Category Archives: Middle East and North Africa

Iraqi PM says he will resign after weeks of violent protests

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Adel Abdul-Mahdi’s move comes after call for change of leadership from top cleric

The Iraqi prime minister has announced his resignation after the country’s top Shia Muslim cleric called for lawmakers to reconsider their support for a government rocked by weeks of deadly anti-establishment unrest.

“In response to this call, and in order to facilitate it as quickly as possible, I will present to parliament a demand [to accept] my resignation from the leadership of the current government,” a statement signed by Adel Abdul-Mahdi said.

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Sudan dissolves ex-ruling party and repeals law targeting women

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Activists welcome passing of key demands of protest movement that toppled Bashir

Activists in Sudan have welcomed a decision by the transitional government to dissolve the former ruling party and repeal a public order law used to regulate women’s behaviour under the former president Omar al-Bashir.

Bashir has been in detention since being forced from power in April, when security forces withdrew their support for his regime after months of protests in which more than 100 people were killed.

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Syria: drone footage shows devastation in Aleppo, Deir ez-Zor and rural Damascus – video

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Newly released drone footage shows the destruction caused to towns and cities in Syria during the nearly nine-year civil war. The aerial footage from October, provided by the International Committee of the Red Cross, shows the extent of the damage to buildings, homes and streets in Aleppo, Deir ez-Zor and rural Damascus

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Reopening Sana’a airport ‘critical first step’ for Yemenis needing medical care

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Patients requiring life-saving treatment to be allowed to fly, but aid agencies say imports of medicine and humanitarian aid crucial

Aid agencies have welcomed news from the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen that it will allow some flights out of Houthi-held Sana’a, for Yemeni civilians requiring life-saving medical treatment.

As many as 32,000 people in need of overseas medical care may have died since the airport closed to commercial flights in August 2016, according to ministry of health estimates. The figures have not been verified independently, but in 2017 the UN estimated that up to 20,000 people had been denied access to potentially life-saving healthcare due to restrictions on airspace.

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Refugees being ‘starved out’ of UN facility in Tripoli

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Aid worker claims refugees are being denied food to motivate them to leave

The UN has been accused of trying to starve out refugees and asylum seekers who are sheltering for safety inside a centre run by the UN refugee agency in the Libyan capital of Tripoli.

One group of about 400 people, who came to the Tripoli gathering and departure facility in October from Abu Salim detention centre in the south of the country, have apparently been without food for weeks.

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Protesters burn down Iranian consulate in southern Iraq

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Six demonstrators killed by security forces as violence grips the country

Anti-government protesters have burned down the Iranian consulate in southern Iraq, while six protesters were killed by security forces who fired live rounds amid ongoing violence in the country.

Related: How street protests across Middle East threaten Iran’s power

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Revealed: how UK technology fuelled Turkey’s rise to global drone power

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UK-based manufacturer supplied crucial missile component to Turkish drone-maker during development stage

Turkey was able to circumvent a US export ban on killer drones with the help of a missile component first developed in the UK, allowing Ankara to become an emerging power in the lethal technology, which experts warn is dangerously proliferating.

The vital assistance from a factory in Brighton has helped Turkey on its way to become the second biggest user of armed drones in the world – one of a number of countries emulating methods first used by the US in its “war on terror”.

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Murals of Baghdad: the art of protest – in pictures

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Protests against the Iraqi government have drawn a deadly response from security forces. With 300 lives lost in less than two months, demonstrators are now taking spray paint to concrete walls in an attempt to sketch out their vision for a brighter future. Artists, many of them young women, have transformed a tunnel leading to Tahrir Square into a revolutionary art gallery

Arabic translation by Rana Haddad

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Moroccan rapper jailed for one year over track about corruption

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Rights groups criticise treatment of Gnawi, whose video has been seen 15m times

A Moroccan rapper who recorded a viral track denouncing the state of the country has been sentenced to a year in prison for insulting the police in a case that rights groups have called “an outrageous assault on free speech”.

Mohamed Mounir, who performs under the name Gnawi, was also fined the equivalent of $103 (£79) after confessing to cursing about the police in a video he posted online in late October. He can appeal the sentence.

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Chemical weapons watchdog defends Syria report after leaks

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Whistleblower claims OPCW’s findings misrepresented some facts over 2018 chlorine attack

The head of the world’s chemical weapons watchdog has defended its conclusion that chlorine was used in an attack in Syria in April 2018, after a whistleblower alleged the report misrepresented some of the facts amid Russian claims that the watchdog is being politicised by the west.

WikiLeaks at the weekend published an email from a member of the fact-finding team that investigated the attack which accused the body of altering the original findings of investigators to make evidence of a chemical attack seem more conclusive.

