Bits and Pieces

Watford appoint Marco Silva as head coach

LONDON: Watford have appointed former Hull City manager Marco Silva as their new head coach on a two-year deal to replace Italian Walter Mazzarri who left at the end of the season, the Premier League club said on Saturday.

The 39-year-old, who has also managed in his native Portugal and Greece where he won the title with Olympiakos Piraeus, quit his job at Hull against the club’s wishes on Thursday after they were relegated to the Championship (second-tier).

“His pedigree and promise speaks for itself with his achievements in top divisions elsewhere across Europe, as well as his work at Hull City last season,” Watford chairman and CEO Scott Duxbury said in a statement.

“We are delighted to have secured his services and to be welcoming a Head Coach of his profile and potential.”

Silva was unable to secure top-flight survival at Hull but six home wins in 18 matches under him kept them alive in the relegation battle until the penultimate game of the season.

 

Rose hoping to peak in time for US Open

WENTWORTH, United Kingdom: Former champion Justin Rose believes he is back on target to peak for a second victory in next month’s US Open at Erin Hills in Wisconsin.

The Englishman was among the early starters on day three of the European PGA Championship and signed for a two-under-par 70 to move to back to level par in difficult conditions on the Wentworth course.

Rose had spectacularly fought his way into the closing two rounds of the event when he eagled the final hole on Friday and that was also after running up a shock quadruple bogey 8 at the eighth hole when he hit a shot out of bounds.

“It was a tough day out there so I’m pretty happy with the score,” said Rose.

“It was the kind of day I’d have loved to have shot 67, which I felt would put me in contention going into tomorrow, or given me an outside chance.

“I’m a few shy of maybe what I needed but a good round of golf nonetheless. Starting with three pars was nice, but then I didn’t capitalise with a bogey on the (par-five) fourth.

“It was nice to bounce back with birdies on five and six, which is always a positive sign.

“I’m struggling a little bit with my feels and my game so on a breezy, tricky day it was a good score.”

 

Belgian tyro Pieters in share of PGA lead

WENTWORTH, United Kingdom: Belgian star Thomas Pieters, Scotland’s Scott Jamieson and Francesco Molinari of Italy will go into the last two rounds of the European PGA Championship in a three-way tie for the lead.

The trio were on 137, seven-under par, after 36 holes, on Friday, a shot clear of Germany’s Max Kieffer and three ahead of a clutch of players including 2015 winner An Byeong-Hun of South Korea and Lee Westwood who is looking to win this title at his 24th attempt.

Also in that group were South Africa’s Branden Grace, who shrugged off his first-round free drop controversy to card a 71, and British Open champion Henrik Stenson.

England’s Olympic champion Justin Rose made sure of his place in the last two rounds with a dramatic eagle at the par-5 18th which took him to two-over for the tournament.

Molinari had a putt for the outright lead on the 18th but his eagle effort just drifted wide and he had to settle for a 70, two-under par whilst Pieters played solid golf for his 69.

Pieters had the best round of the leading three coming home in 35, which included two birdies and no bogeys.

Earlier England’s Ian Poulter had rescued his weekend by carding a three-under par 69 for a two-round total of 145, one-over par, to make the cut after his poor opening round.

Germany’s Martin Kaymer was the biggest name to miss the cut — the two-time major winner finished five-over par for the two rounds.

 

world

 

Trump trip leaves US and allies lost in translation

TAORMINA, Italy: Donald Trump’s first trip overseas was supposed to be about building bridges and clarifying his administration’s intentions to friends and foes alike.

But the US president heads for home on Sunday with some of Washington’s allies as bewildered as ever by the billionaire tycoon’s abrasive, unpredictable style and the substance of his policy plans.

Trip stops in Saudi Arabia and Israel and the Palestinian territories secured broadly favourable coverage with Trump seen by some commentators as having finally hit a presidential note.

He then emerged from his Vatican meeting with Pope Francis in buoyant spirits, declaring himself inspired to work harder than ever in pursuit of peace around the world.

