Category Archives: Middle East and North Africa

Yemen rise in violence threatens to derail peace moves, UN warns

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Special envoy calls for emergency meeting of security council as violence flares

The sudden surge in violence in Yemen could scupper fragile moves towards a peace settlement, the UN’s special envoy for the country has said.

“We have to get the genie back in the bottle,” said Martin Griffiths. “Whoever started this renewed violence, it is unequivocally the case that there has been a huge rupture of confidence and a huge loss of life for the sake of uncertain territorial gains.”

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Trump to meet Israeli leaders as doubts over ‘peace plan’ grow

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Netanyahu’s trip a welcome distraction from indictment while election opponent Gantz also visits White House

Donald Trump is set to disclose details of his much-delayed Middle East “peace plan” during meetings with Israeli leaders in Washington on Monday, amid a rising global chorus of doubt about its timing and substance.

The choreography between the US and Israel has been interpreted as a convenient distraction for both Trump, who faces an impeachment trial, and Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces three criminal corruption indictments and an uncertain election campaign.

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NSA faces questions over security of Trump officials after alleged Bezos hack

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Democratic lawmaker asks agency if it is confident the Saudi government has not sought to hack US officials

The US National Security Agency is facing questions about the security of top Trump administration officials’ communications following last week’s allegations that the Saudi crown prince may have had a hand in the alleged hack of Jeff Bezos.

Ron Wyden, a senior Democratic lawmaker, asked the director of the NSA whether he was confident that the Saudi government had not also sought to hack senior US government officials, including the White House adviser Jared Kushner, who has reportedly had a WhatsApp relationship with the Saudi heir.

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Netanyahu hopes to ‘make history’ during White House visit

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Israeli prime minister to travel to US for unveiling of Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said he hopes to “make history” during his upcoming visit to the White House for the unveiling of Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan.

Addressing his cabinet before departing for the US, Netanyahu described the current environment, characterised by close ties with Trump, as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that Israel should “not miss”.

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Veterans criticize Trump’s downplaying of US troops’ brain injuries

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Several US veterans’ organizations call for president to apologize for remarks about injuries suffered by service members in Iraq

Veterans of Foreign Wars, a prominent organization advocating for US military veterans, has called for Donald Trump to apologize for remarks downplaying brain injuries recently suffered by nearly three dozen American service members in Iraq.

Related: Trump downplays brain injuries suffered by US troops in Iran missile strike

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Reporting on the Iran nuclear deal: ‘nothing happens until everything happens’

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Our world affairs editor reflects on how, despite years of negotiations, we came once again to the brink of conflict

Countries tend to go to war when diplomacy fails. But Washington and Tehran are now facing off because it succeeded. It was because the 2015 nuclear deal was Barack Obama’s proudest foreign policy achievement that Donald Trump was so determined to destroy it.

The US and Iran are sliding back towards the brink of conflict. If a missile had landed a little bit differently in the course of the latest exchange of hostilities, they would probably be at war by now.

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Former BBC executives criticise Orla Guerin’s Holocaust report

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Michael Grade and Danny Cohen hit out at ‘unjustifiably offensive’ News at Ten piece

The former BBC chairman Michael Grade and Danny Cohen, its former director of television, have joined criticism of the broadcaster over an “unjustifiably offensive” News at Ten report that appeared to link Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to the Holocaust.

Orla Guerin, the BBC’s international correspondent, made the reference at the end of an interview with Holocaust survivor Rena Quint ahead of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

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Prince Charles wishes Palestinians ‘freedom, justice and equality’

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Prince of Wales walks alongside Muslim and Christian leaders on historic visit to West Bank

The Prince of Wales has sympathised with the Palestinian people, speaking of the hardships they face and saying he wished them “freedom, justice and equality” in the future.

Charles’s words of support – spoken during his first visit to the Palestinian occupied territories – came as Donald Trump was expected to unveil his long-awaited Middle East peace plan.

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Billions of locusts swarm through Kenya – in pictures

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Huge locust swarms in east Africa are the result of extreme weather swings and could prove catastrophic for a region still reeling from drought and deadly floods. Dense clouds of the ravenous insects have spread from Ethiopia and Somalia into Kenya, in the region’s worse infestation in decades

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Saudi Arabia ‘planned to spy on Khashoggi’s fiancee in UK’

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Exclusive: US agencies believed kingdom intended to monitor Hatice Cengiz after journalist killed

US intelligence authorities urged British counterparts to keep a close eye on Hatice Cengiz, the fiancee of the murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, after they became aware of a plan by Saudi Arabia to keep her under surveillance in the UK last year, according to western intelligence sources.

The US believed the kingdom had the “ambition and intention” to monitor Cengiz in London last May, seven months after Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, where he had gone to obtain papers so the couple could marry.

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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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