Category Archives: Middle East and North Africa

Poor data protection could put lives at risk, say Somalia aid workers

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‘Extremely dangerous’ if personal information needed to process mobile payments is lost or falls into wrong hands, say staff

The rapid upscaling of digital technology use by international groups in Somalia is causing concern about the risk to the people whose data is being collected.

The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the use of programming by humanitarian organisations to deliver aid, but local staff working with several different NGOs say the organisations are not thinking enough about data protection or obtaining informed consent.

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‘Vaccine diplomacy’ sees Egypt roll out Chinese coronavirus jab

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A lack of trial data transparency from China has raised concerns, but the country is confidently pushing ahead

When Egypt’s health ministry sent out an invitation to doctors to be vaccinated against Covid-19, they neglected to make clear it was a clinical trial.

Instead, it assured them that two Covid-19 vaccines developed by China’s National Biotec Group, part of a state-owned conglomerate known as Sinopharm, had no side-effects and that “the minister of health was vaccinated today, and orders were issued to vaccinate all doctors and workers who wish to be vaccinated”.

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Mayor review – grappling with reality inside Ramallah city hall

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Ramallah’s leader Musa Hadid navigates diplomatic stresses and day-to-day problems in this love letter to the West Bank

Musa Hadid is the popular Palestinian mayor of Ramallah in the West Bank, and this thoughtful, sympathetic documentary tracks his stressful day-to-day working life – shown suddenly getting a lot more stressful in 2017 when President Trump announced his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, moving the US embassy there from Tel Aviv. Hadid feels strongly that this move emboldened Israel’s military to be more menacing in Ramallah, with soldiers marching into stores and demanding to see security camera footage on the grounds that there could be images of terrorists – and even doing the same at city hall.

The film lets you appreciate Hadid’s delicate and complex situation. He is often receiving high-profile international visitors and relishes the opportunity to show off the city he loves – the opening and closing sequences of this film, incidentally, almost feel like the introduction to Woody Allen’s Manhattan. One such VIP is Prince William, though some of Hadid’s colleagues are less than happy: “All the problems of our country come from Britain!” says one, referring to the 1923 Mandate.

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Saudi rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul sentenced to almost six years in jail

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Court suspends some of sentence and backdates start of term, meaning she only has three months left to serve

Loujain al-Hathloul, the Saudi women’s rights activist detained three years ago by the Saudi government, has been sentenced to five years and eight months in jail after being found guilty of spying with foreign parties and conspiring against the kingdom.

But the court suspended two years and 10 months of her sentence, and backdated the start of her jail term to May 2018, meaning she only has three months left to serve.

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Syrians refugees flee Lebanon camp after tents set on fire

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Three people wounded in clash between camp residents and youths near coastal city of Tripoli

Hundreds of Syrian refugees have fled their makeshift camp in north Lebanon after their tents were set alight when fighting broke out between local youths and camp residents.

At least three people were wounded in the clash on Saturday in the Miniyeh region near the coastal city of Tripoli, after which youths set fire to the camp, Lebanon’s state-owned National News Agency said.

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Far-right Israeli football fans rebel over Beitar Jerusalem’s new Arab owner

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Hardcore group threaten boycott and hold protest at training session after Abu Dhabi sheikh buys 50% stake in top team

An Israeli premier league football team whose most hardcore fans chant “Death to Arabs” faces a crisis of introspection following a landmark deal that saw the club part-sold to an unlikely new owner: an Arab sheikh.

Beitar Jerusalem – the only Israeli team never to have fielded an Arab player – has been grappling with the news that, as of this month, a member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, now owns 50% of the club.

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At least 10 climbers killed in avalanches in Iran’s Alborz mountains

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Several more mountaineers are unaccounted for and seven crew on a capsized ship are missing after wild weather across the region

At least 10 climbers have died and several more are missing after a blizzard triggered avalanches in mountains north of Iran’s capital, Tehran, state media reported on Saturday.

