Instrumental in decriminalising abortion in France, Halimi spent her life fighting for women’s rights
The Tunisian-born French feminist MP and lawyer Gisèle Halimi, described as a “trailblazer” and a “rebel”, has died one day after her 93rd birthday.
Halimi was instrumental in the decriminalisation of abortion in France and spent her life fighting for women’s rights. “Injustice is physically intolerable to me. All my life can be summed up with that,” she once said.
Continue reading...Actor says when he was younger he wasn’t told Palestinians lived on land that became the Jewish state
Seth Rogen has said he was “fed a huge amount of lies about Israel” as a young Jewish person, stoking controversy around the country’s sometimes fraught relationship with many North American Jews.
The Canadian-US actor, who attended Jewish camp and whose parents met on a kibbutz in Israel, said the fact that the Jewish state was created on land where Palestinians were living had always been omitted.
Continue reading...Drill designed to threaten US amid increasing tensions between Tehran and Washington
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have fired a missile from a helicopter targeting a replica aircraft carrier in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, in an exercise aimed at threatening the US amid tensions between Tehran and Washington.
The drill, in a waterway through which 20% of all traded oil passes, underlines the lingering threat of military conflict between Iran and the US after last summer saw a series of incidents targeting oil tankers in the region. In January, a US drone strike killed a top Iranian general in Baghdad and Tehran responded by firing ballistic missiles targeting American forces in Iraq.
Continue reading...UN warns coronavirus restrictions prevent access to most vulnerable and rising prices are leaving many going hungry
Almost a quarter of the population of Sudan are going hungry as conflict, rising food prices and the coronavirus take their toll.
About 9.6 million people now face severe food shortages, the highest number recorded in the country’s recent history.
Continue reading...Thousands of deaths potentially missed as patients avoid health centres, with both diseases set to peak in coming weeks, warn NGOs
Aid agencies are warning that thousands of people in Yemen could be dying undetected from cholera as people are too frightened to seek treatment in health facilities overwhelmed by coronavirus.
Coronavirus cases in the war-torn country are due to peak in the coming weeks, but Oxfam has warned that health centres are seeing an unexpected drop in cholera cases, ahead of August’s rains when cholera will also increase.
Continue reading...Middle East scholar, who was arrested in 2018, taken to Qarchak women’s jail, one of the most hostile institutions in the country and reportedly stricken with Covid-19
A British-Australian academic serving a 10-year-prison sentence in Iran for espionage has been moved to a remote desert prison, notorious for violence and reportedly stricken with coronavirus.
Cambridge-educated Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a Middle East scholar, had been held in Tehran’s Evin Prison for nearly two years, before her sudden move three days ago to Qarchak women’s prison, south-east of Tehran.
Continue reading...Israel accused British charity of links to Hamas in 2014, although Islamic Relief says it has yet to see ‘credible evidence’
A Tel Aviv court is set to hear a petition from Islamic Relief to restart its aid work in the occupied West Bank, six years after the Israeli government designated the charity a “terrorist organisation”.
Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) said the designation had left more than 70,000 Palestinians without vital support. It will argue on Monday that allegations linking it to the Palestinian militant group Hamas were unfounded.
Continue reading...Despite a prompt lockdown, the veteran leader is seen to have lost control of the crisis
For Benjamin Netanyahu it wasn’t a bad spring this year, considering the previous 12 months.
The prime minister managed, somehow, to continue his treasured run as Israel’s longest-serving leader, despite a scandalous corruption indictment, three national elections that almost ousted him, and a menacing party primary. Having been sworn back into power – his fifth term – in May, the 70-year-old politician won global praise for a swift lockdown, with Israel cited as a textbook example of how to handle a pandemic.
Continue reading...170 of 178 MPs back motion against Hassan Ali Khaire for failing to move towards democratic elections
Somalia’s parliament removed the prime minister, Hassan Ali Khaire, from his post in a vote of no confidence on Saturday for failing to pave the way towards fully democratic elections, the speaker said.
A whopping 170 of parliament’s 178 MPs backed the no-confidence motion, and Khaire’s ouster was immediately endorsed by the president, Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo, who had appointed him as prime minister in February 2017.
Continue reading...Many arrested in Jerusalem at demonstration against government’s handling of coronavirus outbreak
Israeli police deployed water cannon and arrested 55 people overnight at a protest in Jerusalem against the country’s indicted prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
A few thousand people had gathered in the city for what have become frequent rallies against Benjamin Netanyahu.
Continue reading...Iran promises political response after several passengers were reportedly injured when Mahan Air plane quickly changed altitude
Two US fighter jets came close to an Iranian passenger plane over Syrian airspace, causing the pilot to change altitude quickly to avoid collision and injuring several passengers, Iran’s official IRIB news agency reported.
