CAIRO: Cowering in a bare corner, the 15-year-old boy begs for mercy and holds up his arms, trying to fend off the rifle pointed at his face. “Where is the money? Where is the money?” the holder of the rifle barks, over and over.

The unseen man pulls the trigger. “Click-click-click!” The magazine is empty, it seems. The man wants to scare him, and it works. The boy flinches with each click.

“Where is the money? Where is the money?” the man keeps shouting, swatting the boy on the head with the rifle muzzle. “I swear, I don’t have,” the boy cries.

BEIRUT: A group of 60 migrants picked up by a cargo ship from a crippled fishing boat in the central Mediterranean has safely reached the island of Crete hours after a severely ill child on the freighter died while being airlifted to Greece, Greek authorities said on Wednesday.

The Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian migrants had reportedly been stranded for days without provisions on a leaking fishing boat near Malta, after trying to sail from Lebanon to Italy about 10 days ago.

LONDON: Egypt announced on Wednesday it had detected the first monkeypox case in the country, who is an Egyptian man who has a residency in a European country.

“The Ministry of Health and Population announced that, as part of the continuous follow-up of the epidemiological situation, an Egyptian citizen tested positive for the monkeypox virus, and his infection was discovered through epidemiological monitoring procedures carried out by the ministry,” it said in a statement.

The 42-year-old was isolated in a hospital and his condition was stable, the statement added.

BEIRUT: Relatives of some of the victims of the massive explosion at Beirut’s port in 2020, which killed at least 218 people, on Wednesday protested against the judiciary’s plan to appoint a new judge to the official investigation. They denounced the move as an attempt by the country’s political class to avoid justice.

The probe into the blast, which caused billions of dollars in damage, has been stalled since December, after three former cabinet ministers filed legal challenges against the investigating judge, Tarek Bitar.

RIYADH: Foreign Ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council and Central Asian countries will hold a joint ministerial meeting of the strategic dialogue between the Gulf and Central Asian countries on Wednesday at the headquarters of the General Secretariat in Riyadh, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Tuesday.
The meeting will be headed by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, who is also the chairman of the current session of the GCC’s Ministerial Council.