Category Archives: Middle East and North Africa

A small Islamist party could decide Benjamin Netanyahu’s fate

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Analysis: Israel’s election is pushing the PM towards a historic and incongruous political move

He built a hugely successful career scaremongering among Israelis about politicians from the country’s Arab minority presenting a threat from the inside. Now, Benjamin Netanyahu’s rhetoric might have come back to haunt him: election results suggest the leader’s fate may have fallen into the hands of a small party of Islamists.

With most votes tallied, the latest national election – Israel’s fourth within the span of two years – looks on course for further deadlock. Neither Netanyahu nor the opposition leader, Yair Lapid, have a clear majority to form a coalition government.

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Giant ship blocking Suez canal partially refloated

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Tugboats work to free 400-metre ‘megaship’ Ever Given as vessels gather at either end of key waterway

One of the largest container ships in the world has been partially refloated after it ran aground in the Suez canal, causing a huge jam of vessels at either end of the vital international trade artery.

The 220,000-ton, 400-metre-long Ever Given – a so-called megaship operated by the Taiwan-based firm Evergreen – became stuck near the southern end of the canal on Tuesday. The Suez Canal Authority (SCA) said it had lost the ability to steer amid high winds and a dust storm.

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Suez Canal gridlock highlights its impact on oil and shipping prices

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Analysis: blockage of route through Egypt provides a reminder of its importance to global trade

The impressive span of Al Salam Bridge at El Qantara in Egypt gives a unique view over the Suez canal.

On a normal day a procession of bulk carriers in convoys can be seen for miles creeping into the hazy distance on both sides.

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The world has a vested interest in Somalia. Will it act to stop its collapse? | Vava Tampa

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Starvation, al-Shabaab and postponed elections have made the country a ready gun. If the trigger is pulled, global trade is at risk

Frantz Fanon once quipped: “Africa is shaped like a revolver, and Congo is the trigger.”

More than 60 years later, I think the French philosopher’s assessment is only half true. It leaves out Somalia – which once held the crown as the “Switzerland of Africa”, but is now again on the verge of political disintegration.

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Israel election results: Netanyahu ahead in exit polls

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Ruling Likud party leading but short of decisive parliamentary majority to end political deadlock

Exit polls from Israel’s fourth election within two years suggested Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party was ahead but still short of a clear parliamentary majority needed to form a government and end the political deadlock.

Unofficial figures from three major television channels released late on Tuesday evening showed the Likud party with around 31-33 seats in the 120-seat parliament, the Knesset. That was far more than the opposition head, Yair Lapid, predicted to take about 16-18 seats.

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Top Saudi official issued death threat against UN’s Khashoggi investigator

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Senior official twice threatened to have Agnès Callamard ‘taken care of’ in meeting with UN colleagues in Geneva in January 2020

A senior Saudi official issued what was perceived to be a death threat against the independent United Nations investigator, Agnès Callamard, after her investigation into the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

In an interview with the Guardian, the outgoing special rapporteur for extrajudicial killings said that a UN colleague alerted her in January 2020 that a senior Saudi official had twice threatened in a meeting with other senior UN officials in Geneva that month to have Callamard “taken care of” if she was not reined in by the UN.

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Alone in Oman: Covid worsens abuse for trafficked women

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Women from Sierra Leone tricked into servitude find themselves sold on under Gulf’s kafala system

Isha knew she was in trouble when her passport was snatched from her hands. The 27-year-old from Sierra Leone had just arrived in the Omani capital, Muscat, believing she was to start a well-paid job at a restaurant. Instead, her recruitment agent bundled her into a car and drove her to a house where she was told she would be working as a live-in maid.

“My agent told me he could take my passport because he had bought me,” she says. “I was confused. How can you buy a human being?”

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Open season in Sudan as trophy hunters flock to shoot rare ibex

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Conservationists fear for endangered Nubian ibex in Sudan as westerners sold permits to hunt

Sudanese conservationists have accused trophy hunters of exploiting the country’s political transition to hunt the country’s unprotected rare animals.

Photographs posted online of westerners posing with the body of a rare Nubian ibex angered Sudanese wildlife campaigners this week. They called for Facebook to remove the pages of tour groups promoting such hunts.

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Liquid gold: beekeepers defying Yemen war to produce the best honey

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Despite the dangers, more Yemenis are turning to the sector as an alternative means of income

According to the Qur’an a lone sidr tree, or jujube, marks the highest boundary of heaven. On earth, amid the harshness of the Yemeni desert, the sweetness of sidr honey is cherished as a symbol of perseverance.

Yemen has long been renowned for producing some of the best honey in the world, often compared to Mānuka honey from New Zealand. Some of the highest quality, and purest, comes from bees fed exclusively on the flowers of the sidr, producing a pale coloured honey with a fiery, almost bitter aftertaste.

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Israelis vote in fourth national election in two years

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Netanyahu’s Likud party is ahead in polls, but predictions are unreliable as many voters remain undecided

Israelis are voting in their fourth national election in two years, the result of an unprecedented political deadlock that has seen the country’s longest-serving leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, face off against multiple rivals.

This time round, the prime minister is hoping that voters will credit him for a world-beating coronavirus vaccination campaign that has seen Israel reopen shops, bar and restaurants while simultaneously pushing down infection rates.

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Saudi Arabia proposes ceasefire to Yemen’s Houthi rebels to end war

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Moves aimed at ending six-year war include partial lifting of blockade on Sana’a airport and some sea ports

Saudi Arabia has offered Yemen’s Houthi rebels a nationwide ceasefire in a series of proposals aimed at ending the brutal six-year war in the country, including the partial lifting of the blockade on Sana’a international airport and some seaports.

