Strict rules governing women’s lives could be changed according to Saudi newspaper
Saudi Arabia could be planning to relax the country’s strict male guardianship laws to allow women to leave the country without needing permission from a male relative, according to reports.
Travel restrictions for women over the age of 18 are due to be lifted this year, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, quoting Saudi officials familiar with the matter.
Continue reading...UK government spokesman says three Iranian boats were warned off by HMS Montrose, but Tehran denies involvement
Three Iranian boats tried to intercept a British oil tanker in the Gulf before being driven off by a Royal Navy warship, the UK said, in a major escalation of tensions in the vital shipping channel off Iran.
The incident took place in the strait of Hormuz through which the commercial vessel British Heritage was attempting to pass on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Helle Petersen asks trial in Morocco for ‘just’ penalty after murder of Louisa Vesterager Jespersen in Atlas mountains
The mother of a Danish student who was beheaded, along with another Scandinavian woman, while hiking in Morocco’s High Atlas mountains has called for the suspected jihadist killers to face the death penalty as their trial neared its end.
In a letter read out by her lawyer in an anti-terrorist court in Sale, near Morocco’s capital, Rabat, Helle Petersen said: “The most just thing would be to give these beasts the death penalty they deserve, I ask that of you. My life was destroyed the moment that two policemen came to my door on 17 December to announce my daughter’s death.”
Continue reading...Men stranded off UAE for almost three years claim they were told they could face two-year sentence for leaving vessel unmanned
Seafarers who abandoned their ship after being stranded at sea for almost three years say they were forced back to their boat after they were warned they faced jail.
The four men, stranded 25 nautical miles off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, said they were told by coastguards that they faced two years in prison for leaving the vessel, the MV Tamim Aldar, and were advised to return. For abandoned seafarers, leaving a ship is alast resort, as the vessel represents their bargaining power for unpaid wages.
Continue reading...Amid a war that may have cost 500,000 lives, we must hold the Syrian government and others to account for the use of hunger as a weapon
In 2017, we started an agricultural project to help hundreds of families survive the blockade by the Assad government, as part of the Damaan Humanitarian Organization’s programme to support civilians in besieged eastern ghouta in Syria.
The project not only provided sustenance to the besieged population, it offered employment opportunities for many people.
Continue reading...During the 2022 World Cup, all eyes will be on the coastal metropolis located 16km from Doha
Text and photography by Stéphanie Buret
From the sands of the Qatari coast rise the towering glass, steel and concrete forms of Lusail, a city being built almost entirely from scratch. Pharaonic in its scale and ambition, the under-construction metropolis is the vision of the country’s former emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani, born in part from the desire to diversify the Qatari economy and distance it from oil dependence.
Financed by the government via the Qatari Diar real estate company, the city was initially conceived in 2005 but development truly took off when Qatar was announced as the host of the 2022 World Cup.
Continue reading...French envoy visits Tehran as Rouhani warns UK tanker seizure will have repercussions
Iran has told Europe it will not reverse its decision to increase uranium enrichment beyond the limits set by the 2015 nuclear accord until it achieves its “full rights” to an economic relationship with the EU under the deal.
Ali Shamkhani, a senior security official and representative of Iran’s supreme leader, made his remarks as he met a senior French diplomat sent to Tehran by the French president, Emmanuel Macron.
Continue reading...Defence ministry denies supplying weapons in breach of UN arms embargo
France has said some of its missiles were found at a Libyan base used by forces loyal to the military strongman Khalifa Haftar – an embarrassing admission that raises new questions about its role in the conflict.
Confirming a report in the New York Times, the French defence ministry said it had purchased the US-made Javelin missiles that were subsequently discovered at a camp south of Tripoli.
Continue reading...Four decades ago Egypt embarked on the most ambitious new cities building programme in the world. Their boom shows no sign of stopping
Seen from space, Egypt is a vast dusty land with a green Y opening into the Mediterranean Sea – a fertile valley that makes up 5% of the country yet is home to 95% of the population.
This pattern of human occupation had characterised the country for thousands of years, but in the 1970s, as ever more precious green land was eaten up by urban growth, an idea that had been taking shape in the national consciousness for decades was finally put into policy. Egypt would “conquer the desert” and redistribute its burgeoning population across the white sands of the Sahara – an Egyptian version of the 19th-century US “manifest destiny” to move west, no matter how punishing the consequences.
Continue reading...As deadly airstrikes prompt plans to release detainees, fears rise for those trapped in the country amid claims of serious abuses
Kosofo was hiding in the bathroom when a deadly airstrike ripped through the ceiling of the hall he was locked inside, in Tripoli’s Tajoura migrant detention centre last week.
“I saw the hell with my eyes. I saw things that I had seen during the Darfur war,” says the Sudanese man in his 20s, who has asked to go by a nickname for his own safety.
