The main trial is expected to run for months before it reaches a verdict.

DUBAI — The UAE said Wednesday it was "committed to de-escalation" after a spike in tensions in the Gulf but warned it would retaliate hard against Yemen rebel attacks on civilian facilities in the region.

The UAE minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, was speaking after the mysterious sabotage at the weekend of four ships, including two Saudi oil tankers, and after Yemen's Houthi rebels claimed drone attacks Tuesday that shut down a key Saudi oil pipeline.

"We are very committed to de-escalation, peace and stability," he told journalists at a briefing in Dubai. 

He said a multicountry investigation into the sabotage attacks would be concluded within days, adding: "We are not going to jump the gun."

"We need to emphasise caution without throwing accusations," he said. "We have always called for restraint and we will always call for that."

However, he blamed "Iranian behaviour" for tensions in the Gulf region, where Washington has sent an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers in response to unspecified Iranian threats against American interests.

"It is this behaviour that has led to the difficult conditions," Gargash said. 

The UAE says three Western countries — the US, France and Norway — would take part in an investigation into the ship attacks, alongside Abu Dhabi and Riyadh.

Gargash was speaking a day after drone strikes hit two pumping stations in neighbouring Saudi Arabia’s key east-west pipeline.

The pipeline, with a capacity of 5 million barrels of crude per day, provides a strategic alternative route for Saudi exports if the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf were to be closed.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for the strikes and said they were in response to “crimes” committed by Saudi Arabia and its allies during more than four years of war in support of the government.

The UAE is part of a Saudi-led coalition battling the Houthis in Yemen. 

“We will retaliate and we will retaliate hard when we see Houthis hitting civilian targets like what happened in Saudi Arabia,” Gargash said on Wednesday.

OPEC giant Saudi Arabia currently pumps around 10 million barrels per day of which around 7 million are exported.

At present, most Saudi exports are loaded onto tankers at terminals on the kingdom’s Gulf coast and must pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz in case of a military confrontation with the United States.

DUBAI — Houthi fighters and Saudi-backed pro-government forces battled in Yemen's port city of Hodeida on Wednesday, breaching a ceasefire and potentially complicating a troop withdrawal agreement intended to pave the way for wider peace talks.

Hodeida port, which has been under Houthi control, is a lifeline for millions of Yemenis threatened by starvation because of the war as it is the main entry point for food imports and aid. 

The Houthi withdrawal from Hodeida and two other Red Sea ports began on Saturday and was the most significant advance yet in efforts to end the four-year-old war.

The United Nations said on Tuesday the ports had been handed over to a coast guard and the pullout was going to plan.

But both sides reported renewed clashes on Wednesday, a day after the Iran-aligned Houthi movement claimed responsibility for a drone attack that Saudi Arabia said had hit two of its oil pumping stations. 

Houthi-run media said pro-government forces had hit various parts of Hodeida city, including the airport, with heavy and medium weapons.

It did not say if they were Yemeni troops or members of an international military coalition led by Saudi Arabia which backs President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi's Aden-based government

The coalition-backed forces said in a report that Houthi fighters tried to infiltrate Hodeida and Al Duraihmi area to its south but pro-government troops foiled them. 

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, a leading member of the coalition, have yet to comment on the Houthi withdrawal.

The coalition has forces massed on Hodeida’s outskirts and under the withdrawal plan’s first phase, they are supposed to eventually also draw back.

Peace talks

United Nations Yemen Envoy Martin Griffiths called on the UN Security Council on Wednesday to urge the warring parties to work quickly to implement the remaining redeployments agreed during peace talks in Stockholm in December. 

“We would like the parties to ensure that the momentum that we now begin to see is maintained by implementing subsequent steps of the mutual redeployments,” he told the 15-member body.

Griffiths said he was still seeking a deal between the parties on local forces to take over security in the area. 

Acting US Ambassador to the United Nations Jonathan Cohen called on all parties to negotiate in good faith to reach a deal on local security forces, exercise restraint and to enable UN efforts on the ground, particularly by granting entry to the country for UN monitors. 

“Obstruction of the UN process cannot be tolerated. For months apparent breakthroughs have happened just in time for Security Council briefings, then progress stalls,” he said. “Council members must consider how to hold parties responsible if they don’t implement the Stockholm agreement.” 

Lt. Gen. Michael Lollesgaard, the head of the UN committee overseeing the withdrawal, said in Hodeida on Tuesday that the United Nations now had full access to the ports, which would allow its inspectors to check ships docking in the ports for any Houthi arms imports, he said.