But the mood started to sour when the 70-year-old hit Brussels on Thursday.

There, he bluntly accused 23 out of 28 Nato countries of taking advantage of US taxpayers by failing to pay their way in the Atlantic alliance.

In talks with EU leaders, Trump appeared to display a limited grasp of how the world’s biggest market operates a common trade policy, railing against Germany’s "bad, very bad" surplus with his country.

Rolled eyeballs were the order of the day among senior EU aides who couldn’t decide whether Trump was badly briefed, incapable of mastering a complex brief or consciously engaging in megaphone diplomacy in order to show he is serious about his America First agenda.

Brussels also provided one of the abiding images of the trip when the leader of the free world was filmed muscling Montenegro’s Prime Minister, Dusko Markovic, out of his way to get to the front of a photo opportunity.

And European hopes that Trump could be pressured into a more conciliatory stance on trade, climate change and migration at the G7 summit in Sicily were dashed.

It left his Italian hosts with virtually nothing to show after months of preparations. Compounding the diplomatic damage, Trump upstaged Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni’ closing press conference by tweeting that he would next week make his long-anticipated decision on US observance, or not, of the Paris climate accords.

Julianne Smith, from the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), said the summit showed how team Trump appeared determined to maintain a "strategic ambiguity" whatever the cost to long-established relationships.

"We understand that this is a tool that the administration finds useful to deal with adversaries," she said.

"But for European allies across the continent, it’s creating a tremendous amount of uncertainty and insecurity."

Another US foreign policy expert, Derek Chollet, says it was no coincidence that the mood of the trip "changed dramatically when Trump left the controlled confines of the Middle East.

"In Europe, where the leaders were less fawning and the press less forgiving, Trump got himself into trouble.

"The contrast was remarkable: for this first time I can think of, we saw an American president who is more at home among Arab monarchs than democratic European allies," Chollet, a former Obama administration official, wrote in Foreign Policy.

With the exception of Japan’s Shinzo Abe, with whom he shares a love of golf, Trump appears to have struck up little rapport with other G7 leaders.

His stonewalling on climate change amounted to politically damaging rebuffs for new French president Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel.

The German chancellor offered an insight into her view of Trump when she reacted good-naturedly to his outburst on Germany’s exports, adopting the manner of a teacher patiently explaining the basics of supply and demand. And she described the debate on climate change as "very unsatisfactory".

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had promised that the Sicily leg of the trip would showcase Trump’s strengths as a communicator.

However many summit participants disputed that had been the case, noting that the US team appears still to be a prisoner of the dynamics of last year’s election campaign.

That, they say, explains the confrontational rhetoric despite the administration having yet to define exactly what it plans to do on either of those issues.

"His views are evolving, he came here to learn," Trump’s economic adviser Gary Cohn declared on Thursday -- only to have his remarks immediately reframed by National Security chief H R McMaster.

"The one thing that won’t change, though, is that he will make his decision based on what he thinks is best for the American people," McMaster said.

 

Australian trafficker Corby to return home amid media storm

KUTA, Indonesia: Australian Schapelle Corby battled through a media scrum on Saturday as she left a Bali villa to head home 12 years after being convicted of drug trafficking on the holiday island, a long-awaited return that has captivated public attention.

The beauty school dropout covered her face with a scarf as she was bustled out of her home on the Indonesian resort island, amid heavy security as a huge pack of Australian and international journalists jostled to get a shot of her.

The 39-year-old, who was arrested in 2004 at Bali airport, was bundled into a car with tinted windows and sped off in a convoy that included armoured vehicles through narrow streets as curious on-lookers gawped at the spectacle.

After signing documents at a government office, her convoy raced towards the airport, from where she will depart on a flight to Brisbane later on Saturday.

"Good bye to this parole paper work," she posted under a picture of the documents on an Instagram account, which had attracted over 35,000 followers within a few hours of being set up.

