AMMAN: The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People on Wednesday unanimously elected Ahmad Faisal Muhamad, permanent representative of Malaysia to the UN, as its vice chair and rapporteur, the Jordan News Agency reported.

The UN General Assembly established the CEIRPP in 1975 to recommend a programme to enable the Palestinian people to exercise their rights to self-determination without external interference, national independence and sovereignty, and to return to their homes and properties from which they had been displaced. 

WASHINGTON: The conflict between Sudan’s military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces is “likely to be protracted” because both sides believe they can prevail militarily and have few incentives to negotiate, the top US intelligence official said on Thursday.

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines presented the bleak US intelligence assessment of the fighting that erupted on April 15 in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

LONDON: The UK and the Netherlands, in partnership with the UN, co-hosted an international event on Thursday to raise funds for the salvage operation to remove 1.1 million barrels of oil from the Safer, a decaying storage vessel moored off the coast of war-torn Yemen.

The conference of nations, companies and international organizations raised more than $7.5 million, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said.

BEIRUT: Raja Salameh, the brother of Lebanon’s central bank governor, on Thursday appeared before a team of European judges investigating financial crimes and international money laundering involving more than $330 million.

The judicial delegation, headed by French judge Aude Buresi, heard Salameh’s testimony at the Beirut Palace of Justice as part of investigations by European countries into financial transfers outside Lebanon and transactions conducted by Forry Associates, which Salameh owns.

CAIRO: Heavy shelling in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum on Thursday disrupted efforts to deliver badly needed aid to trapped civilians, after yet another fragile and frequently violated truce ran out, residents said.
Sudan has plunged into chaos since fighting erupted in mid-April between the country’s two rival top generals. There is increasing concern for those trapped and displaced by the fighting, and aid workers and civilians have said there’s a dire lack of basic services, medical care, food and water.