Category Archives: Middle East and North Africa

Trump’s maximum pressure train hits buffers with Abe’s doomed Iran mission

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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.

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UK rights advocate co-owns firm whose spyware is ‘used to target dissidents’

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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.

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US says video shows Iranian military removing mine from tanker

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  • US secretary of state accuses Tehran of ‘lashing out’
  • Iran denies responsibility for early morning attack

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.

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Oil tanker attacks will inflame conflict between the US, its allies and Iran

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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.

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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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