Corby was sentenced to 20 years in jail in 2005 after being caught with several kilos of marijuana stuffed in her surfing gear. She was released in 2014 but was required to remain on Bali another three years under the conditions of her parole, and now has to leave.

Her story has fascinated the Australian public like few others in recent times.

Her steadfast proclamations of innocence and well-documented fight with mental illness in prison generated much sympathy in Australia, where she was often depicted as the victim of a conspiracy.

The view of her case is starkly different in Indonesia, where many see Corby as a common criminal who simply broke the country’s tough anti-drugs laws.

Australian media have flown into Bali en masse and camped out outside Corby’s Bali villa for the past few days, and hundreds of police officers have been deployed for her departure.

Bali corrections chief Surung Pasaribu said the Australian consulate on the island had requested help to ensure her departure was smooth, which he said was "normal".

"We will protect her," he said. "We will pray for her that she will repent, God wants humans to return to the right path."

The Australian interest in Corby, which began with her arrest, intensified into an obsession during her trial.

The dramatic courtroom scenes of her breaking down in tears as she was convicted and her sister Mercedes screaming from the sidelines were watched live by millions of Australians.

 

page 10

 

Iraqi forces launch operation

to seize last IS enclave in Mosul

BAGHDAD/MOSUL, Iraq: Iraqi armed forces launched an operation on Saturday to capture the last Islamic State-held enclave in Mosul, according to a military statement.

The fall of the city would effectively mark the end of Iraqi half of the "caliphate" declared nearly three years ago by Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, which also covers parts of Syria.

The Iraqi air force dropped leaflets on Friday urging residents in the enclave to flee, although humanitarian groups fear for the safety of civilians trying to escape.

The enclave covers mainly the Old City centre and three adjacent districts alongside the western bank of the Tigris river.

The US-backed offensive on Mosul, now in its eighth month, has taken longer than planned as the militants are dug in among civilians, fighting back with booby traps, suicide cars and motor-bikes, snipers and mortar fire.

"The joint forces have began liberating the remaining districts," said an Iraqi military statement.

Desperate civilians trapped behind Islamic State lines now face a harrowing situation with little food and water, no electricity and limited access to hospitals.

The push inside the Old City coincides with the start of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.

Its prime targets is the medieval Grand al-Nuri mosque and its landmark leaning minaret where Islamic State’s black flag has been flying since mid 2014.

The forces hope to capture in the next few days the mosque where Baghdadi revealed himself to the world and announced the "caliphate" that also spans part of Syria.

Residents in the Old City sounded desperate in telephone interviews made over the past few days.

"We’re waiting for death at any moment, either by bombing or starving," one said, asking not to be identified for his own safety.

"Adults eat one meal a day, either flour or lentil soup".

The United Nations expressed "deep concern" for the hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped behind Islamic State lines, in a statement on Saturday from the organisation’s under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, Stephen O’Brien.

"Although the UN is not present in the areas where fighting is occurring, we have received very disturbing reports of families being shut inside booby-trapped homes and of children being deliberately targeted by snipers," he said.

The militants have laid sheets of corrugated metal over pebbles in the alleys as an early warning system, residents said.

The grinding noise produced by treading on it would alert them to any troop movements or civilians trying to escape.

The United Nations last week said up to 200,000 more people could flee Mosul as fighting moves to the Old City.

Residents said millet, usually used as bird feed, is being baked like rice as food prices increased ten fold.

People were seen collecting wild mallow plants in abandoned lots and also eating mulberry leaves and other types of plants.

About 700,000 people, about a third of the pre-war city’s population, have already fled, seeking refuge either with friends and relatives or in camps.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had initially hoped Mosul would be retaken by the end of 2016.The insurgents are also retreating in Syria, mainly in the face US-backed Kurdish-led forces.

The insurgency is expected to continue in the sparsely populated desert region along the Syrian border even if Mosul is fully captured.

Iranian-backed paramilitary forces are fighting Islamic State in that part of the country where Baghdadi is believed to be hiding, according to US and Iraqi officials.

