Middle East & North Africa

24 August 2022; MEMO: Gulf Arab States are set to provide Pakistan with a total of around $4 billion to help alleviate its severe financial crisis.

According to the news outlet, Bloomberg, the State Bank of Pakistan's acting Governor, Murtaza Syed, said in a briefing that Qatar will provide $2 billion in bilateral assistance to the South Asian country.

24 August 2022; MEMO: The US military announced that it had carried out a strike in Deir Ez-Zor in Syria, targeting military facilities and infrastructure used by groups linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, as reported by Reuters.

The pro-Iranian groups are largely concentrated west of the Euphrates in the Deir Ez-Zor province, where they get supplies from Iraq through the Al-Bukamal border crossing,the news wire explained.

23 August 2022; MEMO: The Saudi Court of Appeals has sentenced Sheikh Saleh Al-Talib, a prominent imam and preacher at the Grand Mosque in Makkah, to ten years in prison, a human rights organisation said yesterday.

The organisation said the Court of Appeal overturned the Specialised Criminal Court's decision acquitting Sheikh Al-Talib of the charges against him.

GAZA, Aug 23 (NNN-WAFA) – Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), yesterday held a joint meeting in the Gaza Strip, weeks after deadly Israeli strikes against the PIJ in the Palestinian enclave, vowing to support each other’s resistance against the Israeli occupation.

The meeting, attended by members of the two factions’ political and military leaders, was “positive,” Khader Habib, a senior PIJ leader, said, adding, Hamas and PIJ agreed to strengthen ties to support “the two groups’ strategy of resisting Israeli occupation.”

BEIRUT, Aug 23 (NNN-NNA) – The Lebanese pound, yesterday sank to a new historic low, on the parallel market, amid the country’s protracted financial crisis, local media reported.

The exchange rate of the Lebanese pound declined to 34,250 against the U.S. dollar, down from the previous record low of 30,000 against the dollar earlier this month, reported the Elnashra news website.

DUBAI, Aug 23 (Reuters) - Afghan refugees and migrants living in limbo at a United Arab Emirates (UAE) facility for nearly a year since being evacuated from Afghanistan held fresh protests this week over what they say is a slow and opaque resettlement process.

Hundreds of Afghans carried banners and shouted for freedom on Monday and Tuesday, two Afghans in the facility told Reuters, estimating that thousands were still awaiting resettlement to the United States or third countries.

TEHRAN, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- About 40 percent of Iran's commercial air fleet are inactive because of the undersupply of parts caused by the U.S. sanctions, Iranian civil aviation chief said Tuesday.

"Now we have about 330 aircraft in the country ... Almost 60 percent of our fleet are active and the rest of it are grounded" because of engine problems and the supply shortage of other items and parts, Mohammad Mohammadi Bakhsh, head of Civil Aviation Organization of Iran, told the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA).

ANKARA, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian authorities, including Hamas that rules the Gaza Strip, welcome the normalization of relations between Türkiye and Israel because this helps Ankara better support the Palestinian cause, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Tuesday.

"Both the Palestinian president (Mahmoud Abbas) and Hamas side want our relations with Israel to be normalized. They also know that thanks to this dialogue, we will better defend the Palestinian cause," Cavusoglu said in a televised interview with the Haber Global TV channel.

IMBABA, Egypt (AP) — For Mariam Habeib, the grief seems never ending: She lost her older sister, two nieces and a niece’s three young children in an intense fire that engulfed a church in Egypt’s capital during a recent service and killed 41 people.

BEIRUT (AP) — Another significant section of the devastated Beirut Port silos collapsed on Tuesday morning in a cloud of dust. No injuries were reported — the area had been long evacuated — but the collapse was another painful reminder of the horrific August 2020 explosion.

The collapse left the silos’ southern part standing next to a pile of charred ruins. The northern block had already been slowly tipping over since the initial explosion two years ago but rapidly deteriorated after it caught fire over a month ago due to fermenting grains.