The US could leave some troops at a key military outpost in southern Syria, a Trump administration official told reporters on Saturday, despite the president’s controversial decision to withdraw all troops from the war-racked country.
Related: Trump slows Syria pullout but claims 'hero' status
Continue reading...Comments come as the US secretary of state embarks on a tour of Arab capitals
The US does not believe the official Saudi version of the murder of the Washington Post columnist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi is credible, a senior administration official has said.
The official was speaking to the press before the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, embarks next week on an tour of eight Arab capitals, seeking to shore up support for US policy, and to reassure allies that the US is not abandoning the region despite Donald Trump’s order for the withdrawal of American troops from Syria.
Continue reading...For all his antics on the Mexican border, the US president is right to be withdrawing troops from Syria
For a Briton to spend time in the US just now is a blessed relief. Whole days pass, and no talk of Brexit. It is as if a pall has lifted from the art of conversation. But the US has its own deep divide, slashing through the populist body politic. It is Donald Trump and “America first”.
Trump has become a phenomenon. Like Samson in the temple, he seems able to topple the entire edifice of policy. Down crashes America’s government machine for the sake of a wall, world trade is devastated, stock markets plummet, alliances lie in ruins. It is astonishing what one man can do to the world, virtually alone.
Continue reading...British foreign secretary says Russian support for Syrian regime means change unlikely
The British foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has admitted for the first time that Russian support for the Syrian regime means Bashar al-Assad will remain in power for some time.
The UK has been at the forefront of calls for the Syrian president to leave office as part of a transition to a new government, but over the past year British diplomats have acknowledged that Assad would have to be allowed to stand in any UN-supervised democratic elections in Syria.
Continue reading...Medics say limiting families s not the answer for a country where a baby is born every 15 seconds
In the cramped office of New Cairo hospital’s family planning clinic, Safah Hosny sets a box overflowing with contraceptives next to the visitors’ ledger on a small desk.
There are eight condoms for one Egyptian pound, about 4p, or ampoules of injectable birth control, for just under 9p. A contraceptive implant lasting three years costs 22p, while copper IEDs – the most popular form of birth control on offer according to Dr Hosny – cost 17p.
Continue reading...Eleven suspects attend first court hearing following killing of journalist
A Saudi prosecutor has asked for the death penalty for five of 11 suspects held over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi at the country’s consulate in Istanbul on 2 October, the state news agency SPA reported on Thursday.
The call came during the first court hearing in the Khashoggi case, which has shredded the kingdom’s international reputation and strained its relations with Turkey, the US and many other western governments.
Continue reading...Designed by Brazilian modernist Oscar Niemeyer, Lebanon’s international expo site has been abandoned since civil war broke out in the 1970s
“It could collapse at any time,” says the architect and activist Wassim Naghi. The facade of the unfinished, subterranean space museum in Tripoli, Lebanon, is visibly decaying and its steel reinforcements are rusted – but that may not be its biggest problem. “The ageing concrete’s carbonation is invisible,” explains Naghi when we meet in his office in the centre of the city. “We don’t know how bad it really is.”
Situated beneath an elevated concrete helipad, the museum was part of a planned permanent international fair designed by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer in the early 1960s that was expected to accommodate more than 2 million visitors a year. The 100-hectare (250-acre) site’s 15 existing buildings also include a domed theatre, an atrium, an arch and collective housing. A 717-metre-long boomerang-shaped canopy was designed to house the permanent exhibition, alongside a separate, traditionally styled pavilion for exhibitions relating to Lebanon.
Continue reading...All-party group and lawyers concerned for eight women allegedly mistreated in Saudi Arabia prison
A cross-party group of British parliamentarians and international lawyers is requesting the right to visit eight female activists detained in Saudi Arabia, following allegations that they have been subjected to ill treatment, including torture.
The lawmakers and advocates, who have convened a detention review panel, intend to produce a detailed document on their findings, following claims that the activists, some of whom were instrumental in securing women the right to drive in Saudi Arabia, have been maltreated in Dhahban prison and denied access to lawyers or relatives.
Continue reading...Questions over relief effort multiply as it emerges aid officials knew for months of armed groups diverting food
The theft of food aid in Yemen by Houthi rebels might be only the tip of the iceberg, officials believe, as questions multiply over international relief efforts in the famine-ravaged country.
It has emerged that aid officials have been aware for months that armed groups – most prominently Houthi rebels in the capital, Sana’a – have been diverting food aid into the key areas they control, including by manipulating data in malnutrition surveys used by the UN.
Continue reading...With sex outside marriage punishable by jail, migrant workers who become pregnant are often forced to keep their babies locked away
A sweltering, windowless room in an old district of Dubai, no more than 5 metres by 3 metres in size, is home to nine people from the Philippines. Eight are adults, working long hours in low-paid jobs so they can send money home to their families. The ninth is a six-year-old boy.
His name is Jerry and he shares a tiny bed with his mother, Neng. Jerry loves dancing, Peppa Pig and doughnuts. This small dark room is the only home he has known, as he’s spent his life in hiding as a stateless child. Growing up without a birth certificate or any other identification means he has no access to education and has never visited a doctor. Officially, this little boy does not exist.
Continue reading...Standup Hasan Minhaj had mocked official accounts about fate of Jamal Khashoggi
Netflix has taken down an episode of a satirical comedy show critical of Saudi Arabia in the country after officials from the kingdom complained, sparking criticism from Human Rights Watch, which said the act undermined the streaming service’s “claim to support artistic freedom”.
It comes three months after the brutal killing of the Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi – which US senators have blamed on the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman – and as the war in Yemen continues to devastate the country.
Continue reading...Centre-left coalition leader Avi Gabbay says he will no longer partner with Tzipi Livni
Israel’s centre-left opposition alliance has broken up in a dramatic realignment of the country’s political battleground just months from a general election.
Avi Gabbay, the leader of a coalition of opposition parties, made the unexpected announcement live on television that he would no longer partner with veteran politician Tzipi Livni, even as she sat expressionless next to him. It was not clear if Livni had been told of the move.
Continue reading...Palestinian leaders have rejected Washington as a mediator and Israeli politicians openly deride peace efforts
After two years of drum-rolling, Donald Trump’s “ultimate deal” for Israelis and Palestinians is about to enter what its architects claim is the pre-launch phase.
The US president has said the peace plan drawn up by his team – two former personal lawyers and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner – will be ready to unveil by the end of January.
Continue reading...Just over eight years ago, Tunisian fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in a bitter one-man protest outside a government office against the government. Within hours, demonstrators took to the streets of his small town, Sidi Bouzid. By the time he died in hospital just overtwo weeks later, protests had spread across the country, would soon topple the president and spill beyond Tunisia, in a regional convulsion dubbed the Arab Spring.
Related: Syria: Assad has decisively won his brutal battle
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