TEHRAN: An explosion killed a worker in an industrial zone in Iran’s central Isfahan province on Saturday, state news agency IRNA reported.
The blast struck on the Razi industrial estate in Shahreza county and was caused by a welder working on an oil tank, local crisis management chief Mansour Shishehforoush told IRNA.
“There was no oil inside the tank, but the welding caused the gas built up in it to explode.”
Firefighters later brought the blaze under control, IRNA said, adding that Razi is “one of the largest chemical production industrial zones” in Iran.
There has been a spate of fires and explosions at military and civilian sites across Iran since June.
A July blast caused damage at Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment plant. Iranian authorities initially said it was an accident before later blaming sabotage.
Iran industrial zone explosion kills one
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Iran industrial zone explosion kills one
- The blast struck on the Razi industrial estate in Shahreza county and was caused by a welder working on an oil tank
- There has been a spate of fires and explosions at military and civilian sites across Iran since June
Nearly 13,000 Syrians fled to Lebanon: report
- Violence erupted on Syria’s coast — the heartland of former president Bashar Assad’s Alawite minority — with attacks on security forces that were blamed on gunmen loyal to the toppled president
BEIRUT: Nearly 13,000 Syrians fled across the borders to Lebanon since sectarian massacres on the Syrian coast earlier this month, Lebanese authorities said on Tuesday.
A report from Lebanon’s Disaster Risk Management Unit said 12,798 Syrians had arrived and settled in 23 different villages and towns in Lebanon’s northern Akkar region, adding that most were living in family homes or makeshift accommodation centers.
Violence erupted on Syria’s coast — the heartland of former president Bashar Assad’s Alawite minority — with attacks on security forces that were blamed on gunmen loyal to the toppled president.
According to the latest toll from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, Syrian security forces and allied groups subsequently killed at least 1,557 civilians, the vast majority Alawites.
Thousands of coastal residents took refuge in Russia’s Hmeimim air base, calling for protection, while others fled south to neighboring Lebanon.
Israel is ramping up annexation of West Bank, UN rights chief says
- ‘The transfer by Israel of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies amounts to a war crime’
GENEVA: Israel has expanded and consolidated settlements in the occupied West Bank as part of the steady integration of these territories into the State of Israel, in breach of international law, the UN human rights office said in a report on Tuesday.
The report, based on research between Nov. 1, 2023, and Oct. 31, 2024, said there had been a “significant” expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and cited reports by Israeli NGOs of tens of thousands of planned housing units in new or existing settlements.
The findings will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council this month and come amid growing fears of annexation among Palestinians, as US policy shifts under President Donald Trump and new settler outposts are put down in areas of the West Bank seen as part of a future Palestinian state.
“The transfer by Israel of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies amounts to a war crime,” UN High Commissioner Volker Turk said in a statement accompanying the report, urging the international community to take meaningful action.
“Israel must immediately and completely cease all settlement activities and evacuate all settlers, stop the forcible transfer of the Palestinian population, and prevent and punish attacks by its security forces and settlers,” he said.
Around 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, land Israel captured in 1967. Most countries consider Israel’s settlements on territory seized in war to be illegal.
Israel’s military says it is conducting counter-terrorism operations in the West Bank and targeting suspected militants.
Plans for the further provision of Israeli government services in these settlements “further institutionalize(s) long-standing patterns of systematic discrimination, segregation, oppression, domination, violence and other inhumane acts against the Palestinian people,” the report said.
War monitor says Israel strikes central Syria military site
- According to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, “Israeli air strikes targeted a missile battalion” near Homs city
- Israel has launched hundreds of strikes on military sites since December
BEIRUT: A Syrian Arab Republic war monitor said Israeli jets struck a military site in central Syria on Tuesday, the latest such attack in recent days.
According to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, “Israeli air strikes targeted a missile battalion” near Homs city, reporting explosions in the area with no immediate word of casualties.
Israel has launched hundreds of strikes on military sites in Syria since the December overthrow of president Bashar Assad, saying it was acting to prevent weapons from falling into the hands of the new authorities whom it considers jihadists.