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Egypt’s security forces raid online newspaper’s office in Cairo

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Mada Masr is the last major independent outlet amid clampdown on media freedom

Egyptian security officials have raided the offices of the country’s last major independent news outlet, which has been described as the last bastion of press freedom in Egypt.

“Plainclothes security forces have raided Mada Masr’s office in Cairo,” the website tweete. “Staff are currently being held inside, and their phones have been switched off.”

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How street protests across Middle East threaten Iran’s power

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Demonstrations from Baghdad to Beirut reveal the extent to which Shia dominance across the region has weakened

Turmoil in Baghdad, paralysis in Beirut and flames of unrest in Tehran; it has been a bad few months for Iran at home and elsewhere in the Middle East, where more than a decade of advances are being slowed, not by manoeuvrings on battlefields or legislatures – but the force of protest movements.

Early last week, Iran went dark for four days by closing its internet connections down. Even for the country’s autocratic leadership, this was a drastic step. But such are the stakes for a regime that is increasingly facing obstacles across its hubs of Shia influence. And those who laud Iran’s rise, as well as those who fear it, sense it is at a loss over how to respond.

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Mike Pence makes unannounced visit to Iraq

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  • Visit meant to reassure US allies in fight against Isis
  • Pence is highest-level American to travel there since withdrawal

Mike Pence made an unannounced visit to Iraq on Saturday, the highest-level American to visit since Donald Trump ordered a pullback of US forces in neighbouring Syria two months ago.

Related: Trump says FBI tried to 'overthrow the presidency'

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Mummified lion and dozens of cats among rare finds in Egypt

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Discoveries near Saqqara necropolis shed light on ancient use of animals in worship

A rare discovery of mummified big cats, cobras and crocodiles has been unveiled by Egyptian authorities.

Egyptologists are thrilled at the cache, which includes dozens of mummified cats, 75 wooden and bronze cat statues, mummified birds, and an enormous mummified beetle three to four times the normal size.

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No more orphans expected to be returned to UK from Syria

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Home Office unhappy with Foreign Office for potentially opening door to more Isis returnees

No other British children are expected to be repatriated from Syria in the foreseeable future, despite the announcement from the foreign secretary on Thursday that a small number of orphans who had been caught up in the conflict with Islamic State had been brought home.

Home Office officials view the repatriation of the children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, as highly exceptional – and there is unhappiness with the Foreign Office for potentially opening the door to more Islamic State returnees.

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Netanyahu rivals move to bring him down after corruption indictments

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Israeli opposition parties scramble to find legal channels to strip weakened PM of power

Benjamin Netanyahu’s political opponents have moved to capitalise on a series of damning bribery indictments levelled against the Israeli leader, hoping to further weaken him at one of the lowest points in his decades-long career.

The opposition Labor party was expected to file petitions to the high court of justice to force the country’s longest-serving prime minister to step down.

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Some orphaned British children in Syria to be repatriated

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Special repatriation prompts calls for ministers to allow all British children to return

Britain has taken the step of repatriating a small number of orphaned children from north-east Syria who had been caught up in the conflict with Islamic State, the foreign secretary has announced.

Dominic Raab said the UK government had assisted their return from the war-torn country in a special repatriation that prompted calls for ministers to go further and allow all British children stranded in Syria to come back.

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Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu indicted for bribery and fraud

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Attorney general announces charges as crisis deepens for longest-serving leader

Israel’s attorney general has indicted Benjamin Netanyahu for bribery, fraud and breach of trust, in a damning blow to the prime minister as he fights for his political survival.

Avichai Mandelblit charged the 70-year-old leader on Thursday in all three major corruption cases for which he was investigated. It was the first time a sitting Israeli prime minister has been charged with a crime.

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Rights activist Almaas Elman shot dead in Mogadishu

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Peace campaigner’s car struck by stray bullet while passing airport, security officials say

Almaas Elman, a prominent rights activist, was shot dead in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu on Wednesday.

Almaas, who came from a leading family of peace campaigners, was travelling by car inside the heavily fortified airport compound when she was hit.

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The US policy shift on Israeli settlements will not stop Palestinians persevering | Raja Shehadeh

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Palestinians are surrounded by settlers and abandoned by the west, but this latest setback will only boost support for their cause

The day before US secretary of state Mike Pompeo’s announcement that the United States now considers the Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be legal, I accompanied an American group of writers on a tour of the settlements around Ramallah.

It was organised by Breaking the Silence, a group formed by Israeli veterans who oppose the occupation. Yehuda Shaul, the co-founder of the organisation, led the tour. He said that, from 1967 on, the settlement project was state-driven, neither prompted nor led by the settlers. Since then, the US position had been that settlement building in the occupied territories was contrary to international law. And yet no material action has ever been taken by any US administration to force Israel to stop building – except for one moment, in 1991, when president George Bush refused to provide a guarantee for $10bn in loans to Israel over settlement expansion. So what is new about Trump’s announcement?

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