 

Erdogan told Merkel of anger over asylum for ‘putschists’

ANKARA: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Angela Merkel of his displeasure over Germany’s reportedly giving asylum to troops accused of links to last year’s failed coup, he said in an interview published on Saturday.

As he met the German chancellor on the sidelines of Thursday’s Nato summit in Brussels, Erdogan said he raised the issue of "the putschist soldiers whose asylum applications have been accepted, and gave a firm reaction."

"We asked: ‘How can you do this?’" Erdogan said, quoted by the Hurriyet newspaper.

Since the attempted coup, dozens of Turkish diplomats and high-ranking officials have sought asylum in Germany as Ankara presses a crackdown on those suspected of links to US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom it accuses of ordering putsch.

Earlier this month, German media reports said numerous Turkish military personnel and their families had been granted political asylum, prompting Ankara to accuse Berlin of "embracing a pro-coup mentality."

But Erdogan said Merkel told him asylum approval "was not up to her". Ankara’s relations with the EU have been strained since the July 15 coup and have been further tested by a number of other issues, including last month’s referendum on expanding Erdogan’s powers.

When Turkish ministers were blocked from speaking at rallies in the Netherlands and Germany ahead of the April 16 vote, Erdogan accused both countries of "Nazi practices".

A further blow to relations was Ankara’s imprisonment in February of Deniz Yucel, a German-Turkish journalist with Die Welt, on terror charges.

EU Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker also met with Erdogan ahead of the Nato summit in an effort to rebuild ties.

Erdogan was quoted as saying it was a "positive meeting for a new and positive momentum in Turkey’s EU membership process".

He said Brussels had presented Turkey with a 12-month timetable for improving relations, adding that Ankara would work with the bloc and "take steps" without giving detail.

A European Commission spokesman said Thursday that Turkey and the EU "must and will continue to cooperate".

Germany’s interior ministry said Friday that 217 of the asylum applications came from Turks holding diplomatic passports while another 220 were from people with passports issued to other government employees and their dependants.

It is not known how many have been given asylum or how many are from the military.

Erdogan also said he discussed with Merkel the issue of German lawmakers wanting to visit the Incirlik military base near Syria. Ankara refused to allow German lawmakers to visit the base this month and Erdogan said Turkey wanted a list of those who would visit because some MPs "openly support terrorists".

The lawmakers called off their visit but not before Berlin warned it could move its 250 military personnel stationed at the base to another location in the region, most likely Jordan.

The German forces at the base fly Tornado surveillance missions over Syria and refuel flights for partner nations battling the Islamic State group.

 

Myanmar’s hardline monks gather despite ban

YANGON: Hundreds of monks and supporters of Myanmar’s ultra-nationalist Ma Ba Tha movement gathered in a Yangon monastery on Saturday, in a defiant meeting days after Buddhist authorities banned their network, which has been accused of stoking Islamophobia.

The monk-led movement grew in strength under the country’s previous military-backed government, peddling a brand of Buddhist nationalism that aggravated religious unrest mainly targeted at minority Muslims.

But after months of distancing itself from the radical group, Myanmar’s top Buddhist clergy on Tuesday ordered the Ma Ba Tha to cease all activities by mid-July or face prosecution.

The threat did not deter hundreds of maroon-robed monks, nuns and followers from attending a weekend summit at a Yangon monastery decorated with Ma Ba Tha banners. "Our journey is not at the end... We need to keep calm and think about how we can move forward," leader Tilawka Biwuntha told a crowd that spilled outside of the vast temple hall.

"If you write Ma Ba Tha, you can erase the words. But no one can erase Ma Ba Tha from your heart," the monk added, during the opening ceremony of the two-day gathering.

The shut-down order was the latest blow to a movement that flourished under the former quasi-civilian government but has faced mounting pressure ever since Aung Suu Kyi’s civilian administration took over in March 2016.

Earlier this year the ruling clergy, a body known as Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee, banned Ma Ba Tha’s most notorious monk Wirathu from preaching for a year.

