Category Archives: Middle East and North Africa

Oil price jumps after Gulf of Oman tanker ‘attacks’ – business live

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Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, as tanker fires send crude prices soaring

Iran hasn’t said who it thinks is responsible for today’s attacks off its coastline.

But on Twitter, foreign minister Javad Zarif has described the attacks as beyond suspicious:

Reported attacks on Japan-related tankers occurred while PM @AbeShinzo was meeting with Ayatollah @khamenei_ir for extensive and friendly talks.

Suspicious doesn't begin to describe what likely transpired this morning.

Iran's proposed Regional Dialogue Forum is imperative.

Here’s the key line from president Rouhani’s speech on Iranian TV:

“Security is of high importance to Iran in the sensitive region of the Persian Gulf, in the Middle East, in Asia and in the whole world. We have always tried to secure peace and stability in the region.”

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Two oil tankers struck in suspected attacks in Gulf of Oman

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Sailors evacuated from two tankers in distress near the strategic strait of Hormuz

Two oil tankers have been hit in suspected attacks in the Gulf of Oman a month after a similar incident in which four tankers in the region were struck.

The US navy’s fifth fleet said it was assisting the tankers, which issued distress calls near the strategic strait of Hormuz. The crew from both tankers were evacuated.

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Sara Netanyahu in plea deal over claims of lavish overspending

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Israeli PM’s wife to pay $15,000 to close case accusing her of running up large bills at luxury restaurants

Sara Netanyahu, wife of the Israeli prime minister, has agreed a plea bargain to settle allegations that she overspent some $100,000 (£79,000) of state money on lavish meals, prosecutors said.

She will pay around $15,000 in fines to quietly close the case, which accused her of running up large tabs at luxury restaurants for friends and family while the official prime minister’s residence employed a full-time chef.

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US resident released after years in Iran prison says he was put on ‘show trial’

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Nizar Zakka, a Lebanese IT expert jailed for espionage, says his release may have served to reduce tensions between US and Iran

A Lebanese man who had been imprisoned in Iran for years on charges of espionage said Tuesday that he was subjected to “kidnapping, arbitrary detention and a show trial”, adding that his release served to de-escalate tensions between the US and Iran.

In his first comments after arriving in his native Lebanon, Nizar Zakka denied reports that his release was part of a wider deal but suggested that it had helped avert further escalation in the region.

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Boris Johnson allowed arms sales to Saudis after Yemen bombing

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Former foreign secretary accused of showing ‘total disregard’ for civilians

Tory leadership frontrunner Boris Johnson recommended that the UK allow Saudi Arabia to buy British bomb parts expected to be deployed in Yemen, days after an airstrike on a potato factory in the country had killed 14 people in 2016.

Campaigners accused the then foreign secretary of showing a “total disregard” for Yemeni civilians by allowing the sales, revealed for the first time in emails disclosed via a freedom of information request.

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Sudanese doctors say dozens of people raped during sit-in attack

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Hospitals in Khartoum record more than 70 cases of rape in aftermath of attack on protest

Doctors believe paramilitaries carried out more than 70 rapes during an attack on a protest camp in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, a week ago.

More than 100 people were killed and as many as 700 injured in the attack last Monday on a sit-in and clashes afterwards, as paramilitaries from the Rapid Support Forces spread through the city to quell sporadic unrest.

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Saudi teenager could face execution for joining protests as child

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Murtaja Qureiris, 18, is on trial for charges including ‘sowing sedition’, says Amnesty

A young Saudi man, arrested when he was 13, could face execution for taking part in Shia-led protests as a child, Amnesty International has said.

Murtaja Qureiris, now 18, is on trial for charges that include joining a “terror group” and “sowing sedition”, according to the rights group. He was detained in September 2014 and held in solitary confinement for part of the time since.

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Egypt tries to stop sale of Tutankhamun statue in London

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Officials fear bust of pharaoh might have been looted from Karnak temple in Luxor

Egyptian authorities are trying to stop the auction of a statue of Tutankhamun’s head at Christie’s auction house in London next month after concerns were raised that the bust might have been stolen from the Karnak temple in Luxor.

The statue, a brown quartzite head of the young pharaoh, which portrays him as the ancient god Amun, is expected to raise more than £4m at auction on 4 July.

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Qatari official accuses Saudis of blackmail and destabilising region

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Minister appears to accept that row between the two is fuelling other disputes in Middle East

Saudi Arabia is a force for disruption across the Middle East and Africa and often uses blackmail and economic pressure to enforce its brand of authoritarian rule, Qatar’s foreign minister has alleged.

In recent weeks the Saudis and Emiratis have been accused of interfering to stifle popular movements in Sudan, Libya and Somalia.

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Millions join general strike in Sudan aimed at dislodging army

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Shutdown called in protest against bloody crackdown on protesters last week

Millions of people in Sudan have joined a general strike called by ​pro-reform groups, shutting down the centre of cities across the country despite a wave of arrests and intimidation​.

The massive shutdown was called to take place on Sunday, the first day of the working week, and is aimed at relaunching an opposition movement battered by a brutal crackdown and forcing the country’s new military leaders to resign.

