Calls for sanctions are intensifying as the cabinet meets and Netanyahu awaits US approval
The Israeli cabinet will meet on Sunday to finalise plans to annex parts of the West Bank amid growing international opposition and calls for sanctions to be imposed if the proposal is implemented.
Related: Lisa Nandy urges ban on imports of West Bank goods
Continue reading...Labour hardens stance to apply imports ban if highly controversial proposals go ahead in face of mounting international opposition
The UK must ban the import of goods from illegal settlements in the West Bank if the Israeli government presses ahead with annexation plans this week, Lisa Nandy, the shadow foreign secretary, has said.
The move would be a “major step” and require “courage that so far ministers have not been willing to show”, she told the Observer. But “such a blatant breach of international law must have consequences”.
Continue reading...The BBC’s Lyse Doucet says Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and others face a nightmare scenario from the global pandemic
This summer will usher in some of the worst catastrophes the world has ever seen if the pandemic is allowed to spread rapidly across countries already convulsed by growing violence, deepening poverty and the spectre of famine, the BBC war reporter Lyse Doucet has warned.
Speaking exclusively to the Observer, she says she fears “a terrifying mix of violence and the virus” will soon overwhelm countries such as Yemen, Afghanistan and Somalia, where Covid-19 has yet to reach its peak. Already, in southern Yemen, gravediggers can’t keep up with the dead and dying, she says. “Conflict will also be magnified and multiplied by impoverishment, starvation and despair … Expect a hot summer.”
Continue reading...Iranian authorities are investigating a large explosion east of the capital, Tehran, near a military base which is thought to have played a role in past nuclear testing activities.
Footage circulating on social media appeared to show a bright light illuminating the sky over the city early on Friday, followed by a large plume of smoke
Continue reading...News agency says site of incident not related to military and investigations under way
An industrial gas tank exploded overnight in Tehran, Iran’s defence ministry has said, after images of the blast were widely shared on social media.
“A gas tank exploded in the Parchin public area. Thank God there were no casualties,” said a ministry spokesman, Brig Gen Davoud Abdi.
Continue reading...Knesset votes to approve bill authorising domestic security agency to track infections
Israel is experiencing an alarming surge in coronavirus cases, which has prompted the government to approve reimposing a controversial tracking system administered by the country’s domestic security agency, the Shin Bet, over the reported objections of the agency.
Cases in the country have surged again after Israel eased restrictions at the end of May – a move that coincided with the Shavuot holiday, when people crowded beaches on both the Mediterranean and the Sea of Galilee.
Continue reading...Tauqir Sharif’s UK citizenship was revoked in 2017, after working on aid projects in the region
A British man living in rebel-held Syria has been abducted by the area’s dominant jihadist group, his family has said.
Tauqir Sharif and his wife, Racquell Hayden Best, from Walthamstow, east London, have been working on humanitarian projects in Syria since 2013 and are currently living with their five children in Idlib province, the last opposition bastion of the country. Idlib, in north-west Syria, has been controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a militant group with links to al-Qaida, since January 2019.
Continue reading...António Guterres says plans to annex around 30% of the disputed territory would ‘destabilise’ the region
The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, has expressed hope that Israel will hear global calls and will not go ahead with annexation of parts of the West Bank, which would undermine a two-state solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The UN has been consistently conveying the message “that annexation would be not only against international law but it would be a major factor to destabilise the region”, he told Associated Press in an interview.
Continue reading...Improved economic deal could strengthen hand of Tehran’s reformists, says report
European diplomats are being urged to restart shuttle diplomacy with Iran after the US presidential election in November or risk Tehran hardliners gaining still wider control of Iran’s many layers of government and its economy.
The European 3 (E3) – Germany, France and the UK - managed to maintain their unity at a meeting on Friday at which they agreed to keep the nuclear deal alive, oppose a US plan for the snapback of sanctions and possibly limit the lifting of the UN conventional arms embargo on Iran due to take place in the autumn.
Continue reading...Despite one of the world’s highest smoking rates, many politicians believe a ban will effect the economy
When patients quit cigarettes at the King Hussein Cancer Center’s smoking clinic they are asked to be patient with their children. Often their offspring have been exposed to so much secondhand smoke that they have become addicted, too.
“For every four cigarettes their parent has smoked, the child has smoked one,” says Firas al-Hawari, a physician who directs the clinic. “We can control the parents with medication, but the kids are going through withdrawals because we don’t have them on medication.”
Continue reading...From grand visions that fail with the departure of a president to everyday buildings knocked down before they can be considered for heritage protection, a new book unpicks what Egypt’s capital might have beenn
Looming above the affluent Zamalek neighbourhood in the centre of Cairo, the Forte Tower has stood as the tallest building in Egypt for the last 30 years – yet it remains unfinished and abandoned. A ring of faintly Islamic pointed-arch windows encircles the uppermost floor of the great cylindrical shaft, creating a forlorn crown on the skyline, like a host awaiting party guests that never arrived.
