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Items by Reuters
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Lebanon slips further into Iran's orbit as Hariri bows out
A decision by Sunni Muslim leader, Saad Al-Hariri, to step away from Lebanese politics opens the way for Shia Hezbollah to extend its already deep sway over the country, rendering it ever more a bastion of Iranian influence on the Mediterranean. Three times Prime Minister, Hariri declared on Monday he...
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Why Yemen is at war – Explainer
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis have launched two missile attacks at the United Arab Emirates in the last week, raising the stakes in a ruinous and complex conflict. Monday’s assault, which the Houthis said was aimed at a base hosting the US military, was thwarted by American-built Patriot interceptors, following a strike...
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Only 50 homes destroyed in Israel's 2021 attack on Gaza rebuilt, others remain in ruins
Palestinian Zeyad Abu Odah watched with a smile as his four-storey house, destroyed in an Israeli air strike in last May’s fierce Israeli attack on Gaza, was slowly being rebuilt in the Shaati refugee camp. He is one of the lucky few. Only 50 of 1,650 homes wrecked in an...
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Sudan security forces increasing attacks on medical services treating protesters
On the afternoon of 30 December, security forces banged on the windows of Khartoum Teaching Hospital then fired tear gas into an emergency room packed with protesters injured in a nearby demonstration. “We were around the corner trying to hide, it came right past our heads,” said a nurse who...
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Kuwait: domestic politics to test crown prince in push for fiscal reform
The biggest task facing Kuwait’s octogenarian crown prince after unexpectedly stepping in for the emir this month will be to tackle the perennial political feuding which has long blocked badly needed fiscal reform in the wealthy oil producing country. Previously a low-profile figure who avoided public politics, little was known...
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Abu Dhabi Crown Prince to visit Turkey after years of tension – officials
Abu Dhabi Crown Prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the UAE’s de facto ruler, will visit Turkey for the first time in years, as the regional rivals work to repair frayed relations, two Turkish officials said on Monday. The visit, which will include talks with Turkish President, Tayyip Erdogan, is...
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Kuwait's ruler hands some duties to Crown Prince – decree
Kuwait’s Crown Prince has been asked to carry out some of Emir Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah’s constitutional duties on a temporary basis, state news agency, KUNA. said on Monday, citing an Emiri decree. Crown Prince, Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, also in his 80s, is half brother of the Emir and...
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Coalition forces say they have withdrawn from around Yemen's Hodeidah port
Yemeni forces under a Saudi-led coalition said on Friday they have withdrawn from around the main port of Hodeidah held by their foes, the Houthis, as the Red Sea city’s governor announced the reopening of a main road linking it to the capital, Sana’a, Reuters reported. The Giants Brigade southern...
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US lawmaker looks to block first major Saudi arms deal under Biden
Democratic US Representative, Ilhan Omar, filed legislation on Friday seeking to block the sale of $650 million air-to-air missiles to Saudi Arabia, the first major arms sale to the kingdom during President Joe Biden’s administration, Reuters reported. Omar said she filed the measure, known as a joint resolution of disapproval,...
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Qatar to act as US diplomatic representative in Afghanistan
The United States and Qatar have agreed that Qatar will represent the diplomatic interests of the United States in Afghanistan, a senior US official told Reuters, an important signal of potential direct engagement between Washington and Kabul in the future after two decades of war. Qatar will sign an arrangement...
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Wielding fresh leverage, Iran to play hardball at nuclear talks
Iran will adopt an uncompromising stance when it resumes nuclear talks with major powers, betting it has the leverage to win wide sanctions relief in return for curbs on its increasingly advanced atomic technology, officials and analysts say. The stakes are high, since failure in the negotiations resuming in...
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Climate change threatens jobs of Tunisia's wetland farmers
Dotted among wetlands on Tunisia’s coast, a patchwork of tiny man-made islands stretches out towards the Mediterranean. Ploughed in neat furrows and shored up by sandbanks inside a lagoon, they are home to a centuries-old system of agriculture that climate change threatens to wipe out. Ali Garsi has farmed a 0.8...
