Middle East

U.S. President Donald Trump and Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok on Friday called for an agreement to be reached over the dam dispute with Ethiopia and Egypt. “We hope to reach an amicable solution soon,” Hamdok said, speaking by phone with Trump following Sudan and Israel’s announcement to normalize ties. …

Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok is ready to proceed with normalizing relations with Israel once a yet-to-be-formed transitional parliament has approved the step, two Sudanese government sources told Reuters on Thursday. The comments are the clearest sign that Hamdok, under pressure from the United States, is willing to contemplate Sudan …

President Donald Trump announced on Monday the United States would remove Sudan from its list of state sponsors of terrorism as soon as Khartoum sets aside the $335 million it has agreed to pay to American victims of militant attacks and their families. The deal could also set in motion …

Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy said on Sunday the U.S. President’s push for an Israeli-Arab rapprochement was gaining momentum and he hoped more accords would follow even if Trump loses next month’s election. Avi Berkowitz, who accompanied an Israeli delegation which visited Bahrain on Sunday, said the so-called “Abraham Accords” …

Recep Tayyip Erdogan faced isolation on two fronts on Wednesday as European and Russian diplomats moved to rein in the Turkish president’s adventurism in the eastern Mediterranean and the Caucasus. EU officials admitted their strategy to defuse tensions with Turkey was unraveling only two weeks after it began. Despite an …

Saudi diplomats, Sikh separatists and Indian business executives have been among those targeted by a group of hired hackers, according to research published on Wednesday by software firm BlackBerry Corp BB.BA. The report here on the group, known publicly as Bahamut, the name assigned to the mythical sea monster of …

Qatar has submitted a formal request to the United States to buy stealthy F-35 fighter jets, three people familiar with the deal said, in a deal that if pursued could strain U.S. ties with Saudi Arabia and Israel. The request for the Lockheed Martin Co jets was submitted by the …

In her village in Egypt’s Nile Delta, 35-year-old Shaimaa Saleh has spent sleepless nights worrying how to raise almost $1,000 to save her unfinished three-storey home. Like hundreds of thousands of others, and many dependents, she faces a deadline at the end of October by which residents of buildings without …

Kuwait’s new Emir Sheikh Nawaf al-Ahmad al-Sabah met on Sunday with senior U.S. and Iranian officials who separately paid respects over the death of the Gulf Arab state’s former ruler. Sheikh Nawaf assumed power after the death last Tuesday of his brother Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad. The late emir balanced his …

Sudan does not want to link its removal from a U.S. terrorism list that is hindering access to foreign funding for the country’s economy with a normalisation of relations with Israel, Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok said on Saturday. Sources said this week that U.S. officials indicated in talks with a …

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed told the United Nations on Friday that his country has “no intention” of harming Sudan and Egypt with a giant hydropower dam on the Blue Nile that has caused a bitter water dispute between the three countries. Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan failed to strike a …

In just two months, Egypt’s burgeoning #MeToo movement has exposed sexual assaults, spurred legal reform and emboldened hundreds of abuse victims including celebrities to speak out, sparking a long-overdue debate about gender inequality. Now, rights activists in the conservative country say keeping the social media campaign’s momentum going hinges on …

Despite over a year of negotiations, Sudan is facing a fresh obstacle to its removal from a U.S. terrorism list that has hindered its economy: a demand that it normalize relations with Israel, three sources familiar with the matter said. However, three Sudanese government officials told Reuters on Thursday that …

The United States said on Thursday it would provide more than $720 million in humanitarian assistance in response to the crisis in Syria, plus nearly $152 million for Africa’s Sahel region and almost $108 million for South Sudan. Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun made the announcement on Syria at …

Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered 27 coffins that were buried more than 2,500 years ago in a pharaonic cemetery. The sarcophagi were found at the Saqqara site in the governorate of Giza, south of the Egyptian capital, Cairo. Egyptian antiquities officials believe the discovery to be the largest of its …

The Saudi Cabinet on Tuesday reiterated the importance of confronting Iran over its destabilizing activities in the Middle East, and throughout the world, and its sponsorship of terrorism. Only by agreeing to end such provocative behavior will the country be reintegrated into the international community and sanctions be lifted, ministers …

Bahrain said Monday it broke up a plot by militants backed by Iran earlier this year to launch attacks on diplomats and foreigners in the island nation home to the US Navy’s 5th Fleet. The announcement came hours after Saudi state television and a Bahraini local newspaper implied the plot …

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry has condemned derogatory remarks made by the Turkish foreign minister, days after a Turkish attempt to open a dialogue with Egypt was rejected by Cairo. The spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ahmed Hafez, denounced the foreign minister’s comments made in a conversation with a …

Sudanese officials will discuss the removal of their country from a U.S. list of state sponsors of terror with U.S. officials during a visit to the United Arab Emirates this week, the ruling council said on Sunday. Sudan’s transitional government, in charge since the toppling of Omar al-Bashir last year, …

The United States hopes to move forward with naming Qatar as a major non-NATO ally, a status that provides foreign nations with benefits in defense trade and security cooperation, a senior U.S. official said on Thursday. “We’re going to move ahead, we hope, with designating Qatar a major non-NATO ally,” …

European leaders warned President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday to stop bullying Turkey’s neighbors amid simmering tension over maritime and energy rights in the eastern Mediterranean. The warnings came as Ankara said its Yavuz drillship would continue its search for oil and gas off Cyprus until Oct. 12, despite international …