Riyadh also said it would support a UN humanitarian corridor in the oil rich city of Marib, which has been under months of bombardment by the Houthis.

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Nawal El Saadawi, trailblazing Egyptian writer, dies aged 89

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Award-winning feminist author of more than 55 books was a resolute challenger to Egyptian governments

Egypt’s trailblazing writer Nawal El Saadawi died on Sunday at the age of 89, after a lifetime spent fighting for women’s rights and equality.

The feminist author of more than 55 books first spotlighted the issue of female genital mutilation (FGM) with The Hidden Face of Eve in 1980. A trained doctor, El Saadawi also campaigned against women wearing the veil, polygamy and inequality in Islamic inheritance rights between men and women.

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Uncertainty hangs over Israel PM’s bid to break political impasse

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Hardline former allies hold key in new effort by Benjamin Netanyahu to end the country’s two-year stalemate

Israel is due to hold its fourth round of elections on Tuesday, although the result could simply extend a two-year-long political stalemate and possibly lead to a dreaded fifth vote.

Multiple failed attempts to form stable governments after largely inconclusive previous elections have left the country in a protracted crisis. Once the results come in on Wednesday morning, Israel is expected to enter days or weeks of intense political negotiations.

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‘Our biggest challenge? Lack of imagination’: the scientists turning the desert green

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In China, scientists have turned vast swathes of arid land into a lush oasis. Now a team of maverick engineers want to do the same to the Sinai

Flying into Egypt in early February to make the most important presentation of his life, Ties van der Hoeven prepared by listening to the podcast 13 Minutes To The Moon – the story of how Nasa accomplished the lunar landings. The mission he was discussing with the Egyptian government was more earthbound in nature, but every bit as ambitious. It could even represent a giant leap for mankind.

Van der Hoeven is a co-founder of the Weather Makers, a Dutch firm of “holistic engineers” with a plan to regreen the Sinai peninsula – the small triangle of land that connects Egypt to Asia. Within a couple of decades, the Weather Makers believe, the Sinai could be transformed from a hot, dry, barren desert into a green haven teeming with life: forests, wetlands, farming land, wild flora and fauna. A regreened Sinai would alter local weather patterns and even change the direction of the winds, bringing more rain, the Weather Makers believe – hence their name.

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The foreign royals and billionaire tax exiles collecting UK’s furlough millions

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Read the list of super-rich claimants, from Saudi princes to Dubai monarchs, tax exiles to the UK’s richest

Glympton Park is a sprawling, 2,000-acre estate featuring an 18th-century stately home, nestled in the verdant Oxfordshire countryside near Woodstock.

It was bought for £8m in 1992, by Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, the senior Saudi royal whose past roles include ambassador to the US. He is said to have spent £42m on renovations, including a pheasant shoot and bullet-proof glass on the driveway to thwart would-be assassins.

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UK furlough scheme pays out millions to foreign states and tax exiles

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Qatari owners of Harrods and the Ritz claimed £3m alongside payouts to Saudi royals and British National party from Covid job support scheme

Billionaire tax exiles, the British National party, Saudi royals and oil-rich Gulf states have claimed millions of pounds in taxpayer-funded furlough money, the Guardian can disclose.

The revelations, based on analysis of government information, have sparked dismay among MPs at the use of a scheme designed to support struggling businesses and prevent mass unemployment, with one complaining of public money being scattered “like confetti”.

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The Israeli and Palestinian elections offend democracy – each in their own way | Salem Barahmeh

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Polls taking place months apart simply highlight the two-tier system that denies Palestinians any real voice or freedom

For the first time in decades, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel will hold legislative elections a few months apart. Many in the international community and media will see this as a joint exercise in democracy but it is, in fact, a window into the reality of a two-tiered system that denies Palestinians the basic freedom and rights that many across the world take for granted.

Drive across the winding roads of the West Bank this spring and you will see election posters interrupting the beautiful landscape of olive and almond trees. Upon further inspection, you may soon realise that the candidate advertised is not an eager Palestinian campaigning for a parliamentary seat. It is likely to be an Israeli candidate running for the Israeli parliament.

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Biden defends move not to punish Saudi crown prince over Khashoggi killing

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President claims sanction for Mohammed bin Salman would have been diplomatically unprecedented but overstates US-Saudi ties

Joe Biden has defended his decision to waive any punishment for Saudi Arabia’s crown prince in the murder of a US-based journalist, claiming that acting against the Saudi royal would have been diplomatically unprecedented for the United States.

In an ABC News interview that aired on Wednesday, the US president discussed his administration’s decision to exempt Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman from any penalties for the October 2018, killing of Jamal Khashoggi. Last month, the Biden administration released a declassified US intelligence report which concluded that the crown prince authorized the team of Saudi security and intelligence officials that killed Khashoggi.

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UN calls for inquiry after rebels fired missiles into Yemen detention centre

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Dozens of Ethiopian migrants died and UN special envoy described the deaths as ‘extraordinarily horrific’

The UN has called for an independent inquiry into a horrific fire at a detention facility in Yemen’s capital Sana’a that left dozens of Ethiopian migrants dead and more than 170 injured.

Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday that the fire on 7 March occurred after Houthi rebels fired missiles into the detention centre where the migrants were protesting over their cramped conditions.

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Dead Sea scroll fragments and ‘world’s oldest basket’ found in desert cave

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Six-millennia-old skeleton of child also unearthed during dig in Judean Desert by Israeli archeologists

Israeli archaeologists have unearthed two dozen Dead Sea scroll fragments from a remote cave in the Judean Desert, the first discovery of such Jewish religious texts in more than half a century.

“For the first time in approximately 60 years, archaeological excavations have uncovered fragments of a biblical scroll,” the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said in a statement.

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