Turkish commodity exports to Saudi Arabia constitute only 1.8 per cent of Ankara’s annual exports, Turkey’s Anadolu Agency reported. The agency collected data on trade exchange issued by the Saudi General Authority for Statistics and the Turkish Statistical Institute for the years 2018 and 2019. According to the report,...

The World Bank announced in a report that the Houthis’ ban on the circulation of new banknotes in its areas of control has caused serious repercussions to the country’s economy which has been deteriorating due to a drop in oil exports, the downsizing of humanitarian support and devastating torrential...

Former Lebanese Prime Minister and leader of the Future Movement Saad Hariri is heading towards assuming the post of Lebanon’s prime minister to form the new government. Despite what many parliamentary blocs announced after finishing most of the mandatory parliamentary consultations to name the new prime minister, a general...

Iran has successfully launched the Bavar-373 missile defence system destroying a long-range target for the first time, during the ′′Defenders of Velayat Skies 99″ manoeuvre. The Iranian army’s website reported on Thursday: “In the context of implementing this phase of manoeuvres, and following attacks carried out by strategic and...

Israeli forces have distributed leaflets throughout areas of southwestern Syria warning regime forces not to participate with Iranian militias and Hezbollah, following an Israeli airstrike that hit a school in the region. According to London-based Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, which cited a media activist named Mohammed Hourani, the leaflets were seen...

Turkey must purchase Russian S-400 missile systems but still be ready to buy US Patriot missile systems, Turkey’s Defense Minister Hulusi Akar announced on Thursday. Speaking to Bloomberg, Akar stressed that the purchase of the S-400s was a necessity for Turkey, and will not distance Turkey from the North...

Iran has dismissed allegations that it is interfering in the US presidential elections by suggesting that the Trump team is attempting to undermine the confidence of American voters, who, according to polls, are expected to come out in force to vote for Democrat nominee Joe Biden. With only two...

Sudanese protesters burned the Israeli flag during their participation in the march “to correct the course of the revolution” on Wednesday in the capital of Khartoum. Local newspaper Al-Intibaha published photos showing a group of demonstrators in Khartoum who participated in the 21 October marches burning the Israeli flag to...

MENA Rights Group and the Freedom Initiative are among nineteen NGOs calling on golf’s Ladies European Tour to reconsider the decision to hold a tournament hosted by Saudi Arabia. Pulling out of the tournament, they explain, would be ab act of solidarity with women’s rights campaigners detained in the...

In August, a friend of mine with kidney failure delegated me to take his car and represent him before the official authorities at the Palestinian Ministry of Transport and insurance companies, to complete the usual licensing procedures. His health condition and commitment to hospital dialysis sessions three times a...

Turkish aid organisations have established an orphanage in the north-west Syrian city of Idlib and named it after Mohamed Morsi, the late Egyptian president who was ousted by a coup in 2013. The Turkish government’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency opened the orphanage this week in Mashhad Rouhin, in...

An Israeli police officer who shot dead a severely autistic Palestinian man earlier this year may stand trial for reckless manslaughter. Eyad Hallaq, 32, was shot in the chest on 30 May in the Old City of Jerusalem after he ran away in a panic when he heard Israeli...

Qatar is reportedly considering sending an ambassador to the Yemeni capital Sanaa, where the Houthi-aligned National Salvation Government (NSG) is based, according to an informed source cited in Sputnik Arabic. The source said that indications over the past several years have pointed to Qatari rapprochement with Sanaa since Doha...

The Authorities in Arab countries, particularly Jordan, the UAE, the Sultanate of Oman and Algeria, have decided to ban the Friday prayer under the pretext of limiting the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, which I can only consider as an exaggeration! Strikingly, the US and Europe did not ban...

Human rights organisations are protesting about domestic abuse following the murder of a pregnant woman in the occupied West Bank, Wafa news agency has reported. According to police spokesman Loai Irzeiqat, the 24-year-old mother of two was found dead at her house in the town of Nabi Elias. Unconfirmed...

Taxi drivers in Istanbul are to be required to learn English as part of a series of radical changes made by the city’s municipality. According to the new project which aims to standardise and regulate the city’s taxi industry, drivers will also soon be required to work in three...

