TEHRAN, BERLIN: Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Friday blamed a wave of poisonings of hundreds of schoolgirls around the country on Tehran’s enemies.

TUNIS: Tunisian authorities said Thursday they had banned a protest by the country’s main opposition coalition, arguing that senior members are suspected of crimes against the state.
Tunis prefect Kamel Feki said a request by the “so-called National Salvation Front” to hold a march on Sunday had “not been approved as some of its leaders are suspected of plotting against state security.”
Around 20 prominent political figures have been arrested in Tunisia this month, primarily rivals and critics of President Kais Saied.

LONDON: Iran is executing members of ethnic minorities as a “tool of repression,” Amnesty International has claimed.

In a report published alongside Iranian human rights organization the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, Amnesty said the regime had killed 14 Kurds, 13 Baluchis and an Ahwazi Arab among 94 people executed since the start of the year — and had condemned many more to death after “grossly unfair” trials.

BEIRUT: Thieves in Lebanon are stealing iron fencing from cemeteries and grave sites to sell for a few dollars on the black market, as the nation grows used to hearing about pickpocketing, drug trafficking and theft almost on a daily basis.

As the country’s financial and economic crisis deepens, Lebanon is witnessing the collapse of its social, health and educational sectors.

PARIS: French citizen Benjamin Briere is still in an Iranian jail despite his recent acquittal by an appeals court, his lawyer said Thursday.
Briere was detained in May 2020, and later sentenced to eight years in prison for espionage.
He is one of several foreigners who campaigners say Iran has jailed in a strategy of hostage-taking to extract concessions from the West.
Briere’s France-based lawyer, Philippe Valent, said in a statement sent to AFP that an Iranian appeals court had cleared his client of all charges and ordered his release on Feb. 15.