Death toll of 47,000 expected to rise and WHO says 26 million people need assistance across both countries
The figures are unfathomable: 47,000 people dead, thousands of others missing, millions homeless. In minutes, two massive earthquakes that rocked Turkey and Syria turned entire cities into mounds of rubble. Two weeks later, the scale of the devastation is still being unearthed. The true impact will not be fully understood for decades.
Continue reading...The Gulf state bank’s offer to buy the English Premier League team has been criticised by humanitarian organisations, LGBTQ+ fan clubs and advocacy groups for football governance
A Qatar-led bid to take over Manchester United should not be entertained because of concerns about state influence and human rights abuses in the country, rights groups say.
Fears about an offer to buy the club have been raised by Amnesty International’s Manchester branch, which said it had been contacted by fans who were very worried by the news.
Continue reading...Foragers in central region targeted by Islamist group, says UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
At least 53 people were killed on Friday in an attack east of Homs in central Syria that was blamed on Islamic State, state media reported.
“Fifty-three citizens who were truffle hunting were killed during an attack by the terrorists of IS to the south-west of the town of Al-Sukhna,” state television said.
Continue reading...Ten public figures arrested since Saturday as President Kais Saied pursues what Amnesty calls a repression of dissent
Rights groups have expressed grave alarm at a crackdown on opposition figures and the media in Tunisia, where 10 public figures have been arrested since Saturday as President Kais Saied seemingly moves to stamp out dissent.
“We’re witnessing the increasing repression of dissent in Tunisia,” said Amna Guellali, Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and north Africa. “Saied is using all the resources of the state to signal his absolutist agenda. Anyone who opposes him, either politically or in the media, is at risk in this witch-hunt,” said Guellali, who is based in Tunisia’s capital, Tunis.
Continue reading...Online videos from Tehran and other centres appear to show demonstrations including anti-government chants as execution of protesters commemorated
Protesters in Iran have marched through the streets of multiple cities in the most widespread demonstrations in weeks, online videos purported to show on Friday.
The demonstrations overnight on Thursday marked 40 days since Iran executed two men on charges related to protests that began last year and went on to grip the Islamic Republic for month.
Continue reading...Ten days after disaster, grief is being subsumed by anger over lax building standards
Bodies continued to be retrieved from rubble across southern Turkey on Thursday as the death toll from the earthquake neared 42,000 and anger mounted among survivors, who said lax building standards were as much to blame as the tremor itself.
A lone survivor, a 17-year-old girl, was pulled from ruins in the nearly destroyed city of Antakya, in a moment of relief for rescuers. But the almost miraculous rescue was dwarfed by an ongoing recovery operation that shows little sign of slowing down.
Continue reading...New law is aimed at Israeli citizens who have received financial aid from the Palestinian Authority
Israel has passed legislation allowing the state to strip Arabs convicted of terror offences of citizenship or residency and deport them to the West Bank or Gaza Strip if they have accepted financial aid from the Palestinian Authority.
The new law, which the Knesset voted for on Wednesday, is designed to discourage what Israel calls “pay for slay” stipends, which Palestinians view as assistance for the families of those imprisoned. Israel says the longstanding practice serves as an incentive to violence.
Continue reading...Survivors in Jindires feel forgotten by the world, and have particular scorn for UN’s dealings with Assad
Ruqaya Mohammed Mustafa stood next to her few remaining neighbours and the heaped piles they once called home and wearily welcomed the first visitors she had seen since the earthquake last week.
All this time, she and the people of Jindires, in northern Syria, had been begging for help. First to dig survivors from the rubble, then to provide shelter and food in the cruel grip of winter.
Continue reading...The survivors, including two teenagers, saved as rescue teams look to next phase of aid
Seven more people have been rescued eight days after a massive earthquake hit Turkey and Syria, but hopes of finding further survivors of what the World Health Organization called the worst natural disaster in 100 years in its 53-country Europe region are dwindling.
As a UN aid convoy entered stricken north-west Syria through a new crossing, the combined death toll rose to nearly 38,000, including 31,974 in Turkey and at least 5,714 in rebel-held and government-controlled Syria – a figure that is expected to continue to increase.
Continue reading...Climate groups have accused head of national oil company, Sultan Al Jaber, of conflict of interest
The United Arab Emirates, the oil-rich Gulf nation that is hosting the next UN climate summit, is “running towards” a renewable energy future, the president of the summit has said.
“The UAE has always made progress by getting ahead of the future,” said Sultan Al Jaber, who will oversee the Cop28 conference beginning this November, at an international meeting in Dubai on Tuesday. “We believe that gamechanging solutions can be achieved if the collective political will is there. It certainly is from the UAE. We in the UAE are not shying away from the energy transition. We are running towards it.”
Continue reading...Officials share declassified intelligence as US seeks wider support for sanctions against Tehran
Iran is emerging as a global leader in the production of cheap and lethal drones, according to US officials, who say Tehran is using the war in Ukraine as a shop window for its technologies.
