NEW YORK: The majority of veto appliance cases at the UN Security Council in the past three decades have been related to causes in the Arab region, a Kuwaiti diplomat has said.
Fahad Mohammad Al-Hajji, the first secretary in Kuwait’s mission, was addressing the UN General Assembly during a debate on just representation in the UNSC and prospects of increasing its members, reported Kuwait’s News Agency on Saturday.
Al-Hajji said he deeply regretted that the majority of veto cases involved the Arab region.

AL-MUKALLA: Omani mediators have been unable to persuade the Iran-backed Houthis to renew a truce brokered by the United Nations, which ended last month, as the Yemeni government confronts mounting public pressure to begin military operations to punish the Houthis for hitting oil facilities, a government official told Arab News on Saturday.

Oman — which hosts Houthi officials — intervened after other mediators, including the UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg, had tried and failed to get the Houthis to agree to prolong the truce.

RAMALLAH: Azerbaijan’s decision on Friday to open an embassy in Tel Aviv sparked astonishment and condemnation among Palestinians.
Azerbaijan shares a long border with Iran and is a major buyer of Israeli weapons systems. It is now set to become the first country with a Shiite majority and government to have a mission in Israel.
While some former Palestinian diplomats and political analysts sought to play down the move at a time of intense diplomatic struggles between Palestinians and Israel, others saw it as a victory for Israeli diplomacy.

DUBAI: A large anti-government protest erupted in Iran on Friday at the funeral of a child killed in a shooting that his mother blamed on security forces. It’s the latest in a wave of demonstrations that have flared across the country over the past two months.
Videos circulating on social media showed hundreds of protesters at the funeral for 9-year-old Kian Pirfalak in the southwestern city of Izeh. Protests also erupted in the eastern city of Zahedan, which has seen the deadliest violence since the nationwide demonstrations began.

GAZA CITY: Crowds on Friday mourned the deaths of 21 Palestinians who perished in a tragic fire in their apartment in Jabalia refugee camp on Thursday evening.

Tens of thousands on Friday took part in the funeral of the victims — most of whom were women and children — of the house fire that struck the Abu Raya family in the northern Gaza Strip.

The Jabalia camp is the largest of eight camps in the Gaza Strip, with a population of more than 2 million Palestinians living in harsh economic conditions.