Category Archives: Middle East and North Africa

Senate passes resolution to end US support for Saudi war in Yemen

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The approval puts Congress on a collision course with Donald Trump in an unprecedented rebuke of his foreign policy

The Senate has voted to end US support for the Saudi Arabian-led coalition’s war in Yemen, bringing Congress one step closer to a unprecedented rebuke of Donald Trump’s foreign policy.

Lawmakers have never before invoked the decades-old War Powers Resolution to stop a foreign conflict, but they are poised to do just that in the bid to cut off US support for a war that has triggered a humanitarian catastrophe.

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One-state solution gains ground as Palestinians battle for equal rights

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Belief in two-state solution crumbles as up to 600,000 Israeli settlers remain on occupied land

Maybe it wasn’t the wisest choice for a Palestinian activist living under the close watch of Israeli security. But Fadi Quran was obsessed and determined: he would study nuclear physics at Stanford University.

“I got stopped at the border a lot,” he joked years later of the times he passed through Israeli passport control after graduating. “To be honest, when I first started I just wanted to win a Nobel prize in physics. I was 18 years old. I loved the stuff.”

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Egypt executed 15 people in February. Why is the UK staying silent? | Rhys Davies

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Britain is Egypt’s largest foreign investor. Yet at the recent Arab-EU summit, Theresa May was oddly quiet on rights abuses

While there may be “a special place in hell” for those who backed Brexit without a plan, regimes that execute people after fundamentally flawed trials get their own summit. Just a fortnight ago, Donald Tusk and the leaders of the EU met with the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, at the Arab-EU summit in Sharm el-Sheikh – days after his regime executed nine people.

The summit was co-chaired by Tusk and Sisi. Tusk and other European leaders, including Theresa May, were curiously silent at the summit about the fate of Egypt’s political prisoners. The execution of the nine – convicted after unfair trials in which human rights campaigners say confessions were elicited by torture – was the third consecutive week of executions. In total 15 people were put to death in February in Egypt.

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Is Algeria on the cusp of freedom, or does Bouteflika have one last play?

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President’s promise of ‘deep reforms’ has calmed protests but may not be the end of the crisis

In the first line of Abdulaziz Bouteflika’s letter to the nation on Monday night, the Algerian president said the country was living through a sensitive stage of its history. On this, at least he and his compatriots are agreed.

The 82-year-old politician, who has had a series of strokes that have left him in poor health, has been in power since 1999. The announcement that he would not be seeking a further five-year term caused widespread celebration. This was the principal demand of the hundreds of thousands – possibly millions – who marched peacefully through cities and towns across Algeria on Friday in protests on a scale not seen for decades.

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Gaza’s generation blockade: young lives in the ‘world’s largest prison’

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Anger and frustration for generation of Palestinians who have spent their entire lives in the fenced-off territory

Cruising south along Israel’s coastal highway, there are almost no signs that you are approaching Gaza. Two million people live trapped on a thin slice of land along the Mediterranean, but someone could easily drive right past and miss it altogether.

For visitors to the strip, restricted mainly to diplomats, aid workers and journalists, the last stop in Israel is a service station, where Red Sea-bound tourists and commuters sip lattes and eat chocolate croissants at an American-style coffeehouse. Walking back to their cars, they may glimpse the only hint of Gaza’s existence – a white orb high in the southern sky, a tethered surveillance balloon that provides the Israeli army with a 24-hour overhead view of the enclave.

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The Guardian view on the Israeli elections: Netanyahu debases his office – again | Editorial

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Next month’s poll is a referendum on a prime minister who has triumphed by fuelling divisions

Israel is not a state of all its citizens, Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu declared on Sunday. His words should be shocking, but in truth they made explicit the message of last year’s nation state law, rendering Palestinians in Israel second-class citizens. They would be shameful if he were capable of shame. Mr Netanyahu’s campaign for re-election in the face of a bribery and fraud indictment shows he is not. He has prospered by fostering division.

This latest act of cynical bigotry is simply par for the course. The same is true of Mr Netanyahu’s awful turn to far-right parties for support. Mr Netanyahu orchestrated the merger of the racist anti-Arab Jewish Power and the pro-settler Jewish Home parties to help them pass the electoral threshold and him put together a coalition. Jewish Power includes followers of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, whose Kach party was outlawed in Israel and is designated by the US and EU as a terror organisation.

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Algerian president says he will not run again after weeks of protests

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Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s decision not to seek a fifth term comes a day after general strike began

The Algerian president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, has withdrawn his bid for a fifth term in office after mass protests against his rule and postponed elections scheduled for April to allow for consultation on reforms “for a new generation”.

Bouteflika made the surprise announcement on Monday in a letter to the Algerian people released by his office. The 82-year-old leader, who has been in power for two decades, acknowledged three consecutive weeks of demonstrations against his rule in which hundreds of thousands of people from across Algerian society took to the streets.

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Human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh jailed ‘for 38 years’ in Iran

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Lawyer sentenced to decades in prison and 148 lashes, husband writes on Facebook

Nasrin Sotoudeh, an internationally renowned human rights lawyer jailed in Iran, has been handed a new sentence that her husband said was 38 years in prison and 148 lashes.

Sotoudeh, who has represented opposition activists including women prosecuted for removing their mandatory headscarf, was arrested in June and charged with spying, spreading propaganda and insulting Iran’s supreme leader, her lawyer said.

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Britain’s flawed dialogue with Sudan regime | Letters

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The UK should call for an immediate political transition to end nearly 30 years of repressive rule, say eight signatories including Lutz Oette

We wholeheartedly agree with your editorial (7 March) stating that the demonstrators in Sudan calling daily for freedom and the rule of law “do not want a different version of this regime, or more conflict”. The problem is indeed the regime, not just a president indicted for genocide by the international criminal court and for whom, despite their public claims to support the ICC, many external actors seek a “soft landing” in the name of stability. Sudan is not stable for the Sudanese people.

