Lebanese lawmakers yesterday tasked ex-premier and billionaire Najib Mikati with forming a government and ending one year of political deadlock that has crippled the economy.

Tunisian President Kais Saied sacked the defence minister yesterday, a day after ousting the prime minister and suspending parliament, plunging the young democracy into constitutional crisis in the midst of a pandemic.

Al Jazeera Media Network has condemned the raid by the Tunisian Security Forces on its Bureau in Tunis and expelling its journalists.

US President Joe Biden and Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi yesterday sealed an agreement formally ending the US combat mission in Iraq by the end of 2021, more than 18 years after US troops were sent to the country.

Tunisian President Kais Saied announced yesterday the suspension of the country’s parliament and the dismissal of Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi following a day of protests against the ruling party.

Police and protesters clashed in several Tunisian cities yesterday as demonstrators demanding the government step down attacked offices of Ennahda, the moderate Islamist party that is the biggest in parliament.

Afghan authorities yesterday imposed a night-time curfew across 31 of the country’s 34 provinces to curb surging violence unleashed by a sweeping Taliban offensive in recent months, the interior ministry said.

Iran yesterday rejected “false accusations” by the UN rights chief on protests over water shortages in the country’s southwest, where at least four people have been killed since last week.

Lebanon’s deepening economic crisis has piled pressure on hospitals, leaving them ill-equipped to face any new wave of the coronavirus, a top hospital director has warned.

A Palestinian teenager has died after being shot during clashes with Israeli soldiers at a protest over illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian authorities said yesterday.

In Tunisia’s Mediterranean resort of Sousse, exhausted medics struggle to stem surging coronavirus deaths, desperately monitoring oxygen supplies beside patients’ beds, while on the beach tourists relax in the sun.

More than 140 Palestinians were hurt yesterday in clashes with Israeli troops in the flashpoint West Bank village of Beita, medics said, during protests against an illegal Israeli settlement outpost.