Middle East & North Africa

Palestine: Jewish settlers block entrances to Ramallah and Bireh in occupied West Bank

11 Apr 2023; MEMO: Israeli Jewish settlers blocked the main entrance to the cities of Ramallah and Al-Bireh at the Beit El military checkpoint in the central West Bank on Monday evening, eyewitnesses have reported. The settlers threw rocks at passing Palestinian vehicles, resulting in a number being damaged.

Egypt: inflation rises to 32.7%

11 Apr 2023; MEMO: Egypt's annual urban consumer inflation rate in March increased to 32.7 per cent, up from 31.9 per cent in February, data from the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) showed yesterday.

The monthly headline urban consumer price index (CPI) registered 2.7 per cent in March, down from 6.5 per cent in February, but up from 2.2 per cent in the same month a year earlier.

Yemen: Prisoner-swap with Houthis starts Thursday

11 Apr 2023; MEMO: The Yemeni government said, Tuesday, the prisoner exchange process with the Houthis will begin on Thursday, 13 April, Anadolu News Agency reported, citing an unnamed government source.

The source said the government is fully prepared to implement this anticipated deal, without giving further details.

Turkiye plans to build 1,000 EV stations by end of 2023

11 Apr 2023; MEMO: Turkiye's first electric vehicle charging network, plans to build 1,000 stations by the end of 2023, with at least one fast-charging (DC) charging station in each of the country's 81 provinces, local media reports.

According to the report, Esarj, Turkiye's first electric vehicle charging network will direct over 90 per cent of its new investments to fast-charging stations to have at least one charging station across 81 provinces by the end of the year.

Yemen Southern Transitional Council says restoring State of the South a 'strategic' goal

11 Apr 2023; MEMO: The Southern Transitional Council (STC) in Yemen announced, on Tuesday, that it does not seek secession, but rather to restore its fully sovereign state, considering that restoring the State of the South is a "strategic goal" that the Council will not retreat from, under any circumstances.

Kuwait News unveils world's first artificial intelligence news anchor

11 Apr 2023; MEMO: Kuwait News has unveiled its new computerised news anchor, in a step which is amongst the world's first manifestations of artificial intelligence news casting.

In a video posted on its Twitter account over the weekend, Kuwait News, a blonde woman wearing a black jacket and a white t-shirt presented herself in Arabic as "Fedha, the first presenter in Kuwait who works with artificial intelligence at Kuwait News."

Russia Aeroflot sends aircraft for repair to Iran

11 Apr 2023; MEMO: Russia's largest air carrier, Aeroflot, whose aircraft maintenance capabilities are crippled by Western sanctions, sent one of its Airbus planes to Iran for repair, the company said on Tuesday, Reuters reports.

According to the flight tracking system, Flightradar24, the Airbus A330-300 flew to Tehran on 5 April and remains there until now.

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