Brian Eno, Ahdaf Soueif and Miriam Margolyes sign open letter about exhibition opening shortly before Cop27
Campaigners including the musician Brian Eno, the author Ahdaf Soueif and the actor Miriam Margolyes have criticised BP’s sponsorship of an exhibition of Egyptian artefacts at the British Museum.
The exhibition opens shortly before the critical Cop27 climate summit in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheikh this November.
Continue reading...Reports of indiscriminate violence come as UK ambassador summoned by Tehran over sanctions
Rights groups have sounded the alarm over an intensifying crackdown by Iranian security forces against protesters in the western province of Kurdistan, as Tehran summoned the British ambassador in response to UK sanctions against the morality police.
Security forces in the provincial capital, Sanandaj, have used firearms and fired teargas “indiscriminately”, including into people’s homes, Amnesty International reported.
Continue reading...Israeli PM hails agreement that would mark significant compromise and may open way for energy exploration
Israel and Lebanon have reportedly agreed a deal in a dispute over gas fields and the two countries’ maritime border, a groundbreaking diplomatic achievement that could boost natural gas production in the Mediterranean before the European winter begins.
Yair Lapid, Israel’s prime minister, said on Tuesday that months of US-brokered negotiations had resulted in a “historic agreement” between the two nations, which have technically been at war since Israel’s creation in 1948. The deal would “strengthen Israel’s security, inject billions into Israel’s economy, and ensure the stability of our northern border”, he added.
Continue reading...Urgent aid response needed as climate crisis, Covid, local conflicts and soaring fuel prices push millions more into hunger
• ‘We need urgent help’: Somalis displaced by drought and famine fight to survive
Decades of work to reduce hunger in Africa are being reversed as the continent struggles to cope with conflict, climate crisis and the global economic downturn, the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has warned.
About 278 million people in Africa – approximately one-fifth of the total population – went hungry in 2021, an increase of 50 million people since 2019, according to UN figures. Based on current trends, this is projected to rise to 310 million by 2030.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Meetings while in Saudi Arabia undisclosed due to ‘administrative oversight’, says business department
The chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, held undisclosed meetings with senior executives of Saudi Arabian firms when he was the business secretary, documents acquired by the Guardian show.
The meetings occurred in January, when Kwarteng visited the kingdom for a two-day trip under his previous ministerial role.
Continue reading...The Bahraini activist who is serving a life sentence in prison for his role in anti-government protests was chosen to share the PEN Pinter prize by Malorie Blackman
The academic, activist and blogger Abduljalil al-Singace from Bahrain has been named this year’s international writer of courage by Malorie Blackman. Al-Singace is serving a life sentence in prison for his role in Bahrain’s 2011 anti-government protests.
The award is part of the PEN Pinter prize, which goes to an author deemed to have fulfilled Harold Pinter’s aspiration to “define the real truth of our lives and our societies”. This year’s PEN Pinter winner was Blackman, the first children’s writer to be awarded the prize. She chose al-Singace as the international writer of courage, an award for an author who has been persecuted for speaking out about their beliefs, with whom she will share her prize.
Continue reading...Government officials struggle to end demonstrations sparked by death in police custody of Kurdish woman
Gunshots and explosions were heard in the Iranian Kurdish city of Sanandaj on Monday as the protests over the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini continued to unfold across the country and for first time spread to Iran’s crucial oil industry.
Government officials are struggling to end the protests led by young Iranians, especially women, previously regarded as uninterested by politics.
Continue reading...Omar Abdalmajeed As’ad was subjected to force by IDF soldiers at a West Bank checkpoint
Israel says it has reached a settlement with the family of a Palestinian-American man who died after soldiers used force to detain him, in a rare case of compensation for a Palestinian claim of wrongdoing by Israeli forces.
Omar Abdalmajeed As’ad, 78, was detained at a checkpoint in Jiljilya in the occupied West Bank in January and “apprehended after resisting a check”, according to an Israel Defence Forces (IDF) statement. He was handcuffed, gagged and blindfolded for between 20 minutes and an hour, and found by locals after the soldiers left.
Continue reading...Move comes in response to violent suppression of protests over death of Mahsa Amini in police custody
Britain has announced sanctions against Iran’s morality police in its entirety as well as its national chief and the head of its Tehran division in response to the violent suppression of protests since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody.
The morality police have been responsible for the street patrols forcing women to wear hijab and attend re-education classes on modesty and chastity. Amini was stopped by the morality police over her clothing while walking in a park in Tehran and taken into detention.
Continue reading...Britain is no longer the key humanitarian player and ‘great ally’ it once was, says envoy trying to get support for Somalia’s drought
The UK has lost its leadership role in the world and is letting down its allies, a senior official in the Somali government has said.
Abdirahman Abdishakur Warsame, the presidential envoy for Somalia’s drought response, said Britain used to be second only to the US as a key player in international forums and advocacy, but has since slipped, saying that countries such as Somalia were being left without support to face “the new climate reality”.
Continue reading...Janet Yellen’s comments come as figures show business activity declining across most UK regions
The world’s biggest oil-producing nations cutting production at a time of soaring energy costs is “unhelpful and unwise” for global economic growth, the US Treasury secretary has warned, amid intense pressure from sky-high inflation.
