Category: 2. Middle East

Water levels at Iraq’s vast Dukan Dam reservoir have plummeted as a result of dwindling rains and further damming upstream, hitting millions of inhabitants already impacted by drought with stricter water rationing.

Amid these conditions, visible cracks have emerged in the retreating shoreline of the artificial lake, which lies in northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region and was created in the 1950s.

Dukan Lake has been left three quarters empty, with its director Kochar Jamal Tawfeeq…

AI deepfakes, video game footage passed off as real combat, and chatbot-generated falsehoods — such tech-enabled misinformation is distorting the Israel-Iran conflict, fueling a war of narratives across social media.

The information warfare unfolding alongside ground combat — sparked by Israel’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and military leadership — underscores a digital crisis in the age of rapidly advancing AI tools that have blurred the lines between truth and fabrication.

The…

Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University student who was one of the most visible leaders of nationwide pro-Palestinian campus protests, was released Friday from a federal detention center.

Khalil, a legal permanent resident in the United States who is married to a US citizen and has a US-born son, has been in custody since March facing potential deportation.

“This shouldn’t have taken three months,” Khalil, wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, told US media outside an immigration…

President Donald Trump said Friday that Iran had a “maximum” of two weeks to avoid possible US air strikes, indicating he could take a decision before the fortnight deadline he set a day earlier.

Trump added that Iran “doesn’t want to talk to Europe,” dismissing the chance of success in talks between European powers and Iran in Geneva on resolving the conflict between Israel and Iran.

Trump also played down the possibility of asking Israel to halt its attacks, after Iranian Foreign Minister…

European powers on Friday urged Iran to revive diplomatic efforts with the United States to find a solution in the standoff over its nuclear programme, but Tehran warned it could only consider diplomacy once Israel halted its bombardment of the Islamic republic.

British, French, German and EU top diplomats held talks in Geneva with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, giving diplomacy a chance one week after Israel started its bombardment.

“The good result today is that we leave the room…

The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) has written to the Prime Minister Keir Starmer today warning him not to drag Britain into a direct military confrontation with Iran.

Credible reports suggest that Washington has decided to join Israel’s attack with a bombing campaign starting this weekend under the false pretext that it is acting to frustrate Iran’s attempts to develop nuclear weapons. This is despite an assessment from the US National Director of…

A coalition of Malaysian civil society organisations has announced an ambitious campaign to launch a “Thousand Ship Flotilla” to break Israel’s 17-year blockade of the Gaza Strip, in what is being described as the largest maritime mobilisation of its kind.

The initiative, led by the Malaysian Consultative Council of Islamic Organisations (MAPIM), aims to send vessels from across the globe carrying humanitarian aid to the besieged Palestinian enclave, in…

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has drawn scorn and disbelief after invoking his son’s postponed wedding as an example of the “personal cost” of the unprovoked war he launched against Iran.

Standing solemnly outside the missile-damaged Soroka Medical Centre in Beersheba, Netanyahu said: “There are people who were killed, families who grieved loved ones, I really appreciate that,” adding that “each of us bears a personal cost, and my family…