Middle East & North Africa

CAIRO, December 9. /TASS/: The Egyptian and Russian presidents, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Vladimir Putin, have discussed the situation in the Gaza Strip and the issues of delivery of humanitarian assistance to the enclave in a telephone conversation, and they also agreed on continued efforts to reach a ceasefire in the Palestinian sector, the Egyptian presidential spokesman Ahmed Fahmy said.

BAGHDAD, Dec 9 (NNN-NINA) – Fourteen people were killed and 18 others injured, last night, in a fire that broke out at a residential building, in the town of Soran, in Erbil province, in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.

A statement by the Soran health department said, “The fire first broke out on the third and fourth floors, which were inhabited by university students and teachers, and then spread to the entire five-storey building.”

DUBAI, Dec 9 (Reuters) - The European Union's climate chief on Saturday heavily criticised an attempt by OPEC to derail a COP28 deal on phasing out fossil fuels, calling the move by the oil producers' club "unhelpful" and "out of whack".

Nearly 200 countries meeting in Dubai for the U.N.'s COP28 climate summit are debating whether to agree, for the first time, to eventually end the world's use of fossil fuels, the main cause of climate change.

DUBAI, Dec 9 (Reuters) - Countries clashed on Saturday over a proposed agreement to phase-out fossil fuels at the COP28 summit in Dubai, jeopardising attempts to deliver a first-ever commitment to eventually end the use of oil and gas in 30 years of global warming talks.

Observers in the negotiations said Saudi Arabia and Russia were among several countries insisting that the conference in Dubai focus only on reducing climate pollution - and not on targeting the fossil fuels causing it.

ISTANBUL, Dec 9 (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday called for the United Nations Security Council to be reformed, decrying the fact that the United States could veto a ceasefire proposal for Gaza despite huge support from other countries.

"The United Nations Security Council demand for ceasefire is rejected only by U.S. veto. Is this justice?," Erdogan said in a human rights conference in Istanbul.

"The U.N. Security Council needs to be reformed," he added.

RAMALLAH/GAZA, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- The Palestinian Authority and Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) slammed on Saturday the U.S. veto on a UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

The resolution failed to pass at a Security Council emergency meeting held late Friday after the United States cast a veto and Britain abstained, while the other 13 UNSC members voted in favor of the proposal handed in by the UAE and backed by more than 90 UN member states.

ADDIS ABABA, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- The Ethiopian government and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) have signed a cooperation agreement to strengthen strategic collaboration pertaining to refugees and Ethiopian returnees.

The memorandum of understanding agreement (MOU), which was signed between the Ethiopian Refugees and Returnees Service (RRS) and UNICEF, envisaged strengthening the two sides' collaboration in protecting and supporting refugees and Ethiopian returnees in the country, according to a joint press statement issued late Friday.

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used a speech on human rights Saturday to accuse the West of “barbarism” for its stance on the Israel-Hamas war and what he alleged was its toleration of Islamophobia.

“Israel has carried out atrocities and massacres that will shame the whole of humanity,” Erdogan told a packed hall in Istanbul the day before the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli warplanes struck parts of the Gaza Strip in relentless bombardment Saturday, hitting some of the dwindling bits of land it had told Palestinians to evacuate to in the territory’s south.

The strikes came a day after the United States vetoed a United Nations resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza, despite its wide support. The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 13-1, with the United Kingdom abstaining.

7 December 2023; MEMO: The Israeli occupation government has approved the construction of 1,738 settlement units in the southeast of occupied Jerusalem, Israeli rights group Peace Now has said.