The firebrand monk, who attended Saturday’s gathering, is known for scathing sermons and Facebook posts that helped foment the idea that Buddhism in Myanmar is threatened by Islam -- despite Muslims making up only around 5 percent of the population.

In recent months Buddhist hardliners have shut down religious events across the country and forced two Yangon schools accused of illegally doubling up as mosques to close their doors.

Police arrested several nationalists this month after a fight broke out in a Muslim neighbourhood of Yangon when dozens of people raided a house believed to be hiding Rohingyas -- a Muslim minority maligned by many Buddhists.

 

Philippines peace talks with communist rebels break down

NOORDWIJK AAN ZEE, Netherlands: Peace talks between the Philippine government and communist insurgents broke down on Saturday after a dispute over the rebels’ ordering their fighters to step up attacks.

But communist negotiators remained hopeful that the discussions being held at a seaside resort town in the Netherlands would continue, despite the suspension announced by government negotiators.

The two sides had just opened formal talks when chief government negotiator Jesus Dureza objected to the communists’ telling guerillas to intensify attacks in response to President Rodrigo Duterte’s declaration of martial law in parts of the country. "The government panel is now left without any other recourse but to announce... that it will not proceed to participate in the fifth round of peace negotiations," he said.

He added that talks would not resume until there were indications of an "environment conducive to achieving just and sustainable peace".

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte declared martial law over the southern third of the country on Tuesday to quell fighting with pro-Islamic State militants in a southern city.

Communists insurgents, who are active in wide areas of the archipelago, including the south, responded to his declaration by ordering their forces to "carry out more tactical offensives".

But communist alliance negotiators blamed government officials, saying their statement resulted from government officials announcing that New People’s Army fighters would also be targeted in Manila’s crackdown on Islamic extremists.

Senior rebel negotiator Luis Jalandoni said that despite the government’s ultimatum, the guerrillas’ attacks would continue.

Government negotiator Silvestre Bello said the rebel panel had originally asked for a 10-minute recess to discuss the government’s threat but refused to return to the table afterwards.

 

China arrests Taiwanese activist for ‘subversion’

BEIJING: China has arrested a visiting Taiwanese rights activist on suspicion of subverting state power, according to reports.

Lee Ming-che, a 42-year-old NGO worker, had been unreachable since March 19 after he entered the southeastern Chinese city of Zhuhai from Macau, according to Taiwan’s government.

On Friday China’s official state news agency Xinhua reported that he was in detention and had "confessed" following interrogation.

Lee had "colluded with mainlanders...established illegal organisations, and plotted out and carried out activities to subvert state power," Xinhua cited a spokesman for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office as saying.

"After interrogation, Lee and his group confessed to engaging in activities endangering national security," the spokesman was quoted as saying.

Lee, who works at a community college in Taipei, has long supported civil society organisations and activists in China.

"The Chinese authorities did not disclose any evidence related to the case at all," Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council said in a late Friday statement reacting to the Xinhua report.

"Their vague and superficial responses cannot convince the people of Taiwan and also cannot convince the international community watching this case," it said.

Lee had been sharing "Taiwan’s democratic experiences" with his Chinese friends online for many years and often mailed books to them, according to the Taiwan Association for Human Rights.

His detention is the latest in a series of incidents that have heightened tensions between Beijing and Taipei since China-sceptic President Tsai Ing-wen won Taiwan’s elections last year.

Beijing mistrusts her independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, and has severed official communications with Taipei since she took office.

"It’s alarming that sharing views and Taiwan’s experience of democracy would be considered ‘subversion’. Again, it shows the arbitrary use of the charge against free speech," Amnesty International China researcher Patrick Poon told AFP.

"If the Chinese authorities don’t follow the cross-straits agreements on handling criminal suspects, it just shows that there is zero protection for Taiwanese citizens on the mainland," he said.

 

UN slams Myanmar, Thailand for deporting Turk

BANGKOK: The UN raised "serious concerns" on Saturday over the fate of a Turkish man deported by Myanmar and Thailand this week for alleged links to Fetullah Gulen, the cleric accused of plotting a failed coup against Turkey’s president.