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As fighting increases, Yemen's internally displaced remain on the move
In his eighties, Mohammed Hadi Al-Harmali has been uprooted four times by shifting frontlines during the seven years of Yemen’s brutal civil war. Out of money and bedridden with a spinal problem, he is now confined to a tent in a makeshift camp outside Marib city, the last northern stronghold...
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Lebanon is dragged back into eye of Iranian-Saudi storm
Already mired in economic collapse, Lebanon is facing a blast of Gulf Arab anger after a prominent broadcaster-turned-minister levelled blunt criticism at Saudi Arabia, in a row that has further strained Beirut’s ties with once generous benefactors. Much ordinary Lebanese fear it is they who will pay the price for...
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Saudi gets its first female firearms trainer
Mona Al-Khurais has loved guns ever since as a young girl her father took her on hunting trips in Saudi Arabia and taught her how to shoot. Five years ago, she turned that passion into her profession, receiving coaching in Saudi and abroad to become a licensed firearms trainer. The 36-year-old...
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Sanaa’s park exercises help people cope with stress of war
After dawn prayers Hatim Ali Hadi dons his tracksuit and heads to a park in the Yemeni capital Sanaa for group exercise sessions which help take people’s minds off the problems caused by the war going on around them. “These exercises, this running and weight loss brought back my life...
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'Like slaves': Lebanon's delivery riders struggle as crisis bites
His motorbike’s tank almost empty, Ahmad had barely enough fuel to make one more delivery and get home for the night. When the 24-year-old Syrian’s phone pinged with a food order in a distant suburb of the Lebanese capital Beirut, his heart sank. Ahmad could ill afford to lose the...
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Domestic tourism is the only hope for Morocco's ailing artisans
In a square in central Fez, the steady beat of hammers on copper has returned – a welcome signal for the ancient Moroccan city’s thousands of artisans that trade is slowly picking up after a brutal COVID-induced slump. Activity is still some way below pre-pandemic levels, and master coppersmith Mohammed...
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Lebanon's crisis pushes mental health services to the limit
Lebanese psychologist, Bernard Sousse, started offering online therapy sessions when patients said that surging fuel prices meant they could no longer drive in to see him—but then the power cuts began. Five minutes into one recent virtual session, the back-up generator in Sousse’s building sputtered out, plunging him into darkness...
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What we have learnt from the Dubai ruler’s custody battle
London’s High Court has ruled that Dubai’s leader Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum ordered the hacking of the phones of his ex-wife and those close to her as part of a bitter custody battle over their children. Here is a timeline of the main events connected with the case, based...
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Who's running in Iraq's elections?
Iraq holds a general election on 10 October, its fifth parliamentary vote since the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003 and ushered in a complex multi-party system contested by groups defined largely by sect or ethnicity. The vote had been set for next year but was brought forward to satisfy protesters who took to the...
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Better pay drove woman to become Morocco's only female cab driver
Souad Hdidou is challenging social norms and busting stereotypes from behind the wheel as the only female taxi driver in the Moroccan capital Rabat and one of a few in the country. Hdidou, 33, started work as a truck driver after dropping out of school and worked for a fish...
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Saudis enjoy local sites as tourism industry sets sail
Majed Sait and his wife are spending their honeymoon on a cruise in the turquoise waters off Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast, a voyage that is still a novelty in the conservative kingdom which only recently began to allow cruise ships to dock in its ports. Foreign tourism inside Saudi...
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Qatar positioned itself as the West's main ally in Afghanistan
Since the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the world’s top diplomats have been beating a path to Qatar, long the gateway to the Taliban and now the essential go-between as the West tries to deal with the new Kabul government. This is no accident. Analysts describe Qatar’s emergence as a broker in...
