Thousands of demonstrators gathered in Gabes in southern Tunisia on Friday, calling for the closure of facilities at an ageing chemical factory blamed for hundreds of cases of poisoning.
Anger has reignited in the city over pollution from the plant and its toll on residents' health, while authorities push to expand the output of fertiliser, produced at the complex, to boost Tunisia's struggling economy.
ANKARA (Reuters) -Foreign ministers of some Muslim countries will meet in Istanbul on Monday to discuss the Gaza ceasefire and next steps there, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Friday, voicing concern over whether the ceasefire will continue.
Speaking at a press conference in Ankara, Fidan said the gathering would include foreign ministers of countries represented at a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in New York in September.
By Timour Azhari
DAMASCUS (Reuters) -"I didn't know the salaries the government pays were this high!" Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa joked after more than 100 loyalists arrived at his former rebel base, many pulling up in luxury SUVs.
"Have you forgotten you are the sons of the revolution?" Sharaa rebuked the gathered officials and business leaders, according to two people present, remarking upon the large number of Cadillac Escalades, Range Rovers and Chevrolet Tahoes parked outside. "Have you been tempted so quickly?"
ISTANBUL (Reuters) -A Turkish court sentenced 11 people to life in prison on Friday over a fire that killed 78 people at a ski resort in northwest Turkey's Bolu mountains in January, state media reported.
Halit Ergul, owner of the Grand Kartal Hotel where the blaze erupted, was among the 11 defendants given aggravated life sentences by the court in Bolu province, according to state-run broadcaster TRT Haber.
By Nafisa Eltahir
(Reuters) -Fighters riding camels rounded up a couple of hundred men near the Sudanese city of al-Fashir at the weekend and brought them to a reservoir, shouting racial slurs before starting to shoot, according to a man who said he was among them.
One of the captors recognized him from his school days and let him flee, the man, Alkheir Ismail, said in a video interview conducted by a local journalist known to Reuters in the nearby town of Tawila in the country's western Darfur region.
By Maher Nazeh
BAGHDAD (Reuters) -Iraqis are bracing for yet another election they fear will change little, with many seeing the pro-reform campaign banners for the November 11 vote as empty gestures from elites who have delivered little since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
Years of corruption, high unemployment and poor public services have blighted daily life since then even as democratic elections have become standard following decades of repressive dictatorship under Saddam Hussein.
GAZA (Reuters) -The Israeli military attacked the Gaza Strip for a third day on Thursday night, killing two people, the Palestinian Authority's official news agency said, in another test of a fragile ceasefire agreement.
One Palestinian was killed by Israeli shelling and another was shot dead by Israeli forces, WAFA said on Friday.
The Israeli military did not immediately reply to a Reuters request for comment.
A third Palestinian died of wounds sustained from previous Israeli shelling, the news agency reported.
By Abdulrhman Al-Ansi and Khaled Abdullah
SANAA (Reuters) -Forty-three detained local United Nations staff will face trial on suspicion of links to an Israeli airstrike that assassinated top Houthi leaders in August, the acting foreign minister of Yemen’s Houthi government, Abdulwahid Abu Ras, told Reuters.
In August, the prime minister of Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi-run government and several other ministers were killed in an Israeli strike on the capital Sanaa, in the first such attack to kill senior officials.
Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces said they had arrested several fighters accused of abuses during the capture of El-Fasher, with the United Nations demanding an investigation Friday into the "horrendous accounts" of atrocities emerging from the city.
At war with the army since April 2023, the RSF seized El-Fasher on Sunday, dislodging the army's last stronghold in the western Darfur region after an 18-month siege marked by bombardment and starvation.
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA/CAIRO (Reuters) -The ceasefire in Gaza has eased the trauma of Israel's air strikes and blockade but a shortage of cash has left Palestinians unable to spend what little money they have without falling victim to wartime profiteers.
Banks, many damaged or destroyed along with homes, schools and other institutions across Gaza during two years of war, began reopening on October 16, six days after the ceasefire was announced. Queues soon formed but people came away disappointed.
