NEW YORK CITY: The Yemeni government and the Houthis on Monday agreed to release 887 detainees, following 10 days of negotiations in Geneva, the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross said.

They added that both sides have also agreed to visit each other’s detention facilities, grant the delegations full access to all detainees during those visits, and to meet again in May to discuss further prisoner swaps.

AMMAN: Jordan on Monday summoned the Israeli ambassador to protest over the behavior of an Israel minister who spoke at a podium that had an Israeli flag with expanded borders that incorporated the kingdom and the Palestinian territories.
Earlier Amman condemned the ultra-nationalist Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s move saying it was a provocative move by an “extremist” and “racist” minister that violated international norms and Jordan’s peace treaty with Israel.

BRUSSELS: The European Union and international donors on Monday pledged seven billion euros ($7.5 billion) to help Turkiye and Syria in the aftermath of the earthquake that devastated parts of the neighboring countries last month.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the EU’s executive arm, said 3.3 billion euros ($3.5 billion) of the total amount will be raised by the 27-nation bloc.

LONDON: The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain were the happiest Arab countries from 2020 to 2022, according to the World Happiness Report, which was published on Monday.

Lebanon, suffering from economic malaise and a political crisis, was the unhappiest Arab state and second-last out of the 137 countries measured in the study.

The report, titled “World Happiness, Trust and Social Connections in Times of Crisis,” surveyed respondents from around the world for the three years spanning the COVID-19 pandemic.

WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden expressed support in a call Sunday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for “compromise” in controversial plans for reforms to the Israeli judiciary, the White House said.
In his first comments on the issue, Biden said the reforms must respect what he called core democratic values, a statement from the White House said.
The judicial reform plans of Netanyahu’s hard-right government have triggered 11 straight weeks of protests.