NASIRIYAH: An Iraqi criminal court on Sunday sentenced to life in prison a police officer over the 2019 murder of anti-government protesters in the southern city of Nasiriyah.
Nasiriyah was a center of anti-corruption protests that gripped Iraq in late 2019 and were crushed by authorities in a crackdown that killed more than 600 people nationwide.
The ruling stated that commander Omar Nazar, a member of an elite police squad, was sentenced to life in prison for the “murder of Mustafa Ahmad and his group” on Nov. 28, 2019.

DUBAI: As the world marks the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, leading Captagon trade researcher Caroline Rose says she is doubtful the Bashar Assad regime would relinquish its lucrative drug business income, despite apparent support and commitments to Arab countries during the Jeddah Arab League Summit last month.

AL-MUKALLA: Rashad Al-Alimi, chairman of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, on Sunday inaugurated 20 development projects financed by the Saudi Development and Reconstruction Program for Yemen, totaling SR1.2 billion ($320 million), in Hadramout, Yemen’s southeastern province. 

Al-Alimi, along with Yemeni and Saudi officials, attended a celebratory event in Al-Mukalla, the capital of Hadramout, to launch the projects in various sectors, aimed at alleviating Yemenis’ sufferings and addressing major issues in the health, education, transportation, and energy sectors.

DAMASCUS: A drone attack targeted Syrian President Bashar Assad’s ancestral town of Qardaha on Friday with two projectiles, killing one person and lightly injuring another, Syrian state news agency Sana reported.
The strike came a day after Sana reported a drone attack on Salhab, another government-held town in northwest Syria near rebel territory, that killed a woman and a child.

AL-MUKALLA: The international medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said that its medical teams in Yemen’s northern Hajjah province have recorded hundreds of measles cases, many critical, as the Iran-backed Houthis oppose the distribution of vaccines.

Between February and May this year, the Abs Hospital in Hajjah treated 341 measles patients, including 22 critical cases, while the other MSF-operated Al-Mahabisha Hospital in the same province admitted an increasing number of children with the illness, the organization said on Twitter.