Imprisoned former leader, 67, collapses and dies while on trial on espionage charges
Egypt’s first democratically elected civilian president, Mohamed Morsi, has collapsed during a court session and died, almost six years after he was forced from power in a bloody coup.
Morsi, a senior figure in the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood, was attending a session in his trial on espionage charges on Monday when he blacked out and died, according to state media.
Continue reading...Atomic agency chief says limit will be breached in 10 days and enrichment could be up to 20%
Tehran has sped up the countdown to its breaching the nuclear deal, announcing it will break the uranium stockpile limit set in the deal in the next 10 days.
The country’s atomic agency also said Tehran could from 7 July start the process of enriching uranium up to 20%, closer to weapons-grade levels.
Continue reading...Abandoned at sea in desperate conditions for 18 months, the MV Azraqmoiah’s crew have finally been reunited with their families
After 18 months stranded on a cargo vessel miles off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, with little food or water, no wages and little means of communication, Captain Ayyappan Swaminathan’s ordeal is finally over.
In April, the Guardian reported the story of Ayyappan and his 10-strong crew, one of the most extreme cases of seafarer abandonment in recent years.
Continue reading...‘It will mean something for him, that there is a place in the world, far away from the States, with his name,’ says resident in community
It is a world away from the grandiose high-rises that bear his name.
A sleepy, crumbling hamlet of fewer than a dozen Israeli residents surrounded by sun-parched fields of crisp hay. Weeds punctuate the cracked asphalt of a basketball court, its rusted hoops leaning at angles.
Continue reading...Plan comes after efforts to persuade US that White House had wrong message on Libya
Libya’s UN-recognised government in Tripoli has sought to break the deadlock in the country’s civil war by launching a peace initiative which will include a national peace forum followed by simultaneous parliamentary and presidential elections to be held by the end of the year.
The plan comes after sustained diplomatic efforts by the Tripoli-based government to persuade the US that the White House had got the wrong message on Libya and was in danger of backing anti-democratic forces of Gen Khalifa Haftar, on the false premise that he was leading a fight against terrorists.
Continue reading...Ex-president is taken out of prison to the office of the anti-corruption prosecutor
Sudan’s former president Omar al-Bashir has appeared in public for the first time since he was overthrown, as he was taken out of prison to the office of the anti-corruption prosecutor.
Bashir, wearing traditional white robes and turban, was driven to the prosecutor’s office in Khartoum on Sunday, a Reuters witness said.
Continue reading...The United States does not want to go to war with Iran, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said on Sunday, following an attack on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman last week.
Pompeo reiterated that the US believes it was “unmistakable” that Iran was responsible for the attacks, in an interview with Fox News Sunday. He stressed a need for diplomacy and said American officials are reaching out to their foreign counterparts.
Continue reading...Prime minister’s wife admits to lesser charge in plea bargain and pays £12,000 fine
Sara Netanyahu, the wife of Israel’s prime minister, has been convicted of illegally misusing thousands of pounds of public funds on lavish meals.
A Jerusalem court on Sunday accepted a plea bargain in which Netanyahu agreed to admit to a lesser charge than the original fraud accusations. She will pay about $15,000 (£12,000) in fines and reimbursements to the state.
Continue reading...Iran’s leaders have shown their intent to defend their interests by damaging those of their foes
For much of this year, two beliefs have held firm in the halls of power in Iran: US attempts to strangle its economy cannot be tolerated and Donald Trump has no intention of going to war.
Far from wilting under the barrel of a global superpower’s guns, Iran’s leaders have signalled an intent to defend their interests, by damaging those of their foes. Iran’s anger at the US, and its alleged role in the attacks on six tankers in Gulf waters over the past five weeks did not emerge from a vacuum. US-imposed sanctions have taken a huge toll on its economy, and diminished its ability to service long-lasting commitments across the region – in Syria and Lebanon, in particular.
Continue reading...Divisions over responsibility for last week’s attack on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman deepened this weekend amid warnings over the danger of a major confrontation in the region, despite hints by Donald Trump about possible negotiations with Iran.
Politicians in Britain traded angry blows over the incident, after the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said there was “no credible evidence” that Iran had attacked the two ships as they passed by its coastline on Thursday morning, rebuffing a Foreign Office assessment that it was “almost certain” that a “branch of the Iranian military” had carried out the strikes.