It was not clear what effect the renewed fighting might have on the process.

France said on Wednesday the drone attacks on Saudi oil installations threatened regional security and it urged all sides to avoid an escalation that would put peace talks at risk. France is a major arms supplier to Saudi Arabia. 

The ceasefire in Hodeidah has largely held despite intermittent shelling and skirmishes, but violence continues elsewhere in the country. 

Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television said on Wednesday that government forces had killed 97 Houthi fighters in the governorate of Al Dhalea in southwest Yemen. There was no confirmation from the Houthis and Reuters could not immediately verify this. 

The Saudi-led coalition, which receives weapons and other support from the West, intervened in Yemen in March 2015 after the Houthi movement ousted Hadi from the capital Sanaa. Hadi fled to Saudi Arabia while his internationally-recognised government based itself in the southern port city of Aden. 

The war is seen as part of a wider regional conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Tens of thousands of people have been killed, many of them civilians, and aid agencies say the humanitarian crisis is the worst in the world.

KHARTOUM — Sudan’s Transitional Military Council (TMC) and the opposition Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces (DFCF) agreed the country’s transition period would last for three years, a TMC member said on Wednesday, adding a final deal on the transition would be reached within 24 hours.

Lt. Gen. Yasser Al Atta also said DFCF will have two-thirds of the seats on a transitional legislative council and parties that are not part of the alliance will take the rest.

Satea Al Hajj, a DFCF member, said: “the viewpoints are close and, God willing, we will reach an agreement soon” on the composition of a new sovereign council that would lead the country until elections.

The TMC had said the transition would last a maximum of two years, and the DFCF wanted it to last four years.

Sudan’s opposition alliance had blamed the military rulers on Tuesday for renewed street violence complicating efforts to negotiate a handover of power to civilians after last month’s overthrow of President Omar Al Bashir.

But Madani Abbas Madani, another DFCF figure, said on Wednesday that it was “abundantly clear that there are counterrevolutionary forces who are naturally displeased with any progress in negotiations”.

At least four people died and dozens were injured during protests on Monday as the TMC and opposition DFCF said they had reached a partial agreement for transition.

Madani, speaking to a news conference alongside Atta past midnight, said the TMC had formed a committee to investigate the targeting of protesters. He also said a joint committee was set up with DFCF to thwart any attempt to break up a sit-in at the defence ministry.

Gunfire rang out in the capital into the night on Monday after paramilitary Rapid Support Forces — whose head is deputy of the military council — had patrolled the streets using tear gas and guns to disrupt demonstrations.

The protesters, who want to keep pressure on the military for a swift handover, were back on Tuesday, blocking roads and bridges with bricks and rocks, images on social media showed.

Demonstrators have been camped at a sit-in outside the defence ministry since April 6. On Tuesday, the sit-in area and eastern Khartoum were blocked off from the capital’s centre by barriers that the protesters have erected.

“The bullets that were fired yesterday were Rapid Support Forces bullets and we hold the military council responsible for what happened yesterday,” Khalid Omar Youssef, a senior figure in the DFCF, told a news conference on Tuesday.

“While they claimed that a third party was the one who did so, eyewitnesses confirmed that the party was in armed forces vehicles and in armed forces uniforms, so the military council must reveal this party.”

‘He meant to kill me’

Monday’s fatalities were the first in protests for several weeks after months of demonstrations led to Bashir’s fall. 

The victims included a military police officer and three demonstrators, state TV said.

The TMC, which took over after ousting the long-ruling Bashir last month, blamed the violence on saboteurs unhappy with the transition accord.

The United States backed the opposition alliance in pinning the blame for Monday’s chaos on the military for trying to remove roadblocks set up by protesters. 

“The decision by security forces to escalate the use of force, including the unnecessary use of tear gas, led directly to the unacceptable violence later in the day that the TMC was unable to control,” said the US embassy in Khartoum.

One hospital in Khartoum said it received more than 60 wounded on Monday as well as three dead bodies. 

Some arrived with gunshot wounds in the shoulder, chest and other body parts, Amar Abu Bakr, executive director of the Moalem Medical City Hospital, told Reuters. 

“There are also a number of wounds resulting from sharp objects and others from beatings by sticks.”

Raed Mubarak, a protester who was wounded, said a shooter was about 20 metres away when he took aim. “He shot at my chest... he meant to kill me, not to scare or terrorise,” he said.