DOHA: The traffic department and the municipalities have set up joint teams to track down abandoned vehicles and those left in public right-of-way. The teams will begin removing abandoned vehicles from streets, open grounds and other public places, including pavements, from Sunday. They comprise patrol personnel from the department and inspectors from municipalities. Directors of the municipalities and senior traffic officials, including Brigadier Mohamed Saad Al Kharji, Head of the department, met recently and decided to form joint monitoring teams.
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia said it had detected six new cases of the deadly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 24 hours, the biggest daily jump for months. The recent surge in cases, now 32 since the start of October, has been focused in Riyadh and the western city of Taif. Two of the new cases announced by the health ministry involved medical personnel. Three Taif hospitals have been affected. Some people infected with MERS in Taif this month were being treated in one renal clinic in a hospital, which authorities regard as being responsible for some of the transmissions, a senior health ministry official said. The new cases include two in Riyadh, where six others have been diagnosed with MERS since the start of October, and one in Hafr Al Batin, near Kuwait. In Taif, five others have fallen ill this month.
TUNIS: Tunisia’s secular Nidaa Tounes won landmark parliamentary elections, results showed yesterday, beating Islamists in a vote that raised hopes of a peaceful transition in the birthplace of the Arab Spring. Tunisians hope the election, and a presidential vote on November 23, will provide stability, nearly four years after the revolution.
Nidaa Tounes, a coalition of left and centre-right politicians, opposition figures and people from the ousted Ben Ali regime, won 85 of 217 seats and the Islamist Ennahda party, which had run Tunisia in coalition with other parties for much of the time since Ben Ali’s downfall, took 69. A party that wins the maximum votes but falls short of a majority gets a mandate to form a coalition. Nidaa Tounes is led by Beji Caid Essebsi, 87, a frontrunner for the presidency. See also page 8
Agencies
