European court of human rights rules family’s appeal over French hearing is ‘manifestly ill-founded’
The widow and daughter of the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat have lost an attempt to reopen an investigation into his death in 2004.
Suha El Kodwa Arafat and Zahwa El Kodwa Arafat, who are both French nationals, filed a criminal complaint to the European court of human rights that claimed Arafat had been the victim of premeditated murder.
Continue reading...Tehran’s insistence signals that issue is still a serious obstacle after three months of talks in Vienna
A US guarantee that it will never unilaterally leave the Iran nuclear deal again is vital to a successful conclusion of talks in Vienna on the terms of Washington’s return to the agreement, the Iranian ambassador to the UN, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, has said.
His comments are the clearest official signal yet that disagreements between the US and Iran on how such a guarantee might be constructed remain a serious obstacle. Donald Trump took the US out of the nuclear deal in 2018, only three years afterhis predecessor, Barack Obama, had signed it.
Continue reading...Many women have lost children, been separated from newborns or are unable to breastfeed and bond with their babies because of the war
In the last month of her pregnancy, May al-Masri was preparing dinner when a rocket landed outside her home in northern Gaza, killing her one-year-old son, Yasser.
Masri had felt the explosion’s shockwave when the attack happened last month, but was largely unharmed. Running outside once the air had cleared, she found her husband severely wounded and her child’s body covered in blood.
Continue reading...At the Egyptian government’s Konouz (Treasures) factory in Obour, east of Cairo, replicas of ancient items are produced in anticipation of a resurgent tourism industry
Continue reading...Fishermen alerted authorities to ‘suspicious’ items floating in the sea
The Algerian coastguard has seized almost half a tonne of cocaine after fishers alerted authorities to “suspicious” items floating off the north-west coast.
The coastguard fished out 490kg (1,080 pounds) of cocaine split up into 442 packages from the water six nautical miles (11 kilometres) off Oran’s Cap Carbon on Saturday evening, a defence ministry statement said on Monday.
Continue reading...Demonstrations continue over treatment of Nizar Banat, a vocal critic of President Mahmoud Abbas
Demonstrations against the Palestinian Authority (PA) have continued across the West Bank after the death in custody of one of President Mahmoud Abbas’s biggest critics.
Several hundred people took to the streets of Ramallah, Hebron and Bethlehem for the fifth consecutive day on Monday to protest against the treatment of Nizar Banat, a social and political activist, who died during an arrest by the authority’s forces in Hebron on 24 June.
Continue reading...Pentagon says air strikes were in response to drone attacks against US personnel in Iraq
The US has carried out airstrikes against Iran-backed militia in Iraq and Syria, in response to drone attacks against US personnel and facilities in Iraq.
The strikes on Sunday targeted operational and weapons storage facilities at two locations in Syria and one location in Iraq, the Pentagon said.
Continue reading...As the country suffers from hyperinflation and shortages of fuel and medical supplies, pressure is growing at home and abroad to address its governance quagmire
The lights dimmed further in Lebanon last month when two giant barges that had boosted its electricity grid were switched off. The result was six hours less power a day for most homes, or more need for generator fuel for those who could afford it.
However, fuel is also in short supply in the crisis-hit nation. Giant queues clog roads near filling stations and top-ups are limited to 20 litres, making most journeys precarious.
Continue reading...Queues for any jab grow with only 2% of Iranians vaccinated and fifth wave breaking
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Friday received the first dose of a domestically produced coronavirus vaccine, as many other elderly Iranians queued at 5am in the hope of receiving any jab.
Khamenei, wearing a surgical mask and a black turban and sitting under a picture of the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, received a dose of a domestically produced vaccine licensed on 14 June. He was given a single dose of the COVIran Barekat jab, developed by the state-owned foundation Setad. Khamenei said he had been determined to wait for a homegrown vaccine.
Continue reading...Increase is probably due to highly contagious Delta variant, says pandemic response chief
Israel has decided to reimpose the mandatory wearing of masks in enclosed public spaces owing to a rise in Covid-19 cases just 10 days after the measure was lifted – a blow for a country that has prided itself on one of the world’s most successful vaccine rollouts.
The head of Israel’s pandemic response taskforce, Nachman Ash, told public radio on Friday that mask mandates in most indoor situations would be reinstated, after the country recorded four successive days of more than 100 new cases, with 227 cases on Thursday.
Continue reading...Remains with combination of Neanderthal and early human features date back 100,000 years
Fossilised bones recovered from an ancient sinkhole in Israel may belong to a previously unknown group of extinct humans that lived in the Levant more than 100,000 years ago.
