Category: 2. Middle East

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking Wednesday at an annual Holocaust commemoration, said Iran was an existential threat and warned that “the fate of all humanity” was at stake if it acquires nuclear arms.

Netanyahu was speaking at the start of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, which commemorates the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis during World War II, and is observed every year in April or May according to the Jewish calendar. The International Holocaust Remembrance…

The Cannes film festival said Wednesday that the screening of a documentary about Gaza photojournalist Fatima Hassouna at the event next month would honour her work after the “horror” of her death in an Israeli air strike last week.

“Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk” by Iranian director Sepideh Farsi is to be shown at ACID Cannes, at this year’s May 13-24 festival, which runs parallel to the main competition.

The film features conversations between Farsi and Hassouna, 25, as she documents…

China supports Iran holding talks on its nuclear program with the United States and opposes the use of force and “illegal” unilateral sanctions to try to resolve the issue, Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, told Iran’s Foreign Minister on Wednesday, Reuters reports.

Beijing is willing to deepen coordination and cooperation with Tehran on international and regional affairs, Wang told Iran’s Abbas Araqchi during talks in the Chinese capital, according…

A Tunisian anti-terrorism judge ordered, on Wednesday, the detention of prominent lawyer, Ahmed Souab, a fierce critic of President Kais Saied, lawyers said, two days after his arrest for comments about the judiciary, Reuters reports.

Souab’s arrest sparked widespread anger among political parties and civil society groups, which said the move was a dangerous escalation of a crackdown on dissent and marked a further entrenchment of the country’s…

Iran, on Wednesday, condemned the fresh US sanctions, saying the penalties reflect Washington’s lack of goodwill for negotiations, Anadolu Agency reports.

The US Department of the Treasury imposed new sanctions on Tuesday against an Iranian businessman and his large shipping network for allegedly selling oil and gas to other countries.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Esmaeil Baqaei, said the fresh sanctions undermine the US claim of willingness to negotiate…

Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, called on Hamas on Wednesday to lay down arms and hand the running of Gaza to his Palestinian Authority, part of efforts to answer international doubts over the Authority’s role at a key moment for the region, Reuters reports.

Abbas was speaking at a leadership council where he is expected this week to name a successor, amid pressure from Western and Arab powers concerned about the PA’s ability to play a viable-long term…

Jordan announced on Wednesday it was banning the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood, a transnational Islamist movement, accusing it of manufacturing and stockpiling weapons and planning to destabilise the kingdom.

The move comes after authorities said they arrested 16 people, including members of the Brotherhood, over an alleged sabotage plot.

“It has been decided to ban all activities of the so-called Muslim Brotherhood and to consider any activity (carried out by it) a violation of the…