TUNIS: A southern Tunisian coastal town was paralyzed by protests on Tuesday amid growing anger over the fate of people who drowned in a migrant shipwreck last month, with some buried in unmarked graves.

The powerful UGTT labor union called a general strike in Zarzis on Tuesday, bringing to a head days of smaller protests to demand authorities do more to find missing bodies and improve living conditions.

Images showed the streets of Zarzis packed with protesters chanting anti-authority slogans with shops and government institutions closed.

BAGHDAD: An Iraqi investigative judge has questioned five senior tax officials over $2.5 billion in public funds that have gone missing, and more arrest warrants have been issued, authorities said on Tuesday.

An internal probe by the Finance Ministry in oil-rich Iraq has found that the money was withdrawn from the tax authority’s account at state-owned Rafidain Bank, the state news agency INA reported on Saturday.

DUBAI: A new mobile application offers women in the UAE who have been diagnosed with breast cancer to connect online and communicate with each other for mutual help and support in their health battles.

The Breast Cancer Club app was created by Gazal Kamal, a Palestinian mother of three daughters, whose own tumultuous experience with the disease began in October 2020.

“I didn’t really know much about breast cancer, to be honest, in any way,” said Kamal, who lives in Dubai. “We had one aunt from my dad’s side who had breast cancer and that was about it.”

AL-MUKALLA: A former Yemeni ambassador and retired military commander has been shot dead by a gunman at his residence in Houthi-held Sanaa.

Maj. Gen. Dirham Noman was killed instantly after the armed man broke into his home on Sunday and opened fire, before fleeing the scene.

Noman was a former ambassador to Ethiopia and governor of many Yemeni regions. As a military leader he had participated in the 1962 revolution in North Yemen.

BEIRUT: The Swiss embassy in Lebanon has postponed an informal dinner that was scheduled to take place at the ambassador’s residence at the invitation of the Switzerland-based Center for Humanitarian Dialogue.

The event aimed to brainstorm with “Lebanese as well as regional and international actors” but was postponed following controversy and disapproval among political parties opposing Hezbollah and its allies.