Middle East & North Africa

02 Nov 2022; MEMO: The United States will try to remove Iran from the 45-member UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) over the government's denial of women's rights and brutal crackdown on protests, US Vice President, Kamala Harris, said on Wednesday, Reuters reports.

Iran has just started a four-year term on the Commission, which meets annually every March and aims to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women.

03 Nov 2022; MEMO: An armed man yesterday stormed a branch of Credit Libanais bank in the Lebanese capital's suburb of Hazmieh, demanding that his savings be returned to him.

Local media quoted eyewitnesses as saying that the depositor was a "former soldier in one of the state security agencies."

They noted that the bank handed over a total of $30,000 to the armed man.

03 Nov 2022; MEMO: After disappointing election results, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid yesterday canceled his attendance of the UN climate conference in Egypt next week, the Times of Israel reported.

"President [Isaac] Herzog will be representing Israel at COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh," Lapid's office said.

Last month, Lapid agreed to take part in COP27, saying "climate crisis presents us with exceptional opportunities" for the Israeli economy.

03 Nov 2022; MEMO: The concluding statement of the 31st Arab League Summit in Algiers has affirmed the centrality of the Palestinian cause as well as unequivocal support for the Palestinians' inalienable rights to freedom, self-determination and the establishment of an independent state on the 4 June, 1967 nominal borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. The summit also backed the legitimate right of return and compensation for Palestinian refugees in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194 passed in 1948.

03 Nov 2022; MEMO: The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are continuing to recruit child soldiers to their ranks in Aleppo, northern Syria, a Kurdish official has said.

Anadolu reported Redur Al-Ahmad, a spokesman for the League of Independent Kurds, as saying that on 10 October "the SDF terrorists kidnapped the 15-year-old child S.H.A. in the Sheikh Maqsoud neighbourhood of Aleppo and recruited him into their ranks."

ANKARA, Nov 2 (Reuters) - Turkey's president said on Wednesday his party could put to a referendum constitutional amendments to protect women's right to wear a headscarf, in a move some Turks see as an attempt to outflank the opposition on a once-deeply divisive issue.

President Tayyip Erdogan's ruling AK Party (AKP) met the opposition on the issue as parties vie for support ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections set for next June, with polls showing support for Erdogan's government slipping.

DUBAI, Nov 2 (Reuters) - Videos on social media showing Iranian security forces severely beating protesters have gone viral as anger grows at a widening crackdown with arrests of prominent figures from rappers to economists and lawyers aimed at ending seven weeks of unrest.

Protests ignited by the death in morality police custody of Mahsa Amini on Sept. 16 after her arrest for inappropriate attire have shaken Iran's clerical establishment with people from all layers of society demanding wholesale political change.

JERUSALEM/RAMALLAH, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian on Wednesday after he carried out a car-ramming attack at a checkpoint near the West Bank city of Ramallah, the Israeli army and Palestinian health ministry said.

The Palestinian man drove to the Maccabim checkpoint, hit an Israeli officer and wounded him seriously, the Israeli army said in a statement.

The man then got out of his car and tried to attack the officer with an axe before he was "neutralized," the army statement added.

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared headed toward victory Wednesday, with some 85% of the ballots from national elections counted and showing that voters gave him and his far-right allies what looks like a majority in the country’s parliament.

ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — Arab leaders on Wednesday concluded the 31st summit of the largest annual Arab conference after seeking to bridge the gap on several divisive issues in the Middle East and Africa. The first Arab League gathering in three years took place against the backdrop of rising inflation, food and energy shortages, drought and the soaring cost of living across the region.