Middle East & North Africa

24 Nov 2022; MEMO: Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid has asked Likud voters a series of questions related to the current impasse into which Benjamin Netanyahu, who is tasked with forming a new government, has fallen in the company of extreme neo-fascists and racist nationalist parties.

"Is this what you wanted? That's why you voted for Likud?" asked Lapid. "Yeshiva [Orthodox Jewish] students will receive more money than IDF soldiers."

Israel's designate Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been accused of breaking his agreement with Arab countries that normalised relation with the Occupation State during the current coalition negotiations. The Likud leader is reported to have agreed to move the civil administration in the West Bank from Israeli Ministry of Defence to the Ministry of Finance to appease far-right member of the Knesset, Bezalel Smotrich.

24 Nov 2022; MEMO: Turkish authorities have seized assets belonging to the failed crypto currency exchange, FTX, which went bankrupt and whose founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, escaped with reportedly over a billion dollars in investors' money.

24 Nov 2022; MEMO: Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, discussed deepening bilateral cooperation and his country's energy needs with his Israeli counterpart, Isaac Herzog, during a phone call on Thursday, Anadolu News Agency reports.

"I had a phone call with President of Israel, Isaac Herzog. I hope for deepening Ukrainian-Israeli cooperation after the formation of the government. I also briefed about the needs of our energy industry and invited to join the Grain from Ukraine initiative," Zelenskyy said on Twitter.

24 Nov 2022; MEMO: Israeli media, on Thursday, reported that Egyptian authorities had asked 11 Israeli pilots to leave its territory after they landed without visas, Anadolu News Agency reports.

Israeli daily, Maariv, said the pilots landed in Egypt in small planes but the Egyptian authorities asked them to leave, citing "reasons of national security".

24 Nov 2022; MEMO: An excavation at a Neanderthal site in northern Iraq has led to the discovery of the oldest food remains discovered, so far.

Archaeologists have unearthed what is believed to be the burnt remains of a 70,000 year-old flatbread from the Shanidar Cave, 500 miles north of Baghdad in the Zagros Mountains of the Kurdistan region. The find challenges the long-held belief that Neanderthals survived on a primitive diet of raw meat or uncooked plants but were, in fact, foodies.

24 Nov 2022; MEMO: The UN Human Rights Council voted, Thursday, to establish an independent international fact-finding mission to investigate alleged human rights violations in Iran related to protests that began on 16 September, Anadolu News Agency reports.

The Council adopted its Resolution with 25 votes in favour of the resolution, six against, and 16 abstentions.

24 Nov 2022; MEMO: Lebanese lawmakers, on Thursday, failed for a seventh time to elect a new president as the country grapples with a deepening political and economic crisis, Anadolu News Agency reports.

The voting session was attended by 110 lawmakers of the 128-member Parliament.

Michel Moawad, a candidate backed by the Lebanese Forces party, got 42 votes, well short of the figure needed to win the first round, while 50 lawmakers cast blank ballots.

24 Nov 2022; MEMO: The Israeli army imposed a closure on the city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank at dawn this morning, preventing the movement of goods and commodities "until further notice", Wafa has reported.

ANKARA, Nov 24 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) — Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez on Wednesday favored diversifying commercial, financial, and other spheres of relations with Türkiye, after meeting here with his counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.    

There is always the possibility of diversifying our commercial and financial relations of another type between our countries, he said at the end of the official talks at the Presidential Complex in this capital.