Crowd of more than 500 enter border control area after cutting fence in attempt to cross from Morocco
The death toll from the mass attempt to cross from Morocco into Spain’s enclave of Melilla has risen to 23, according to Moroccan state TV.
About 2,000 people approached Melilla at dawn on Friday and more than 500 managed to enter a border control area after cutting a fence with shears, the Spanish government’s local delegation said in a statement.
Continue reading...Review finds Al Jazeera journalist was not hit by firing from Palestinians, as was initially claimed by Israel
The UN has said its investigations have found that the shot that killed Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh on 11 May was fired by Israeli forces.
The Palestinian-American journalist, who was wearing a vest and helmet marked “press”, was killed while covering an Israeli army operation in Jenin, in the northern West Bank.
Continue reading...Risk of significant tsunami within next 30 years is nearly 100%, Unesco says, as it urges coastal cities to become ‘tsunami-ready’
A tsunami could soon hit major cities on or near the Mediterranean Sea including Marseille, Alexandria and Istanbul, with a nearly 100% chance of a wave reaching more than a metre high in the next 30 years, according to Unesco.
The risk of a tsunami in Mediterranean coastal communities is predicted to soar as sea levels rise. While communities in the Pacific and Indian Ocean, where most tsunamis occur, were often aware of the dangers, it was underestimated in other coastal regions, including the Mediterranean, Unesco said.
Continue reading...Remains thought to be more than 1,200 years old shed light on region’s transition from Christianity to Islam, say officials
Israeli archaeologists have unveiled a rare ancient mosque in the country’s south that antiquities officials said shed light on the region’s transition from Christianity to Islam.
The remains of the mosque, believed to be more than 1,200 years old, were discovered during works to build a new neighbourhood in the Bedouin city of Rahat, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said in a statement.
Continue reading...Children starving to death ‘before our eyes’ say aid workers as G7 leaders warned only ‘massive’ and urgent funding will avert famine
Only a “massive” and immediate scaling-up of funds and humanitarian relief can save Somalia from famine, a UN spokesperson has warned, as aid workers report children starving to death “before our eyes” amid rapidly escalating levels of malnutrition.
In a message to G7 leaders who are meeting from Sunday in Germany, Michael Dunford, the World Food Programme’s (WFP) regional director for east Africa, said governments had to donate urgently and generously if there was to be any hope of avoiding catastrophe in the Horn of Africa country.
Continue reading...Yazidi Justice Committee has been working privately for more than two years to show states failed to protect minority group
A group of high-level British lawyers have been working privately on compiling evidence to show that one or more countries failed in their international obligations to prevent genocide against the Yazidis in northern Iraq.
The lawyers, who formally announced their collaboration as the Yazidi Justice Committee (YJC) on Tuesday, have been working over the past two and a half years to investigate the genocide committed from early 2013 by Islamic State.
Continue reading...Brahim Saadoun’s sister Iman says marine sentenced to death by Russian proxies has been abandoned by his own government
The sister of Brahim Saadoun, the Moroccan man who was captured while serving in the Ukrainian military, has said she feared he has been abandoned by his own government and has called on the international community to “claim my brother”.
“I just want any authority, anybody who is willing to help, to come and help,” Iman Saadoun said in an interview with the Guardian, describing being left in limbo while seeking government support for him.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Personnel risk identification by running GPS ‘segments’ around top-secret sites
Unidentified operatives have been using the fitness tracking app Strava to spy on members of the Israeli military, tracking their movements across secret bases around the country and potentially observing them as they travel the world on official business.
By placing fake running “segments” inside military bases, the operation – the affiliation of which has not been uncovered – was able to keep tabs on individuals who were exercising on the bases, even those who have applied the strongest possible account privacy settings.
Continue reading...Country faces fifth vote in three years after Naftali Bennett’s unruly anti-Netanyahu grouping gradually fell apart
Israel’s weakened coalition government has announced that it intends to dissolve the Knesset, setting the stage for the country’s fifth election in three years and a potential return to office for longtime prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
A statement released by the office of the prime minister, Naftali Bennett, on Monday night said that “attempts to stabilise the coalition had been exhausted” and his fractious government, made up of eight ideologically disparate parties, will submit a bill next week to dissolve parliament.
Continue reading...Items include armour, banners, and two skulls taken from Omdurman battlefield
Museum officials in Sudan are hoping for the return of priceless artefacts and body parts taken by British soldiers, colonial administrators and travellers, saying they could help bring peace to the unstable east African country.
The items include valuable armour, weapons and clothing, and the banners of fighters who resisted the British force that invaded and colonised Sudan 124 years ago.
Continue reading...There are 77 Israeli farms and shepherding outposts across the West Bank, part of an explosion in settlement growth in recent years
On stretches of Route 90, the Israeli-built road running down the length of the Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank, the west side of the highway is full of straw-like grass despite the summer heat. To the east of the road, what can be eaten by sheep and goats is gone.
