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The majority of displaced Syrians want to go home but unless conditions improve, few will risk returning to their war-torn country, a grassroots civil rights organisation says. In a report released on July 21, the Syrian Association for Citizens’ Dignity said the longer Syrians felt unable to return, the more …

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman is in stable condition, three Saudi sources said, after the 84-year-old monarch was admitted to hospital in the capital Riyadh on Monday with what state media said was inflammation of the gall bladder. The king, who has ruled the world’s largest oil exporter and close U.S. …

Thai agricultural workers in Israel will be at greater risk of labour abuses under a new partnership between the governments, advocates said, voicing concerns that the United Nations migration agency (IOM) would no longer oversee the process. Thailand’s Department of Employment (DOE) this week signed a deal with the Israeli …

Sudan started on Tuesday a new trial against ousted President Omar al-Bashir and some of his former allies on charges of leading a military coup that brought the autocrat to power in 1989. State TV broadcast the judge opening the trial without showing footage of Bashir, who has been jailed …

Syrian air defenses on Monday intercepted a new Israeli “aggression” above the capital Damascus, state media said, in the latest wave of attacks that Western intelligence sources have said were Israeli strikes on a major Iranian-backed ammunition depot on the edge of the capital. State television said Israeli missiles had …

Qatar’s state minister for defense affairs met on Monday with the Turkish defense minister and Libya’s minister of interior to discuss the latest developments in Libya, Qatar’s ministry of defense said on Twitter. Egyptian lawmakers approved on Monday the deployment of armed forces in combat missions abroad giving President Sisi …

Egypt’s parliament is to vote Monday to authorize the president to deploy troops to neighboring Libya if Turkey-backed forces there, allied with the UN-supported government in Tripoli, move to retake the strategic coastal city of Sirte. An Egyptian intervention would further destabilize oil-rich Libya, and put two US allies — …

A car bomb attack in northwestern Syria’s Azaz region killed five people and wounded 85 others, a local hospital in Syria and Turkish state media said on Sunday. The incident took place in the village of Siccu, across the border from Turkey’s southern province of Kilis, Turkey’s Anadolu agency said. …

The United Arab Emirates launched its first mission to Mars on Monday as it strives to develop its scientific and technological capabilities and reduce its reliance on oil. The Hope Probe blasted off from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center at 1:58 a.m. UAE time/6:58 a.m. Japanese time Monday (2158 GMT Sunday) …

Saudi Arabia’s 84-year-old ruler, King Salman bin Abdulaziz, has been admitted to hospital in the capital Riyadh, suffering from inflammation of the gall bladder, state news agency SPA said on Monday. The king, who has ruled the world’s largest oil exporter and close U.S. ally since 2015, was undergoing medical …

Syria held a parliamentary election on Sunday, gripped by a collapsing economy and new U.S. sanctions after President Bashar al-Assad clawed back control of most of the country. People voted across government territory at more than 7,000 polling stations, including for the first time in former rebel bastions that the …

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s graft trial resumed on Sunday after a two-month break amid mounting protests over his alleged corruption and handling of the coronavirus crisis. Netanyahu, the first serving Israeli prime minister to go on trial, did not attend what a spokesman for the prosecution said would be …

An explosion occurred at a power plant in Iran’s central Isfahan province on Sunday but there were no casualties, the official IRNA news agency reported. The blast was caused by the wear and tear of a transformer at the power plant in Islamabad, the managing director of the Isfahan power …

The leaders of France, Germany and Italy on Saturday threatened for the first time to use sanctions against countries that continued to violate a United Nations arms embargo on Libya. French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte urged “all foreign actors to end …

Kuwait’s 91-year-old ruler Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah was admitted to hospital on Saturday for medical checks, and the country’s crown prince will temporarily carry out some of his duties, the state news agency KUNA reported. It said Sheikh Sabah, who has ruled the OPEC oil producer and U.S. ally …

After responding to a comment by MVM * with regard to declaring demurrage on The US dollar, a message was sent directly to M.V.M. Inc. in request to begin a partnership targeting the revelation and return to legitimate circulation of all the cash money paper US dollars used for paying …

By Emad El-Din Aysha, PhD     “With most people, not describable as artists, all the finer part of their vitality goes into sex. They become third-rate poets during their courtship. All their instincts of drama come out freshly with their wives. The artist is he in whom this emotionality …

Turkey sent between 3,500 and 3,800 paid Syrian fighters to Libya over the first three months of the year, the US Defense Department’s inspector general concluded in a new report, its first to detail Turkish deployments in Libya’s war. The quarterly report on counterterrorism operations in Africa by the Pentagon’s …

Only 8 percent of organizations in Saudi Arabia are considered “leaders” in “cyber resilience” compared with 17 percent globally, according to a new study that identifies how well organizations are prepared to defend themselves against cyberattacks. The study, carried out by the multinational professional services company Accenture, said that companies …

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi will travel to Saudi Arabia and Iran back-to-back next week, carefully balancing ties to regional rivals in his first foreign trip as premier, officials said Saturday. On Sunday, Al-Kadhimi will host Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Baghdad, before traveling with Iraq’s ministers of oil, electricity, …

G20 finance ministers and central bankers are set to hold talks Saturday aimed at spurring global economic recovery from a coronavirus-triggered recession amid growing calls to widen debt relief for crisis-hit poor countries. The virtual talks, hosted by Saudi Arabia, come as the surging pandemic continues to batter the global …

France’s foreign ministry on Friday rebuffed U.S. assertions that a European Union naval mission to enforce a U.N. weapons embargo for Libya was biased and not serious, saying Washington should itself be doing more to stop the flow of weapons. David Schenker, assistant secretary for Near East Affairs at the …

