TEHRAN: A delegation of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas which controls Gaza arrived yesterday for talks with Iranian officials on repairing ties, local media reported.
Tasnim news agency said the team was led by Hamas political bureau member Mohammed Nasr and included Ossama Hamdan, who is in charge of international relations.
The visit is aimed at clearing the way for a mission by Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal, Amir Mousavi, the head of Tehran’s Centre of Strategic Research, said on the website of Hamas-linked Palestinian daily Al Ressalah.
The Syrian conflict has strained ties between Hamas and Iran, with the Palestinian faction breaking ties with Damascus while Tehran has remained a strong ally of the regime.
Meshaal, in an interview in August, acknowledged differences over Syria but said their common enmity against Israel was a uniting factor. Iran is reported to provide equipment for Palestinian fighters of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, a smaller militant group in Gaza, to fire missiles at the Jewish state.
Saudi appoints eight ministers in reshuffle
RIYADH: The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz appointed new ministers for health, higher education, transport, agriculture, information and Islamic affairs yesterday as part of the kingdom’s broadest reshuffle of second-tier posts in years. The most important government portfolios, including finance, oil, interior, foreign affairs and defence, were not changed in the reshuffle, which was announced in a royal decree carried by state media.
The decree said the reshuffle was in preparation for the kingdom’s 2015 budget, which is expected to be announced late this month. It did not elaborate.
The new Health Minister, Mohammed Al Heaza, takes over from Labour Minister Adel Al Faqieh, who held the health portfolio since April, when he assumed the post on an acting basis at the height of a Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers) outbreak.
Mers is still seen as a big threat by the authorities and Al Heaza will lead Saudi efforts to contain the disease, which has infected 818 people in the kingdom, after Faqieh oversaw a shake-up of the Health Ministry. named a new health minister yesterday to lead the fight against the Mers virus that has cost more than 350 lives in Saudi Arabia, after his predecessor was sacked.
Tunisian runoff
on December 21
TUNIS: Moncef Marzouki and Beji Caid Essebsi are to face off on December 21 in Tunisia’s second round of presidential voting to decide who leads the nation that sparked the Arab Spring. “Voting will take place on December 21,” the head of the ISIE electoral organising body, Chafik Sarsar, told a news conference yesterday.
Campaigning will begin on Tuesday and last until midnight on December 19, Sarsar said, urging the two candidates and the media to respect electoral campaign rules given “the importance of this historic moment”.
Neither incumbent Marzouki nor 88-year-old political veteran Essebsi won an overall majority in the first round of polling on November 23.
The final results from the first round, released yesterday, showed Essebsi ahead with 39.46 percent of votes cast and Marzouki on 33.43 percent.
The election in the North African nation is the first time its people have been able to vote freely for their head of state since independence from France in 1956.Agencies