The difference is the only perceptible sign of the biggest strategic shift in the battle for control of Area C, the 60% of the West Bank under full Israeli control, in recent years: the emergence of Israeli settlers using shepherding as a tool for seizing the most land, with the least effort.
Continue reading...Campaign disseminating disinformation sent thousands of tweets, often targeting the White Helmets
A network of more than two dozen conspiracy theorists, frequently backed by a coordinated Russian campaign, sent thousands of disinformation tweets to distort the reality of the Syrian conflict and deter intervention by the international community, new analysis reveals.
Data gathered by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) identified a network of social media accounts, individuals, outlets and organisations who disseminated disinformation about the conflict, with 1.8 million people following their every word. The three principal false narratives promoted by the network of conspiracy theorists involved misrepresenting the White Helmets, the volunteer organisation working to evacuate people in Syria. They also focused on the denial or distortion of facts about the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons and on attacking the findings of the world’s foremost chemical weapons watchdog.
Continue reading...UN working group rules that Ryan Cornelius has been held arbitrarily and subjected to rights violations
UN officials have called on the United Arab Emirates to immediately release a British businessman who has been detained in the country since 2008.
The UN’s working group on arbitrary detention has ruled that Ryan Cornelius has been held arbitrarily in the UAE since 2008 when he was arrested at Dubai airport. He has contracted tuberculosis while in detention.
Continue reading...Unprecedented food shortages could spark riots in dozens of countries as Black Sea blockade adds to pressures, says WFP chief
Dozens of countries risk protests, riots and political violence this year as food prices surge around the world, the head of the food-aid branch of the United Nations has warned.
Speaking in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, on Thursday, David Beasley, director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), said the world faced “frightening” shortages that could destabilise countries that depend on wheat exports from Ukraine and Russia.
Continue reading...Critics question value of US president’s visit, raising fears it will endanger dissidents and legitimise regime’s human rights stance
Rights advocates fear Joe Biden’s decision to visit Saudi Arabia will endanger dissidents abroad and be seen by the authorities there as giving the green light to restrict civil liberties domestically.
Abdullah Alaoudh, of the thinktank Democracy for the Arab World Now and son of jailed cleric Salman al-Odah, said: “Right before inauguration, he [Biden] said he will be sure to protect Saudi dissidents – those were his words. We’re not protected by someone shaking hands with the same person who is threatening us every day and taking our families hostage due to our activism here in the US.”
Continue reading...Russia expected to use security council veto to block resolution to keep open Bab al-Hawa border crossing into Idlib from Turkey
The last remaining UN humanitarian aid route into Syria looks set to be shut down in a vote at the body’s security council next month, another casualty of the collapse in relations between the west and Russia.
On 10 July the council is due to vote on whether to keep open the Bab al-Hawa crossing from Turkey, which helps service rebel-held Idlib.
Continue reading...President ‘made it clear that there won’t be any direct consequences’ for Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, says Khalid Aljabri
Joe Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia and meeting with its de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is “the equivalent of a presidential pardon for murder”, according to Khalid Aljabri, the son of the exiled former senior Saudi intelligence officer Saad Aljabri.
The US president once vowed to make Saudi Arabia “a pariah” after the death of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist whose 2018 murder was ordered, according to US intelligence. But this week the White House announced that Biden will meet the crown prince in Jeddah at the end of a four-day trip in July – a development described by Saudi human rights activists as a “betrayal”.
Continue reading...Government Accountability Office also criticizes Biden’s move to classify Saudi weapons as ‘offensive’ or ‘defensive’ as meaningless
The US government has not fully investigated its own role in perpetuating human rights abuses in Yemen, according to a congressional watchdog report that offered a damning assessment of both the Trump and Biden administrations’ commitment to tracking violations of humanitarian law.
A report by the Government Accountability Office, which examined US weapons sales to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, also raised serious doubts about one of Joe Biden’s first foreign policy as president, when he announced that his administration was ending US support for Saudi offensive operations in Yemen.
Continue reading...Pencil cases, skirts and hats among items targeted for ‘contradicting Islamic faith and public morals’
Saudi officials have been seizing rainbow-coloured toys and clothing from shops in the capital as part of a crackdown on homosexuality, state media has reported.
The kingdom opened to tourism in 2019 but, like other Gulf countries, it is frequently criticised for its human rights record, including its outlawing of homosexuality, a potential capital offence.
Continue reading...Deal – which would require approval from US and Israel – would give L3Harris control over controversial Pegasus tool
The US defence contractor L3Harris is in talks to take over NSO Group’s surveillance technology, in a possible deal that would give an American company control over one of the world’s most sophisticated and controversial hacking tools.
Multiple sources confirmed that discussions were centred on a sale of the Israeli company’s core technology – or code – as well as a possible transfer of NSO personnel to L3Harris. But any agreement still faces significant hurdles, including requiring the blessing of the US and Israeli governments, which have not yet given the green light to a deal.
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