LOKASI

  • Russia, Ukraine swap 206 POWs in UAE-brokered deal

    Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) react after a swap, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, at an unknown location in Ukraine September 13, 2024. (REUTERS)

    MOSCOW — Russia said Saturday it swapped 103 Ukrainian soldiers held captive for an equal number of Russian POWs in an exchange deal brokered by the United Arab Emirates.

    The Russian troops freed in Saturday’s swap were captured during Ukraine’s incursion into the Kursk region, which began on 6 August, according to the Russian defense ministry.

    There was no immediate confirmation from the Ukrainian side.

    “As a result of the negotiation process, 103 Russian servicemen captured in the Kursk region were returned from territory controlled by the Kyiv regime,” the Russian defense ministry said.

    “In return, 103 Ukrainian army prisoners of war were handed over.”

    “At present, all Russian servicemen are on the territory of the Republic of Belarus, where they are being provided with the necessary psychological and medical assistance, as well as an opportunity to contact their relatives,” the ministry added.

    Despite ongoing hostilities, Russia and Ukraine have managed to swap hundreds of prisoners throughout the two-and-half-year conflict, often in deals brokered by the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia or Turkiye.

    The announcement comes just three weeks after Russia and Ukraine swapped 115 prisoners of war each in an exchange deal also mediated by the UAE.

    AN-AFP

  • Turkish-American activist Aysenur Ezgi laid to rest in Turkiye

    AYDIN, TURKIYE — The body of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a female Turkish-American activist who was killed earlier this month by an Israeli sniper in Beita, south of Nablus, was laid to rest today in her hometown in western Turkiye.

    The funeral prayer was held in Didim, a district of Aydın province, with widespread participation. Attendees at the ceremony displayed Palestinian flags and chanted anti-Israel slogans, according to Anadolu Agency.

    Following the funeral, President of the Turkish Grand National Assembly, Numan Kurtulmuş addressed the crowd, asserting that “Aysenur’s blood will not be in vain, and her killers will be held accountable in international courts.”

    Kurtulmuş condemned the killing as not only an atrocity committed by Israeli soldiers but also a crime facilitated by a state of terror that turned a blind eye, and by the coalition of countries backing this state.

    He further criticized the extreme violence witnessed in Gaza, describing it as one of the greatest horrors in modern history.

    WAFA

  • Hezbollah launched over 1K drones against Israeli targets: Report

    TEHRAN — The Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah has launched more than 1,000 drones against the Israeli positions in northern Palestine, according to Israeli media.

    Hezbollah’s drones have turned into the main challenge to Israeli air defense, Israel’s Channel 13 reported on Saturday.

    It added that the regime’s army is unable to counter Hezbollah’s drones, noting that the drones reach their targets effortlessly.

    The Iraqi resistance has warned the occupying regime of more severe attacks if it continues its genocidal war against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.

    Since the onset of the war in Gaza, nearly 41,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed in the enclave.

    IRNA

  • Death toll across Gaza Strip surges to 41,182, over 95,280 injured

    GAZA — Israeli occupation forces committed four massacres against families in the Gaza Strip over the last 48 hours, resulting in the killing of at least 64 Palestinians and the injury of 155 others, according to medical reports.

    Local health authorities confirmed that the Palestinian death toll from the Israeli onslaught since October 7 has risen to 41,182 reported fatalities, with an additional 95,280 individuals sustaining injuries. The majority of the victims are women and children.

    According to the same sources, emergency services are still unable to reach many casualties and dead bodies trapped under the rubble or scattered on roads across the war-torn enclave, as Israeli occupation forces continue to obstruct the movement of ambulance and civil defense crews.

    WAFA

  • Pope condemns Israeli killings of Palestinian children in Gaza

    TEHRAN — Pope Francis has denounced the Israeli killings of Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip, terming the incessant Israeli bombardments of schools in the besieged territory as “ugly”.

    “When you see the bodies of killed children when you see that, under the presumption that some guerrillas are there, a school is bombed, this is ugly,” said Pope Francis amid the ongoing atrocities committed by the Zionist regime in the Gaza Strip.

    He said he speaks on the phone with members of a Catholic parish in Gaza “every day” and “they tell me ugly things, difficult things”.

    The Pope, who has supported calls for a ceasefire in the conflict, said “sometimes I think it’s a war that is too much, too much”.