Several climbers have remained unaccounted for since Friday, when two deaths were reported, while the number reported as missing has increased as concerned families contact authorities, state television said.

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Israeli jets strike Gaza after rockets fired across border

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Israeli army says it targeted three Hamas sites in Palestinian territory, including a rocket-manufacturing facility

Israel has targeted a number of sites in Gaza after the army said Palestinian militants had fired rockets into the south of the country.

The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) said Israeli aircraft had struck three Hamas targets including a rocket manufacturing facility, underground infrastructure and a military post.

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Tunisia minister sacked and arrested in scandal over illegal waste from Italy

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Mustapha Aroui held along with 22 others after 200 containers of decaying household and medical waste discovered in July

Tunisia’s environment minister has been arrested following the attempted importation of household and hospital waste from Italy.

Mustapha Aroui was dismissed from his post and subsequently arrested on Sunday, along with several other people, including senior customs officials, members of its waste management agency, Agence Nationale de Gestion des Déchets (ANGed) and a Tunisian diplomat based in Naples.

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‘Please help us’: child refugees running out of time to reach UK before Brexit

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Desperate relatives in Britain plead with Home Office for flexibility as paperwork holdups delay family reunions while deadline looms

The Home Office has said it will not allow a group of stranded refugee children to join their families in the UK if their cases do not make it through the Greek asylum system by 31 December when the EU family reunification programme comes to an end.

Around 20 children who are eligible to join their relatives in the UK under the current family reunification scheme are still waiting for their cases to be completed in Greece, before the UK government ends the programme when it leaves the EU on the 31st December.

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‘Our blood is cheaper than water’: anger in Iraq over Trump pardons

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Joe Biden to be lobbied to reverse decision to pardon security guards jailed over massacre

Iraqis have reacted with outrage to Donald Trump’s move to pardon four security guards from the security firm Blackwater who were jailed for a 2007 massacre that sparked an outcry over the use of mercenaries in war.

The four men were part of a security convoy that fired on civilians at a central Baghdad roundabout, killing 14 people including a nine-year old child and wounding many more.

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Trump pardons Blackwater contractors jailed for massacre of Iraq civilians

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Four guards fired on unarmed crowd in Baghdad in 2007, killing 14 and sparking outrage over use of private security in war zones

President Donald Trump has pardoned four Blackwater security guards who were given lengthy prison sentences for killing 14 civilians in Baghdad in 2007, a massacre that caused international uproar over the use of private contractors in war zones.

The four – Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard and Nicholas Slatten – were part of an armoured convoy that opened fire indiscriminately with machine-guns and grenade launchers on a crowd of unarmed people in the Iraqi capital. Known as the Nisour Square massacre, the slaughter was seen as a low point in the conflict in Iraq.

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Israel to hold fourth election in two years as political crisis grinds on

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Failure of fractious coalition government to pass budget triggers snap election and plunges country into more political chaos

Israel has tumbled into a fourth round of elections within the space of two years after efforts to keep a fractious coalition government intact failed.

Beset by infighting and distrust, the government was unable to pass a budget by a midnight deadline on Tuesday (10pm GMT), triggering a snap election next March and lurching the country back into a protracted political crisis.

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Revealed: how abusive texts led to discovery of hacking of Al Jazeera

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Threatening messages led to monitoring of phone that unearthed evidence of cyber-attack against Qatar-based network

A series of abusive text messages sent to an Al Jazeera investigative programme were the first crumbs that eventually led to the discovery of an unprecedented hacking operation against dozens of staff from the Qatar-based media network, according to one of the journalists who was targeted.

Researchers at Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto claimed on Sunday that the UAE and Saudi Arabia used spyware sold by an Israeli private intelligence company to access the phones of at least 36 journalists, producers and executives from Al Jazeera, as well as that of a London-based reporter with the Al Araby network.