Continue reading...Blast claimed by Islamist insurgents follows attack in Mogadishu that killed eight
A roadside bomb hit a police vehicle patrolling near Kenya’s border with Somalia on Saturday, killing several of the 11 officers inside, a Kenyan police spokesman has said.
Separately, another blast in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, killed eight people, according to emergency services.
Continue reading...New bill would fine NGOs bringing migrants on shore without permission but UN says it penalises rescues at sea
The Italian government has introduced a new security decree that would mean non-governmental organisation (NGO) rescue boats that bring migrants to Italy without permission could face fines of up to €50,000.
On Friday night the Italian president, Sergio Mattarella, signed a bill on security and immigration drafted by Matteo Salvini, the far-right interior minister and leader of the Northern League party, which has been described by aid groups as a “declaration of war against the NGOs who are saving lives at sea”.
Continue reading...Labour leader urges UK to ease tensions in Gulf after Foreign Office links blasts to Tehran
Jeremy Corbyn has called for the government to abstain from escalating tensions with Iran without “credible evidence” that Tehran was responsible for attacks on two oil tankers.
The Labour leader said Britain risked increasing the threat of war after the Foreign Office (FCO) said it was “almost certain” in its assessment that “a branch of the Iranian military … attacked the two tankers on 13 June”.
Continue reading...Gebran Bassil claims many refugees are not living in political fear, but stay for economic reasons
As many as three quarters of Syrian refugees in Lebanon could return to Syria because they face no fear of political persecution or threat to their security, Lebanon’s controversial foreign minister has said.
Gebran Bassil also urged the UK to rethink how it was spending aid money on keeping 1.5 million refugees in Lebanon, where he said they were taking the jobs from the Lebanese, and undercutting wages.
Continue reading...Trump says incident involving two vessels in Gulf of Oman has ‘Iran written all over it’
The US has accused Iran of detaining the crew of one of two oil tankers attacked in the Gulf of Oman this week, as the UK also joined in formally blaming the country, saying no other nation or group “could plausibly be responsible”.
Washington claims Iran is behind a succession of recent shipping attacks in the Gulf. It said grainy video published on the US Central Command’s website provided evidence of Iran’s involvement in Thursday’s attacks. The footage purportedly shows an Iranian boat removing an unexploded mine from one of the vessels.
Continue reading...Japan’s prime minister isn’t the first leader to regret trying to do Trump a favor – but he must have known he was taking a risk
Shinzo Abe’s trip to Tehran this week turned out to be one of the more ill-fated mediation efforts of recent times.
What was billed as a grand gesture – the first Japanese leader to visit Iran in four decades – ended in humiliation, with split-screen television pictures showing Abe being told off by a stern supreme leader, while a thick plume of smoke rose from a burning Japanese tanker in the Gulf of Oman.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Yana Peel co-owns NSO Group that licensed Pegasus software to authoritarian regimes
A leading human rights campaigner and head of a prestigious London art gallery is the co-owner of an Israeli cyberweapons company whose software has allegedly been used by authoritarian regimes to spy on dissidents, the Guardian can reveal.
Yana Peel, the chief executive of the Serpentine Galleries and a self-proclaimed champion of free speech, co-owns NSO Group, a $1bn (£790m) Israeli tech firm, according to corporate records in the US and Luxembourg.
Continue reading...The US military has released video footage it says shows an Iranian military patrol boat approach one of two tankers attacked in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday, to support the Trump administration’s claims that Iran was responsible.
The blurry black and white footage, taken from the air, shows a small military boat alongside a tanker and someone stand up on the prow of the boat to remove an object from the tanker’s hull. The small boat then pulls away from the tanker. US officials were quoted as saying the boat was an Iranian Revolutionary Guard patrol boat approaching the tanker after it was attacked, and the object removed was an unexploded limpet mine.
Continue reading...The explosions, on a vital passageway for the world’s oil supply, may prove Trump’s policy of coercion has backfired
The explosions were bigger and the damage more extensive. But the message and its means of delivery have some similarities.
Thursday’s attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman caused jitters in global markets and unease across a region that has been bracing for conflict throughout much of the year. As with the earlier attacks on 12 May, news of the latest strikes was again broken by media outlets aligned to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran, who broadcast images of the attacks within minutes of them taking place.
Continue reading...Two oil tankers have been hit in suspected attacks in the Gulf of Oman and the crews evacuated, a month after a similar incident in which four tankers in the region were struck. In this video, one of the tankers can be seen on fire but still afloat
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