Middle East & North Africa

23 Feb 2021; MEMO: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Monday Iran might enrich uranium up to 60% purity if the country needed it and would never yield to US pressure over its nuclear programme, Reuters reported state media as saying.

23 Feb 2021; MEMO: Members of Hamas have chosen their representatives on local shura councils in a "democratic and fair" election, a statement said today.

Elections were held in Gaza and other regions, including the occupied West Bank and in the diaspora, the movement said.

"The election process took place in a positive, democratic, transparent and fair atmosphere overseen by the Hamas central election commission, as per the movement's internal regulations," the statement said.

23 Feb 2021; MEMO: Lebanon's Ministry of Justice on Friday appointed Judge Tarek Bitar to lead the investigation into the Beirut port blast.

On Thursday the Lebanese court of cassation dismissed Judge Fadi Sawan from the investigation after a request by two former ministers he had charged with negligence.

23 Feb 2021; MEMO: An Israeli official from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's party, Likud, has met with a senior PLO official and close aide of Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas reportedly to mobilise support for the Israeli leader, local media revealed yesterday.

MK Fateen Mulla told Yedioth Ahronoth that he held talks with the PLO's Committee for Interaction with Israeli Society headed by senior Abbas aide Mohammad Al-Madani.

23 Feb 2021; MEMO: Lebanon's caretaker prime minister Hassan Diab said yesterday he was following up on an oil spill that may have originated from a ship passing near the Israeli coast and has now reached the southern shores of Lebanon, Reuters reported.

Israeli officials said on Sunday they were trying to find the ship responsible for the spill that drenched much of its Mediterranean shoreline with tar, an environmental blow that will take months or years to clean up.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran officially has begun restricting international inspections of its nuclear facilities, state TV reported Tuesday, a bid to pressure European countries and U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration to lift crippling economic sanctions and restore the 2015 nuclear deal.

The state TV report gave little detail beyond confirming that Iran had made good on its threat to reduce cooperation with International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors.

23 Feb 2021; MEMO: Since the restart of exploratory talks between Turkey and Greece this year, Greece has continued to escalate tension in the region, Anadolu reported sources from Turkish National Defence Ministry saying yesterday.

According to the sources, Greece "has carried out many activities from exercises to submarine missions aimed at escalating tension in the Aegean, and continued its uncompromising attitude."

JERUSALEM (AP) — Generations of Jews have dropped spare change into the iconic blue boxes of the Jewish National Fund, a 120-year-old Zionist organization that acquires land, plants trees and carries out development projects in the Holy Land.

But the Israeli group, known by its Hebrew acronym KKL, is now considering formally expanding its activities into the occupied West Bank. That has sparked fierce opposition from left-leaning Jewish groups in the United States, deepening a rift with the increasingly right-wing Israeli government.

23 Feb 2021; MEMO: Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Saeed Khatibzadeh, denied on Sunday holding "direct contacts" with the United States concerning American citizens held by the Islamic Republic and vice versa, the Tasnim news agency reported.

Khatibzadeh was responding to remarks issued on Sunday by White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who said the United States had begun to communicate with Iran over Tehran's detention of US citizens.

23 Feb 2021; MEMO: A former member of Sudan's negotiating team which worked with Ethiopia on issues relating to the controversial Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the River Nile, has raised eyebrows by claiming that Sudan owns the land on which the dam is built.