The US is considering the designation of some leading international NGOs, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Oxfam, as “anti-Semitic” in its ongoing effort to shield Israel from criticism. An announcement by the US State Department is expected within days, Politico has reported. According to the political magazine,...

The Turkish authorities said yesterday that the number of deaths due to people drinking adulterated alcohol had risen to 63 since 9 October, Zaman has reported. Medical sources told the newspaper that the deaths have occurred in Izmir, Zonguldak and other cities. The sources added that the fatalities were...

A 23-year-old Egyptian woman has burned herself to death after a secretly-filmed “porn” video showing her in an intimate situation with a young man went viral on social media, local media reported yesterday. The woman was transferred to Al-Ayyat Hospital in the country’s central province of Giza with severe...

A Lebanese TV presenter has been deported from Kuwait for posting “immoral” content on her social media channels, Emirates Woman has reported. Sazdel El-Kak, 42, was ordered to leave the country by Kuwait’s Interior Ministry for “violating public morals”. Officials said that her deportation was in the “public interest”....

The Sudanese Popular Congress Party has called for the dissolution of the transitional government and the formation of a technocrat administration, Anadolu reported on Wednesday. In a statement to mark the 56th anniversary of the first Sudanese uprising, the party said that such an administration should include all political...

The Taif Accord was signed 31 years ago today and led to the official ending of the Lebanese Civil War a year later. The accord set out a new framework for a power sharing political system designed to help Lebanon return to political normality and reassert authority over its...

Members of the US Congress have called on the government to boycott the G20 summit being held in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh next month, amid concerns over the Kingdom’s human rights record. In a letter sent to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the 45 Congress members said that, “As...

A British naval warship has seized 450kg of methamphetamine from a dhow in the northern Arabian Sea, officials said yesterday, According to a report by Associated Press the drugs were seized by HMS Montrose from a stateless traditional dhow, a cargo vessel used in the Red Sea and Indian...

US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman has left no doubt about the rationale behind the recent normalisation agreements with Arab states, praised by the international community as an opportunity to kick-start negotiations about the two-state compromise. In the background, the UAE’s lauded diplomacy, which postponed the annexation process and...

The general prosecutor’s office in Rome has sent a judicial request to Egypt’s public prosecutor for information on three policemen whose names have come up for the first time in investigations into the torture of Italian student Giulio Regeni. In 2016 Regeni was tortured to death and found on...

The regime in Cairo is fearful of a Joe Biden victory in the US presidential election after the Democrat candidate said he would not ignore human rights violations in Egypt, the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) has revealed. The institute’s paper released on Wednesday is headed “Egypt...

As often happens with military coups, the leader of the 2013 coup in Egypt, Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, sent the heads of the elected regime and its supporters to the gallows. From the very first moment, he passed laws targeting citizens merely on suspicion of sympathy towards the former government...

Lebanese President Michel Aoun announced on Wednesday that corruption has become institutionalised and deeply-rooted in the country’s administration. “We reached the point where corruption became institutionalised par excellence and deeply-rooted in our authority, institutions and administration,” Aoun expressed in a televised speech on the eve of the parliamentary consultations...

Sources in Sudan and Egypt have revealed that Saudi Arabia is to pay $335 million to the US in order to accelerate normalisation of ties between the government in Khartoum and Israel, Safa news agency reported on Wednesday. According to media reports, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince...

Greece is preparing to test the Russian-made S-300 air defence missile system at a NATO firing base in the Greek island of Crete, Anadolu Agency reported. The agency quoted a Turkish security source stating that Greece, which will test the system for the second time, is planning to upgrade...

Human Rights Watch has called on Egyptian authorities to immediately halt executions and retry detainees on death row after they executed 49 people in 10 days. “Egypt’s mass executions of scores of people in a matter of days is outrageous,” says deputy MENA director Joe Stork. “The systematic absence...

The Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA) rejected on Wednesday the Sudanese authorities’ decision to close all bridges and roads in the capital of Khartoum, amid online calls to commemorate the 1964 October Revolution. “We absolutely reject the unconstitutional and hostile decision by the governor of Khartoum State and we renew...

