Category Archives: Middle East and North Africa

Threat of jail looms over even mildest critics under Egyptian crackdown

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Nine years after uprising, Egyptians face strict controls on political activity and free speech

Mohammed Abdellatif did not see himself as a political activist. As a dentist in Cairo, his concerns were focused on healthcare and issues such as a lack of medical supplies and low wages for doctors.

Then at 3am one day last September, 50 armed security agents stormed his family home. Abdellatif’s alleged crime was to have launched a social media campaign demanding better pay and conditions for health workers in Egypt. The previous month while working at a public hospital in Giza, he had started the Twitter hashtag “Egyptian doctors are angry”.

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Britain must be held to account for its role in the war in Yemen

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As the death toll in Yemen passes 100,000, questions must be asked about UK arms exports to the Saudi-led coalition

As British politics reverberates with the results of the general election and Brexit approaches, the announcement from researchers that the death toll in the war in Yemen now exceeds 100,000 went unnoticed in the mainstream press at the end of last year.

With heightened US-Iranian hostility after the US government’s killing of Qassem Suleimani, the prospects for the war in Yemen look increasingly bleak.

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Donald Trump invites Israeli leaders to Washington to hear peace plan details

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  • ‘Ultimate deal’ reported to be extremely favourable to Israel
  • Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition leader to visit next week

Donald Trump has invited Israel’s prime minister and leader of the opposition to Washington for talks on the “prospects of peace”, signalling that the White House was preparing to share details of its long-awaited “ultimate deal” for Israelis and Palestinians.

Mike Pence, the US vice-president who is visiting Jerusalem for a Holocaust remembrance forum, said after a meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu that he had asked the leader to fly to Washington next week.

“President Trump asked me to extend an invitation to Prime Minister Netanyahu to come to the White House next week to discuss regional issues as well as the prospect of peace here in the Holy Land,” he said. Opposition leader Benny Gantz would also visit, he added, although it was not clear if at the same time.

No Palestinian representatives appeared to have been invited.

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Talk like an Egyptian: mummy’s voice heard 3,000 years after death

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Researchers in UK recreate Nesyamun’s sound using 3D version of his vocal tract

The “voice” of an ancient Egyptian priest has been heard for the first time since he died and was mummified 3,000 years ago, researchers have said.

Nesyamun lived under the pharaoh Rameses XI, who reigned around the beginning of the 11th century BC.

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Qatar eases exit rules but concerns linger over abuse of domestic workers

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Exit permits to be scrapped, but requirement for domestic workers to give employers 72 hours’ notice is ‘problematic’, say activists

Domestic workers in Qatar must give their employers advance notice before leaving the country, in a new policy that campaigners say raises concerns for those trapped in abusive situations.

As pressure mounts on Qatar to tackle labour exploitation ahead of the 2022 World Cup, it announced last week that it was abolishing restrictions on leaving the country for nearly all migrant workers, who previously had to obtain their employer’s permission.

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‘Click I agree’: the UN rapporteur says prince tried to intimidate Bezos with message

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Information suggests alleged targeting of Amazon chief was part of a wider campaign to pick off individuals close to Khashoggi

The message, it seems, could not have been clearer.

On 8 November 2018, just one month after the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, received an unsolicited text from Mohammed bin Salman’s WhatsApp account.

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From Bezos to Bush: Saudi crown prince met array of VIPs on US tour

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It is not known how many people Prince Mohammed shared WhatsApp messages with in 2018 other than Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos was far from the only American VIP who met Saudi Arabia’s crown prince in the spring of 2018. During a coast-to-coast tour Mohammed bin Salman had personal encounters with dozens of celebrities, politicians and tech titans including George Bush, Richard Branson and Bill Gates.

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UN experts demand US inquiry into Jeff Bezos Saudi hacking claims

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‘Grave concern’ expressed at evidence of possible ‘effort to silence Washington Post’

UN experts are demanding an immediate investigation by the US into evidence indicating that Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of the Washington Post, was hacked with spyware deployed in a WhatsApp message sent from the personal account of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.

The special rapporteurs – Agnès Callamard and David Kaye – said in a joint statement they were “gravely concerned” by evidence they had reviewed about the apparent surveillance of Bezos in what they described as a possible “effort to influence, if not silence, the Washington Post’s reporting on Saudi Arabia”.

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‘A whole sheep for £18’: how live exports are hurting farmers in Romania

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Country’s lack of meat processing facilities means livestock must be shipped to international markets – at a high cost to both shepherds and welfare

Gheorghe Dănulețiu, also known as Ghiță Ciobanul (Ghiță the shepherd), has more than 500,000 followers on Facebook after he featured in an advertising campaign that went viral, but he leads the modest life of a traditional shepherd.

Looking after 1,500 sheep in western Romania, Dănulețiu’s life changes with the seasons. During lambing in spring, he barely sleeps four hours a night while in winter he leads his sheep in a three- to four-week journey from the mountains down to graze in the valleys.

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Amazon boss Jeff Bezos’s phone ‘hacked by Saudi crown prince’

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Exclusive: investigation suggests Washington Post owner was targeted five months before murder of Jamal Khashoggi

The Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos had his mobile phone “hacked” in 2018 after receiving a WhatsApp message that had apparently been sent from the personal account of the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, sources have told the Guardian.

