Category Archives: Middle East and North Africa

Putin endorsed by Iran for invasion of Ukraine but clashes with Turkey at summit

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Tehran meeting saw discord over Erdoğan’s plan to intervene in Syria but ‘progress’ on shipping Ukrainian grain

Vladimir Putin ended his first major summit outside Russia since the invasion of Ukraine with an endorsement from Iran for its response to Nato, a clash with Turkey over Syria and signs of progress over the lifting of the Russian blockade of Ukrainian grain.

The White House said the Tehran summit held between Putin, the Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, and the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, showed how isolated the Russian leader had become – which was not an observation shared by Moscow, who claimed it showed Russia remained respected in the Middle East.

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Question of what now for Syria remains as vexed as ever

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Analysis: while diplomatic efforts continue over Ukraine, Syria risks becoming entrenched as the conflict that was

Before Ukraine there was Syria, a war so vicious and consuming that it was once considered to be the most consequential conflict of the last 50 years.

With more than half a million killed when the counting stopped seven years ago, nearly two-thirds of the country’s prewar population displaced or in exile, and its economy and social fabric in ruins, Syria is a shattered husk, its spoils eagerly eyed by the three leaders who gathered in Tehran on Tuesday.

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Jafar Panahi sentenced to six years in jail

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The Iranian director was arrested last week for criticising the government after enquiring about the earlier arrest of fellow film-maker Mohammad Rasoulof

The director Jafar Panahi has been sentenced to six years’ imprisonment by the Iranian judiciary, who are seeking to enforce a previously handed-down sentence.

Panahi, who has won the top prizes at the Venice and Berlin film festivals, and is the director of films including The Circle, The White Balloon, Crimson Gold, Taxi and This Is Not a Film, is one of three film-makers arrested in Tehran in less than a week.

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Jackie Chan-produced action movie films in devastated Syrian city

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The decision to produce a film glorifying China’s Communist party in a town destroyed by civil war has been described as ‘appallingly bad taste’

A Chinese action film executive-produced by Jackie Chan has triggered outrage after shooting scenes in al-Hajar al-Aswad, a Syrian town destroyed in the civil war.

Home Operation, directed by Song Yinxi, is inspired by China’s evacuation of hundreds of its nationals from Yemen in 2015 during the civil conflict there, and is the first joint venture between Chinese and Emirati producers. AFP reported that Song said the film was intended to glorify the Chinese Communist party (CCP): “It takes the perspective of diplomats who are Communist party members, who braved a hail of bullets in a war-torn country and safely brought all Chinese compatriots on to the country’s warship unscathed.”

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Kosher phone dispute grips ultra-Orthodox Tel Aviv suburb

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An opaque council controls smartphone access for Israel’s Haredim population, but many are making forays online anyway

Tel Aviv’s booming science and technology industry, bolstered by graduates of elite army intelligence units, has earned Israel the nickname “start-up nation”.

Yet in Bnei Brak, an ultra-Orthodox suburb just a few miles east of Tel Aviv’s skyscrapers, a vicious fight is being waged over whether smartphones are compatible with traditional Jewish law, and who should have the power to decide on internet access.

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Pro-Israel hardliners spend millions to transform Democratic primaries

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Critics say Aipac and its allies are seeking to influence Democratic politics with money from Republican billionaires

Pro-Israel lobby groups have poured millions of dollars into a Democratic primary for a Maryland congressional seat on Tuesday, in the latest attempt to block an establishment candidate who expressed support for the Palestinians.

A surge in political spending by organisations funded by hardline supporters of Israel, led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), has reshaped Democratic primaries over recent months even though debate about the country rarely figures as a major issue in the elections.

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Blair urged Kuwait to buy UK artillery as Gulf war payback, papers show

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Notes from late 1990s show UK government believed it was due contract in recognition of defence of Kuwait

Tony Blair urged Kuwait to buy the UK’s latest artillery as payback for supporting the country during the Gulf war, newly released papers reveal.

