AL-MUKALLA: Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council has formed an 11-member committee to engage in talks with the Iran-backed Houthis to end the war, but there are no signs that the militia will accept any attempt to begin peace negotiations, including through the UN.

A government official told Arab News that the committee has veteran negotiators who had previously met with the Houthis in Kuwait, Geneva and other cities, including representatives of women groups and the pro-independence Southern Transitional Council.

BEIRUT: Cholera is spreading fast across Lebanon, with 80 confirmed cases recorded over two days this week.

Health Minister Firass Abiad said on Wednesday that the majority were among Syrian refugees. However, he added that  “there has been an increase in cases among the Lebanese.”

The ministry said the new cases had raised the total to 169, including two in Kesserwan, Mount Lebanon. Two more deaths have also been recorded, raising the toll to five.

NEW YORK CITY: Volker Turk, the UN’s high commissioner for human rights, on Tuesday said he is deeply concerned about the unrelenting violent crackdown by security forces on protesters in Iran, including reports of arbitrary arrests and the killing and detention of children.

More than a month after nationwide protests broke out over the death in police custody of 23-year-old Mahsa Amini, as many as 23 children have been killed and many more injured in a number of provinces by live bullets or metal pellets fired at close range, or by fatal beatings, according to Turk’s office.

AMMAN: Turkish troops deployed on Tuesday in an area in northwestern Syria to try to halt fighting between rival rebel factions opposed to Syrian President Bashar Assad, witnesses and rebel forces said.

Turkish tanks and armored vehicles took up positions around Kafr Jana, a rugged area that the main jihadist rebel group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham seized on Monday from two rival factions belonging to a coalition of rebel forces backed by Ankara.

BUENOS AIRES: Argentina’s justice department has asked Qatar to arrest a top Iranian official for his alleged participation in a 1994 attack on a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.
Federal judge Daniel Rafecas late on Monday requested the detention of Iran Vice President for Economic Affairs Dr. Mohsen Rezaei Mirghaed, who is currently in Qatar, so he can be tried in Argentina.
Argentina does not currently have an extradition treaty with Qatar.