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EU foreign ministers pave way for revival of Iran nuclear deal

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Step would allow Tehran to come back into compliance with deal, so long as US sanctions were lifted

EU foreign ministers have agreed not to set fresh preconditions on a revival of the Iran nuclear deal, believing Tehran and Washington should be able to come back into full compliance with the agreement without at this stage needing to accept to extend or strengthen it.

The step removes one of the potential roadblocks to Iran coming back into compliance with the existing deal, so long as the US lifts its sanctions and complies with UN resolutions.

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The Arab spring wasn’t in vain. Next time will be different | Nesrine Malik

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Lessons have been learned about how to convert the forces that demand equality into those that deliver it

At the end of 2010, I was en route to Sudan for Christmas, scouring Arabic social media in search of scraps of information about a story unfolding in Tunisia; a story the Arab media was censoring and the western media was still ignoring. A street trader, Mohammed Bouazizi, had set himself on fire in protest at the government in the city of Sidi Bouzid, sparking demonstrations that spread across the country.

Weeks before the protests toppled Tunisia’s president-for-life, you could see that something about this uprising was different. There was something about the way the protests resonated in households around the Arab world, the intensity of the moral outrage and the force of the momentum that felt new and exciting.

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Dozens of Al Jazeera journalists allegedly hacked using Israeli firm’s spyware

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Citizen Lab researchers say cyber-attack using NSO Group software likely ordered by Saudia Arabia and UAE

Spyware sold by an Israeli private intelligence firm was allegedly used to hack the phones of dozens of Al Jazeera journalists in an unprecedented cyber-attack that is likely to have been ordered by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, according to leading researchers.

In a stunning new report, researchers at Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto said they discovered what appears to be a major espionage campaign against one of the world’s leading media organisations, which is based in Qatar and has long been a thorn in the side of many of the region’s autocratic regimes.

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‘Trump is crazy’: Hezbollah sees threat in US president’s final days

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Leaders fear Donald Trump and Israel will act against Iran and Hezbollah before Joe Biden’s arrival

For the past four years, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has fought a war in Syria, supported Iraqi forces and stage-managed the politics of its homeland, all the while trying to avoid facing off with Israel. Yet its exhausted leaders fear the last gasps of Donald Trump’s presidency could deliver threats that eclipse everything else.

In the organisation’s heartland, Hezbollah members are watching the clock – and the skies. Israeli jets have been streaking overhead for more than a month, and over the past few weeks the frequency of flights has sharply increased, as has security in Beirut’s southern suburbs, the nerve centre of the region’s most powerful militant group.

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Trump’s flurry of dodgy deals will not bring the Middle East any peace

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The outgoing US president has his eyes on a Saudi Arabia-Israel accord – no matter who gets hurt

Peace deals that entrench injustice, punish the weak and are propelled by greed, blackmail and weapons sales have precious little to do with peace – and are unlikely to endure. Yet the Middle East has witnessed a recent spate of such dodgy deals. All concern Israel and all were hastily cobbled together by the White House. As his curtailed presidency grinds to an unlamented close, Donald Trump appears engaged in a frantic foreign policy fire sale.

Peace is always a welcome prospect – but never at any price. Trump’s horse-trading on Israel’s behalf has made a cruel mockery of Palestinian rights. By agreeing to normalise relations with Israel, the UAE and Bahrain broke with the 2002 Arab peace plan that makes recognition conditional on the creation of a viable, independent Palestinian state. The deal was sweetened with offers of advanced US weapons and money-spinning business and trade opportunities.

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‘If a smuggler says do it, you do’: refugees on trying to rescue their friends from the Channel

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Two Kurdish asylum seekers made frantic attempts to save lives of family whose boat capsized in rough conditions

Two asylum seekers who were in the same boat as a Kurdish Iranian family who drowned trying to cross the Channel have spoken out about their frantic attempts to save the family’s lives after the vessel capsized.

Rasul Iran Nezhad, his wife, Shiva Mohammad Panahi, both 35, and their children: Anita, nine, Armin, six, and 15-month-old Artin, were among 22 people who boarded the boat, a rigid polyester structure about 20ft long, in October.

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