Category Archives: Middle East and North Africa

Bodies of woman and toddler found after migrant boats sink off Lampedusa

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Italian coastguard says two bodies recovered, amid reports of at least 30 people missing from two vessels that sailed from Tunisia

The bodies of a woman and toddler were recovered by the Italian coastguard after two shipwrecks overnight off the southern island of Lampedusa.

Fifty-seven people were rescued and more than 30 were believed to be missing as of Sunday afternoon in what was described as “more tragic news” regarding those making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean in search of refuge in Europe.

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UK must stop funding detention of children in Syria, says David Davis

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Ex-cabinet minister calls on foreign secretary to reveal how many British minors are being held in camps

The UK must urgently end its policy of funding the illegal detention of children in north-east Syria, and disclose how many British minors are being held in camps run by Syrian Kurds on behalf of the west, the former cabinet minister David Davis has said in a letter to the foreign secretary, James Cleverly.

The letter comes after it was revealed that Yusuf Zahab, a 19-year-old Australian citizen locked up in Syria since he was 14 and presumed killed in a July 2022 Islamic State (IS) attack on a prison in the city of Hasakah, may be alive after all. A year-old video of him speaking and dated after the IS attack was released on Tuesday.

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Talks begin in Saudi Arabia on how to end Russia-Ukraine war

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Kyiv seeks support of publicly neutral countries as China sends envoy and Moscow says it will ‘keep an eye’ on meeting

Talks have started in Saudi Arabia to find a peaceful settlement to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Ukraine and its allies hope this weekend’s meeting of national security advisers and other senior officials from about 40 countries – but not Russia – will reach agreement on principles of how to end the conflict.

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Syrian man accused over 2013 massacre arrested in Germany

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Prosecutors say suspect led pro-regime paramilitaries who detained and tortured political opponents

A Syrian man accused of leading a pro-government militia in Tadamon, a Damascus neighbourhood that was the site of a massacre of civilians in 2013 filmed by its perpetrators and revealed by the Guardian last year, has been arrested in northern Germany.

The suspect, identified as Ahmad H in line with German privacy rules, is the first person to be detained in connection with crimes in Tadamon, where militia and soldiers loyal to the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, brutalised the local population – recording some of their acts – in the early years of the country’s civil war.

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Armed US troops may guard oil tankers against Iranian hijackings

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Commercial vessels would be invited to carry sailors and marines in Strait of Hormuz, part of Persian Gulf where Pentagon is beefing up presence

The US could soon offer to put armed sailors and marines on commercial ships traveling through the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, two US officials have said, amid alleged attempts by Iran to hijack ships in international waters.

The Pentagon in July sent additional F-35 and F-16 fighter jets along with a warship to the Middle East after Iran’s seizure and harassment of commercial shipping vessels.

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Foreign Office failed to notice torture of British academic in UAE, watchdog finds

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Parliamentary ombudsman says Matthew Hedges was let down by UK government during imprisonment

The UK’s parliamentary ombudsman has found that the Foreign Office “failed to notice signs of torture” when officials visited a British academic imprisoned in the United Arab Emirates.

Matthew Hedges was convicted on spying charges by the UAE in 2018 after travelling to Dubai to conduct research for his PhD at Durham University. He spent six months in prison, where he has said he had been handcuffed, drugged and questioned for hours, before being pardoned from a life sentence for spying.

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Tensions escalate between Israel and Hezbollah in border region

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Lebanese militant group appears to be trying new tactics to test Israel’s resolve

Tensions between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah are at their highest level in years after a series of inflammatory incidents on the UN-controlled boundary between the two countries.

Seventeen years after the Iran-backed movement’s last devastating war with Israel, Hezbollah appears to be trying new tactics in the volatile border region to test Israel’s resolve. Such brinkmanship is not unknown, but the increasing frequency of the border skirmishes is raising the likelihood of miscalculation – and escalation.

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Moroccan man jailed for five years for criticising king in Facebook posts

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Court’s sentence over posts denouncing country’s ties with Israel is ‘harsh and incomprehensible’, says lawyer

A Moroccan internet user has been sentenced to five years’ jail for criticising the king on Facebook over the country’s normalisation of ties with Israel, his lawyer has said.

Said Boukioud, 48, was jailed on Monday for posts denouncing the normalisation “in a way that could be interpreted as criticism of the king”, lawyer El Hassan Essouni said on Wednesday, adding that he had appealed.

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Women’s health at risk from UK aid cuts, Foreign Office warned

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Thousands more women will be forced into unsafe abortions and die in pregnancy and childbirth, ministers told

Hundreds of thousands more women will face unsafe abortions and thousands will die in pregnancy and childbirth as a result of UK aid cuts in 2023-24, Foreign Office ministers were warned in an internal assessment.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) published its programme allocations for the next two years last month, showing that official development assistance (ODA) spend is due to rise marginally in 2023-24 and then increase by 12% in 2024-25 to £8.3bn.

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Australian teenager Yusuf Zahab ‘alive’ in Syrian prison months after reports he was killed in IS strike

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Family ‘overwhelmed with joy’ after video emerges of teenager, believed to be Zahab, looking healthy and speaking into a camera

An Australian teenager believed killed in an Islamic State airstrike in Syria more than a year ago is believed to have been found alive. His family say they are “overwhelmed with joy”.

Yusuf Zahab was just 11 when he was taken into Syria by his family nearly a decade ago: his older brothers were IS fighters and recruiters.

