Category: 2. Middle East

Dozens of Tunisian lawyers and legal experts have categorically rejected the hefty sentences handed down to opposition figures in the “conspiracy trial” and called for an end to the exceptional measure imposed by President Kais Saied since mid-2021.

A court in Tunis in the early hours of Saturday handed down jail terms of up to 66 years to around 40 defendants, including vocal critics of Saied.

On Tuesday, over fifty professors in the fields of law and…

The Syrian Ministry of Interior announced on Tuesday the arrest of a senior Air Force Intelligence officer involved in committing war crimes against civilians.

“The Latakia Security Directorate arrested the criminal Brigadier General Sultan al-Tinawi, one of key Air Force Intelligence officers involved in committing war crimes against civilians, including a massacre in the Jairud area of ​​the Damascus countryside in July 2016” the ministry said in a…

The Israeli army estimated that it needs an additional 10 billion shekels ($2.7 billion) to resume the war on the besieged Gaza Strip and to expand it with large scale ground operations, Israeli media outlets reported on Tuesday.

The Hebrew Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper said “The renewal of the war in Gaza over a month ago, after the ceasefire, and the plan to expand it …. is incurring significant costs”, adding that the Israeli occupation army is already…

Qatar and Russia have signed an agreement to each invest 1 billion euros ($1.14 billion) into a joint investment fund, strengthening the two countries’ bilateral and trade relations.

According to Reuters news agency, Qatar and Russia signed the agreement to jointly invest the amount in each others’ sovereign wealth funds during a meeting in the Russian capital Moscow between president Vladimir Putin and Qatari emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani on Thursday…

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is set to use artificial intelligence (AI) to write and regulate laws in the Gulf state, in the first such decision to be taken by a nation in the international community.

Last week, ministers in the UAE approved the creation of the Office of Regulatory Intelligence, a new cabinet body intended to oversee the use of AI in the creation of new legislation and the reformation of current legislation.

According to state media, Emirati…

The Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, has urged the new Syrian administration to release two of its commanders, detained on Sunday evening, Quds Press reported.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the movement said the two commanders, Engineer Khaled Khaled, who is in charge of Syrian ties and Engineer Yasser Al-Zafari, head of the organisational committee were arrested “without clarification” and in a manner “we…

After decades spent pruning thorny bushes and working arduous harvests, Khalaf Allah al-Talhi has perfected the art of capturing the fragrant aroma of the desert rose in a bottle.

“I love roses and take care of them more than I care for my own children,” the 80-year-old told AFP from his flower farm in western Saudi Arabia’s Taif.

Known as “the city of roses”, the hills of Taif produce around 300 million of the area’s signature pink roses annually at 800 flower farms.

By his own estimates,…

US President Donald Trump’s return to power has emboldened Israeli leaders’ push to increase military presence in Gaza and reinvigorated right-wing ambitions to annex the occupied West Bank, experts say.

After a phone call Tuesday with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said on social media: “We are on the same side of every issue.”

In Gaza, where the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel has raged for more than 18 months, Trump’s comeback meant “big changes”…

The United Nations on Tuesday appointed an envoy to complete a “strategic assessment” of the agency charged with aiding Palestinians, a spokesman said.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres appointed Ian Martin of the United Kingdom to review the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA, to gauge the “political, financial, security” constraints the agency faces.

The organization, broadly considered to be the backbone of humanitarian aid delivery for embattled Palestinians, has withstood a…

With the publication of Palestine Across Millennia – A History of Literacy, Learning, and Educational Revolutions by Nur Masalha in Brazil, MEMO Publishers completes in Portuguese the foundational trilogy by the renowned historian to understand present-day Palestine, viewed through the lens of its uniquely rich historical development.

This is not the Palestine of the media. It is not the Palestine without people or culture as described by Zionism. Nor is it the…