Nevertheless, Britain has engaged in a flawed strategic dialogue with the regime. It has spearheaded the Khartoum process, a supposed partnership with the brutal and corrupt Sudanese regime to “manage” (in other words, to stem) migration to Europe. That process relies on the notorious rapid support forces, mainly former Janjaweed, which the ICC has implicated in war crimes in Darfur. Most Sudanese migrants are in any case refugees fleeing their repressive regime, including the very forces now tasked with capturing them.

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Thousands of Algerian students protest against president – video

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Thousands of young people have taken to the streets in Algeria as popular resistance grows to President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s decision to stand for a fifth term. In the biggest outpouring of dissent seen in Algeria for many decades, a new wave of young activists has emerged in a country in which more than two-thirds of the population are under 30

• Algerians begin general strike against Bouteflika's rule

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SDF launches assault on last Isis enclave in eastern Syria

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Direct clashes under way and airstrikes target weapons stores in Baghuz

Airstrikes have targeted Islamic State weapons stores as the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) launched an attack against the jihadists’ enclave in Baghuz near the Iraqi border.

An SDF official, Mustafa Bali, said the attack began at 6pm local time and “direct and fierce” clashes were under way.

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Algerians begin general strike against Bouteflika’s rule

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Many citizens object to the ailing president’s attempt to serve a fifth term in office

Algerians have begun five days of general strike as protests against the rule of the ailing president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, entered a new phase.

Shops across the country were closed and groups of workers gathered in the streets brandishing flags and signs objecting to Bouteflika’s attempt to serve a fifth term in office. Social media posts implored citizens to enact civil disobedience and refuse to attend their jobs for the rest of the working week.

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Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel is ‘not a state of all its citizens’

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PM has been accused of demonising Israeli Arabs in lead-up to April election

Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel is “not a state of all its citizens”, in a reference to the country’s Arab population.

In comments on Instagram, the prime minister went on to say all citizens, including Arabs, had equal rights, but he referred to a deeply controversial law passed last year declaring Israel the nation state of the Jewish people.

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Two more women held in Syrian camps ‘stripped of British citizenship’

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Reema and Zara Iqbal – whose husbands died fighting for Isis – said to have five children between them

Two more British women who are being held in Syrian camps with their young children have reportedly had their citizenship removed.

The move comes as the home secretary, Sajid Javid, faces increasing criticism over the case of Shamima Begum, the 19-year-old Londoner who was stripped of her British citizenship on his orders, after the death of her three-week-old son.

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Shamima Begum: Sajid Javid labelled ‘moral coward’ over baby death

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Former DPP accuses home secretary of treating UK like a ‘banana republic’ over decision to strip Isis bride of citizenship

Syrian camps: vulnerable children of Isis ignored by the outside world

Sajid Javid has been accused of moral cowardice and “treating the UK as a banana republic” in pursuit of his leadership ambitions following the death of Jarrah, the three-week-old son of Isis bride Shamima Begum.

A Church of England bishop and a former director of public prosecutions led the chorus of outrage directed at the home secretary as demand grew for him to review his controversial decision to strip the 19-year-old of British citizenship – a move that left her stateless and her baby in legal limbo.

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‘Find them a way to live’: the deadly plight of Isis refugee children

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Up to 3,000 children born to foreign nationals like Shamima Begum may be at risk in Syria

In a place the British government says remains too difficult for diplomats to reach, scores of its officials have been present for at least the past two years.

MI6 officers, as well as SAS troopers and commanders have formed strong ties with local Kurdish officials in north-eastern Syria, where two refugee camps teeming with the remnants of Islamic State (Isis) are located.

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Shamima Begum baby death ‘a stain on conscience of UK government’

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Sajid Javid accused of appeasing populists by ordering UK citizenship to be revoked

The home secretary, Sajid Javid, has come under fire for his decision to revoke the British citizenship of Shamima Begum, whose baby son has died in a Syrian refugee camp.

Begum, 19, left the UK in 2015 with two school friends to join Islamic State in Syria and said last month she wanted to return home. But Javid insisted he would do all in his power to prevent her coming back and ordered her citizenship to be revoked.

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Shamima Begum: baby son dies in Syrian refugee camp

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Three-week-old infant is the third child the teenager from east London has lost

The newborn son of Shamima Begum has died in a Syrian refugee camp. The baby boy, named Jarrah, was buried on Friday, three weeks after the east London teenager turned Islamic State devotee gave birth.

A Kurdish intelligence official said the infant had been taken to hospital in al-Roj camp in north-eastern Syria with breathing difficulties several times in the past week. A friend of Begum said “the baby turned blue and was cold” before being rushed to a clinic inside the camp. Jarrah is understood to have been buried along with two other children who were burned in a fire on Thursday night.

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Algeria protests grow against fifth term for president

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Biggest demonstrations since 2011 Arab spring call for a ‘free and democratic’ Algeria

Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets in Algeria as popular resistance grows to the president’s decision to stand for a fifth term.

Crowds gathered in Algiers throughout the morning despite train services being stopped by authorities, and huge numbers demonstrated in every other major city and most towns. Some chanted slogans calling for a “free and democratic Algeria” and shouted “peaceful, peaceful”.

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Cleric linked to mass executions appointed head of Iran’s judiciary

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Ebrahim Raisi accused by US of role in deaths of thousands of political prisoners in 1988

A hardline cleric once thought to be a possible successor to Iran’s supreme leader has been appointed head of the Islamic Republic’s judiciary, sparking concern from rights activists over his involvement in the execution of thousands of people in the 1980s.

Ebrahim Raisi was named to the post in a decree by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

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