Category Archives: Middle East and North Africa

Hunger could kill millions more than Covid-19, warns Oxfam

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Starvation looms from Afghanistan to Haiti as coronavirus restrictions wipe out incomes and cut food supplies

Millions of people are being pushed towards hunger by the coronavirus pandemic, which could end up killing more people through lack of food than from the illness itself, Oxfam has warned.

Closed borders, curfews and travel restrictions have disrupted food supplies and incomes in already fragile countries, forcing an extra million people closer to famine in Afghanistan and heightening the humanitarian disaster in Yemen, where two-thirds already live in hunger.

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Syrian food and vaccines at risk as Russia uses UN veto to scupper aid plan

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Frantic talks after Moscow blocks draft security council resolution and agrees to only one border crossing point

Frantic talks are being held after Russia was accused of a “despicable and dangerous” use of its veto at the UN security council to block a draft resolution that would have renewed cross-border humanitarian aid to civilians in Syria.

The veto came at the close of months of negotiations between security council members over the number of cross-border aid points that should be kept open, a dispute fuelled by the Syrian regime’s determination to control the supply of international humanitarian aid to the country.

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Darfur protesters call for action to end attacks on civilians by armed militias

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The peaceful sit-in taking place in Nertiti county is demanding an end to the violence and punishment for the perpetrators

Thousands of people have joined a sit-down protest in front of local authority buildings in Central Darfur demanding action against the armed groups that patrol the region.

A large number of women have joined the first peaceful demonstration – now in its second week – in Nertiti county since war erupted in 2003.

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Killing of Islamic State expert in Baghdad marks critical moment for Iraq

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Hisham al-Hashimi backed action to tackle Iraq’s powerful militias, despite knowing risks

As Hisham al-Hashimi pulled up outside his Baghdad home on Monday night, a gunman strode purposefully towards the Iraqi official’s white four-wheel drive, drew a pistol and fired four shots through the driver’s window.

Each jolting flash was captured by security footage from a camera on Hashimi’s roof. So was the hitman’s escape on the back of a motorbike, and the helpless vigil of his three young children as their father’s body was dragged on to the driveway.

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Britain to resume sale of arms to Saudi Arabia despite Yemen fears

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Official review finds airstrikes on civilians were ‘isolated incidents’

Britain is to resume the sales of arms to Saudi Arabia that could be used in the Yemeni conflict just over a year after the court of appeal ruled them unlawful because ministers had not properly assessed the risk to civilian casualties.

In a written statement, the trade secretary, Liz Truss, said sales would restart after an official review concluded there had been only “isolated incidents” of airstrikes in Yemen that breached humanitarian law.

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‘Yazidi women are strong’: Iraq’s female landmine clearance teams

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Isis planted mines across Sinjar and displaced the Yazidi community. Now a group of women are clearing the way for the return of their people

Behind Hana Khider is a large grey wall map, with the minefields her team have been clearing marked in green. “This is the place where Yazidis lived together,” she says. “It’s where I lived in my childhood; I have so many memories here, it’s very important to me.”

The place is Sinjar, or Shingal as Yazidis know it, on Iraq’s north-western border with Syria. Khider, 28, is speaking via video call from her office in the region.

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Iran admits incident at Natanz nuclear site caused major damage

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Country says suspected attack could slow production of advanced centrifuges, which Israel and US see as threat

Iran has admitted an incident at one of its main nuclear sites last week caused major damage and could slow down the country’s production of advanced centrifuges, technology Israel and the US see as a threat, intensifying suspicions there may have been a deliberate attack on the facility.

Newly released satellite imagery showed the damage from what Iranian authorities attributed to a fire at the Natanz nuclear facility was far more extensive that previously disclosed.

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Iran’s foreign minister heckled and called a liar in parliament

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Display of anger likely to encourage US to believe sanctions are creating tensions

Hardline Iranian MPs heckled the country’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, and denounced him as a liar in parliament on Sunday, in a display of division and anger that is likely to encourage Washington to believe that its tough sanctions policy is creating deep tensions.

Zarif was speaking to the newly elected and conservative-dominated parliament for the first time and had to wait for the speaker to restore order as he was accused of selling the country out by negotiating with the US administration over the nuclear deal in 2015. The row, which lasted several minutes, shows how conservatives will use the failure of the nuclear deal to boost the Iranian economy to isolate any reformist candidate in next year’s presidential election.

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Fire breaks out at power station in Iran

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Fire follows several other incidents at facilities across the country, including some at sensitive sites

A fire broke out at a power station in south-western Iran on Saturday, Iranian media reported, the latest in a string of fires and explosions, some of which have hit sensitive sites.

The blaze, which affected a transformer in the power station in the city of Ahvaz, was put out by firefighters and electricity was restored after partial outages, Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi, a spokesman for state-run power company Tavanir, told the semi-official news agency Tasnim.

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Heatwaves have become longer in most of the world since 1950s – study

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Frequency of heatwaves and cumulative intensity has risen through the decades, research finds

Heatwaves have increased in both length and frequency in nearly every part of the world since the 1950s, according to what is described as the first study to look at the issue at a regional level.

The study found the escalation in heatwaves varied around the planet, with the Amazon, north-eastern Brazil, west Asia (including parts of the subcontinent and central Asia) and the Mediterranean all experiencing more rapid change than, for example, southern Australia and north Asia. The only inhabited region where there was not a trend was in the central United States.