Begun in the 1970s, the 166-metre tall building was planned to house a glamorous 450-room hotel, with restaurants, shops and a nightclub. It was to be the first part of a “new Manhattan of Egypt”, a cluster of skyscrapers imagined by president Anwar Sadat to rise from Gezira Island in the middle of the Nile, signalling Cairo’s place on the world stage. Following Sadat’s assassination in 1981, the project hit the rocks. Under subsequent president, Hosni Mubarak, the developer faced battles for permits and licences, seeing the project mired in lawsuits that ultimately halted it. The towering carcass has been left empty ever since, a single showroom furnished with bedding, lamps and an old TV providing an eerie relic of the dream.
Continue reading...New infections in and around Seoul; Spain reports 36 new outbreaks; New Zealand strengthens borders
Authorities in South Korea have said the country is experiencing a second wave of the coronavirus in and around Seoul, and warned that stronger physical-distancing measures will be reimposed if the daily increase in infections does not come down.
Confirmation of the new wave came as the Israeli government said a lockdown could be reintroduced amid a sharp rise in cases, and a team of contact tracing experts prepared to deploy to the Australian state of Victoria to tackle a new outbreak in Melbourne.
Continue reading...Suspect accused of torturing man in prison run by Syrian intelligence service in 2011
A Syrian doctor living in Germany has been arrested on suspicion of crimes against humanity in his country of origin, prosecutors have said, in the latest German move against suspected war crimes in Syria.
The suspect, identified as Alaa M, is accused of having “tortured a detainee ... in at least two cases” at a prison run by the Syrian intelligence service in the city of Homs in 2011, according to German federal prosecutors.
Continue reading...Families of prisoners at notorious Tora complex concerned publicised efforts to contain virus are purely cosmetic
Fears are mounting over the safety of prisoners in Egypt’s notorious Tora prison, as rights groups say parts of the complex have been cordoned off to quarantine those diagnosed with coronavirus.
Families of those held inside the huge compound south of Cairo, which houses at least eight individual prisons, including two maximum security wings, say the authorities’ attempts to combat the spread of Covid-19 inside Tora are at best cosmetic. “Things have been erratic since they banned visits in March,” said Mona Seif, whose brother, the activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, has been detained in at the prison since September.
Continue reading...Amnesty alleges phone of Omar Radi in Morocco was infected by NSO’s Pegasus software
As NSO Group faced mounting criticism last year that its hacking software was being used illegally against journalists, dissidents and campaigners around the world, the Israeli spyware company unveiled a new policy that it said showed its commitment to human rights.
Now an investigation has alleged that another journalist, Omar Radi in Morocco, was targeted with NSO’s Pegasus software and put under surveillance just days after the company made that promise.
Continue reading...Omar Abdulaziz, who was close to murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi, told of threat posed by Saudi Arabia
A prominent Saudi dissident who is living in exile in Canada said he was recently warned by Canadian authorities that he was a “potential target” of Saudi Arabia and that he needed to take precautions to protect himself.
Omar Abdulaziz, a 29-year-old activist who had a close association with Jamal Khashoggi, the murdered Washington Post journalist, told the Guardian that he believed he was facing a threat to his safety and that the Canadians had credible information about a possible plan to harm him.
Continue reading...British firms fulfilling fighter jet contracts which enable kingdom to wage war in Yemen, despite the trade being ruled unlawful
The government stands accused of ignoring a landmark court ruling restricting UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
In a judgment handed down a year ago, the court of appeal ruled it was “unlawful” for the government to have allowed the sale of arms to the kingdom for use in Yemen, where independent estimates suggest a Saudi-led coalition has been responsible for the deaths of more than 8,000 civilians since 2015.
Continue reading...The World Health Organization has announced the coronavirus pandemic is accelerating and more than 150,000 cases of Covid-19 were reported in one day on Thursday, the highest single-day number so far.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general, told reporters in Geneva refugees were particularly at risk from the pandemic and that nearly half of the newly reported cases were in the Americas, with significant numbers from South Asia and the Middle East
Businesswoman is seeking £1.5bn from bank in high court action over £2bn Qatari loan
A businesswoman embroiled in a £1.5bn high court battle with Barclays broke down in tears after bank bosses accused her of engaging in a “hustle”.
Amanda Staveley has made complaints about bank bosses’ behaviour when negotiating investment deals during the 2008 financial crisis.
Continue reading...Use of invasive digital and physical tracking measures soars as the pandemic spreads
Extensive surveillance measures introduced around the world during the coronavirus outbreak have widened and become entrenched, digital rights experts have said, three months after the World Health Organization declared a pandemic.
The measures have often been billed as temporary necessities rushed into place to help track infections, but governments have been accused of denting civil rights with the widespread use of techniques such as phone monitoring, contact tracing apps, and physical surveillance such as CCTV with facial recognition.
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