The agency initially said a single Israeli jet had come near the plane but later quoted the pilot as saying there were two jets that identified themselves as American.
Continue reading...Data gives insight into scale of pandemic in country already hit by humanitarian crisis
At least 97 Yemeni healthcare workers have died from Covid-19 as the disease ravages the war-torn country, according to a report that gives an insight into the true scale of Yemen’s poorly documented outbreak.
Yemen, already suffering from a five-year war that has caused the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, has proved uniquely vulnerable to the coronavirus pandemic, according to data published by the medical charity MedGlobal on Thursday.
Continue reading...Millions face devastating hunger if relief efforts are not stepped up in a country ravaged by war, locusts and now Covid-19
Yemen is in danger of an imminent return to devastating levels of hunger and food insecurity, according to new analysis released by UN agencies.
The World Food Programme (WFP), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and Unicef say that the percentage of the population predicted to face acute food insecurity in southern areas of the country will rise from 25% to 40% by the end of the year.
Continue reading...About 2,000 Israelis rallied outside the prime minister’s residence in Jerusalem on Tuesday amid protests against Benjamin Netanyahu over his handling of the coronavirus crisis and alleged corruption
Continue reading...Decades of war have resulted in a high demand for prosthetics – and patients are anxious to visit clinics as they finally reopen
Concentration is etched on Hussein’s face as he walks along a scuffed yellow line painted on the floor of the clinic’s rehabilitation room. He’s getting a feel for his new prosthetic.
Hussein lost his left leg below the knee in 1987 when he stepped on a landmine while fishing at Lake Dukan, around 100km (62 miles) east of Erbil in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. Mines and other unexploded remnants of successive wars litter the landscape, causing new injuries every year. More than half the clinic’s 15,100 patients are amputees. Roughly 4,600 of them lost limbs as a result of conflict – 2,500 of these to landmines.
Continue reading...Omar al-Bashir could face death penalty if convicted of orchestrating coup that put him in power for 30 years
Omar al-Bashir, the authoritarian former ruler of Sudan ousted amid a popular pro-democracy uprising last year, has gone on trial in Khartoum on charges of orchestrating the military coup that brought him to power more than three decades ago.
The trial of Bashir, who has been held in detention since being convicted of money laundering and corruption in December, comes at a time of massive change in the country of more than 40 million people.
Continue reading...Prime minister Omar Razzaz says Israel’s annexation plan would destabilise region
Jordan’s prime minister has said his country could view positively a “one-state democratic solution” to the Israel-Palestine dispute, as he warned that Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans to annex parts of the West Bank could unleash a new wave of extremism in the Middle East.
Omar Razzaz told the Guardian that the Israeli prime minister’s annexation policy would be “ushering in a new apartheid state” that could be a radicalising force and further destabilise the region.
Continue reading...The future of Israel-Palestine lies in it becoming a federal democracy with liberal values
For now, the coronavirus crisis appears to have stayed Israel’s outright annexation of the West Bank. Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial – he’s been accused of bribery, fraud and “breach of trust” – has been newly invigorated, a development that may further delay the announcement. But talk of annexation is beside the point. Fifty-three years of occupation and settlements have produced their own reality. Ironically, it is a reality that may give hope to those who seek justice in Israel-Palestine.
For many in the movement for Palestinian rights, the Oslo process – which began in 1993 and was ostensibly designed to produce a Palestinian state alongside Israel – appeared too limited in its ambitions. The Palestinian struggle has evolved from being a struggle for national rights, a 19th-century ideal, to one focused on human rights, a timeless, universal ideal. Indeed, while there are Palestinians who are committed to an ethnic Palestinian state, many are not. Personal dignity, an inclusive state, the freedom to preserve cultural identities (or not), freedom of movement and the pursuit of a life lived free of racial or ethnic fetters – those are our ideals.
Continue reading...Eurovision 2019 presenter to serve community service while her mother is jailed
An Israeli court has convicted one of the world’s most famous models, Bar Refaeli, on tax evasion charges, and jailed her mother, in a verdict that ends a lengthy case against the celebrity and her family.
Wearing a face mask in line with coronavirus regulations, Refaeli and her mother, Zipi, entered the Tel Aviv court to a flurry of camera flashes from photographers.
Continue reading...Witness testimony looms as Israel PM fights public discontent after surge in Covid-19 cases
Witnesses at Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial will give testimony up to three times a week starting in January, a judge has ruled, opening a high-profile case in which the Israeli leader is accused of bribery, fraud and breach of trust.
Such regular court appearances and potentially explosive testimonies could present a further image problem for the Israeli leader, who is fighting fresh public discontent and regular protests over his handling of a recent surge in Covid-19 cases.
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