Petrofac made admission as part of deal to end four-year corruption investigation by Serious Fraud Office
A multinational oil firm, which was led by a major Conservative donor, has admitted that its employees paid bribes to land contracts, as it struck a deal to end a corruption investigation into the company.
The admission was announced by the firm, Petrofac, on Friday to settle a four-year corruption and money laundering investigation by the Serious Fraud Office.
Continue reading...Researchers say bloggers and members of secular leftwing political group among the victims
The mobile phones of nine Bahraini activists, including two who were granted asylum protection and are now living in London, were hacked between June 2020 and February 2021 using NSO Group spyware, according to new findings by researchers at Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto.
A report due to be released on Tuesday will reveal that the hacked activists, some of whose phones were being monitored by Citizen Lab researchers at the time they were hacked, include three members of Waad, a secular leftwing political group that was suspended in 2017 amid a crackdown on peaceful dissent in Bahrain.
Continue reading...Authorities deny reports that inmates were beaten after a 10-day sit-in over concerns about virus spread and lack of medical care
In early April, inmates at Bahrain’s Jau prison crowded into the corridors to protest. They were angry about a lack of medical treatment and fearing for their lives after the death of another inmate. Their sit-in at building 13 lasted 10 days, and spread to other blocks in Jau, an infamous prison complex in the south of the kingdom.
Inmates claim authorities regularly delay or deny vital medical care to prisoners – especially prisoners of conscience. The concern has grown since late March when Covid-19 began to tear through the prison system. Prisoners and rights groups claim authorities failed to prevent the outbreak and have denied some inmates their choice of vaccine.
Continue reading...An era of uprisings, nascent democracy and civil war in the Arab world started with protests in a small Tunisian city. The unrest grew to engulf the Middle East, shake authoritarian governments and unleash consequences that still shape the world a decade later
A decade ago this month, protests forced Tunisia’s authoritarian president, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, to flee his country. It was a quick and relatively peaceful revolution, coming after decades of stagnant but entrenched regimes across the Arab world.
Few at the time understood the power of the images of unrest being broadcast online and into homes across the Middle East. Within weeks, other significant protest movements would emerge, and by the middle of 2011, leaders in Cairo, Tripoli, Sana’a, Damascus and elsewhere were under serious pressure or had been swept away by a tidal wave of peaceful demonstrations and armed resistance.
Continue reading...Campaigners seek inquiry into whether skills gained in UK were used to commit abuses in countries such as Bahrain, China and Saudi Arabia
The UK government has trained the armies of two-thirds of the world’s countries, including 15 it has rebuked for human rights violations.
An anti-arms trade organisation has called for an investigation into the use of UK military training by other countries to determine whether it has been used to perpetrate human rights abuses.
Continue reading...Reconciliation with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and the UAE includes a non-aggression pact
A three-year boycott of Qatar by four other Middle Eastern countries that disfigured Gulf cooperation and raised concerns in the west about a strengthened regional role for Iran and Turkey has come to a stuttering close.
“The kingdom is happy to welcome you,” Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman said as he greeted Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, on the tarmac of the airport in Al-Ula, north of Medina, on Tuesday.
Continue reading...A lack of trial data transparency from China has raised concerns, but the country is confidently pushing ahead
When Egypt’s health ministry sent out an invitation to doctors to be vaccinated against Covid-19, they neglected to make clear it was a clinical trial.
Instead, it assured them that two Covid-19 vaccines developed by China’s National Biotec Group, part of a state-owned conglomerate known as Sinopharm, had no side-effects and that “the minister of health was vaccinated today, and orders were issued to vaccinate all doctors and workers who wish to be vaccinated”.
Continue reading...The outgoing US president has his eyes on a Saudi Arabia-Israel accord – no matter who gets hurt
Peace deals that entrench injustice, punish the weak and are propelled by greed, blackmail and weapons sales have precious little to do with peace – and are unlikely to endure. Yet the Middle East has witnessed a recent spate of such dodgy deals. All concern Israel and all were hastily cobbled together by the White House. As his curtailed presidency grinds to an unlamented close, Donald Trump appears engaged in a frantic foreign policy fire sale.
Peace is always a welcome prospect – but never at any price. Trump’s horse-trading on Israel’s behalf has made a cruel mockery of Palestinian rights. By agreeing to normalise relations with Israel, the UAE and Bahrain broke with the 2002 Arab peace plan that makes recognition conditional on the creation of a viable, independent Palestinian state. The deal was sweetened with offers of advanced US weapons and money-spinning business and trade opportunities.
Continue reading...Saudi prince hails progress in negotiations brokered by Kuwait and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner
A breakthrough in the three-and-a-half-year dispute between Qatar and its neighbouring Gulf states appears to have been achieved following what were described as “fruitful” talks to resolve the conflict.
The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, said “significant progress” had been reached in the last few days and he was optimistic all countries were close to finalising a resolution.
