Middle East
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Egypt hosts regional meeting in push to resolve Sudan war

Egypt has invited war-torn Sudan's neighbours for a summit Thursday to "stop the bloodshed", the presidency said, with Ethiopia's premier Abiy Ahmed in Cairo despite tensions over a massive Nile river project.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed "discussed ways to settle the crisis in Sudan", Sisi's spokesman announced late Wednesday ahead of a larger regional meeting.

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Influencer arrested over TikTok video satirizing wealthy Emiratis in Dubai

An online influencer has been arrested in Dubai over a satirical TikTok video in which he portrays a brash Emirati on a spending spree inside a luxury car showroom.

The comedic sketch, in which he tosses stacks of bills at bewildered employees and offers to buy the most expensive car — a $600,000 Ferrari SF90 — poked fun at the lavish lifestyles on display in the city, known for its gleaming skyscrapers and over-the-top tourism attractions.

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Iraq moves toward easing its energy crisis with $27B TotalEnergies deal

A multibillion-dollar agreement signed with France's TotalEnergies could help resolve Iraq's longstanding electricity crisis, attract international investors and reduce its reliance on gas imports from neighboring Iran, a point of tension with Washington.

The $27 billion agreement signed in Baghdad on Monday after years of negotiation marks the largest foreign investment in Iraq's history. It could even help combat climate change by reducing oil flares, and relieve some of the stress on Iraq's dwindling waterways through a new desalination plant.

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Israel moves to evict squatter from his cave home on the beach

Over half a century, Nissim Kahlon has transformed a tiny cave on a Mediterranean beach into an elaborate underground labyrinth filled with chiseled tunnels, detailed mosaic floors and a network of staircases and chambers.

He lives in the one-of-a-kind artistic creation, which is a popular destination for local curiosity seekers, and Kahlon, 77, is quick to welcome visitors into his subterranean home.

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Aid groups in northwest Syria fear worse conditions if aid from Turkey stops

Youssef al-Ramadan says he always feels guilty for having to put his wife and three children to work in order to survive — and now they might not be able to get by since international aid could stop flowing from Turkey.

Standing outside his tent in a displacement camp in northern Idlib, he is worried that their income might not be sufficient to make ends meet if the United Nations Security Council cannot renew a humanitarian border crossing that has been a critical lifeline for him and some 4.1 million people in Syria's rebel-held northwest. The vast majority live in poverty and rely on aid to survive.

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Abbas vows to rebuild Jenin camp after deadly Israeli raid

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas visited the occupied West Bank's Jenin refugee camp Wednesday in the wake of a devastating Israeli offensive last week, marking his first visit to the camp since 2005.

The visit came at a time of seething discontent with Palestinians in the West Bank for Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, the autonomous government which administers parts of the West Bank but whose forces have largely lost control over several militant strongholds in the region — including Jenin.

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Israeli court sentences Palestinian reporter to community service

An Israeli court on Tuesday ordered a Palestinian journalist from annexed east Jerusalem to perform community service, and handed down a suspended sentence, her lawyer said, after she was charged with incitement to violence.

The Palestinian journalists' union condemned the verdict as "unjust".

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Israel's controversial legal reform plan: what are the proposals?

Israelis launched nationwide protests Tuesday after the latest legislative move on the government's controversial judicial reform package.

Demonstrators took to the streets hours after parliament backed in a first reading a key element of the legal overhaul.

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Israel evicts Palestinian family from home after 45-year legal battle

Israeli authorities on Tuesday evicted a Palestinian family from their contested apartment in Jerusalem's Old City, the family said, capping a decades-long legal battle that has come to symbolize conflicting claims to the holy city.

Activists say the Ghaith-Sub Laban family's eviction is part of a wider trend of Israeli settlers, backed by the government, encroaching on Palestinian neighborhoods and cementing Israeli control by seizing property in east Jerusalem. Israel describes it as a simple battle over real estate, with settlers claiming the family are squatters in an apartment formerly owned by Jews.

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Key aid route to rebel-held Syria closes as UN fails to extend authorization

A U.N.-brokered agreement that allows for the delivery of aid overland from Turkey into rebel-held areas of Syria has expired after the Security Council failed to hold a vote to reauthorize it.

The 15 members of the council had been trying for days to find a compromise to extend the deal, which since 2014 has allowed for food, water and medicine to be trucked to northwestern Syria without the authorization of the government in Damascus.

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