Muhammet Furkan Sokmen, an accountant who had been working at an international school in Yangon, is at least the sixth person in recent months to be deported from Southeast Asia over alleged connections to Gulen, the UN said.

"The UN Human Rights Office has serious concerns for their safety in Turkey where there are substantial grounds to believe that they would face an imminent risk of grave human rights violations, including torture," the UN’s Southeast Asia office said in a statement.

Turkey has accused Gulen of orchestrating the July 2016 attempt to oust President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The US-based preacher strongly denies the allegation.

Since the failed putsch Turkish authorities have carried out an unprecedented crackdown on suspected Gulen supporters, arresting or sacking more than 100,000 people.

Muhammet was first arrested at Yangon airport on May 24 with his family.

He was then transferred to Thailand, where he was held for 24 hours before being sent back to Turkey on Friday, according to the UN, which said it had urged Thai authorities to halt the deportation.

The UN added that it has seen a spike in cases over the past month of Turkish nationals in the region being scrutinised for suspected links to the Gulen movement.

Muhammet’s deportation comes shortly after three branches of the Horizon International School, where he used to work in Yangon, were shut down.

 

Senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard killed in Iraq 

BAGHDAD: A senior commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) was killed fighting Islamic State west of the Iraqi city of Mosul, the Tehran-based Tasnim news agency reported on Saturday.

It is the first time Iran has announced the death of a senior commander during the operations launched in October to drive the Islamist militants out of Mosul. "Commander Shaaban Nassiri was martyred in operations to free the area west of Mosul," the Tasnim news agency quoted the Revolutionary Guards as saying.

The IRGC is the main backer of the Iraqi paramilitary force known as Popular Mobilisation, fighting Islamic State west of Mosul.

 

page 11

 

Turkey charges opposition daily staff over ‘coup links’

ANKARA: A Turkish court formally arrested two staffers from opposition daily Sozcu late on Friday over alleged links to last year’s failed coup, the paper and state media reported.

The latest arrests will raise further concerns over press freedom in Turkey where scores of journalists are behind bars.

Gokmen Ulu, a correspondent in the western city of Izmir, and Mediha Olgun, an executive in charge of Sozcu’s website, were charged with “deliberately and willingly giving help to a terrorist organisation”, state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

Turkey refers to the movement led by US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen as the “Fethullah Terrorist Organisation” (FETO), and him and his followers of launching the failed coup.

Ulu was also charged with “facilitating the physical assault and assassination of the president”, Anadolu said.

Yonca Yucekaleli, a finance executive at the paper who had also been detained, was released by the court, the agency said, while charges against Ulu and Olgun of belonging to a terror group were dropped.

The paper, whose name means “spokesman”, is both fiercely anti-government and ultra-secularist and one of the country’s bestselling papers.

Its slogan is: “If #Sozcu is silent, Turkey will be silent.”

The paper hit back over the arrests, with its front page showing images of the three staffers under the headline “Dark day for journalism and Turkey’s media.”

Ulu and Olgun were first detained on May 19 over an article published on the day of the coup which gave details of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s holiday in the Aegean resort of Marmaris along with pictures of the hotel where he was staying, Anadolu said. An arrest warrant for the daily’s owner Burak Akbay was issued on the same day but he remains abroad.

Writing on Twitter, Bulent Tezcan, spokesman for the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), said the claims against the paper were “mud that would not stick”.

Sozcu is on occasion vehemently anti-Erdogan and its angry front pages are regarded with suspicion by some liberal Turks critical of Erdogan.

It is the second opposition daily to be targeted after Cumhuriyet, which saw 20 staffers charged under the state of emergency imposed a few days after the attempted putsch in July.

According to the P24 press freedom website, there are 165 journalists behind bars in Turkey, most of whom were detained during the emergency which has been renewed three times.