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Sudan’s generals launch renewed crackdown to defeat general strike

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Arrests of white-collar workers to discourage protest follow assault by regime’s paramilitaries

The military regime in Sudan has launched a new wave of arrests and violent intimidation in an effort to undermine opposition plans for a widespread campaign of civil disobedience.

Pro-reform groups have warned of a “frenzied campaign launched by the military junta to arrest political activists and revolutionaries” this weekend ahead of a general strike set to start on Sunday.

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Tehran closes 547 restaurants for breaking ‘Islamic principles’

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Iranian police close venues for crimes ranging from ‘playing illegal music’ to ‘debauchery’

Iranian police have shut down 547 restaurants and cafes in Tehran for not observing “Islamic principles”, the capital’s police chief said Saturday.

“The owners of restaurants and cafes in which Islamic principles were not observed were confronted, and during this operation 547 businesses were closed and 11 offenders arrested,” Hossein Rahimi said in statement on the policeforce website.

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Assad demolishes refugee homes to tighten grip on rebel strongholds

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As the civil war wanes, the government is blowing up properties in areas it claims were opposition heartlands

Amjad Farekh’s shops had survived Syria’s long civil war, but not the new, unsteady peace that has settled in some parts of the country.

The government recently blew up several properties in the industrial zone of Qaboun, a former opposition stronghold just outside the capital, the exiled businessman said.

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US ambassador: Israel has right to annex parts of West Bank

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  • David Friedman gives interview to New York Times
  • ‘Israel has right to some, but unlikely all’ of disputed territory

The US ambassador to Israel did not rule out an Israeli move to annex parts of the occupied West Bank, land the Palestinians seek for a state, in an interview with the New York Times published on Saturday.

Related: Jared Kushner casts doubt on Palestinian ability to self-govern

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Trump wants to sell more weapons to Saudi Arabia. Congress must stop him | Mohamad Bazzi

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The administration wants to sell $8bn of weapons to Saudi Arabia and UAE – and prop up a morally indefensible war

On the Friday before Memorial Day, when few Americans were paying attention, the Trump administration announced that it would circumvent Congress and sell $8bn in new weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It was Donald Trump’s latest attempt to give a blank check to two US allies leading a disastrous war in Yemen.

Related: UK arms exports are still playing a central role in Yemen’s humanitarian crisis | Anna Stavrianakis

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US imposes sanctions on Iran’s largest petrochemical group

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PGPIC hit with economic penalties because of its ties to Revolutionary Guards, US treasury says

The United States has hit Iran’s Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company (PGPIC) with economic sanctions due to its ties with the country’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), the Treasury department has said.

The move aims to choke off financing to the country’s largest and most profitable petrochemical group and extends to its 39 subsidiaries and “foreign-based sales agents,” Treasury said in a statement.

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Inquiry into oil tanker attacks stops short of blaming Iran

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UN security council hears unidentified state was behind explosions in Gulf last month

An unidentified state actor has been blamed for attacks on four oil tankers in the Gulf last month, according to an inconclusive inquiry that stopped short of explicitly pointing the finger at Iran.

The UAE along with Saudi Arabia and Norway presented the preliminary findings during a private briefing to members of the UN security council, which will also receive the final results of the inquiry and consider a possible response.

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Iranian judiciary should review the case of jailed British Council worker Aras Amiri | Letter

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Edinburgh international book festival director Nick Barley, Hay festival director Peter Florence, 5 x 15 Stories co-director Daisy Leitch and 18 others are dismayed by 10-year sentence given to the arts worker

We write in response to the public statement of the Iranian judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili on 13 May regarding the case of Aras Amiri, an arts curator, student and employee at the British Council managing arts programmes to present Iranian contemporary arts and literature in the UK (Report, 14 May).

As artists, arts organisation leaders and academics across the UK and internationally who know Aras through her studies and curatorial work, we are dismayed by this statement and its accompanying 10-year prison sentence.

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Saudi influence in spotlight as US calls on Riyadh to end Sudan violence

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Washington takes unusual step of calling on kingdom to bring about end to military crackdown

The thorny question of Saudi Arabian political influence across the Middle East and Africa is back in the spotlight again with Washington taking the unusual step of effectively telling Riyadh to end Sudan’s military crackdown.

In an unusual public statement the US state department revealed that its undersecretary for political affairs, the diplomat David Hale, had phoned the Saudi deputy defence minister, Khaled bin Salman, to ask him to use the country’s influence to end the brutal repression against peaceful protesters by the Sudanese Transitional Military Council (TMC) in Sudan.

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Sudan paramilitaries threw dead protesters into Nile, doctors say

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Death toll from attack on pro-democracy camp reaches 100 as details of tactics emerge

Paramilitaries in Khartoum threw dozens of bodies into the Nile to try to hide the number of casualties inflicted during a dawn attack on pro-democracy protesters in the Sudanese capital earlier this week, doctors and activists have said.

At least 100 people are thought to have been killed in the crackdown across Sudan, which has been under military rule since President Omar al-Bashir was ousted in April.

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