Blair lobbied Crown Prince Sheikh Sa’ad between 1998 and 1999, including calling in on him during a brief stopover on a flight home from South Africa.

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White House seeks to delay decision on Prince Mohammed immunity over Khashoggi murder

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Request comes after Biden returns from Saudi trip in which he claims to have raised journalist’s murder with crown prince

The Biden administration asked a US judge for a 60-day extension before it formally weighed in on whether Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, ought to be granted sovereign immunity in a case involving the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

The Department of Justice said in a filing before a US district court that it had initiated a “decision-making process” about whether it would file a statement of interest in the case but that it would not be able to comply with the court’s requested deadline of 1 August.

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Libyan PM makes alliance with ex-enemy to cement ceasefire

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Prospect of Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh and Khalifa Haftar burying differences may be welcomed by UN

Libya’s prime minister, Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh, has made an unexpected alliance with his former enemy, the eastern warlord Khalifa Haftar, in a bid to cement a fragile ceasefire and end a months-long oil blockade.

Less than three years ago, Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) besieged Tripoli in a failed attempt to capture the capital. On Monday, in a highly symbolic gesture, LNA’s chief of staff, Abdulrazek al-Nadoori, was invited to visit the city for talks.

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Sudan: scores of people killed in tribal clashes in Blue Nile state

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Fighting between the Hausa and Birta ethnic groups broke out last week over the killing of a farmer

The death toll from days of tribal clashes in the southern Sudanese state of Blue Nile has climbed to at least 65 people, according to a senior health official.

Around 150 people have been injured in the fighting between the Hausa and Birta ethnic groups, the state’s health minister, Gamal Nasser al-Sayed, said.

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UAE sentences ex-lawyer of Jamal Khashoggi to three years in prison

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US citizen Asim Ghafoor detained in Dubai and convicted two days later of money laundering and tax evasion

The United Arab Emirates has sentenced the former lawyer of Jamal Khashoggi – the dissident Saudi journalist who was killed at Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul in 2018 – to three years in prison on charges of money laundering and tax evasion.

The Abu Dhabi money laundering court also ordered Asim Ghafoor, a US citizen, to pay a fine of more than $800,000 (£675,000) stemming from his in absentia conviction, the UAE’s state-run WAM news agency reported.

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Australian government wrongly cancelled citizenship of man on death row in Iraq, family claim

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Ahmad Merhi, who travelled from Sydney to Syria and is accused of joining Islamic State, says he is now stateless as he awaits hanging

The former Coalition government wrongly cancelled the citizenship of an Australian man on death row in Iraq, leaving him stateless as he awaited hanging on terrorism charges, his family and lawyers claim.

Ahmad Merhi, originally from Sydney, travelled to Syria in 2014. He was captured in the country in 2017.

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Oil trumps human rights as Biden forced to compromise in Middle East

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US president’s attempts to ostracise Saudi crown prince were foiled by a fist bump

For all the careful choreography of Joe Biden’s Middle East tour, the White House made a major miscalculation when the president finally came face to face with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, for the first time.

Before Air Force One left Washington, the administration said that Biden would be avoiding physical contact and not shaking hands owing to a rise in Covid cases, a move widely believed to allow him to avoid creating an uncomfortable photo op with the powerful heir to the throne.

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Fist bumps as Joe Biden arrives to reset ties with ‘pariah’ Saudi Arabia

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Oil markets top of the agenda for US president who receives subdued welcome three years after Jamal Khashoggi comments

Three years after Joe Biden vowed to make Saudi Arabia a pariah state over the assassination of a prominent dissident, the US president greeted Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with a fist bump as his administration attempts to reset relations and stabilise global oil markets.

