Middle East & North Africa

31 Oct 2020; MEMO: Israeli settlers cut off electricity poles in the village of Al-Sawiya in the northern occupied West Bank, Maan News Agency reported.

The Palestinian official in charge of the settlement file in the northern West Bank, Ghassan Douglas, confirmed that the settlers from the Jewish-only illegal settlement of Rahalim were responsible for chopping down a number of wooden electric poles with chainsaws, causing power outages in the area near Nablus.

31 Oct 2020; MEMO: A Sudanese artist has refused the French Republic’s Medal of Arts and Letters due to the recent insulting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).

The official Sudanese News Agency (SUNA) reported on Wednesday that “the plastic artist Kamala Ibrahim Ishaq refused the French Republic’s Order of Arts and Letters, as a result of the issue of the offensive caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.”

31 Oct 2020; MEMO: Algeria’s Grand Mosque, the third largest in the world after the holiest sites in Makkah and Madinah and the largest in Africa, was inaugurated on Wednesday evening on the occasion of the Mawlid, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)’s birthdate. The opening ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Andelaziz Djerad and other government officials.

31 Oct 2020; MEMO: At least 17 people were killed and 709 others injured when a magnitude 6.6 earthquake jolted the city of Izmir on the Turkish Aegean on Friday, said the country’s disaster management agency.

At least 196 aftershocks, with 23 of them more powerful than magnitude 4.0, were recorded after the quake, according to the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD).

ADDIS ABABA, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- African countries have conducted over 17 million COVID-19 tests, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said on Friday.

"Over 17 million tests for COVID-19 have been conducted to date with a positivity rate of 9.5 percent," the Africa CDC said in its latest situation update.

As of Friday afternoon, the number of confirmed cases in the African continent has reached 1,759,794 as the death toll related to the pandemic stood at 42,336, the continental disease control and prevention agency said.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Tens of thousands of Muslims, from Pakistan to Lebanon to the Palestinian territories, poured out of prayer services to join anti-France protests on Friday, as the French president’s vow to protect the right to caricature the Prophet Muhammad continues to roil the Muslim world.

Hardline Islamic groups across the region have seized on the the French government’s staunch secularist stance as an affront to Islam, rallying their supporters and stirring up rage.

ISTANBUL (AP) — A strong earthquake struck Friday in the Aegean Sea between the Turkish coast and the Greek island of Samos, killing at least 19 people and injuring over 700 amid collapsed buildings and flooding, officials said.

A small tsunami struck the Seferihisar district south of Izmir, the city in western Turkey that was the worst affected by the quake, said Haluk Ozener, director of the Istanbul-based Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute.

30 Oct 2020; MEMO: The High Council of State urged the head of the Presidential Council, Fayez al-Sarraj, to stay on Thursday until a new presidential council is selected in order to avoid a political vacuum and for Libya’s stability, Anadolu Agency reports.

30 Oct 2020; MEMO: The Israeli occupation police prevented more than 2,000 Palestinians from entering the Ibrahimi Mosque in the city of Hebron on Thursday where they were hoping to take part in a celebration of the birthday of Prophet Muhammad, Anadolu has reported.

30 Oct 2020; MEMO: Kuwait’s Anti-Corruption Authority (Nazaha) will investigate the recent collective resignations of a number of employees at the Ministry of Finance in protest of violations committed by Finance Minister, Barak Ali Al-Sheetan, local media reported.

Informed sources said the ministry’s undersecretary, Saleh Al-Sara’awi, and five assistants submitted their resignations yesterday hours after submitting an official complaint against a ministerial decision to rotate a number of senior employees.