On Monday Israel struck the area of the southern city of Daraa, killing three civilians according to the authorities.
Last week, an Israeli air strike on Damascus hit a “command center” of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, the military said. The Observatory reported one fatality.
In addition to the air strikes, since Assad’s fall, Israel has also deployed troops to a UN-patrolled buffer zone on the strategic Golan Heights and called for the complete demilitarization of southern Syria, near its territory.
Presidents of Congo and Rwanda meet in Qatar to discuss insurgency in eastern Congo
- Congo and Rwanda reaffirmed their commitment to an immediate and unconditional ceasefire on Tuesday
- Peace talks between the two countries were unexpectedly canceled in December
DAKAR: The presidents of Congo and neighboring Rwanda met Tuesday in Qatar for their first direct talks since Rwanda-backed M23 rebels seized two major cities in mineral-rich eastern Congo earlier this year, the three governments said.
The meeting between Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi and Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame to discuss the insurgency was mediated by Qatar, the three governments said in a joint statement.
The summit came as a previous attempt to bring Congo’s government and M23 leaders together for ceasefire negotiations on Tuesday failed. The rebels pulled out Monday after the European Union announced sanctions on rebel leaders.
Congo and Rwanda reaffirmed their commitment to an immediate and unconditional ceasefire during the meeting in Qatar on Tuesday.
Peace talks between Congo and Rwanda were unexpectedly canceled in December after Rwanda made the signing of a peace agreement conditional on a direct dialogue between Congo and the M23 rebels, which Congo refused at the time.
The conflict in eastern Congo escalated in January when the Rwanda-backed rebels advanced and seized the strategic city of Goma, followed by Bukavu in February.
M23 is one of about 100 armed groups that have been vying for a foothold in mineral-rich eastern Congo near the border with Rwanda, in a conflict that has created one of the world’s most significant humanitarian crises. More than 7 million people have been displaced.
The rebels are supported by about 4,000 troops from neighboring Rwanda, according to UN experts, and at times have vowed to march as far as Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, about 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) to the east.
The UN Human Rights Council last month launched a commission to investigate atrocities, including allegations of rape and killing akin to “summary executions” by both sides.
Families urge Tunisia to release detained pro-migrant activists
- Romdhane Ben Amor, the head of FTDES, an NGO, said the 10 detainees’ organizations “were engaged in humanitarian work, not political advocacy“
- The authorities, however, “criminalized their actions“
TUNIS: The families of detained Tunisian pro-migrant and anti-racism activists, imprisoned since May, launched an appeal on Tuesday for their release.
Romdhane Ben Amor, the head of FTDES, an NGO, said the 10 detainees’ organizations “were engaged in humanitarian work, not political advocacy.”
The authorities, however, “criminalized their actions,” he said at a press conference.
The aim, Ben Amor said, was to “further weaken migrants and refugees and to push them to accept ‘voluntary returns’ organized by the (UN’s) International Organization for Migration.”
Tunisia is a major transit country for African migrants hoping to cross the Mediterranean to Europe in search of economic opportunities and a better life.
In 2023, Tunisian president Kais Saied denounced what he called “hordes of sub-Saharan migrants” who threatened to “change the country’s demographic composition.”
That was followed by a crackdown on migrants and last year’s arrest of activists.
Among those at the press conference was Emna Riahi, the mother of Sherifa Riahi, the former head of Terre d’Asile Tunisie.
She demanded that her daughter, a parent of two young children, be released and have a trial after charges against her of money laundering and terrorism were dropped.
Also present were the daughters of Mustapha Djemali, the 80-year-old founder of the Tunisian Council for Refugees and former North Africa chief for the UN’s refugee agency.
Yusra and Emna Djemali said their father had lost 35 kilogrammes (77 pounds) while in prison and had been denied medication “for four or five months.”
All these activists “are imprisoned to make it seem as though the president’s racist rhetoric was based on real facts,” said Ben Amor, lamenting what he called the “complicit silence” of the European Union and international organizations.