Zawqan Abdelkhalek, a nurse at the American University of Beirut’s (AUB) medical centre since 2012, was laid off on Friday along with hundreds of colleagues as even hospitals buckle under the weight of Lebanon’s economic collapse. “I have a baby daughter, I need to get her food and water and …

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan denounced Egypt and the United Arab Emirates on Friday for supporting forces based in eastern Libya, after Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi met Libyan tribesmen who called for Cairo to intervene in the civil war. Turkey has been providing military aid to the Tripoli-based government in …

A new launch date for the UAE’s mission to Mars has been set for July 20, officials have announced. Lift-off from Japan’s Tanegashima Island, 1,000 kilometres to the south west of Tokyo, will take place at 1.58am UAE time. The launch of the Hope probe has already been delayed twice …

Ethiopian mother Alemtsehay Nasir went to Lebanon dreaming that her maid’s job would let her earn money to make a better life for her young son. But she was fired when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and her employers dumped her on the streets. The 32-year-old was left on the curb …

Sudan’s decision to lift the death penalty and flogging as punishment for gay sex was hailed by LGBT+ activists on Thursday as a promising sign after almost four decades of Islamist rule, with calls for prison sentences to be abolished as well. Others criticised the relaxation of the law in …

Egypt will not stand idle in the face of any direct threat to Egyptian and Libyan security, President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi said on Thursday, after lawmakers allied to commander Khalifa Haftar urged Cairo to intervene militarily in Libya’s civil war. Tribal leaders who flew in from Haftar’s Benghazi stronghold told Sisi …

Tunisian demonstrators shut an oil pumping station that feeds a coastal terminal on Thursday, escalating weeks of protests for jobs in the marginalized southern region of Tatouine, witnesses told Reuters. The move places further pressure on Tunisian leaders already struggling with political deadlock following the resignation on Wednesday of prime …

It seems like the whole world is going crazy: the most recent trend in the United States is buying guns and ammo in mass quantities. This unprecedented surge in gun buying seems to be related to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it’s not the first time something like this has happened. …

President Trump to the press corps; “I read an interesting article in the news the other day. Here is what it says. I have it here right in front of me. Maybe the formal declaration to begin demurrage charges on The US dollar will not even be necessary. We will …

Lebanon’s central bank has set up a committee to restructure financially stricken commercial banks and study their performance, according to a memo by the bank seen by Reuters on Thursday. The panel will also propose measures to preserve the soundness of the banking sector, the memo said. Lebanese banks are …

Dismayed by the plastic bags piling up in the Gaza Strip, a group of young Palestinians is recycling discarded fabric into reusable totes to clamp down on waste and protect the environment. Their cloth bags – painted with colourful characters and slogans including “NOT PLASTIC – FANTASTIC” sell for 25 …

A long-delayed report into Russian influence in British politics will be published in the next week, parliament’s intelligence and security committee agreed on Thursday, a day after a dispute over the appointment of its chairman. The committee, which oversees the work of Britain’s intelligence community, has been in focus since …

A group of Iranian parliamentarians has abandoned an attempt to impeach President Hassan Rouhani, the Tasnim news agency reported on Wednesday, marking the end of a move sparked by growing economic hardship. Approximately 10 parliamentarians who were seeking to impeach the president, and rally other members of the 290 seat …

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday warned investors in two Russian natural gas pipeline projects that they could face sanctions as the Trump administration seeks to curb the Kremlin’s economic leverage over Europe and Turkey. Pompeo told a news conference that European investors in the Nord Stream 2 …

A coronavirus resurgence in Israel and divisions within Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government have sidelined its plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank, officials said. Although the conservative Netanyahu and Defence Minister Benny Gantz, his centrist coalition partner, agreed the government could begin moving on annexation as of …

by James M. Dorsey | Jul 14, 2020 An initial version of this story was first published in Inside Arabia A podcast version of this story is available on Soundcloud, Itunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spreaker, Pocket Casts, Tumblr, Podbean, Audecibel, Patreon and Castbox. A Palestinian move to secure Palestine’s energy needs by tying them to high-stakes Turkish regional gambits constitutes an effort to reduce Palestinian dependence on …

The New York Times accusations of Russia allegedly offering bounties to members of the Taliban movement for killing American soldiers in Afghanistan resulted in increased anti-Russia sentiment in the US. The Donald Trump administration will likely be under pressure to impose fresh packages of sanctions against Moscow, even though some …

Tonight Angel NicGillicuddy‘s great ship The Moo-La is floating just off the coast of the great city Doral, Florida. Angel and Barron are sitting high up in the crow’s nest. Here is the report: Meetings are going well for The New Southern Confederation of The Americas. This time it won’t …

Libya’s eastern-based parliament has called for Egypt to directly intervene in the country’s civil war to counter Turkish support for the internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA), based in the capital Tripoli. In a statement late on Monday, the House of Representatives based in the eastern port of Tobruk …

The U.N.’s highest court for disputes between countries sided with Qatar on Tuesday in its legal fight with several Gulf states that imposed an air blockade against Doha. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt severed political, trade and transport ties with Qatar in June 2017, accusing Qatar …

Many books about corporate communication mention the so-called ‘square of communication’. As a communication specialist the following factors interested me the most: 1-Right place–choose the right location that suit both you and your counterpart to optimize the outcomes. 2-Right time–select the timing that suit your and counterpart preferences. 3-Right agenda …

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed in a phone call to work more closely in Libya to ensure lasting stability in the country, the Turkish presidency said on Tuesday. Turkey supports the internationally recognised Government of National Accord in Libya, which is fighting against the eastern-based …