Middle East & North Africa

30 Dec 2020; MEMO: The number of women addicted to alcohol and drugs in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is on the rise, a top official at Dubai Police said citing social changes in the country.

Colonel Abdullah Matar Al-Khayat, manager of Hemaya International Centre at Dubai Police, said the majority of cases were girls who had travelled abroad with their friends without parental supervision.

30 Dec 2020; MEMO: Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have held their first joint military drills in an effort to coordinate defence capabilities in the face of any future Israeli strike.

In a press conference, a spokesperson for the operation said that the drills also aimed to promote the abilities of the Palestinian fighters and to prepare them to fight at any moment.

30 Dec 2020; MEMO: An Israeli football club notorious for the anti-Arab racism of its fans is facing a crisis now that a member of Abu Dhabi's ruling family has bought a 50 per cent stake in the club. The shares in Beitar-Jerusalem have been bought by Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Nahyan.

30 Dec 2020; MEMO: Unidentified gunmen have assassinated a senior official in Shia leader Muqtada Al-Sadr's Peace Brigades in Diwaniyah Governorate in southern Iraq.

Police Captain in Diwaniyah, Jamal Al-Din Al-Sudairy, said the gunmen shot Rami Al-Shabani killing him instantly, adding that authorities have opened an investigation into the attack.

There was no official comment made by the Peace Brigades or the Sadrist movement on the attack.

30 Dec 2020; MEMO: A new campaign has been launched in Egypt for the release of elderly and sick prisoners, The New Khaleej reported on Tuesday. The latest campaign by Batel, a campaigning group created by Egyptian opposition figures in 2018, was announced on Facebook in the context of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

"Thousands of elderly prisoners are in prison but no one talks about their situation," explained Batel. "It is as if staying in prison until they die has become normal."

30 Dec 2020; MEMO: Yemen tribal leaders in the southern Abyan province yesterday called on the Saudi-led Arab coalition to put pressure on the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) to force it to hand over the province's capital of Zinjibar to government security forces in accordance with the Riyadh Agreement.

30 Dec 2020; MEMO: President Abdelmadjid Tebboune returned to Algeria on Tuesday after two months in a German hospital being treated for COVID-19 during a period of political and economic crisis, reports Reuters.

State television showed him at a military airport outside Algiers sitting in an armchair and wearing a suit after his arrival.

24 Dec 2020; MEMO: Tunisia and Algeria have prevented an Israeli airplane from using their airspaces on its way to the Moroccan city of Rabat, forcing it to take an indirect route through Europe, local media outlets from both countries reported.

Ankara, Dec 30 (AP-PTI) A first batch of vaccines developed by Chinese biopharmaceutical company Sinovac has arrived in Turkey, after a two-week delay.

A plane carrying 3 million doses of the CoronaVac vaccine landed in the capital Ankara early on Wednesday. The first shipment was initially scheduled to arrive on December 11 but Turkish officials said problems concerning permits, followed by a COVID-19 case in Beijing customs and high alert against infections there, caused the delay.

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey and the United States have started talks to form a joint working group regarding U.S. sanctions imposed over Ankara’s purchase of Russian S-400 missile defence systems, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Wednesday.

Washington slapped the sanctions on NATO ally Turkey’s Defence Industry Directorate (SSB), its chief Ismail Demir and three other employees this month following its acquisition of the S-400s.