Continue reading...Pentagon’s top general says group of nations would ensure freedom of navigation in Straits of Hormuz
The United States hopes to enlist allies in the coming weeks for a military coalition to safeguard strategic waters in the Persian Gulf where Washington blames Iran and Iran-aligned fighters for attacks, the Penatgon’s most senior general has said.
Under the plan, which has only been finalised in recent days, the US would provide command ships and lead surveillance efforts for the military coalition in seaas off Iran and Yemen. Allies would patrol waters near those US command ships and escort commercial vessels with their nation’s flags.
Continue reading...Princess Hassa accused of getting bodyguard to beat man for taking photo in Paris home
The sister of the crown prince of Saudi Arabia is going on trial in absentia in Paris accused of conspiring to kidnap and beat a worker who was refurbishing her luxury apartment in Paris.
Hassa bint Salman’s French lawyer said she denied the charges of complicity in armed violence, complicity in holding someone against their will and theft against an Egyptian-born man who was carrying out repairs at her family’s Paris residence on the exclusive Avenue Foch in September 2016.
Continue reading...Cairo calls on international police agency to find head sold to unknown buyer for £4.7m
Egypt has called on Interpol to intervene and will sue over the sale at Christie’s auction house in London of a 3,000-year-old Tutankhamun sculpture that may have been looted from a Luxor temple.
The 28.5cm brown quartzite head was part of a statue of the ancient god Amun with the facial features of the young pharaoh Tutankhamun, who ruled Egypt between 1333 and 1323 BC. Similar statues were carved for the Temple of Karnak in the city of Thebes, now Luxor.
Continue reading...Move is a significant moment in civil war, but officials say UAE remains in Saudi-led coalition against Houthis
The United Arab Emirates has announced a “strategic redeployment” from the port city of Hodeidah in Yemen, as well as a more limited tactical retreat elsewhere in the country – marking a significant moment in Yemen’s four-year civil war.
UAE officials said the move, under discussion for as long as a year, was designed to support a United Nations-led peace process that began in Stockholm last December. It was the first official UAE confirmation of a withdrawal, which has been reported in recent weeks by witnesses and foreign officials.
Continue reading...Tehran breaches agreed 3.67% limit and hints it could soon start enriching to 20%
Iran has enriched uranium beyond the key limit dictated in its 2015 deal with major powers, in the latest escalation of the crisis between Washington and Tehran.
The move, confirmed by the UN’s nuclear watchdog, came amid hints from Iran that it could start enriching to 20% later in the year unless it secured European help in the face of crippling US sanctions.
Continue reading...Stolen artefacts likely removed by Taliban will go on display before being sent to Kabul
Fourth-century Buddhist terracotta heads probably hacked off by the Taliban and found stuffed in poorly made wooden crates at Heathrow are to be returned to Afghanistan where they will be star museum exhibits.
The British Museum gave details on Monday of one of the most significant repatriation cases it has dealt with relating to the illegal looting of artefacts from Afghanistan and Iraq.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Corbyn says government is risking lives in Yemen by seeking to set aside judgment
Ministers have asked the courts to set aside a landmark ruling that British arms sales to Saudi Arabia are unlawful, a legal manoeuvre that prompted Jeremy Corbyn to accuse the Conservatives of prioritising military exports over civilian lives.
The government has applied for a stay of last month’s judgment pending an appeal, according to Campaign Against Arms Trade, which is fighting the case, at a time when conflict between the Saudis and Houthi rebels in Yemen has intensified.
Continue reading...Tehran defiant in face of condemnation by European signatories to joint comprehensive plan of action
The Iran nuclear deal was put on life support on Sunday after Iran took a further step to breach its rules by taking its low-enriched uranium limit over the agreed threshold.
It was the second Iranian breach of the agreement in a matter of weeks, although Iran took only a relatively modest step by increasing enrichment from the agreed 3.7% level – enough to generate to civil nuclear power – to 5%, still well below the 20% threshold that is seen as putting Iran on course to developing a nuclear bomb.
Continue reading...Ifrah Ahmed refuses to let the horrific female genital mutilation she suffered at the age of eight define her. “I don’t want to be a victim. I want to be a voice,” says the 32-year-old campaigner.
She is one of the first women to publicly speak out about female genital mutilation (FGM) in Somalia – a country where it is estimated that 98% of women have undergone the ritual – and now her journey from powerless victim to powerful role model has been dramatised in a film. A Girl from Mogadishu has just had its UK premiere at the Edinburgh film festival and will be released across the UK in cinemas later this year.
Continue reading...Syrian Network for Human Rights says two-month offensive has left 130 children dead
At least 544 civilians have been killed and over 2,000 people injured since a Russian-led assault on the last rebel bastion in north-western Syria began two months ago, according to rights groups and rescuers.
Russian jets joined the Syrian army on 26 April in the biggest offensive against parts of rebel-held Idlib province and adjoining northern Hama provinces in the biggest escalation in the war between the Syrian president, Bashar al Assad, and his enemies since last summer.
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