AL-MUKALLA: Houthi representatives from Yemen, who were set to attend UN-mediated prisoner exchange talks in Switzerland, chewed narcotic qat on an aircraft heading from Sanaa to Amman, a source told Arab News.

The Houthis’ conduct annoyed the pilot, who issued a distress call to his employer, protesting about the delegation’s refusal to stop.

The source said that the problem began in Sanaa at the weekend when the Houthis attempted to get on the UN aircraft while ingesting qat, but the pilot refused to let them board.

BEIRUT: A Lebanese clergyman has expressed his support for a woman candidate for the presidency.

Beirut’s Metropolitan Greek Orthodox Archbishop Elias Aoude asked during his Sunday sermon: “What would the situation be like if a female candidate was chosen for the presidency?”

He added: “Since the establishment of the Lebanese state, we’ve been having only male presidents, who were powerful sometimes and impotent other times.”

AL-MUKALLA: Fish prices have decreased by more than half in parts of Yemen after a ban on exports created an oversupply in local markets.

Fishmongers and fishermen in the southern city of Al-Mukalla and other areas of the Red Sea province of Hodeidah told Arab News that local markets were stocked after months of scarcity.

A kilo of tuna was selling for about 3,000 Yemeni riyals ($3.60) at the weekend, down from 8,000 riyals a month earlier in Al-Mukalla and more than 12,000 riyals in Aden. Grouper has fallen from 10,000 to less than 1,500 Yemeni riyals a kilo.

RIYADH: Kuwait’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Salem Abdullah Al-Jaber Al-Sabah and his Omani counterpart Badr Al-Busaidi on Sunday led the ninth session of the Kuwaiti-Omani joint committee meetings in Muscat, the Kuwait News Agency reported.

The two ministers and their delegations discussed a wide range of issues, including the economy, development, culture, and the environment.

They also reviewed new opportunities for cooperation and stressed a shared desire to strengthen bilateral relations at all levels. 

LONDON: Iraqi authorities on Saturday said they seized three million pills of captagon, an amphetamine-type stimulant that has been sweeping the Middle East for years, near the Syrian border.
The pills had been hidden in apple crates “loaded onto a refrigerator truck” and discovered at the Al-Qaim crossing between Syria’s Deir Ezzor province and western Iraq’s Anbar desert region, the Iraqi border authority said.