The Israeli occupation authorities on Wednesday banned the student branch of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in the occupied West Bank, calling it an “illegal and terrorist” organisation, Quds Press reported. According to Quds Press, the Israeli army announced in a statement that the PFLP’s...

The government of Qatar has welcomed a UN initiative to de-escalate tension in the Gulf, the Qatari News Agency has reported. Qatar’s permanent representative to the UN, Alya Bint Ahmed Al-Thani, made this clear to the UN Security Council on Wednesday. “Qatar stresses the strategic importance of the region...

Human Rights Watch (HRW) announced on Wednesday that Saudi prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against eight Saudi men charged with protest-related crimes, some of which they allegedly committed as children. The rights watchdog confirmed that it has obtained and analysed the charge sheets for two group trials that...

Two Democrat senators in America have introduced a bill designed to restrict efforts by President Donald Trump’s administration to sell F-35 fighter jets to the United Arab Emirates. Senator Bob Menendez (New Jersey) and Senator Dianne Feinstein (California) introduced the Secure F-35 Exports Act of 2020 on Tuesday. The...

The Egyptian government has allocated almost $35 billion to repay debt and loan instalments during the 2020/2021 fiscal year which started in July, an official report has revealed. Last year, the Egyptian government repaid around $23bn to its creditors. Minister of Finance Mohamed Maait said previously that Egypt has...

Between 2011 and today, many Western leaders who supported the military intervention in Libya nine years earlier have expressed some kind of regret about the war. But not a single Libyan politician went on the record to criticise NATO’s killing of civilians and the destruction of Libya. Former US...

An Israeli delegation made a rare visit to Sudan on Wednesday to discuss normalising ties, Israeli public broadcaster Kan radio said, as a minister predicted a possible diplomatic breakthrough between the two countries, Reuters reports. Israeli Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen told Israel’s Channel 13 News that he believed Israel...

The results of the seventh annual Arab Opinion Index (AOI) survey have been released. The AOI deserves the attention of every researcher, given the value its results have in reflecting the state of the nation. This year, 13 Arab countries including Sudan participated. The figures and percentages regarding the...

Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok announced on Wednesday that he held a discussion with High Representative of the European Commission for Security and External Relations Josep Borrell, which focused on the decision to remove Sudan from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism and the opportunities for cooperation that...

Head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) Stephanie Williams announced on Wednesday that the two parties to the Libyan conflict have reached a series of preliminary agreements to resolve the crisis. Williams confirmed that the new agreements in the last round of talks of the (5 +...

The US announced on Tuesday its rejection of Russia’s proposal in the UN Security Council to establish an effective security mechanism in the Gulf region. This came in statements made by US Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Kelly Craft during a Security Council meeting on the “Maintenance of International Peace and Security: Comprehensive Review of the Situation in the Persian...

Two hundred twenty-two members of the European Parliament (MEPs) sent an open letter to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on 21 October to voice their: “Deep concern about the ongoing detention of prisoners of conscience in Egypt.” The MEPs also called on him to end reprisals against human rights...

Since the Istanbul meeting between Fatah and Hamas on 24 September, the Palestinian arena has been abuzz with talks about elections and understandings between both movements. The two movements, which have the largest percentage of the Palestinian public’s trust and confidence, can decide the result of any elections held...

Sudanese security forces fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of people in demonstrations across the capital Khartoum on Wednesday, as crowds gathered to put pressure on the government to improve conditions and push ahead with reform, Reuters reports. The rallies came just days after President Donald Trump announced the...

Working mothers staged protests on Wednesday against Jordan’s decision to close all nurseries until year-end, saying the move unfairly targets women in the pandemic, Reuters reports. Jordan has already endured one of the strictest lockdowns in the region and now working mothers fear a second knockback as the country...

Egypt has unveiled new visitor facilities on the plateau outside Cairo where the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Great Sphinx are situated, the country’s most visited heritage site and the sole remaining wonder of the ancient world, Reuters reports. Developers late on Tuesday night opened a new restaurant,...

Five civilians were injured in a Russian airstrike in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province, according to the White Helmets civil defense agency on Wednesday, Anadolu reports. The attack targeted civilian settlements in al-Rami village in southern Idlib, the agency said. White Helmets said two children were among those injured in...