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Items by Reuters
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Student from Guinea cycles across Africa to enrol at Egypt's Al-Azhar
Mamadou Safaiou Barry was determined to study Islamic theology at an elite school. Unable to afford a flight to Egypt from Guinea, he drew a map of Africa in his spiral notebook and set off on a second-hand mountain bike. Carrying only a change of clothes, a flashlight and...
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Taliban weighs using US mass surveillance plan, met with China Huawei
The Taliban are creating a large-scale camera surveillance network for Afghan cities that could involve repurposing a plan crafted by the Americans before their 2021 pullout, an Interior Ministry spokesman told Reuters, as authorities seek to supplement thousands of cameras already across the capital, Kabul. The Taliban administration —...
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Qatar pursues US-Iran nuclear steps after detainee swap
Qatar wants to capitalise on a US-Iranian detainee deal that it mediated during months of delicate diplomacy to find common ground on a more intractable issue between the two hardened adversaries: the dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme. Russia’s war in Ukraine may have top billing at the UN General Assembly, but...
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US sees big gains if Saudi-Israel normalisation deal signed
The Biden administration is pressing ahead with a concerted effort to strike a “grand bargain” in the Middle East that includes normalisation of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, calculating that the US could reap big rewards if it can overcome steep obstacles. President Joe Biden’s aides have made this diplomatic push a...
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TIMELINE - US-Iran relations from 1953 coup to 2023 detainee swap deal
The United States and Iran are to free five detainees each under an exchange agreement that also involves the transfer of $6 billion of unfrozen Iranian assets from South Korea to accounts in Qatar. The deal removes one major irritant between Iran and the US, whose animosity dates back to the Central Intelligence...
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Morocco King keeps regal distance even in earthquake crisis
When a devastating earthquake shook Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains on 8 September, residents of poor areas where it struck turned for help to the state and the man who leads it, King Mohammed VI. Yet the Monarch, with his sweeping power, has kept a low profile, making just three...
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EXPLAINER - What caused the floods in Libya and why are they so bad?
A catastrophic flood has killed thousands of people in the eastern Libyan city of Derna, sweeping away entire neighbourhoods with their residents and washing many bodies out to sea. Thousands of people are missing. What caused the flood? After pummelling other Mediterranean countries, the powerful Storm Daniel swept into Libya over the weekend,...
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Oslo 30 years later still presents a bleak outlook for Palestine-Israel peace
Across the occupied West Bank, Israel’s concrete checkpoints, separation walls and soldiers are reminders of the failure to build peace between Israelis and Palestinians since the historic Oslo Accords were signed 30 years ago this week, Reuters has reported. The accords were intended to be a temporary measure to...
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G20 summit agrees on words but struggles on action
The Group of 20 major economies reached a hard-fought compromise over the war in Ukraine and papered over other key differences in a summit declaration at the weekend, presenting few concrete achievements in its core remit of responses to global financial issues. Diplomats and analysts said the surprise consensus...
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Iran: has anything changed a year after Mahsa Amini protests erupted?
Iran’s rulers have intensified a clampdown on dissent nearly one year since the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini sparked protests which spiralled into some of the worst political turmoil since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Reuters has reported. Protests began soon after the 16 September death of Kurdish...
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Iran, US on verge of prisoner swap under Qatar-mediated deal
When $6 billion of unfrozen Iranian funds are wired to banks in Qatar as early as next week, it will trigger a carefully choreographed sequence that will see as many as five detained US dual nationals leave Iran and a similar number of Iranian prisoners held in the US...
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G20 summit wraps up in New Delhi; Modi calls for a virtual meet in November
The G20 summit in New Delhi ended on Sunday as India handed over the bloc presidency to Brazil, while both the US and Russia praised a consensus that did not condemn Moscow for the war in Ukraine but called on members to shun the use of force. Indian Prime...
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FACTBOX - Who is attending the G20 summit in New Delhi?
The 18th G-20 Leaders' Summit began on Saturday in New Delhi under the theme of "One Earth, One Family, One Future."...
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In Gaza, light gold coins help the poor to save
A Gaza dentist has developed ultra-lightweight gold coins to allow people without much money to access one of the most widely used savings methods across the Middle East. “The idea stemmed from the community’s need to own gold amid the difficult living conditions the people live in,” said Ahmed...
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FACTBOX - Wagner's global operations: War, oil and gold
Russia’s most powerful mercenary, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was on board a plane that crashed on Wednesday near Moscow with no survivors, Russian authorities said, two months to the day after he led an abortive mutiny against the army top brass. The June 23-24 revolt by Prigozhin’s Wagner mercenary group called into question the fate...
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BRICS welcomes new members in push to reshuffle world order
The BRICS bloc of developing nations agreed, on Thursday, to admit Saudi Arabia, Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt, Argentina and the United Arab Emirates in a move aimed at accelerating its push to reshuffle a world order it sees as outdated. The group’s leaders left the door open to future enlargement,...
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Lebanon Hezbollah rises from shadows into regional force
Hezbollah has risen from a shadowy group established during Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war to a heavily armed force with big sway over the Lebanese State. Governments, including the United States, deem it a terrorist organisation. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards founded Hezbollah in 1982 to export its Islamic Revolution and fight...
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Beirut port blast: three years on, victims still await accountability
Lebanon, on Friday, marks the third anniversary of the Beirut port explosion which killed at least 220 people, wounded thousands and damaged swathes of the city. Despite the devastation, an investigation has brought no senior official to account. Here is a summary of what happened and how the investigation...
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Biden's Israel dilemma: Few good options to counter Netanyahu's defiance
President Joe Biden is in a political bind as he crafts a US response to Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, defiantly pushing through the first part of a divisive judicial overhaul. Despite Washington’s long time status as Israel’s top ally and biggest weapons supplier, Biden appears to have few...
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Netanyahu judicial move spawns economic, political risks
A day after Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, pressed ahead with contentious changes to the judiciary, an ad covered the front page of all Israel’s leading newspapers in black, reading at the bottom: “a black day for Israel’s democracy.” It was a paid ad by a group of high-tech companies protesting against...
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Israel enemies see opportunity in its crisis
The crisis sweeping Israel has become a focal point for its enemies across the Middle East, who have convened top-level meetings to weigh the turmoil and how they might capitalise on it, sources familiar with the discussions say, Reuters reports. Foes, including Lebanon’s Iran-backed, Hezbollah, have been crowing at...
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Iraq ancient sites, fragile stability spur new trickle of tourists
When Jacob Nemec’s family heard he was planning to go on holiday in Iraq, they pleaded with the 28-year-old American to reconsider. “I got a text from my grandma, for the first time in five years saying – being your grandmother and to respect me – I would appreciate...
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EXPLAINER - Israel disputed judicial overhaul is back, what's new?
Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has relaunched his government’s quest to change Israel’s justice system, rekindling unprecedented nationwide protests. On Monday, the Knesset is scheduled to vote on a bill that limits Supreme Court powers, a first of three parliamentary readings. Protests are likely to intensify if it passes. Recap Netanyahu’s religious-nationalist government...
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Syria brought Wagner Group fighters to heel as mutiny unfolded in Russia
As Wagner mercenaries advanced on Moscow in an attempted mutiny in late June, authorities in Syria and Russian military commanders there took a series of swift measures against local Wagner operatives to prevent the uprising spreading, according to six sources familiar with the matter. The previously unreported crackdown included...