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Twenty Saudi officials go on trial in absentia over Khashoggi killing

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Fiancee of late journalist hopes Istanbul trial will reveal circumstances of death and location of remains

Twenty Saudi officials are on trial in absentia in Turkey accused of the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, almost two years after his disappearance in Istanbul shocked the world and irreparably tarnished the image of Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman as a liberal reformer.

Khashoggi’s Turkish fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, and the UN special rapporteur Agnès Callamard waited for the judges to arrive in a courtroom at the imposing courthouse complex in Istanbul’s Çağlayan neighbourhood before the trial began on Friday. Both women are hoping it will shed more light on the grim circumstances of the journalist’s death and reveal what happened to his remains.

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Khashoggi fiancee calls for justice as 20 Saudi officials go on trial in Turkey

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Hatice Cengiz hopes trial in absentia will reveal circumstances of journalist’s death and location of remains

The fiancee of Jamal Khashoggi has told a Turkish court that all avenues for justice must be explored as 20 Saudi officials went on trial in absentia over the journalist’s gruesome killing and dismemberment in Istanbul in 2018.

Taking the witness stand on Friday morning at Istanbul’s Çağlayan courthouse complex, Hatice Cengiz had to pause several times to stop her voice from breaking. The absence of the 20 defendants, as well as Khashoggi’s still missing remains, weighed heavily over the proceedings.

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Refugee victims of Tajoura bombing still lie in unmarked graves one year on

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Coronavirus thwarts plan by survivors to light candles for dozens of detainees who died in airstrike on detention centre during Tripoli fighting

One year on from the migrant detention centre bombing in Tajoura, eastern Tripoli, dozens of refugees and migrants who died have never been formally identified.

At least 53 people were killed and 130 injured on the night of 2 July 2019, according to the UN, after an airstrike by a foreign aircraft supporting eastern warlord Khalifa Haftar’s forces hit a hall where migrants and refugees were locked up.

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Coronavirus live news: Sweden’s cases pass 70,000; Tokyo confirms highest new case tally in two months

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Sweden records 947 new cases in a day; Russia cases pass 660,000; Indonesia reports record daily infections rise; Middle East at ‘critical threshold’ says WHO

US president Donald Trump celebrated a government report showing the country gained 4.8m jobs and the unemployment rate dropped to 11.1% last month, when states began allowing businesses to reopen from strict shutdowns aimed at containing the coronavirus pandemic.

“Today’s announcement proves that our economy is roaring back,” Trump said, rattling off different sectors that saw job gains according to the monthly report.

Oman’s health minister said the sultanate has witnessed a “scary” surge in Covid-19 cases that required boosting hospital capacity, especially for intensive care units.

The country reported another 1,361 new cases of the coronavirus on Thursday and three deaths in the last 24 hours, to take its total count to 42,555 cases with 188 deaths.

In the last six weeks there has been a radical change which is very disturbing and scary.

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Jordan bans smoking and vaping in indoor public spaces

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Decision follows recent revelation country has highest rates of tobacco use in the world

The Jordanian government has banned smoking and vaping in all indoor public spaces a week after a Guardian investigation revealed tobacco use in the country had become the highest in the world.

The country’s health ministry said on Wednesday all enclosed public areas would now be “100% smoke-free environments”, building on an existing but widely flouted ban on smoking inside government buildings, and ending an exemption for hotels, cafes and restaurants provided they separated smokers from non-smokers.

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‘Annexation will suffocate us’: Jericho’s Palestinians fear being cut off

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Residents await Israel’s next move, concerned they could be isolated from the rest of the West Bank

The future of Palestinians in the city of Jericho is suspended in uncertainty and fear as they wait for Israel to decide when and how it will annex vast swathes of the land that surrounding them, a step outlined in a US peace initiative which could leave residents isolated from other parts of the West Bank.

“Annexation will suffocate us,” said Aisha Subeh, selling grape leaves on a street in Jericho.

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Boris Johnson warns against annexation in Israeli newspaper article

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International pressure on Israel escalates as Netanyahu misses self-imposed target date

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has missed his self-imposed target date for annexation of occupied Palestinian territories, as France warned of “consequences” and Boris Johnson made an appeal to Israel to reconsider the move in an article in the Hebrew media.

Johnson, who described himself in the opinion piece as a “passionate defender of Israel”, said any annexation would be a “violation of international law”, adding the UK would not recognise any changes to the pre-1967 borders in the West Bank that were not agreed by both Israelis and Palestinians.

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‘Decolonise and rename’ streets of Uganda and Sudan, activists urge

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Campaigners target statues of slave owners and roads named after imperial armies as protests spread to Africa

Campaigners have asked Uganda’s parliament to order the removal of monuments to British colonialists and to rename streets commemorating imperial military forces.

Uganda gained independence in 1962 after almost 70 years as a British protectorate, and more than 5,000 people have signed a petition to “decolonise and rename” the dozens of statues and street names which remain.

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US urges allies to maintain UN embargo on arms sales to Iran

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Mike Pompeo opposes lifting embargo, which is due to end in October, citing risk to stability

A US attempt to destroy the Iran nuclear deal, reimpose sanctions and extend a UN embargo on arms sales to Iran risks a “generational setback for the cause of multilateralism and international law”, Iran’s foreign minister has told the UN security council.

Russia’s ambassador to the UN also said the latest US moves to isolate Tehran was like “putting its knee to the neck of the Iranian people”. Vassily Nebenzia described the policy as “a maximum suffocation policy” and said the US’s goal was to make Iran the scapegoat for an uncontrollable escalation in the Middle East.

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