Egypt is building two highways across the pyramids plateau outside Cairo, reviving and expanding a project that was suspended in the 1990s after an international outcry. The Great Pyramids, Egypt’s top tourist destination, are the sole survivor of the seven wonders of the ancient world and the plateau is a …

Israel’s rapprochement with Gulf Arab states has left the Palestinians feeling abandoned by traditional allies and clutching an old playbook in a rapidly changing Middle East, analysts and critics say. As the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain prepare to sign normalization accords with Israel at a White House ceremony on …

U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that “five or six” more Arab countries were poised to agree to normalize relations with Israel, in line with the landmark accords struck between the Jewish state and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. “We’re very far down the road with about five countries, …

Bahrain’s interior minister said on Monday that normalising ties with Israel protects Bahrain’s interests and strengthens its strategic partnership with the United States, amid an ongoing threat from Iran. “It is not an abandonment of the Palestinian cause … it is to strengthen Bahrainis’ security and their economic stability,” minister …

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pressed on Monday for a solution to the three-year rift between the Gulf state of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt, saying the Trump administration was eager to see it resolved. Speaking at a State Department meeting with Qatari …

Bahraini opposition groups have said they reject a decision by the Gulf state to normalise relations with Israel, with a leading Shi’ite cleric on Sunday calling on the people of the region to resist. Cleric Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qassim, living in Iran, said he was against normalisation between Arab countries …

The Arab Muslim world struggles with sectarian and ideological conflicts that affect the stability and progress of the region’s states and count loss in human lives and economic devastation among their consequences. Sectarian conflicts are not exclusive to the Muslim world. By Dr. Haytham Mouzahem Both the Christian West and …

Dear Christina “DZA” Marie,   First off all let me thank you on behalf of all the readers of The Levant newspaper in the Middle East and elsewhere. It’s not every day we get to talk to a distinguished author and, better yet, someone who teach authors how to write. …

Bahrain’s minister of foreign affairs Abdullatif Al-Zayani and Israeli counterpart Gabi Ashkenazi held a phone call on Saturday, the Bahrain foreign ministry announced, after the normalization of relations the day before. The ministers stressed the need to move relations forward to promote peace and stability in the region, it said. …

The king of Bahrain reiterated the necessity of reaching a fair and lasting peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, based on the two state solution, in a call with U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Bahrain’s state news agency BNA said on Friday. Bahrain joined the …

Out-of-date mortar ammunition was the source of a huge blast at a Jordanian military installation on Friday, officials have revealed. The early morning explosion at the remote mountain depot outside the industrial city of Zarqa was reportedly heard 30 km away. A Jordanian military spokesman told the official news agency …

Jordan said a series of massive explosions that rocked the city of Zarqa early on Friday was likely caused by an electric short circuit at a nearby army munitions depot. There were no immediate reports of casualties from the explosions which took place in the desert east of Jordan’s second-largest …

U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday spoke with Oman’s leader, Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said, about ways to enhance regional security and strengthen economic ties between the two countries, the White House said in a statement. Trump thanked the Omani leader for his statements of support following a U.S.-brokered agreement …

President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has expressed his support for the construction of a dam at the Julius Nyerere Hydropower Station in Tanzania by two Egyptian companies. Arab Contractors and Elsewedy Electric were awarded the contract for the construction of the dam on the Rufiji River by the Tanzanian government in …

After exposing two major sexual assaults in her first two months as an Instagram activist, and spurring Egypt to bring in a law to protect victims’ identities, Nadeen Ashraf has bigger plans. The 22-year-old student wants to turn her #MeToo-style Instagram account Assault Police, which has emboldened hundreds of Egyptian …

The United States had decided to cut $100 million in aid to Ethiopia amid a dispute with Egypt and Sudan over a megadam that Ethiopia is building on the Nile, a congressional source told Reuters on Wednesday. Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt have been locked in a bitter dispute over the …

Egyptian public prosecutors have ordered the detention of a second man suspected of being involved in an alleged gang rape at a luxury hotel in Cairo in 2014 pending investigations, they said in a statement on Sunday. Police arrested the man on Aug 28, days after a first suspect was …

Egyptian public prosecutors ordered the detention of a man suspected of being involved in an alleged gang rape at a luxury Cairo hotel in 2014 for four days pending investigation, they said in a statement on Thursday. The man, who is also a suspect in other similar cases, was arrested …

Flood waters in Sudan have reached the highest levels on record, killing dozens of people, destroying thousands of homes and encroaching on some neighbourhoods of the capital Khartoum. The flooding comes despite Ethiopia starting to fill the reservoir behind a giant new dam upstream on the Blue Nile in July. …

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met the Sultan of Oman on Thursday as part of a Middle East tour following a U.S.-brokered deal on normalising relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. In a meeting with Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said, Pompeo said on Twitter he discussed “the …

Seven suspects in an alleged gang rape at a luxury Cairo hotel in 2014 that is at the centre of an online campaign against sexual assault in Egypt have fled the country, the public prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday. The men left Egypt between July 27 and July 29 after …

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in the Gulf state of Bahrain on Tuesday as part of a Middle East tour following an accord between Israel and the United Arab Emirates to normalise relations. Israel and the United States have said they are pushing more Arab countries to follow …

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said during a visit to Khartoum on Tuesday that Sudan’s democratic transition was a “once in a generation opportunity”. In a tweet, Pompeo also said that he looked forward to discussing “how to deepen the U.S.-Sudan relationship”. The Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok said …