Middle East & North Africa

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Whoever emerges as Israel’s prime minister after Tuesday’s election will need to rein in a growing budget deficit quickly before it hits economic growth.

The deficit has swelled over the past year under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, who cut taxes while spending heavily on cost-of-living subsidies and pay rises.

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that a planned “safe zone” in northern Syria could host 2-3 million Syrian refugees that

have settled in Turkey and Europe after eight years of war at home.

Addressing academics in Ankara, Erdogan also repeated that Ankara would act on its own if the zone, planned jointly with the United States in Syria’s northeast, bears no results.

JEDDAH/DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia said it would produce evidence on Wednesday linking regional rival Tehran to an unprecedented attack on its oil industry that Washington believes originated from Iran in a dangerous escalation of Middle East frictions.

But Tehran again denied involvement in the Sept. 14 attacks on oil plants, including the world’s biggest crude processing facility, that initially knocked out half of Saudi production.

DUBAI (Reuters) - The U.S. Secretary of State will meet with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince in Jeddah on Wednesday to discuss the attack on Aramco installations and coordinate efforts against “Iranian aggression”, the U.S. Mission to the United Arab Emirates said.

Mike Pompeo “will meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to discuss the recent attack on the Kingdom’s oil facilities and coordinate efforts to counter Iranian aggression in the region,” a Twitter posting said.

(Reuters) - Iran dismissed U.S. accusations over weekend attacks of Saudi Arabia’s oil sites as a distraction from the realities in the Middle East, Iran’s Students News Agency ISNA quoted Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif as saying on Wednesday.

“The United States should seek to look at the realities in the region, rather than simply using distractions. We feel that the U.S. government is trying to somehow forget the realities in the region,” Zarif said.

TRIPOLI, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Libya's UN-backed government on Tuesday said that it has launched airstrikes on the rival eastern-based army in southern Tripoli.

"The air force launched four airstrikes in Spe'a, Suq al-Khamis, and Emsehel areas in southern Tripoli," said Mohamed Gununu, spokesman for the UN-backed government's forces.

The airstrikes targeted "mercenaries and armored vehicles, including an Emirati armored vehicle," the spokesman added.

18 Sep 2019; MEMO: Israeli security personnel shot a Palestinian woman at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, Israeli police said, and Palestinian officials said she died of her injury, reports Reuters.

JERUSALEM, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- Israel's closely-fought elections ended on Tuesday night, with exit polls showing a virtual tie between the Likud party, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Blue and White party, led by former army chief Benny Gantz.

Exit poll results released by Israel's three main TV channels showed the Blue and White party in a slim majority over Likud, winning about 33 seats against Likud's 32 seats.

JERUSALEM, Sept 18 (NNN-WAFA) – Facebook on Tuesday, briefly suspended a chatbot on Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu’s official account, over violation of Israeli election law.

The move came after Netanyahu posted results of alleged opinion polls, which is prohibited by Israeli law that bans publishing polls a few days before the voting.

ISTANBUL, Sept 18 (NNN-ANADOLU) – A Russian Su-35 fighter jet performed an aerobatic show at the opening ceremony of Turkey’s biggest aerospace and technology festival in Istanbul.

The 4++ generation supersonic multi-purpose fighter with a single seat and twin engines, displayed various stunts over the sky for about 10 minutes.

During a visit to the air show in Moscow in late Aug, Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inspected the Su-35 and fifth-generation Su-57 jets, and discussed with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, bilateral cooperation on them.