 

Palestinian inmates in

Israeli jails end hunger strike

OCCUPIED AL-QUDS: Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners on Saturday ended a 40-day hunger strike over their conditions in Israeli jails, the Israel Prisons Service and a Palestinian official said.

About 1,100 inmates had initially taken part in one of the largest such hunger strikes, that began on April 17 and had raised tensions between Israel and the Palestinians, with protests in support of the strikers spilling over into clashes in the occupied West Bank and along the Israel-Gaza border.

More than 800 inmates who had stuck with the hunger strike until Saturday, ended it after talks held with the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Palestinian Authority concluded in an agreement to change some of the prisoners’ conditions, a Prison Service Statement said.

Issa Karaka, Chairman of Prisoners’ Affairs at the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), confirmed the inmates had agreed to stop the strike.

On Wednesday, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein urged Israel to improve conditions for Palestinians in its custody. Both Karaka and the Israeli Prisons Service did not initially divulge the full details of the agreement.

However, the Prison Service did say that a second monthly family visit would be reinstated after it had been cut in the past.

The strike was called by Marwan Barghouti, the most high-profile Palestinian jailed in Israel, to protest against solitary confinement and an Israeli practice of detention without trial that has been applied to thousands of prisoners since the 1980s.

Israel says that measure is necessary to prevent attacks and protect security sources.

Barghouti, a leader in Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement, was convicted of murder over the killing of Israelis during the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, and sentenced in 2004 to five life terms.

Surveys show many Palestinians want him to be their next president.

Israeli Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan had said Barghouti started the strike in order to garner political support on the Palestinian streets rather than improve conditions for his fellow inmates. The Prisons Service said that most of the inmates on strike were aligned with Fatah. About 750 had stopped striking during the 40 day period and 18 were being treated in hospital.

Although hunger strikes are not uncommon among the 6,500 Palestinians held in Israeli jails, many of whom were convicted of attacks or planning attacks against Israelis, this was one of the largest.

 

‘Iran ready for talks toward peace with Arab states’

DUBAI: Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has told the Qatari Emir that Tehran is ready for talks with Arab nations to reach a “real agreement toward peace and brotherhood.”Rouhani’s website quoted him as saying in a phone conversation with Qatar’s ruler, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, that the Muslim world is beset by divisions and should take steps “toward peace and brotherhood.”

 Rouhani called on Saturday for improved relations with Gulf Arab countries during a telephone call with the emir of Qatar, which has come under fire from its Gulf neighbours over its relationship with Tehran.

Iran and the Gulf Arab states are backing opposing sides in the Syrian and Yemen conflicts. Relations were further hit last weekend when US President Donald Trump visited Saudi Arabia and accused Tehran of supporting terrorism in the Middle East. Iran denies such accusations and says Saudi Arabia, its arch-foe, is the real source of funding for Islamist militants.

Rouhani responded to Trump’s criticism by saying stability could not be achieved in the Middle East without Iran’s help.

“We want the rule of moderation and rationality in the relations between countries and we believe that a political solution should be a priority,” the state news agency IRNA quoted Rouhani as telling Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani. “The countries of the region need more cooperation and consultations to resolve the crisis in the region and we are ready to cooperate in this field,” Rouhani told Sheikh Tamim, IRNA added.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates signalled exasperation this week after official Qatar media published purported remarks by Sheikh Tamim critical of Trump’s foreign policy and of renewed tensions with Tehran.

 

Egypt launches air strikes on Libya

CAIRO: Egypt launched a fresh round of air strikes over Libya on Saturday, Egyptian military sources and an eyewitness told Reuters, targeting militant camps it said were responsible for a shooting spree that killed dozens of Egyptian Christians.

On Friday, Egyptian fighter jets struck eastern Libya just hours after a shooting that killed 29 and wounded 24 in the southern Egyptian province of Minya when masked militants boarded vehicles en route to a monastery and opened fire at close range.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, the latest directed at Egypt’s increasingly embattled Christian minority following two church bombings last month that killed more than 45, also claimed by the group.