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Leak reveals ‘touchy’ issues for UAE’s presidency of UN climate summit

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Exclusive: Long list of ‘sensitive’ topics for petrostate include oil and gas production, emissions and Yemen war crimes

A comprehensive list of “touchy and sensitive issues” for the United Arab Emirates, which is running the next UN climate summit, has been revealed in a document leaked to the Guardian.

The document sets out the government-approved “strategic messages” to be used in response to media requests about the issues, which range from the UAE’s increasing production of oil and gas to people trafficking.

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Top US adviser to attend Saudi talks in bid to attract support for Ukraine plan

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Ukraine and allies seek to draw countries such as Brazil and India off the fence and back Kyiv’s proposals for ‘just and durable peace’

Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, is expected to attend a meeting in Saudi Arabia this weekend at which Ukraine and its allies will try to persuade countries from the global south to back Kyiv’s proposals for ending the war.

According to officials involved in planning for the meeting, it is primarily aimed at drawing neutral countries such as Brazil and India off the fence in their approach to the Russian invasion.

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UN complaint lodged over Turkish airstrikes on hospital in Iraq

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Exclusive: Survivors and witnesses bring case to human rights council over 2021 attack killing eight people

Turkish airstrikes that allegedly targeted a civilian hospital and killed eight people in Iraq have been made the subject of a formal complaint to the UN human rights council.

It is the first case to be brought on the issue of Turkish airstrikes against the Yazidi people. The attack on 17 August 2021 destroyed the Sikeniye medical clinic in Sinjar and left more than 20 people injured.

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Six dead as fighting breaks out at Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon

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At least seven injured after violence between Fatah and Islamists in Ain al-Hilweh camp

At least six people have been killed after fighting broke out in Lebanon’s largest Palestinian refugee camp near the southern port city of Sidon, Palestinian officials said on Sunday.

UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, put the death toll at six, and Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said two children were among seven people wounded at the Ain al-Hilweh camp.

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‘We’re angry’: Israel tensions mount as army reservists threaten to refuse duty

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Conflict over Netanyahu’s plans to overhaul judiciary is leading to new levels of civil disobedience – and potential security risks

Over his many years of service, Zur Allon, 46, a reservist lieutenant colonel in Israel’s artillery special forces, never imagined a day when he would refuse to report for duty.

“Half of my company was blown up in Lebanon. I have given many years of my life defending this country,” said Allon, one of the leaders of Brothers and Sisters in Arms, a pressure group of more than 60,000 Israel Defence Forces (IDF) reservists established earlier this year in protest against the government’s proposed overhaul of the judiciary.

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Egypt calls on Vladimir Putin to revive Black Sea grain deal

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Abdel Fatah al-Sisi tells summit it is ‘essential’ to revive deal, as Kenya calls Moscow’s exit ‘a stab in the back’

Egypt’s leader, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, has urged Vladimir Putin to return to the Black Sea grain deal during a Russia-Africa summit in St Petersburg marked by concerns about the global economic fallout from the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.

In a speech during a plenary session of African delegations attended by the Russian president, al-Sisi said it was “essential to reach agreement” on reviving the deal, which had allowed 33m tons of Ukrainian grain to reach markets, many in developing countries in Africa.

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US-Saudi talks amid reports of far-reaching diplomatic plan for Middle East

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But Jeddah’s demands for brokering an Israeli-Palestinian respite are reportedly a ‘non-starter’ and a ‘sucker’s bet’

The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, has held talks with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, in Jeddah, in what was reported to be part of a bid for an ambitious and far-reaching diplomatic breakthrough in the region.

The White House said Sullivan and the prince discussed on Thursday “initiatives to advance a common vision for a more peaceful, secure, prosperous and stable Middle East region interconnected with the world”.

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Revealed: Saudi Arabia’s $6bn spend on ‘sportswashing’

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Exclusive: Billions deployed since early 2021 in a move critics say is an attempt to distract from human rights record

Saudi Arabia has spent at least $6.3bn (£4.9bn) in sports deals since early 2021, more than quadruple the previous amount spent over a six-year period, in what critics have labelled an effort to distract from its human rights record.

Saudi Arabia has deployed billions from its Public Investment Fund over the last two-and-a-half years according to analysis by the Guardian, spending on sports at a scale that has completely changed professional golf and transformed the international transfer market for football.

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Fight for Israel’s future in balance after a win for Netanyahu coalition

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A constitutional crisis is brewing, more protests are expected and PM looks weak despite victory

One of the most extraordinary moments of Monday, a fateful day in Israeli history, came just before the first part of the governing coalition’s contentious judicial overhaul was voted into law. Benjamin Netanyahu was sitting in the plenum of the Knesset building in Jerusalem sandwiched between his justice minister, Yariv Levin, the architect of the wide-ranging legislation, and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, its most vocal critic on the government’s benches.

The two fellow Likud members argued bitterly over Netanyahu’s head as the longtime prime minister, never usually one to shy away from a fight, sat quietly between them. He may as well have not been there.

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At least 18 die in attack in Sudanese city of Omdurman

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Dozens also injured as army shells three neighbourhoods in city close to capital, Khartoum

At least 18 people have been killed in the Sudanese city of Omdurman as the war between the national army chief and his former deputy continues.

Dozens of people were also injured when the army shelled three neighbourhoods in the city, which lies next to the capital, Khartoum, residents said.

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