BEIRUT: Lebanese President Michel Aoun welcomed the US-brokered maritime border deal with Israel on Wednesday, saying it will “pull Lebanon out of the abyss,” in reference to his country’s three-year economic crisis.

Lebanon and Israel signaled their approval on Tuesday to the deal laying out their respective maritime rights.

A parliamentary debate has already taken place on the necessary steps to bring the agreement into force.

NEW YORK CITY: The UN on Wednesday welcomed the announcement that authorities in Israel and Lebanon have agreed to establish a permanent, mutually acceptable maritime boundary, formally ending a long-running dispute between them.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric described the deal as a “positive development” and told Arab News that it “will clearly benefit the stability and the prosperity of the region.”

BEIRUT: Lebanon has recorded its first death from cholera as cases surge after an outbreak of the extremely virulent disease in neighboring Syria, the health ministry said Wednesday.
Lebanon has recorded 26 cases of cholera this month, as the country struggles amid poor sanitation and crumbling infrastructure after three years of unprecedented economic crisis.
“The common point between these cases is that the majority of patients are displaced Syrians,” Health Minister Firas Abiad said on Tuesday.

LONDON: Iran’s political elite appears to be split over their reaction to widespread protests in the country, with a senior figure stepping forward for the first time to question the country’s compulsory hijab laws.

Former parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani is the first figure to publicly deviate from the regime’s claims that the countrywide protests — which began after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini — are the a result of US and Israeli intelligence efforts.

DUBAI: Niloofar Hamedi, an Iranian journalist specializing in women’s rights, got away with hard-hitting stories for years — until the day she took a photo of Mahsa Amini’s parents hugging each other in a Tehran hospital, where their daughter was lying in a coma.

The photo, which Hamedi posted on Twitter on Sept. 16, was the first sign to the world that all was not well with 22-year-old Amini, who had been detained three days earlier by Iran’s morality police for what they deemed inappropriate dress.