Donald Trump was personally welcomed to the conservative Gulf kingdom on his first presidential visit by King Salman. Biden, however, was met on the tarmac on Friday evening by the governor of Mecca and the Saudi ambassador to the US in a subdued ceremony. He then travelled to the city’s al-Salam palace, where he held talks with the 86-year-old king and his powerful heir, Prince Mohammed, before a working meeting.

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Joe Biden lands in Saudi Arabia seeking to halt shift towards Russia and China

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Analysis: US president aiming to convince Jeddah to increase oil supply in order to calm global energy markets

Joe Biden landed in the Saudi Arabian port city of Jeddah to a tepid welcome from the Saudi crown prince whose country he once pledged to make a “pariah” on the world stage.

While Saudi Arabia announced it would open its airspace to flights from Israel, making Biden the first US president to fly directly from Tel Aviv to the kingdom, expectations of further gains during his visit remained low. The US national security adviser Jake Sullivan told journalists onboard Air Force One not to expect any bilateral announcements in response to American demands that Saudi Arabia pump more oil to calm global energy markets after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

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‘MBS crushed civil society’: Saudi exiles speak out as Biden meets crown prince

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Trio of dissidents in US condemn president’s trip to Saudi Arabia and accuse him of ‘normalising’ murderous regime

Khalid Aljabri, Lina al-Hathloul, and Abdullah Alaoudh grew up within a few blocks of each other in their Al-Falah neighborhood in Riyadh, but never knew each other.

On Friday, as Joseph Biden touched down in Jeddah, in their native Saudi Arabia, the three exiles met for the first time for a Middle Eastern breakfast in Arlington, Virginia, in the outskirts of Washington.

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Joe Biden greeted by protests during brief visit to Palestine

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US president promises $300m in aid amid anger in Bethlehem and East Jerusalem at sidelining of quest for Palestinian state

Joe Biden was greeted by small groups of protesters and billboards decrying the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories as apartheid during his brief visits to East Jerusalem and Bethlehem, signs of disappointment at the sidelining of the Palestinian quest for statehood during the president’s tour of the Middle East.

The president visited Augusta Victoria hospital in East Jerusalem on Friday morning, where he promised $300m (£250m) in assistance for the Palestinians, before travelling in a convoy to Bethlehem to meet the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, and visit the Church of the Nativity.

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UN urged to move Cop27 from Egypt over ‘LGBTQ+ torture’

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US adviser to the White House and partner call on UN to move climate crisis summit over fears they would be targeted

A White House adviser and his partner have called on the United Nations to move a key climate change summit from Egypt due to the country’s treatment of LGBTQ people, citing fears that they and other activists would be targeted by security forces if they attend the talks.

The couple, Jerome Foster and Elijah Mckenzie-Jackson, have written to Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), to condemn the choice of Egypt as host of the Cop27 talks due to its “LGBTQ+ torture, woman slaughter and civil rights suppression” and that the decision “places our life in danger in the process of advocating for the life of our planet”.

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Aston Martin raises £650m as Saudi Arabia takes a stake

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Executive chairman ‘very comfortable’ with investment to help British manufacturer pay down large debts

Aston Martin Lagonda has received a large investment from Saudi Arabia as part of raising £650m of capital to pay down the luxury sportscar maker’s large debts.

The British manufacturer has not been able to generate the cash needed to invest in new models and electric technology, and has also struggled with delays to its Valkyrie hypercar and its newest DBX 707 sports utility vehicle.

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Joe Biden defends human rights record ahead of Saudi visit

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President says he will not avoid rights issues but skirts commitment to discuss Khashoggi murder

Joe Biden has defended his imminent trip to Saudi Arabia, saying he will not avoid human rights issues on the final leg of his Middle East tour, despite refusing to commit to mentioning the murder of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi when he meets the kingdom’s crown prince.

Speaking during a news conference with the interim Israeli prime minister, Yair Lapid, in Jerusalem on Thursday, the US leader said his stance on Khashoggi’s killing was “absolutely” clear.

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