Category Archives: Middle East and North Africa

Banks warned over Saudi Aramco by environmental groups

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Eight green groups send letter to express concern over planned market float

Environmental groups have warned the banks linked to Saudi Aramco’s planned market float that they risk financing the destruction of the planet by supporting the public listing of the world’s biggest oil producer.

The eight green groups, including Oil Change International and Friends of the Earth, warned that the world’s largest IPO would be “the biggest single infusion of capital into the fossil fuel industry” since global governments signed the Paris climate accord in 2015.

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Trump calls decision to withdraw US troops from Syria ‘strategically brilliant’ – video

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Donald Trump on Wednesday played down the crisis in Syria touched off by Turkey’s incursion against US-allied Kurdish forces, saying the conflict was between Turkey and Syria and that it was okay for Russia to help Damascus. The US president, speaking to reporters at the White House, said the Kurds were ‘no angels’

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Biden warns Isis fighters will strike US over Syria withdrawal

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Former vice-president said at Democratic debate ‘they are going to damage’ the US and blasted Trump for abandoning Kurdish allies

The former US vice-president Joe Biden warned during a Democratic debate on Tuesday night that Islamic State fighters would strike the US as a result of Donald Trump’s abrupt withdrawal of American forces in northern Syria.

“We have Isis that’s going to come here,” Biden said. “They are going to damage the United States of America. That’s why we got involved in the first place.”

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Erdoğan’s calamitous Syrian blunder has finally broken his spell over Turkey | Simon Tisdall

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The belligerent president has forgotten that his country is a democracy, not a dictatorship. It is time for him to go

If Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s belligerent president, were a true patriot with his country’s security and wellbeing at heart, he would resign immediately. He has made an appalling hash of things. His Syrian misadventure, while unusually calamitous, is but the latest in a long line of foreign blunders. Erdoğan abuses his position. He harms his country. He is still in office not because he is popular but because of the fear he instils and the power he crudely wields. It’s time for him to go.

Getting rid of Erdoğan is a matter for the Turks. And it wouldn’t be quite as difficult as it might sound

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Russian troops patrol between Turkish and Syrian forces on border

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Soldiers’ presence underlines Moscow’s role as power broker after evacuation of US personnel

Russian units have begun patrolling territory separating Turkish-backed Syrian rebels from the Syrian army around the flashpoint town of Manbij in north-east Syria, in a clear sign that Moscow has become the de facto power broker in the region after the evacuation of US troops.

Oleg Blokhin, a Russian journalist usually attached to mercenaries in Syria, posted a video on social media on Tuesday from a deserted US military base in the village of al-Saadiya, near Manbij.

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Qatar’s workers are at risk of heat stress for half the day during summer, finds UN

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A third of workers in study experienced dangerously high body temperatures, despite working ban during hottest periods

Migrant labourers working outdoors in Qatar face “high” or “extreme” risk of heat stress for more than half the working day during the four hottest months of the year, according to a UN report.

The findings come just weeks after the Guardian revealed that hundreds of workers may be dying due to exposure to Qatar’s intense summer heat.

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Revealed: Cameron and May lobbied Bahrain royals for Tory donor’s oil firm

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Former PMs asked princes to support bid for $5bn contract by Ayman Asfari’s firm Petrofac

Two former Conservative prime ministers lobbied a Middle Eastern royal family to award a multi-billion dollar oil contract to a company headed by a major Tory donor, the Guardian has established.

In March 2017, while in Downing Street, Theresa May wrote to the Bahraini prime minister to support the oil firm Petrofac while it was bidding to win the contract from the Gulf state.

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Trump asks Turkey for ceasefire and orders sanctions as violence escalates

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  • President freezes negotiations on $100bn trade deal
  • Trump vows to ‘swiftly destroy Turkey’s economy’

Donald Trump spoke directly to the Turkish president, Tayyip Erdoğan, on Monday to demand an immediate ceasefire in Syria while announcing a series of punishments for Ankara that critics saw as an attempt to save face.

The US president’s conversation with Erdoğan was revealed by the vice-president, Mike Pence, who said he would soon be travelling to the Middle East. “The United States of America did not give a green light for Turkey to invade Syria,” Pence insisted to reporters at the White House.

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Russian shadow falls over Syria as Kurds open door for Assad

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With the US gone, the implications of their departure is beginning to sink in across the Middle East

The moment that changed the Middle East arrived with a sudden silence. Just before 7pm on Sunday, the internet was cut across north-eastern Syria where, for half an hour, the Kurds of the region had been digesting a news flash. The Syrian government was returning to two towns, Manbij and Kobane. The implication quickly sunk in.

The regional capital, Qamishli, soon emptied; streets that had bustled with minibuses and shoppers became eerie and still. With the internet down phones were no help and nor were officials who had vanished along with the traffic. Air seemed to be suddenly vacuumed from the city, and the few people still around knew exactly what it meant: this was the moment power changed hands. It was a time to be scared.

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Orphans thought to be British rescued from Isis camp after Turkish attacks

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Children taken to safety in Raqqa after hundreds of people fled camp holding Islamic State affiliates in northern Syria

Three orphans believed to be British citizens have been evacuated from an area in northern Syria that was the focus of recent attacks by Turkish troops and their allies.

