JEDDAH: Courts in Tehran have sentenced 400 people to jail terms of up to 10 years over their involvement in protests sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death, Iran’s judiciary said on Tuesday.

Iran has been gripped by nearly three months of protests — which officials describe as “riots” — since the death of Amini after her arrest for an alleged breach of the country’s dress code for women.

AL-MUKALLA: A Yemeni human rights group and relatives have accused the Iran-backed Houthis of torturing and killing a prisoner of war and then for years concealing his death from family.

The Yemeni Network for Rights and Freedoms said that Omar Ahmed Al-Samae, a Yemeni government fighter seized from a battlefield in the province of Saada in 2018, was mercilessly tortured before being murdered. The militia group later told his family that he was being held in jail.

KUWAIT: The UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia and the Arab Competition Network have congratulated Kuwaiti authorities on their efforts to protect consumers against commercial fraud.
The organizations said the measures they introduced have helped to create effective and beneficial competition, the Kuwait News Agency reported on Tuesday.
Kuwait’s Competition Protection Agency has made significant progress in the past decade in its efforts to “regulate the local market,” Natalya Khaled, ESCWA’s economic affairs chief, said during a two-day conference.

BAGHDAD: Iraq, a top oil exporter battered by climate change impacts, must diversify its economy and pursue a “greener growth model,” the World Bank said on Tuesday.

In a report presented to authorities in Baghdad, the Washington-based institution said $233 billion must be invested by 2040 to allow Iraq to embark “on a green growth path.”

The mostly desert country, after decades of war and turmoil, is also suffering worsening climate change shocks from drought and water scarcity to rising temperatures.

KHARTOUM: Hundreds of Sudanese protesters took to the streets on Tuesday to protest a recent deal aimed at ending the crisis caused by last year’s military coup.

“No to the settlement,” protesters chanted, heading toward the presidential palace in the capital Khartoum.

Near-weekly protests have rocked Sudan since army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan led an October 2021 military coup derailing a transition to civilian rule.

Sudan’s short-lived transition was installed following the 2019 ouster of President Omar Bashir.