SANTIAGO: Chile plans to open an embassy in the Palestinian territories, President Gabriel Boric said late on Wednesday, which could make the Andean country one of only a handful to have an embassy-level office in the territories that are contested with Israel.
Chilean Foreign Minister Antonia Urrejola confirmed the plan on Thursday but said there was no timeline in place yet and that Chile continues to recognize both Palestine and Israel as legitimate states.

BEIRUT: Hezbollah is to remove structures it was building close to the southern Lebanese town of Rmeish following pressure from residents and Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rahi, who accused it of encroachment.
The party’s Green Without Borders environmental organization has been told to remove all of the facilities, which encroached on properties owned by the Al-Ameel, Al-Alam and Al-Hajj families. The developments had angered local people, municipal authorities and religious leaders.

NEW YORK: After being arrested for creating antigovernment propaganda in 2010, the Iranian director Jafar Panahi was banned from making films for 20 years. Since then, he’s made five widely acclaimed features.
His latest, “No Bears,” opens soon in US theaters while Panahi is in prison.
In July, Panahi went to the Tehran prosecutor’s office to inquire about the arrest of Mohammad Rasoulof, a filmmaker detained in the government’s crackdown on protests. Panahi himself was arrested and, on a decade-old charge, sentenced to six years in jail.

ANKARA: Sweden’s Supreme Court decision to block the extradition of Turkish journalist Bulent Kenes is a “very negative” development, Turkiye’s foreign minister said on Tuesday, as Stockholm seeks Ankara’s approval for it to join NATO.

Mevlut Cavusoglu was speaking at a news conference in Ankara. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last month singled out Kenes as a person Ankara wants extradited from Sweden as a condition for Ankara’s approval for Stockholm to join NATO.

TUNIS: The Tunisian government has raised the price of drinking water by up to 23 percent, the official gazette said on Tuesday, as the country seeks to reduce subsidies to qualify for IMF help.

Tunisia, which has a shortage of water after years of drought, is under pressure from the International Monetary Fund to cut government subsidies, including of energy, food and water, to qualify for a recovery package the country needs to save public finances from collapse.