Ahead of meetings hosted by the International Monetary Fund in Washington this week, Janet Yellen said the move by Opec+ – the oil production cartel led by Saudi Arabia, plus Russia – risked undermining the world economy.
Continue reading...Authorities shut all schools in Iranian Kurdistan as protests continue in cities and state TV is interrupted by apparent hack
Iranian schoolchildren were being arrested inside school premises on Sunday by security forces arriving in vans without licence plates, according to social media reports emerging from the country as protests against the regime entered their fourth week.
The authorities also shut all schools and higher education institutions in Iranian Kurdistan on Sunday – a sign that the state remains concerned about dissent after weeks of protests over the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman.
Continue reading...Brian Glendinning’s case highlights peril for football fans travelling to the Gulf nation this year, experts warn
A British engineer is in jail in Iraq and facing extradition to Qatar over missed repayments on a small bank loan, in a case said to highlight the perils facing those travelling to the Gulf state for the World Cup.
Brian Glendinning, 43, who had been contracted to work on a BP refinery in Iraq, was arrested on an Interpol “red notice” at Baghdad airport on 12 September and has been in a police cell since awaiting an extradition hearing.
Continue reading...‘What I have lived, the youth is living now,’ says Marjane Satrapi, whose graphic novel depicted girl’s life in 1979 Islamic revolution
The creator of Persepolis, the acclaimed graphic novel depicting the childhood of an Iranian girl during and after the 1979 Islamic revolution that was made into an Oscar-nominated movie, has said today’s protesters are “beautiful and inspiring”.
History was repeating itself in the protests sweeping across the country, Marjane Satrapi told the Guardian. “What I have lived, the youth is living now. My hope is that the situation will go towards something beautiful that is called freedom and democracy.
Persepolis book art will be auctioned on 19-25 October as part of Sotheby’s online 20th century art/Middle East sale. The works will be exhibited in Sotheby’s London galleries from 21 October
Continue reading...Tehran authorities ‘shaken to core’ as demonstrations grow and death toll mounts
The mother of a 16-year-old Iranian girl, Nika Shakarami, who died during protests that continue to sweep the country, has rejected official claims that her death was caused by falling from a building and insisted she was beaten to death by regime forces.
Nasreen Shakarami said authorities refused to notify the family about her daughter’s death for 10 days and then removed Nika from the morgue, burying her in a remote village without the family’s consent. Her mother says records of Nika’s death show her skull was severely damaged and her injuries were consistent with being struck repeatedly on her head.
Continue reading...The bravery of the women’s rights fight in Tehran and beyond is a cause for hope – and a call to action
It was in the strange days between the Queen’s death and her funeral that the bad news from Iran broke through the blanket coverage of the state mourning rituals. The news that pierced this was the report that a young woman had died in the custody of Iran’s morality police.
Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, had been taken into custody because of “bad hijab”. She was visiting relatives in Tehran with her brother when the morality police challenged her about a few strands of hair that were showing from her standard hijab. According to her brother, she was in custody for just two hours before collapsing and being taken to hospital, where she lay in a coma before dying on 16 September. The authorities claimed that she had a heart attack from a pre-existing condition. Her family deny this, and state that her head and body were covered in bruises and signs of being beaten.
Continue reading...Archbishop of Canterbury joins others worried about impact Tel Aviv switch could have on Palestinian peace talks
The archbishop of Canterbury has expressed concern about the potential for the British embassy to be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The UK prime minister, Liz Truss, told her Israeli counterpart Yair Lapid at the United Nations summit in New York last month that she was considering the relocation.
Continue reading...The uprising over the death of Masha Amini is like no other, but whether it leads to revolution remains to be seen
The Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, was holding court to a small group of journalists at the Millennium Hilton in New York on his first visit to the United States since his election in June 2021. At home, protests over the death in police custody of Masha Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, were entering their sixth day.
At the start of the meeting, a 10-minute film was shown, part patriotic travel brochure and part paen to how the Iranian people “live peacefully together in a new model of democracy”. Given the events in Iran, it seemed like the kind of absurd propaganda only a severely self-deluded regime would screen.
Continue reading...Allegations that 16-year-old Sarina Esmailzadeh was beaten to death at a protest follow news of the similar death of 17-year-old Nika Shakarami
Reports are emerging of the death of another teenage girl at the hands of security forces in Iran, as protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini looked set to enter their third week.
Sarina Esmailzadeh, a 16-year-old who posted popular vlogs on YouTube, was killed when the security forces beat her with batons at a protest in Gohardasht in Alborz province on 23 September, according to Amnesty International.
Continue reading...Munib al-Masri has 300-page dossier of allegations including killings and torture between 1917 and 1948
A Palestinian businessman and former politician is to petition the UK government for an apology for abuses in the region during the period of British rule in the first half of the 20th century.
Munib al-Masri, 88, a close friend and supporter of the late Palestinian political leader Yasser Arafat, has with two international lawyers drawn up a 300-page dossier of evidence alleging abuses by the British between 1917 and 1948, the BBC reported.
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