BEIRUT: Lebanon will on Tuesday ditch its traditional military parade for 79th Independence Day celebrations due to the continued presidential vacuum in the country.

Army chiefs said the decision had been made with the “national interest” in mind and to maintain “security and stability.”

CAIRO: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah El-Sisi for the first time on the sidelines of the inauguration of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
In what has been described as a historic moment, the two presidents shook hands with each other, with Qatar Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad standing next to them.

King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa issued a royal decree on Monday accepting the resignation of the government, state news agency BNA reported. 

The king appointed the Crown Prince, Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, as Prime Minister and tasked him to form a new government and appoint members for the new cabinet. 

ISTANBUL: Turkiye said a Kurdish militia killed two people in mortar attacks from northern Syria on Monday, in an escalation of cross-border retaliation following Turkish air operations at the weekend and a deadly bomb attack in Istanbul a week ago.

Turkiye’s armed forces said it was responding, and a senior security official told Reuters that Turkish jets had again started hitting targets in northern Syria.

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu won a defamation suit on Monday against a predecessor who had alleged that he, his wife and his son were mentally ill, with the court deeming the remarks a bid to harm Netanyahu’s political career.
Netanyahu’s lawyer hailed the ruling as “the shattering of another libel” — an allusion to his client’s assertion of innocence in three graft trials that overshadowed his last term as premier and are complicating his efforts to retake power.