The encrypted message from the number used by Mohammed bin Salman is believed to have included a malicious file that infiltrated the phone of the world’s richest man, according to the results of a digital forensic analysis.

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Iran admits it fired two missiles at Ukrainian passenger jet

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Tehran issues first acknowledgement of precise number of rounds fired at plane

Iran says its armed forces mistakenly launched two surface-to-air missiles at a Ukrainian passenger jet that crashed with 176 people onboard earlier this month, its first acknowledgement of the precise number of rounds fired at the airliner.

Assessments by western intelligence agencies and video footage from the launch site had pointed to two missiles being fired at the Boeing 737-800 on the morning of 8 January, but Iranian officials had so far referenced only one until the release of preliminary report on Tuesday by the country’s civil aviation authority.

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Netanyahu calls for sanctions over ICC war crimes investigation

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Israeli PM condemns ‘travesty’ after court said it intended to look at alleged incidents

Benjamin Netanyahu has called for sanctions against the international criminal court and people who work for it, a month after its chief prosecutor announced she intended to investigate alleged Israeli war crimes.

“I think that everybody should rise up against this,” the Israeli prime minister said in an interview with Trinity Broadcasting Network, the world’s largest Christian television network.

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Teenage boy the latest to die in Libyan refugee detention centre

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The 16-year-old, from Eritrea, had been in the facility for more than a year and died of an unknown illness and lack of medical care

A 16-year-old is the latest person to die in a network of Libyan detention centres where refugees and migrants are locked up indefinitely after they are returned to the war-torn north African country by the EU-funded coastguard.

Fellow detainees in Sabaa detention centre, Tripoli, named the boy as Adal Debretsion, an Eritrean who had reportedly been locked up for more than a year. They said the teenager died on 12 January of an unknown illness and a lack of medical care.

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Jailed British-Australian Kylie Moore-Gilbert rejected Iran’s offer to work as a spy

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Melbourne University academic rebuffed bid to recruit her in exchange for her release, letters reveal

Iran tried to recruit the British-Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert as a spy for Tehran in exchange for her release, but the overture was furiously rebuffed, letters smuggled out of Evin prison reveal.

Moore-Gilbert, a Cambridge-educated academic specialising in Middle East politics, is currently being held in Ward 2A, an isolated Revolutionary Guard-run wing of Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, serving a 10-year sentence for espionage, a charge she, and the Australian government, rejects as entirely false.

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Isis founding member confirmed by spies as group’s new leader

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Officials piece together profile of Amir Mohammed Abdul Rahman al-Mawli al-Salbi

The new leader of Islamic State has been confirmed as Amir Mohammed Abdul Rahman al-Mawli al-Salbi, according to officials from two intelligence services. He is one of the terror group’s founding members and has led the enslavement of Iraq’s Yazidi minority and has overseen operations around the globe.

The Guardian has learned that Salbi was named leader hours after the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in October. The name that the group gave for Baghdadi’s replacement at the time, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Quraishi, was a nom de guerre not recognised by other senior leaders or intelligence agencies.

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Libya oil production nosedives as Haftar ignores calls to end war

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Increasingly erratic general shows no sign of relenting despite international pressure

Libya’s oil production and exports have almost ground to a halt as the increasingly unpredictable Gen Khalifa Haftar, the military leader in the country’s east, ignores international calls to seek a negotiated political settlement to the civil war.

World leaders had convened in Berlin on Sunday to endorse plans to entrench, monitor and enforce a ceasefire intended as a precursor to the disarming of militias and political talks in Geneva to build a reunified government, and a fair distribution of oil revenues between the east and west of the country.

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‘Passengers of light’ visit Iran-Iraq war memorials – a photo essay

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Pilgrimages made by loved ones of those who died in combat are also supported and organised by the regime, which sees in them the opportunity to spread its doctrine

In Iran, every spring, thousands of families travel to the battle sites of the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88). Many of those who make these pilgrimages – called Rahian-e Noor in Persian (the passenger of light) – lost loved ones in the war, which caused more than half a million deaths on the Iranian side.

But they are also supported and organised by the regime, which sees the opportunity to disseminate its doctrine.

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Libya: Sanctions threatened against countries who break arms embargo

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Johnson says international peacekeeping force could monitor the proposed ceasefire

World leaders seeking an enduring ceasefire in Libya have agreed at a summit to impose sanctions on those breaking an arms embargo and are considering whether to send a multinational force to the country.

The conference in Berlin of 11 countries is aimed at bringing an end to the fighting between the UN-recognised government in Tripoli led by the prime minister, Fayez al-Sarraj, and the Libyan National Army in the country’s east led by Gen Khalifa Haftar.

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Hundreds injured in Lebanon as violence flares in ‘week of anger’

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Pitched battles between police and demonstrators as leaders fail to form new government

Protesters hurled fireworks and ripped branches from trees to use against security forces who fired rubber bullets and teargas during the most violent weekend of protests in Beirut since the beginning of mass anti-government demonstrations across Lebanon three months ago.

Lebanese medical groups said at least 377 people were injured on Saturday, including 80 who were taken to hospital, during the culmination of days of unrest that organisers called a “week of anger” after a relative lull.

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