IDLIB: Thousands of Syrians demonstrated in the war-ravaged country’s rebel-held northwest on Wednesday, marking 12 years since the start of pro-democracy protests and rejecting any international “normalization” with Damascus.

The brutal repression of the 2011 protests, which began during the Middle East’s Arab Spring uprisings, triggered a complex civil war that drew in foreign powers and jihadists.

It has claimed more than 500,000 lives and left millions displaced internally and abroad.

ANKARA: Kurdish soprano Pervin Chakar has commemorated the Halabja massacre in Iraq with an album that puts to song the work of one of her people’s greatest poets.

“In Memorium” is to be released on YouTube on March 16, the 35th anniversary of the day when 5,000 people died in a chemical attack ordered by Saddam Hussein on the town in north-eastern Iraq.

RAMALLAH: Israeli authorities’ use of the term “Judea and Samaria governorate” in official documents to describe the West Bank has raised Palestinian concerns of a ploy to “silently” annex settlements in the area.

Ismat Mansour, a Palestinian expert on Israeli affairs, told Arab News that Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is implementing plans to annex the West Bank, bypassing bureaucratic, administrative and political obstacles, and ignoring external pressures as he seeks to subject the area to Israeli law.

ALGIERS: The European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Monday during a visit to Algeria called for stronger energy cooperation with Africa’s top gas exporter as well as enhanced security ties.

About “90 percent of Algerian gas exports go to Europe, and we know we can count on Algeria, which is a reliable partner and has been through difficult times,” Borrell said after a meeting with Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune.

ISTANBUL: SunExpress, a joint venture between Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa, said on Tuesday that summer bookings to Turkiye spiked as of this month after a brief drop following February’s devastating earthquakes.

The airline expects to carry more than 12 million passengers this year, Chief Executive Max Kownatzki told Reuters on the sidelines of a news conference in Istanbul.

Within days after the massive earthquakes that killed more than 48,000 people and left millions homeless in Turkiye, bookings fell by 50 percent, Kownatzki said.