Category: 2. Middle East

Tunisia’s coast guard today recovered the bodies of eight African migrants after their boat sank off the country’s coast as it sailed towards Europe, a security official told Reuters, adding that 29 other people were rescued.

The boat sank in waters off the city of Abwabed near Sfax, a departure point often used by African migrants.

Search operations were underway for possible missing persons, said Houssem Eddine Jebabli, an official in the national…

Dozens of ultra-Orthodox Jews demonstrated outside a recruitment base near Tel Aviv on Monday against compulsory military service, Anadolu Agency reports.

According to the public broadcaster, KAN, the protest took place in the Tel Hashomer neighbourhood against the conscription of students of religious institutions.

KAN said the Israeli army lowered its expectations of the recruitment of ultra-Orthodox Jews to a minimum, as fewer than 1,000 Haredi students…

Catholic cardinals agreed on Monday to begin a conclave on May 7 to elect a new pope, and highlighted clerical sexual abuse as one of the key challenges facing Pope Francis’s successor.

Cardinals under the age of 80 will meet in the Sistine Chapel to choose a new leader for the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, in a mystery-shrouded ritual dating back to the Middle Ages.

The date was decided at a meeting of cardinals of all ages early on Monday, two days after the funeral of Francis, who died on…

Catholic cardinals agreed on Monday to begin a conclave on May 7 to elect a new pope, and highlighted clerical sexual abuse as one of the key challenges facing Pope Francis’s successor.

So-called “Princes of the Church” under the age of 80 will meet in the Sistine Chapel to choose a new religious leader for the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.

The date was decided at a meeting of cardinals of all ages early on Monday, two days after the funeral of Francis, who died on April 21 aged 88.

The…

Three teenagers were today convicted in Sweden of being involved in a shooting attack on an office of Israeli arms contractor Elbit Systems ESLT.TA in Gothenburg last year, Reuters reports.

A fourth boy, who was accused of actually carrying out the attack by opening fire at the entrance to the building in October, was 13 at the time – too young for him to stand trial under Swedish law.

No one was injured in the shooting. The verdict did not mention any motive…

The person accused of fatally stabbing a Muslim while praying at a mosque near Ales in southern France has surrendered to authorities in Pistoia, Italy, Anadolu Agency reports.

Olivier H., who had been wanted since the 25 April attack on the Hatice Mosque in La Grand-Combe, near Ales, surrendered to a police station in Pistoia around 11 pm local time (2100GMT) on Sunday, Franceinfo reported.

He was taken into custody, and his extradition to France is now…

Former US National Security Adviser during the Biden administration, Jake Sullivan, told the ABC network yesterday that if Donald Trump signs a nuclear agreement with Iran, it will have similar features to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed by President Barack Obama.

Sullivan remarked that Iran was at its weakest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution as a result of the damage caused to Hezbollah and Iran’s air defence systems by Israeli…

Corpses covered in dust and debris were scattered in the wreckage of a detention centre for African migrants in Yemen, after what Houthi-controlled television described on Monday as a US air strike that killed 68 people, Reuters reports.

The attack was one of the deadliest so far in six weeks of intensified US air  strikes against the Houthis, anIran-aligned group that controls northern Yemen and has struck shipping in the Red Sea in what it says is solidarity…