Attack by Al-Qaeda-allied group in northwest Syria kills, wounds dozens of troops

BEIRUT: Insurgents in northwest Syria attacked an army position Saturday killing and wounding more than 30 troops, opposition activists said.
The attack came days after Russian and Syrian warplanes carried out several airstrikes on the last major rebel stronghold in the northwestern province of Idlib and parts of Aleppo killing several insurgents.


Russia’s military ties with Iran ‘will withstand geopolitical pressure’

MOSCOW: Russia’s military cooperation with Iran will not succumb to geopolitical pressure, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said, following a report that Washington has asked Tehran to stop selling drones to Moscow.
“There are no changes, and cooperation with Iran will continue,” Ryabkov said, according to a report on Saturday from Russian state news agency RIA.
“We are independent states and do not succumb to the dictates of the US and its satellites.”


Rescue ship saves 438 migrants in Mediterranean: NGO

MARSEILLE, France: Rescue ship Ocean Viking has saved 438 migrants in distress in the Mediterranean over the last two days, the organization that runs it, SOS Mediterranee, said on Friday.
The rescues took place in international waters off the coasts of Libya and Tunisia, the France-based NGO said.
Earlier in the day, the NGO said that on Thursday it had “rescued 272 people” of 23 different nationalities from three boats in the central Mediterranean, the most perilous maritime crossing in the world for the migrants.


How Arab countries can tackle food waste at every step of the supply chain

DUBAI: Waste occurs at almost every stage of the global food supply chain, costing money and precious resources, damaging the environment, and unnecessarily adding billions of tons of climate-changing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

If food waste could be represented as its own country, it would be the world’s third-largest greenhouse gas emitter, behind China and the US, according to the UN Environment Programme.



Iran court orders US to pay $330m for ‘planning coup’

TEHRAN: A court in Tehran has ordered the US government to pay $330 million in damages for “planning a coup” against the newly established Islamic republic in 1980, the judiciary said Saturday.
A year after the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the US-backed shah, a group of mostly army officers tried to overthrow the new government.
State news agency IRNA said the “insurgents” were led by Saeed Mahdiyoun, a former Iranian air force commander, and had their headquarters in Nojeh, an air base in the western Hamedan province.