    Back in March, Pope Francis renewed the call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza in a peace-focused address marking Easter Sunday, the most important day on the Christian calendar.

    Since the outset of Israel’s genocidal war in the Gaza Strip last October, over 41,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed in the enclave, according to the latest report of the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

    IRNA

  • Two Palestinians shot and injured by Israeli forces west of Hebron

    HEBRON — Two Palestinians were injured today by live bullets from the occupation forces near the Tarqumiya military checkpoint, west of Hebron.

    Security sources said that the occupation forces opened fire at two young men, who are workers from Tarqumiya, at the town’s military checkpoint, and they were transferred via Red Crescent ambulances to the hospital for medical treatment.

    The health condition of one of the causalities was described as critical.

    WAFA

  • Hezbollah fires rocket attack against Israeli positions

    TEHRAN — The Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah has reportedly launched several rockets toward the northern occupied Palestine, sounding the warning alarms in Israeli settlements in the western al Jalil region.

    An Israeli base was targeted by Hezbollah in al Jalil, Al Mayadeen reported on Saturday.

    Lebanon’s Hezbollah announced in a statement that its attacks were carried out in support of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas and the people in Gaza.

    Hezbollah also targeted a military base and some logistics stores in the Amiad region with tens of Katyusha rockets in response to the Zionist aggression against the southern villages.

    The Lebanese resistance movement launched an attack with a guided missile against one of the Israeli regime’s Merkava tanks, another statement said.

    The tank was burnt and annihilated, according to news outlets.

    Hezbollah and Israel have been trading fire on a daily basis since October 8, a day after the regime launched its war on Gaza.

    The Lebanese movement says its operations, which have so far targeted Israeli military positions, are aimed at supporting Palestinian resistance fighters battling the regime inside Gaza.

    IRNA

  • Algeria president re-elected with 84.3 percent of votes: official results

    Supporters of Algeria’s President Abdelmajid Tebboune celebrate his reelection victory outside a campaign headquarters in Algiers on September 8, 2024. (AFP)

    Algeria’s President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has won a second term with 84.3 percent of the vote in last week’s election, final results announced Saturday showed, down from an initial count contested by rivals.

    The preliminary results issued by the North African country’s electoral authority ANIE on Sunday gave Tebboune nearly 95 percent support, prompting other candidates to challenge the results in appeals to the Constitutional Court.

    The court’s president, Omar Belhadj, announced on Saturday the official count, with Tebboune far ahead of his only two challengers.

    “We announce that Mr.Abdelmadjid Tebboune is elected for a second term, and will assume his responsibilities when he swears in,” Belhadj said in remarks broadcast live on national TV and radio stations.

    The 78-year-old incumbent had been widely expected to breeze through the election and was focused instead on securing a high turnout, which according to Belhadj stood at 46.1 percent in the September 7 ballot.

    More than 24 million Algerians were registered to vote in this election.

    Tebboune was elected in December 2019 with 58 percent of the vote, despite a record abstention rate above 60 percent, amid the mass Hirak pro-democracy protests.

    Presidential candidate Abdelaali Hassani, who heads the moderate Islamist party the Movement of Society for Peace, on Tuesday submitted his challenge to the vote count, a day after denouncing the results as “fraud.”

    Youcef Aouchiche, head of the center-left Socialist Forces Front, later followed suit, accusing the electoral authority ANIE of “forging” the result.

    In an unprecedented move, all three campaigns — including Tebboune’s — also issued a joint statement late Sunday alleging “irregularities” in ANIE’s results, adding they wanted to make the public aware of “vagueness and contradictions in the participation figures.”

    The preliminary results announced by ANIE said that Tebboune had won “94.65 percent of the vote,” with Hassani receiving 3.17 percent and Aouchiche 2.16 percent.

    The final results gave Hassani 9.56 percent of the votes, and Aouchiche 6.14 percent.

    Tebboune became president after widely boycotted elections and mass pro-democracy protests from 2019 that died out under his tenure as policing ramped up and hundreds were put in jail.

    He had touted economic successes during his first term, including more jobs and higher wages in Africa’s largest exporter of natural gas.

    Although Algeria’s economy has grown at an annual rate of about four percent over the past two years, it remains heavily dependent on oil and gas to fund its social programs.

