BEIRUT: Lebanon is committed to maintaining internal security, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri told US energy security envoy Amos Hochstein on Wednesday, hours before a UN vote on peacekeeping missions in the south of the country was delayed.
Berri highlighted “the depth of the relationship with UNIFIL since 1978, and Lebanon’s keenness to maintain stability and its sovereignty over all of Lebanese territory.”

AMMAN: Hamdi Tabbaa, head of the Jordanian Businessmen Association, and Yaqoub Ruqaishi, the charge d’affaires at the Omani Embassy in Jordan, met to discuss ways in which bilateral economic relations might be enhanced, the Jordan News Agency reported on Wednesday.

The historical and cultural ties between the two countries help support efforts to strengthen the economic relationship, Tabbaa said, particularly in fields such as joint investments, information technology, tourism and education.

WAD MADANI, Sudan: Thirty-nine civilians were killed, most of them women and children, when shelling hit their homes on Tuesday in war-torn Sudan’s vast western region of Darfur, medics and witnesses said.
The sources said the attack occurred in Nyala, the capital of Darfur South state, from which 50,000 people have been forced to flee since August 11, according to the United Nations.
 

 

BEIRUT: Twenty-two people including three civilians have died in clashes in Kurdish-held northeastern Syria between US-backed fighters and members of an affiliated group whose leader was arrested, a war monitor said Tuesday.
“Sixteen local fighters and three members of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have been killed” during the clashes in several villages in the east of Deir Ezzor province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, raising an earlier toll.
Three civilians including two children have also been killed in the violence, it added.

ALGIERS: An Algerian court on Tuesday sentenced an Algerian-Canadian researcher, as well as an Algerian journalist, each to two years in prison, one of their lawyers said.
Raouf Farrah, 36, and Mustapha Bendjama, 32, were convicted of publishing classified information by the court in the eastern city of Constantine, said Kouceila Zerguine, who represents Farrah.
Farrah was also found guilty of receiving funds “with the intention of committing acts that could undermine public order,” the lawyer said on Facebook.