Researchers unearthed the bones alongside stone tools and the remains of horses, fallow deer and wild ox during excavations at the Nesher Ramla prehistoric site near the city of Ramla in central Israel.
Continue reading...Palestinians face repression from Israel and Palestinian Authority, human rights watchdog says
The latest flare-up of violence in the Gaza Strip has been accompanied by a “catalogue of violations” committed by Israeli police against Palestinians in Israel and occupied East Jerusalem, according to research from Amnesty International.
Arab citizens of Israel have been subjected to unlawful force from officers during peaceful demonstrations, sweeping mass arrests, torture and other ill-treatment in detention, and police have failed to protect Palestinians from premeditated attacks by rightwing Jewish extremists, the human rights watchdog said on Thursday.
Continue reading...Medical charity says abuse and attacks have escalated as more migrants are intercepted at sea and camps become increasingly overcrowded
Increasing violence towards refugees and migrants held in Libyan detention centres has forced Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to suspend its operations at two facilities, the medical charity said.
MSF said its teams witnessed guards beating detainees, including those seeking treatment from MSF doctors, during a visit to the Mabani detention centre in Tripoli last week.
Continue reading...Conference in Berlin also calls for phased withdrawal of all foreign forces from the country
Foreign powers and Libya’s new interim government of national unity have called for nationwide elections on 24 December and the phased withdrawal of all foreign forces, starting with some mercenaries in a matter of days.
There are thought to be as many as 20,000 foreign fighters in the country on both sides of its civil war, including Syrians under Turkish control, Turkish government forces, Russians in the Wagner Group and Sudanese forces.
Continue reading...A decade after civil war broke out, women who fled to Lebanon are still struggling to build a life amid the country’s unfolding economic crisis
Millions of Syrians have fled fighting over the past 10 years. The vast majority of refugees – more than 3.5 million – are living in Turkey, but more than 850,000 are living in informal settlements in Lebanon.
Continue reading...At least 31 people killed since start of June amid government attacks on Idlib area
About 5,000 civilians in the north-west of Syria have been forced to flee their homes after more government shelling targeting the contested area, a local aid agency said.
At least 31 people have died since the beginning of June, victims of Bashar al-Assad’s forces hitting civilian buildings in southern Idlib province. The buildings included a hospital, displacement camp school, and a White Helmets headquarters. The number of dead includes three children and a civil defence worker who was killed in an attack on the town of Qastoun on Saturday.
Continue reading...Notices appear on Iran-affiliated sites saying they had been seized as part of law enforcement action
US authorities have seized a range of Iran’s state-linked news websites, which they accused of spreading “disinformation” on Tuesday, a US official said, a move that appeared to be a far-reaching crackdown on Iranian media amid heightened tensions between the two countries.
The US government official, who spoke on Tuesday on condition of anonymity because the case had not yet been officially announced, said the US had effectively taken down roughly three dozen websites, the majority linked to Iranian disinformation efforts.
Continue reading...Authorities deny reports that inmates were beaten after a 10-day sit-in over concerns about virus spread and lack of medical care
In early April, inmates at Bahrain’s Jau prison crowded into the corridors to protest. They were angry about a lack of medical treatment and fearing for their lives after the death of another inmate. Their sit-in at building 13 lasted 10 days, and spread to other blocks in Jau, an infamous prison complex in the south of the kingdom.
Inmates claim authorities regularly delay or deny vital medical care to prisoners – especially prisoners of conscience. The concern has grown since late March when Covid-19 began to tear through the prison system. Prisoners and rights groups claim authorities failed to prevent the outbreak and have denied some inmates their choice of vaccine.
Continue reading...As the two countries crack down on smuggling, those forced to cross the border ‘for survival’ face a perilous journey
Karim Jan* spent the festival of Eid al-Fitr sitting in the scorching May sun as he had spent the previous five days, waiting in a long queue of traffic to get into Iran. Like hundreds of other drivers, Jan came to this desolate town of Mand, on the Pakistan border with Iran, from across Balochistan.
As they waited, some drivers slept in their Iranian pickup trucks , known as Zamyads, while others slept out under the open sky.
Continue reading...New president offers blunt preview of Iran’s global relations but vows to salvage nuclear deal with the west
Iran’s president-elect staked out a hardline position in his first remarks since his landslide election victory, rejecting the possibility of meeting Joe Biden or discussing Tehran’s ballistic missile programme and support of regional militias.
The comments by Ebrahim Raisi on Monday offered a blunt preview of how Iran might deal with the wider world in the next four years as it enters a new stage in negotiations to resurrect its tattered 2015 nuclear deal with global powers.
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