Almost one year since Beirut blast, Lebanon is still headed by caretaker government
As the first anniversary of the deadly Beirut explosion approaches, the European Union said on Monday it hopes to develop the legal framework for sanctions targeting Lebanese leaders.
More than 11 months since Lebanon’s government resigned in response to the blast on 4 August 2020, the country is still headed by a caretaker government.
Continue reading...Users of app Hamdam have to take a psychology test, and successful matches will be accompanied by a consultant for the first four years of marriage
Iran has unveiled a state-sanctioned Islamic dating app aimed at facilitating “lasting and informed marriage” for its youth, state television reported.
Called Hamdam – Farsi for “companion” – the service allows users to “search for and choose their spouse”, the broadcaster said on Monday.
Continue reading...Death toll expected to rise as search operations at al-Hussain coronavirus hospital in Nasiriyah continue
At least 50 people have died after a fire tore through the Covid isolation ward at a hospital in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah.
The death toll is expected to rise, as search operations at al-Hussain coronavirus hospital continued after the fire was brought under control. Sixteen people were rescued from the burning building.
Continue reading...Ex-royal aide Bassem Awadallah and Sharif Hassan bin Zaid, a royal family member, convicted of plotting to foment unrest
A Jordanian state security court has sentenced two former officials to serve 15 years in prison over an alleged plot to foment unrest in the western-allied Middle East kingdom.
Bassem Awadallah, who has US citizenship and once served as a top aide to King Abdullah II; and Sharif Hassan bin Zaid, a member of the royal family, were found guilty of sedition and incitement charges. Each was sentenced to 15 years in jail.
Continue reading...Third Pfizer jabs made available to those with weak immune systems as Delta variant fuels rise in infections
Israel said on Sunday that it would begin to offer a booster shot of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine to adults with weak immune systems, but that it was still weighing up whether they should be given to the general public.
The rapid spread of the Delta variant has fuelled a rise in the number of new infections from single digits a month ago to around 450 a day, and the country has moved to fast-track its next Pfizer shipment.
Continue reading...Iraqi special forces hunt Isis in lowlands south of Kirkuk, where the militants keep on the move, seeking to regain territorial control
A long convoy of humvees, trucks and troop carriers moved slowly through the countryside to the south of the city of Kirkuk, ferrying dozens of Iraqi special forces. Their target was a string of hideouts used by Islamic State militants in the rough terrain of hills and lowlands crisscrossed by canals and long-dried seasonal river gullies, or wadis as they are called in Arabic.
In the lead vehicle sat the commanding officer, a young lieutenant-colonel, Ihab Jalil, with a clipped moustache and hazelnut-coloured eyes. He charted the routes of the convoy on his tablet. At the same time, switching between three radio sets, he talked to the pilots of two helicopters that circled over the convoy, scouting the road ahead.
Continue reading...Nearly 400,000 have died since it won independence 10 years ago. Now violence looms again, within and beyond its borders
Independence isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. Recent additions to the family of nations, such as Kosovo and East Timor (Timor-Leste), have struggled to find their feet. In 2017, Catalonia’s secessionists split their homeland in two. Scottish referendum voters took a pass in 2014. The uncomplicated glory days when “third world” liberation movements ousted colonial regimes seem a long time ago.
South Sudan, which marked its 10th birthday on Friday, came late to Africa’s independence party – the product of a complex 2005 deal to end Sudan’s decades-old civil war. Barack Obama, seeking the credit, waxed lyrical. “Today is a reminder that after the darkness of war, the light of a new dawn is possible,” he declared.
Continue reading...Message boards in train stations show cancellations though rail operator denies disruptions
Websites of Iran’s transport and urbanisation ministry went out of service on Saturday after a “cyber-disruption” in computer systems, the official IRNA news agency reported.
On Friday, Iran’s railways also appeared to come under cyber-attack, with messages about alleged train delays or cancellations posted on display boards at stations across the country. Electronic tracking of trains across Iran reportedly failed.
Continue reading...Al-Shabaab claims responsibility for suicide attack on convoy of senior police official in Somali capital
A suicide car bomb targeting a government convoy exploded at a busy junction in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, killing at least nine people and injuring eight others, a health official said.
The convoy was carrying a senior police official, Farhan Mohamud, who survived the attack on Saturday, the government news agency reported.
Continue reading...I slept under the escalator, surrounded by plastic barriers – the PA announcements would jerk me awake
I was working as the marketing manager for an insurance company in Abu Dhabi when civil war broke out in Syria, the country of my birth. I’d left five years earlier, aged 25, but military service in Syria is mandatory, and the outbreak of war meant I would be expected to return. But I didn’t want any role in the killing machine.
When I refused to join the army, the Syrian embassy wouldn’t renew my passport. Without it, I couldn’t extend my work visa, so I was out of a job. For the next few years, I was forced to live under the radar – remaining in the United Arab Emirates illegally. I sold my belongings and worked off-grid when I could, sleeping in public gardens or stairwells. At the end of 2016, I was finally taken in by the police. After two months in an immigration detention jail, I was deported to Malaysia.
