Lebanon, Israel end second round of maritime border talks

An aircraft flies over a base for UN peacekeepers of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in Naqoura, near the Lebanese-Israeli border, southern Lebanon October 29, 2020. (Reuters)
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Updated 30 October 2020
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Lebanon, Israel end second round of maritime border talks

  • The delegations met for around four hours for a second day straight at a base of the UN peacekeeping force UNIFIL in the Lebanese border town of Naqura
  • The talks have been shrouded in secrecy, with little information emerging about any progress being made

NAQURA: Lebanon and Israel, still technically at war, wrapped up a second round of maritime border talks Thursday under UN and US auspices to allow for offshore energy exploration.
The delegations met for around four hours for a second day straight at a base of the UN peacekeeping force UNIFIL in the Lebanese border town of Naqura, Lebanon's National News Agency and Israel's energy ministry said.
The talks have been shrouded in secrecy, with little information emerging about any progress being made.
"At the end it was determined that another round of talks will take place during the coming month," the Israeli energy ministry said.
A Lebanese source close to the negotiations said they would resume on November 11.
A first round of talks had been held on October 14, and the second had started on Wednesday.
After years of quiet US shuttle diplomacy, Lebanon and Israel this month said they had agreed to begin the negotiations in what Washington hailed as a "historic" agreement.
The announcement came weeks after Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates became the first Arab nations to establish relations with Israel since Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994.
But Lebanon has insisted the negotiations are purely technical and do not involve any political normalisation with Israel.
Lebanon, reeling from its worst economic crisis in decades, is hoping to settle the maritime border dispute so it can continue exploring for hydrocarbon reserves in the Mediterranean.

Exploration is on hold in an area off its coast named Block 9, as a section of it is located in an 860-square-kilometre (330-square-mile) area claimed by both Israel and Lebanon.
NNA said the Lebanese delegation carried with it "maps and documents showing the points of contention and the Israeli enemy infringing on the Lebanese right to include part of Block 9".
In February 2018, Lebanon signed its first contract for offshore drilling for oil and gas in Block 9 and Block 4 with a consortium comprising energy giants Total, ENI and Novatek.
Lebanon in April said initial drilling in Block 4 had shown traces of gas but no commercially viable reserves.
While the US-brokered talks look at the maritime border, a UNIFIL-sponsored track is also due to address outstanding land border disputes.
UNIFIL head Major General Stefano Del Col welcomed Tuesday what he called "a unique opportunity to make substantial progress on contentious issues along" the land frontier.


Once a leading force, battered Tunisian party awaits elusive comeback

Updated 4 min 33 sec ago
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Once a leading force, battered Tunisian party awaits elusive comeback

  • Ennahdha, the Islamist-inspired movement still considered by some Tunisians as the country’s main opposition party, could still bounce back after a devastating government crackdown

TUNIS: The party that once dominated Tunisian politics has faded away since President Kais Saied staged a dramatic power grab, with its offices shuttered and leaders behind bars or in exile.
But observers say that Ennahdha, the Islamist-inspired movement still considered by some Tunisians as the country’s main opposition party, could still bounce back after a devastating government crackdown.
On July 25, 2021, Saied stunned the country when he suspended parliament and dissolved the government, a move critics denounced as a “coup” a decade after the Arab Spring revolt ushered in a democratic transition in the North African country.
Many of Saied’s critics have been prosecuted and jailed, including Ennahdha leader Rached Ghannouchi, 84, a former parliament speaker who was sentenced earlier this month to 14 years in prison for plotting against the state.
Ghannouchi, who was arrested in 2023, has racked up several prison terms, including a 22-year sentence handed in February on the same charge.
The crackdown over the past four years has seen around 150 Ennahdha figures imprisoned, prosecuted or living in exile, according to a party official.
“Some believe the movement is dead, but that is not the case,” said political scientist Slaheddine Jourchi.
Ennahdha has been “weakened to the point of clinical death” but remained the most prominent party in Tunisia’s “fragmented and fragile” opposition, Jourchi added.

‘Crimes against the country’
Riadh Chaibi, a party official and adviser to Ghannouchi, said that even after “shrinking” its political platform, Ennahdah was still a relevant opposition outlet.
“Despite repression, prosecutions and imprisonment” since 2021, “Ennahdha remains the country’s largest political movement,” Chaibi said.
He said the current government has been “weaponizing state institutions to eliminate political opponents,” but “once we’re free again, like we were in 2011, Ennahdha will regain its strength.”
Since 2011, when Ghannouchi returned from exile to lead the party, Ennahdha for years had a key role in Tunisian politics, holding the premiership and other senior roles.
But by 2019, the year Saied was elected president, the party’s popularity had already begun waning, winning only a third of the 1.5 million votes it had in 2011.
Experts ascribed this trend to the party’s failure to improve living standards and address pressing socio-economic issues.
Ennahdha has also been accused of jihadist links, which it has repeatedly denied.
Saied, who religiously avoids mentioning either Ennahdha or Ghannouchi by name, has often referred to the party’s years in power as “the black decade” and accused it of committing “crimes against the country.”
Crowds of Tunisians, increasingly disillusioned as a political deadlock trumped Ennahdha’s promise of change, poured into the streets in celebration when Saied forced the party out of the halls of power in 2021.
Analyst Jourchi said Ennahdha’s rise to power was a “poorly prepared adventure,” and the party had “made many mistakes along the way.”
Left-wing politician Mongi Rahoui said it was “only natural that Ennahdha leaders and their governing partners be prosecuted for crimes they used their political position to commit.”
Today, the party’s activities have been reduced mostly to issuing statements online, often reacting to prison sentences handed down to critics of Saied.