The Guardian understands that the three children, Amira, 10, her sister, Hiba, eight, and their brother, Hamza, were evacuated from a camp for people associated with Islamic State in Ain Issa on Sunday. They were part of a group of 24 children taken to safety by the UN refugee organisation.

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Syrian troops enter Kurdish fight against Turkish forces

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Deal to support Kurds in exchange for key cities set to open new front in civil war

Syrian troops have begun sweeping into Kurdish-held territory on a collision course with Turkish forces and their allies, a day after the beleaguered Kurds agreed to hand over key cities to Damascus in exchange for protection.

The deal, which Kurdish leaders emphasised they had made reluctantly after four days of bombardment by Turkish artillery and jets, threatens to open a new front in Syria’s nearly nine-year civil war, and signals the likely end of US and European military deployments in the country’s north-east.

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Trump and Syria: the worst week for US foreign policy since the Iraq invasion?

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A close ally is abandoned, and Isis is regrouping. The speed of the unravelling is breathtaking

In the week since Donald Trump’s fateful phone conversation with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the US has entirely abandoned the Kurds, its most effective allies in the Middle East, and with them a Syria strategy that was five years in the making.

The Islamic State flag has been raised once more and the last vestige of US credibility as a reliable partner lies crushed under Turkish tank tracks. It has arguably been the worst seven days for US foreign policy since the invasion of Iraq.

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Tunisia election: ‘Robocop’ Kais Saied wins presidential runoff

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Thousands take to streets after exit polls give conservative academic more than 70% of the vote

A low-profile, conservative law professor has beaten a charismatic media magnate released from prison last week in Tunisia’s presidential election runoff.

In a contest that reflected Tunisia’s shifting post-revolution political landscape, Kais Saied scooped more than 70% of the vote, according to two exit polls, more than 40 points ahead of Nabil Karoui.

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Syria war criminals may find the law is finally closing in on them

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After the latest atrocity by pro-Turkey forces, the long era of impunity may be near an end

Actual or suspected war crimes have been reported at every stage of Syria’s long-running civil war – and Turkey’s latest cross-border incursion has unleashed another wave of atrocities, including executions of civilians and other alleged crimes against humanity.

But despite huge amounts of documentary evidence collected since 2011 by the UN and independent human rights groups, the perpetrators of such crimes in Syria, whether they are governments, armed factions or individuals, have mostly escaped punishment. This has encouraged a sense of impunity among wrongdoers – and dismay among victims.

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Kurds reach deal with Damascus in face of Turkish offensive

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Agreement to hand over border towns comes after more than 700 Isis affiliates escape camp

More than 700 people with links to Islamic State have escaped from a detention camp in north-east Syria, as the Kurdish-led forces in control of the area reached a deal with the Assad regime to stave off a bloody five-day-old Turkish assault.

Kurdish fighters controlling the region would surrender the border towns of Manbij and Kobane to Damascus in a deal brokered by Russia, officials said on Sunday night.

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Robocop v Corleone: disgruntled Tunisians vote in presidential runoff

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Exit poll points to victory for low-profile law professor Kais Saied over fellow outsider Nabil Karoui

Tunisians are voting on Sunday in a runoff presidential election between a low-profile law professor and a charismatic media magnate who was released from prison earlier this week.

The Maghreb country, often held up as the lone success story of the Arab spring, appears set to successfully carry out its second-ever presidential elections, with an earlier round of voting winnowing the field from 26 candidates to the two self-styled outsiders, the lawyer Kais Saied and the businessman Nabil Karoui.

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Bomb kills Kenyan police near Somali border

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Jihadist group al-Shabaab suspected of placing roadside device

Several Kenyan police officers were killed on Saturday when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb near the Somali border, authorities said.

“Unfortunately we lost some officers and the vehicle they were travelling in has been severely damaged,” said the Kenyan chief of police, Hilary Mutyambai, without giving an exact number of fatalities.

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Female Kurdish politician among nine civilians killed by pro-Turkey forces in Syria, observers say

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Rebels shot at least nine civilians in execution-style killings in Syria, according to Syrian Observatory for Human Rights

Pro-Ankara fighters taking part in a Turkish offensive on Kurdish-held border towns in north-eastern Syria have killed at least nine civilians including a female politician, a human rights monitor has said.

“The nine civilians were executed at different moments south of the town of Tal Abyad,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

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Betrayal on the border: Kurds fear future as Turkish assault intensifies

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In the Kurdish heartlands in Syria, the sense of abandonment at the withdrawal of US troops is palpable as Erdoğan’s forces claim early successes

The lone road out of Ras al-Ayn was empty, except for one overladen lorry that slowly made its way along a lethal mile from war zone to exile. Shells thudded into buildings in the distance as Kurdish forces in vans prepared to race jets and sniper fire, trying to get to a battle that almost everyone else had left.

Those who remained in the border town at the frontline of the war for north-eastern Syria were there to fight; the Kurds rallying to defend it and the Arabs preparing to seize it from them. Early on Saturday, the Arab force, trained by Turkey, made its move. By the day’s end, the proxies claimed to have recaptured part of Ras al-Ayn, making good on Ankara’s threats to push Kurdish forces from one of their main enclaves.

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