Analysts at the Defense Intelligence Agency outlined how Iran had turned from being a regional drone player in the Middle East to becoming Moscow’s most significant military backer in the war.
Continue reading...Five-year-old Jinan now in hospital with serious leg injury; her brother had only scratches while the rest of their family died
Omar Rahal heard a voice coming from the rubble, so faint that he struggled to understand if it might only be in his head. The previous night, two earthquakes of magnitude 7.8 and 7.6 had levelled his village, Harem, in the rebel-held province of Idlib in Syria, flattening dozens of buildings including the block of flats where his cousin Mahmoud lived with his wife and their seven children.
A few hours later, Rahal, the local police chief, rushed into the rubble of the house in the hope of finding Mahmoud and his family alive. All morning he heard no signs of life, but at 12.30pm his ears picked up five words spoken by what sounded like a little girl: “Get me out of here.”
Continue reading...First relief housing units arrive in Hatay province, Amazon sends food and blankets and Allianz donates €6m
The Ikea Foundation has sent 5,000 flatpack shelters to southern Turkey and northern Syria to house people left homeless by the earthquake last week, as companies around the world pledge help.
The Swedish homeware multinational’s philanthropy arm said on Tuesday it had donated €10m (£8.8m) to the NGO Better Shelter, with which it developed the robust, award-winning 17.5 sq metre shelters that fit in two boxes and can be assembled without tools.
Continue reading...The verdict, the first of its kind in almost a decade, has shocked many who fear country is sliding back into state extremism
Three Sudanese men have been sentenced to hand amputation for stealing, the first time in almost a decade that such a punishment has been handed down in the country’s courts.
The three men in their 20s were convicted of stealing gas cylinders in Omdurman, Sudan’s most populous city, which sits across the Nile River from the capital, Khartoum.
Continue reading...Home affairs minister reveals incident included monitoring an individual’s home and extensively researching their family
Australian security agencies have disrupted a foreign interference plot by Iran that was targeting an Iranian-Australian on Australian soil, the government has said.
The plot allegedly included individuals monitoring the home of a critic of the Iranian regime and extensively researching the person and their family.
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Continue reading...UN announces regime leader’s acceptance of border crossing points for humanitarian aid to reach rebel-held province
The Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad, has agreed to open two border crossing points to allow in a greater volume of emergency aid for victims of the earthquake that has devastated parts of Turkey and Syria, and killed 36,000 people.
Assad’s decision was announced and welcomed by the UN secretary general, António Guterres, who said the two crossing points between Turkey and north-west Syria, at Bab al-Salam and Al Ra’ee, would be open “for an initial period of three months to allow for the timely delivery of humanitarian aid”.
Continue reading...North-west Syrian province was a place of last resort for people fleeing war – then came Covid, cholera and new catastrophe
“We were asleep when the earthquake struck – I thought it was an airstrike so I ran outside,” said Mohammed Hadi, weeping gently as he clutched his baby daughter. “I grabbed my wife and two of my children and took them with me. My wife was gripping my hand tightly as we ran. But then, once we got outside, she realised two of our daughters were still inside and ran back in to save them.”
He described seeing a flash of white, which cleared to reveal the rubble of what was once his new home. The collapse of the five-storey apartment block had claimed his three loved ones’ lives as Hadi watched.
Continue reading...Turkish rescue efforts wind down amid grief and anger while UN calls for aid access to north-west Syria
A diminishing number of survivors have been pulled from the catastrophic earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria as the death toll climbed to over 35,000 and UN aid officials pushed for more aid access to rebel-controlled north-west Syria, where only one crossing from Turkey was open.
Search and rescue teams began to wind down their work on Monday as hopes of finding anyone alive faded, but there were cheers in Turkish cities when people were freed after seven days under the rubble, including a young girl named Miray in Adıyaman and a 12-year-old boy named Kaan in southern Hatay province.
Continue reading...Tens of thousands gather for rally and workers in several sectors strike over rightwing government’s proposals
Israel’s new hard-right government has begun introducing sweeping legislation aimed at overhauling the judicial system, prompting the largest public demonstrations against the proposed measures to date.
In a heated meeting in which several opposition politicians had to be forcibly removed, the Knesset’s constitution, law and justice committee voted on two bills on Monday: one will give politicians greater control over the appointment of supreme court justices, and the other will allow a simple majority in the Knesset to override almost all supreme court rulings.
Continue reading...Former al-Nusra Front chief keen to show scale of crisis in Idlib province and play down past links to al-Qaida
A Syrian rebel leader with a $10m (£8.3m) US government bounty on his head has appealed for urgent international aid to help the north-west province of Idlib after the earthquakes that have killed thousands and brought the last opposition-controlled area to its knees.
“The United Nations needs to understand that it’s required to help in a crisis,” said Ahmed Hussein al-Shara, better known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, amid a humanitarian crisis that had already reached critical levels in Idlib before the twin earthquakes last week.
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