Continue reading...Possible veto of Bab al-Hawa UN aid crossing could halt the flow of vital food and health supplies to 3.4 million people
Just over half a mile away from the Bab al-Hawa border crossing connecting Syria and Turkey a 6th-century triumphal arch still stands, the remains of a Roman road stretching straight as an arrow on either side. For millennia this part of the world has been a crossroads of trade, culture and history. Today, it’s more important than ever.
Bab al-Hawa is Syria’s last lifeline, through which vital UN aid supplies for 3.4 million people living in the war-torn north-west of the country arrive. But before 10 July, the security council must vote in New York on whether to keep the aid flowing. What might seem like an obvious decision to outsiders is actually far from certain: Russia may use its veto power as a permanent member of the council to close the UN’s last access point, as it has managed to do with the other three aid crossings.
Continue reading...Iranian foreign minister meets Taliban negotiators in Tehran, while Turkey offers troops to protect Kabul airport
Iran, Turkey, Pakistan and Russia have moved to fill the military and diplomatic vacuum opening up in Afghanistan as a result of the departure of US forces and military advances by the Taliban.
In Tehran the Iranian foreign minister, Javad Zarif, met Taliban negotiators to discuss their intentions towards the country, and secured a joint statement saying the Taliban do not support attacks on civilians, schools, mosques and hospitals and want a negotiated settlement on Afghanistan’s future.
Continue reading...In 1998 Edward Mortimer, who has died aged 77, joined the staff of the UN secretary general Kofi Annan as chief speechwriter and later director of communications. Since the UN’s foundation at the end of the second world war, its leadership had often lacked breadth and depth of vision, with the exception of the eight years under the Swede Dag Hammarskjöld until his death in a plane crash in Africa in 1961.
Like him, Annan, who was from Ghana, believed that the UN represented more than the sum of its member states, and could act as a prime mover in undertaking initiatives. Now, once more, the words of the secretary general mattered, moved, provoked and were remembered, and Mortimer had a key role in making that happen.
Continue reading...Families spread across rich and poor countries are acutely aware of relatives’ lack of access to vaccine
For months she had been dreaming of it and finally Susheela Moonsamy was able to do it: get together with her relatives and give them a big hug. Throughout the pandemic she had only seen her siblings, nieces and nephews fully “masked up” at socially distanced gatherings. But a few weeks ago, as their home state of California pressed on with its efficient vaccination rollout, they could have a proper reunion.
“It was such an emotional experience, we all hugged each other; and with tears in our eyes, we thanked God for being with us and giving us the opportunity to see each other close up again and actually touch each other,” she says. “We never valued a hug from our family members that much before.”
Continue reading...Reducing global heating could save millions of people from mosquito-borne diseases, study finds
More than 8 billion people could be at risk of malaria and dengue fever by 2080 if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise unabated, a new study says.
Malaria and dengue fever will spread to reach billions of people, according to new projections.
Continue reading...A container ship anchored at Dubai’s Jebel Ali port caught fire, causing a huge explosion that sent tremors across the United Arab Emirates’ commercial hub. The explosion was seen kilometres away and unleashed a shock wave through the city
Continue reading...Fiery blast on container ship was powerful enough to be seen from space by satellite
A container ship anchored at Dubai’s port caught fire late on Wednesday, causing a huge explosion that sent tremors across the United Arab Emirates’ commercial hub.
The blaze sent up giant orange flames on a vessel at the crucial Jebel Ali port, the busiest in the Middle East, and unleashed a shock wave through the skyscraper-studded city, causing walls and windows to shake in neighbourhoods as far as 25 kilometres (15 miles) away.
Continue reading...Parliament fails to renew law barring Arab citizens from extending citizenship rights to spouses
The Israeli parliament has voted down an extension to controversial legislation that bars Arab Israelis from extending residency or citizenship rights to Palestinian spouses, in an early blow to the country’s new coalition government.
After a marathon all-night voting session that ended on Tuesday morning, the Knesset decided not to renew the law in a 59-59 vote. The outcome is widely seen as a stinging defeat for the prime minister, Naftali Bennett, who failed to unite the coalition’s disparate ideological wings in what he reportedly himself referred to as a “referendum” on the new government.
Continue reading...The late defence secretary’s micromanagement style – arrogant, bullying and ignorant – helped ensure the disastrous outcome
Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defense under George W Bush, who died on 30 June at the age of 88, enjoyed one all-important attribute, which was to appear larger than he actually was. He enhanced his comparatively diminutive 5ft 8in stature with the aid of thickly padded shoes with built-up heels, which caused him to waddle when he walked. His staff called them the “duck shoes”. But he inflated his presence in other ways, too, promoting the image of a clear-thinking, decisive commander while determinedly deflecting responsibility when initiatives he had championed careened into disaster.
When American Airlines flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11, he hurried out of his office and headed for the site of the impact, spending a minute or so helping to carry a stretcher bearing one of the casualties. Meanwhile, the country was under attack, but no one knew where the chief executive of the US armed forces was to be found. As a senior White House official later complained to me: “He abandoned his post.” The excursion elevated him to heroic status, as a decisive, take-charge leader, an image that persisted in part thanks to his heavily staffed publicity apparatus. It played no small part in distracting attention from his impatient neglect of warnings prior to 9/11 that a terrorist attack was likely.
Continue reading...A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Chile to Cambodia
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