‘Weathering repression’
But Ennahdha has weathered repression before, harshly suppressed under Tunisia’s autocratic presidents Habib Bourguiba and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Party leaders were jailed or forced into exile, and Ghannouchi was sentenced to life in prison under Bourguiba but then freed — and later exiled — under Ben Ali.
Tunisian historian Abdellatif Hannachi said that the party “seems to be bending with the wind, waiting for changes that would allow it to return.”
It has been in “clear decline,” he added, but “that does not mean it’s disappearing.”
Ennahdha’s downfall was not an isolated case. Other opposition forces have also been crushed, and dozens of political, media and business figures are currently behind bars.
“This regime no longer distinguishes between Islamist and secular, progressive and conservative,” rights advocate Kamel Jendoubi, a former minister, recently said in a Facebook post.
Saied’s government “wants to silence everything that thinks, that criticizes, or resists,” Jendoubi argued.
The opposition, however, remains fractured, failing for example to come together in rallies planned for the anniversary this month of Saied’s power grab.


The world’s tallest teen, 7-foot-9 center Olivier Rioux, gives football a try at Florida

Updated 18 min 15 sec ago
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The world’s tallest teen, 7-foot-9 center Olivier Rioux, gives football a try at Florida

  • The Florida basketball player, who played for the Under-19 Canadian national team this summer, recently worked out for the Gators’ football team
  • There was one issue: The 305-pound Rioux has an 11-inch vertical, so even with his extra-long reach, he was unable to block any kicks during the workout

GAINESVILLE, Florida: The world’s tallest teenager is trying his hand — his reach, really — at football.
Florida basketball player Olivier Rioux, a 7-foot-9 center who played for the Under-19 Canadian national team this summer, recently worked out for the Gators’ football team.
Rioux donned an orange helmet and took snaps on special teams, with Florida assistant coaches hoping his massive wingspan might be a difference maker when it comes to blocking field goals and extra points.
“I like the idea,” Gators basketball coach Todd Golden said during a booster event Thursday evening. “I give them credit for trying it.”
There was one issue: The 305-pound Rioux has an 11-inch vertical, so even with his extra-long reach, he was unable to block any kicks during the workout.
“They were a little disappointed,” Golden said.
No worries. Rioux can simply stick to his full-time gig with the hoops team.
After redshirting as a true freshman last season, he’s expected to get on the court in limited capacity this fall. He’s unlikely to play much considering the defending national champions return their entire frontcourt, but he should at least get on the court in garbage time.
Golden already has considered using him to guard inbound passes, something Rioux did to perfection just before halftime against the United States in the FIBA U19 World Cup in Switzerland earlier this month. Rioux forced an errant pass that led to a turnover and a 3-pointer just before halftime.
Rioux’s unusual height landed him in the Guinness World Records a few years ago and he has become a walking viral video at Florida. While coaches and teammates climbed a ladder to cut pieces of the nets after the Gators won the Southeastern Conference Tournament, Rioux was able to do it while standing flat-footed.
 


US says it rejects Macron’s plan to recognize a Palestinian state

Updated 25 July 2025
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US says it rejects Macron’s plan to recognize a Palestinian state

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday that Washington rejected French President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to recognize a Palestinian state, with the top American diplomat calling it a “reckless decision.”
Macron said on Thursday that France intends to recognize a Palestinian state in September at the United Nations General Assembly, adding that he hoped it would help bring peace to the Middle East.
“This reckless decision only serves Hamas propaganda and sets back peace,” Rubio said in a post on X.
Washington’s ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, said in June he did not think an independent Palestinian state remained a US foreign policy goal.


Banksy work ‘The Migrant Child’ removed from Venetian palazzo for restoration and future display

Updated 25 July 2025
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Banksy work ‘The Migrant Child’ removed from Venetian palazzo for restoration and future display

MILAN: Art restorers have removed a deteriorating piece of graffiti by the street artist Banksy titled “The Migrant Child” from the side of a building overlooking a Venetian canal to preserve the work for future public display, officials said Thursday.
The removal from the wall of Palazzo San Pantalon was carried out in consultation with people close to the secretive British street artist, according to the Venice-based bank Banca Ifis’ art program that promotes art and culture.
The artwork depicting a shipwrecked child holding a pink smoke bomb and wearing a lifejacket appeared along Rio di San Pantalon in Venice in May 2019, and was acknowledged by Banksy. Marked on online maps, it has become a tourist destination.
But six years of neglect had led to the deterioration of about a third of the work, the bank said.
The restoration is being overseen by Federico Borgogni, who previously removed dust and cleaned the surface before detaching a section of the palazzo’s facade overnight Wednesday, Banca Ifis said in a statement. The bank is financing the project, but didn’t release the cost of the operation.
The bank intends to display the work to the public as part of free cultural events organized by Ifis art once restoration is completed. No time frame was given.


Canada condemns Israeli government over ‘humanitarian disaster’ in Gaza

Updated 25 July 2025
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Canada condemns Israeli government over ‘humanitarian disaster’ in Gaza

OTTAWA: Canada on Thursday condemned the Israeli government for failing to prevent what Prime Minister Mark Carney called a humanitarian disaster in Gaza.
Carney also accused Israel of violating international law over the blocking of Canadian-funded aid delivery to civilians in the war-torn Palestinian enclave.
“Canada calls on all sides to negotiate an immediate ceasefire in good faith. We reiterate our calls for Hamas to immediately release all the hostages, and for the Israeli government to respect the territorial integrity of the West Bank and Gaza,” Carney said on X.