Continue reading...Lewis Hamilton has insisted that Formula One has a “consistent and massive” problem it must address with human rights abuses in countries it visits. The world champion was speaking in Bahrain which has been accused of sportswashing, torture and oppression this week and is to host the first of two consecutive races this weekend.
This week Hamilton was asked to address the issue in letters sent to him by three Bahraini citizens alleging they had been victims of oppression and torture by the Bahraini authorities. He said he would be considering their content in detail in the forthcoming days but was unequivocal that F1 had to make steps to address human rights abuses in the countries it visits.
Continue reading...Saudi Arabia’s interventions could result in seismic shift in region’s geopolitics
As the UAE and Bahrain prepared to sign a deal to normalise diplomatic relations with Israel this summer, Saudi Arabia – the regional heavyweight – was quietly urging them on.
For several months before the deals were signed at the White House, the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, had been laying out his rationale for a pact that would overturn regional policies towards a long-term foe.
Continue reading...The ‘Abraham accords’ merely make public once-furtive friendships between Israel and Gulf monarchies, while bigger problems remain
The White House was festooned with the flags of four nations. There were trumpet blasts, multiple signatures on various pieces of paper, and much weighty talk about blood and history – everything you might expect from a peace deal.
And not just any peace deal. The agreements signed in Washington on Tuesday were titled the Abraham Accords, implying a epochal reconciliation between Judaism, Islam and Christianity, three faiths with shared Middle East ancestry.
Continue reading...A historic agreement signed between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain at the White House will, according to Donald Trump, ‘be peace to the Middle East.’
They signed agreements to establish formal relations, ending a decades-old taboo in Arab diplomacy as power and priorities shift in the region.
Continue reading...Trio establish formal relations at ceremony viewed as image boost for Trump and Netanyahu
Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have signed agreements to establish formal relations, ending a decades-old taboo in Arab diplomacy as power and priorities shift in the Middle East.
“Today’s signing sets history on a new course,” Donald Trump told a crowd outside the White House where the deal was signed. “This an incredible day for the world,” he said.
Continue reading...Arab country is latest to make agreement as part of US president’s diplomatic push
Bahrain has agreed to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, and will join the United Arab Emirates in signing an agreement at the White House on Tuesday.
“Even great warriors get tired of fighting, and they’re tired of fighting,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, portraying the deals as peace agreements, although neither Gulf monarchy has ever been at war with Israel, and both had already established extensive informal ties. Bahrain has long advocated Israel’s integration in the region.
Continue reading...Calls intensify for withdrawal from security arrangement with kingdom over human rights
The British government has been accused of “empty talk” over human rights as two pro-democracy campaigners in Bahrain face the death penalty.
The UK has provided security advice to the island nation in the Persian Gulf for five years and funds a body that examines allegations of police mistreatment.
Continue reading...Health expert John Ashton recalls his experience of the early stages of the crisis
Fresh uncertainty over the UK’s contact-tracing plans has thrown light on the difficulties of a successful track-and-trace system to tackle Covid-19. Prof John Ashton, a former regional director of public health and regional medical officer for the north-west of England, describes his experience of contact tracing at the early stages of the coronavirus crisis and highlights pitfalls the UK should avoid.
“In early February I was invited to Bahrain to examine the country’s preparedness for Covid-19. The first case, that of a religious pilgrim returning from a visit to holy sites in Iran, was diagnosed while I was in Bahrain on 24 February.
Continue reading...Rights groups say host countries should offer foreign workers same protections as citizens
Crammed into work camps, stood down from their jobs, facing high rates of infection and with no way home, hundreds of thousands of migrant workers are bearing the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic in the Middle East, migrant advocates and diplomats say.
Such workers’ risk of exposure to Covid-19 is so high, rights groups say, that host countries need to offer the same protections granted to their citizens or face the threat of a rampant outbreak that proves ever more difficult to contain.
Continue reading...Former PMs asked princes to support bid for $5bn contract by Ayman Asfari’s firm Petrofac
Two former Conservative prime ministers lobbied a Middle Eastern royal family to award a multi-billion dollar oil contract to a company headed by a major Tory donor, the Guardian has established.
In March 2017, while in Downing Street, Theresa May wrote to the Bahraini prime minister to support the oil firm Petrofac while it was bidding to win the contract from the Gulf state.
Continue reading...Embassy denies staff used violence to halt rooftop protest against executions in Bahrain
A Bahraini dissident has said he was beaten and threatened with being thrown from the roof of the country’s embassy in London last month by staff trying to halt his rooftop protest against the execution of two men in the Gulf nation.
Moosa Mohammed said he feared for his life in the struggle atop the five-storey Belgravia building. He said it began when an embassy staffer pushed him, then hit him with a metre-long plank of wood while he was perched precariously on the edge.
Continue reading...