    AN-AFP

  • Negara dalam keadaan simpang siur hadapi ‘assabiyah’ dan Islamofobia – PM

    KUALA LUMPUR — Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim mengakui negara kini berada dalam keadaan ‘simpang siur’ kerana wujudnya dua pihak yang mempunyai fahaman berbeza terhadap Islam.

    Perdana Menteri berkata, kerajaan berdepan cabaran bagi menghadapi kelompok ‘assabiyah’ dalam Islam dengan menganggap pihak lain adalah sesat dan zalim, selain mereka yang bersifat Islamofobia.

    Atas dasar itu, beliau mahu pelajar huffaz di negara ini supaya menguasai Islam dengan sebenarnya bagi menyelamatkan negara dengan menyampaikan mesej yang jelas mengenai agama.

    “Negara ini dalam simpang siur di satu pihak sebaik sahaja disebut Islam terus melenting, bila saya sebut JAKIM (Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia) harus menasihati kerajaan dalam semua bidang, ada yang melenting bahawa ada usaha menghasut dalam program Islam.

    “Mana salahnya, bukan suruh buat zalim, kita suruh tegakkan keadilan kita faham hak bukan Islam dan menghormati mereka.

    “Kita faham semangat tapi jangan bawa pandangan barat Islamofobia, bila sebut Islam macam ISIS (Negara Islam Iraq dan Syria) dan Al-Qaeda,” katanya ketika berucap dalam Majlis Himpunan 24,000 Huffaz di Masjid Wilayah Persekutuan, hari ini.

    Hadir sama Timbalan Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, Menteri di Jabatan Perdana Menteri (Hal Ehwal Agama), Datuk Dr Mohd Na’im Mokhtar; Ketua Polis Negara, Tan Sri Razarudin Husain dan Setiausaha Agung UMNO, Datuk Dr Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki.

    Pada majlis yang dianjurkan Gabungan Persatuan Institusi Tahfiz Al-Quran Kebangsaan (PINTA Kebangsaan), pejabat Timbalan Perdana Menteri dan JAKIM dengan kerjasama Majlis Pendidikan dan Latihan Teknikal dan Vokasional (TVET) Negara itu, turut diadakan ialah bacaan al-Quran beramai-ramai, penganugerahan huffaz cemerlang dan ceramah perdana.

    Pada masa sama, Perdana Menteri turut membidas pihak ‘assabiyah’ ini yang sentiasa melihat kerajaan adalah jahat dan zalim.

    Beliau mempersoalkan sama ada wujudnya program peningkatan mutu Islam melalui Kementerian Pendidikan (KPM) dan Kementerian Pendidikan Tinggi (KPT) ketika pentadbiran golongan ‘assabiyah’ itu.

    “Di satu pihak lain bawa Islam penuh kebencian… semua jahat… kalau kerajaan jahat, semua tak ada kebaikan yang kabilah jenis assabiyah merosakkan sendi ini.

    “Namun adakah usaha (ketika mereka tadbir) menyekat syarikat Israel yang berniaga di Malaysia… kenapa tidak ditanya mereka sedangkan jemaah Menteri 2023, semua kapal dari Israel diharamkan pelabuhannya di Malaysia,” katanya.

    Perdana Menteri berkata, menjadi hasrat kerajaan untuk meningkatkan taraf huffaz di negara ini melalui TVET supaya mereka tidak ketinggalan dalam landas ekonomi dan pekerjaan.

    “Ini hasrat kerajaan Madani yang kita usahakan walaupun dalam keadaan keterbatasan, supaya anak-anak jangan putus berdoa untuk meletakkan negara dalam landasan yang baik, ekonomi meningkat, ringgit kuat, pelaburan datang supaya boleh memberikan peluang pekerjaan kepada rakyat termasuk huffaz,” katanya.

    BH ONLINE

  • 2 policemen killed in blast in SW Pakistan

    ISLAMABAD — Two policemen were killed and two others injured when a bomb went off in Pakistan’s southwest Balochistan province on Saturday, police said.

    A police van was passing by Boston Road area of Kuchlak district of the province when it came under attack, critically injuring four policemen.

    Two of the injured later succumbed to their injuries at a hospital in the district, according to hospital sources.

    Police were the target of the explosion, and 8-10 kg of explosive material was used in the roadside bomb.

    Following the explosion, law enforcement forces and rescue teams reached the site, and the forces cordoned off the area to initiate an investigation.

    No militant group or individual claimed responsibility for the attack.

    XINHUA