LONDON: Iran is executing members of ethnic minorities as a “tool of repression,” Amnesty International has claimed.

In a report published alongside Iranian human rights organization the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, Amnesty said the regime had killed 14 Kurds, 13 Baluchis and an Ahwazi Arab among 94 people executed since the start of the year — and had condemned many more to death after “grossly unfair” trials.

BEIRUT: Thieves in Lebanon are stealing iron fencing from cemeteries and grave sites to sell for a few dollars on the black market, as the nation grows used to hearing about pickpocketing, drug trafficking and theft almost on a daily basis.

As the country’s financial and economic crisis deepens, Lebanon is witnessing the collapse of its social, health and educational sectors.

PARIS: French citizen Benjamin Briere is still in an Iranian jail despite his recent acquittal by an appeals court, his lawyer said Thursday.
Briere was detained in May 2020, and later sentenced to eight years in prison for espionage.
He is one of several foreigners who campaigners say Iran has jailed in a strategy of hostage-taking to extract concessions from the West.
Briere’s France-based lawyer, Philippe Valent, said in a statement sent to AFP that an Iranian appeals court had cleared his client of all charges and ordered his release on Feb. 15.

GAZA: Gaza officials called for help to extinguish a fire that started in a landfill in a village bordering Israel on Thursday, saying it could last for days and cause “an environmental catastrophe.”
A large cloud of heavy smoke billowed into the sky as night fell, and there was a strong smell of burning rubbish across Gaza City.
The fire started “in the eastern part of a landfill in Juhr Al-Deek, southeast of Gaza City, near the separation fence, for reasons that have yet to be confirmed,” the Gaza municipality said in a statement.

WASHINGTON: A new UN proposal for holding legislative and presidential elections in Libya this year has sparked hopes among some that the oil-rich North African Arab country might soon enjoy a period of reconciliation and stability after years of armed conflict.

Political factions have been vying for power amid a crisis and impasse that has paralyzed the country for more than a decade, since the fall of former leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.