LONDON: A retired British geologist jailed in Iraq for antiquities smuggling has been freed and has left the country, his family said Sunday.
Jim Fitton, 66, was sentenced in June to 15 years in an Iraqi prison. A Baghdad appeals court overturned the conviction and last week ordered his release.
CAIRO: Egypt has expressed its condolences and sympathy to the UAE, Iran, Pakistan and the US for the victims of floods and torrential rains that have struck these countries.
Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said the country’s government and people wish a speedy recovery to all the injured.
The UAE’s Interior Ministry said seven people of Asian nationalities were killed due to torrential rains.
GILGIT: When he scaled K2 last week, Saeed Al-Memari became the first Emirati to reach the top of the world’s most-dangerous mountain, a feat that he told Arab News has also become a milestone in his “special mission of peace.”
The 8,611-meter-tall K2 is located in the Karakoram mountain range, which lies partly in the Gilgit-Baltistan portion of the Kashmir region under the administration of Pakistan and partly in a Chinese-administered enclave of Kashmir within the Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang.
BEIRUT: In recent weeks in Lebanon there has been a series of violent assaults and other crimes committed by Lebanese people against Syrian refugees and vice versa.
The attacks have resulted in an increase in discriminatory rhetoric targeting Syrian refugees in Lebanon, while popular support for their repatriation to Syria has also gained momentum as the situation in Syria is widely perceived to have improved sufficiently to allow the refugees to return home.
BEIRUT: Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri said on Saturday he would not call for a session to elect a new president until the legislature passes reforms that are preconditions for an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout.
An IMF deal is seen as the only way for Lebanon to recover from a financial meltdown that has plunged the country into its most destabilising crisis since the 1975-90 civil war.
