Middle East & North Africa

28 Oct 2020; MEMO: An Israeli Knesset committee has called for banning a film documenting Israel’s siege on the occupied Palestinian West Bank city of Jenin in 2002 and the crimes carried out against its residents, Quds Press reported yesterday.

The Foreign and Security Committee at the Israeli Knesset submitted a draft resolution that will be raised to the government’s Attorney General, Avichai Mandelblit, demanding a ban on the film ‘Jenin, Jenin’.

28 Oct 2020; MEMO: Saudi Arabia has condemned the French cartoons abusing Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) but has not supported the campaign to boycott French products, Reuters reported yesterday.

Saudi officials said in a statement that the kingdom condemns all acts of terrorism, referring, according to Reuters, to the beheading of French teacher who displayed insulting cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) to his students.

28 Oct 2020; MEMO: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi has extended the state of emergency in the country for another three months starting yesterday, state-run TV reported citing the official Gazette.

The state of emergency allows the military and the police to take the measures they deem necessary to confront terrorism and its funding, and to protect individuals and public and private property.

28 Oct 2020; MEMO: Lebanon’s Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri vowed to form a government of specialists yesterday, local media reported.

The 20 or 24-person cabinet will not include well-known political figures aside from Hariri, the reports claimed, but will involve technocrats named by key political parties.

28 Oct 2020; MEMO: Following Bolivia’s election results last week, which saw the Movement to Socialism (MAS) party receiving 55 per cent of the votes and overall majorities in both houses of Congress, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has voiced Tehran’s support for the new Bolivian government and welcomed its “return to democracy”.

28 Oct 2020; MEMO: Gunmen shot dead a Houthi official in the Yemeni capital Sanaa on Tuesday, a rare killing of a civilian administrator in the city controlled by the armed movement.

Hassan Zaid, minister of sports and youth in the Houthi administration, died in hospital from his wounds after gunmen opened fire on his car in an area of the capital that houses embassies, two sources close to his family told Reuters.

28 Oct 2020; MEMO: Israeli wine produced in the occupied Golan Heights Winery will be sold in the United Arab Emirates from Thursday, reported The Jerusalem Post.

The bottles of wine will be made available in Dubai before being distributed to other emirates. The United States is currently the largest export market for Israeli wine.

28 Oct 2020; MEMO: Algeria’s president has been admitted to a specialised treatment unit in an army hospital, his office said on Tuesday, days before a critical referendum on changes he has pushed to the constitution.

The statement from the presidency carried on Algerian state media did not specify if Abdelmadjid Tebboune had tested positive for the coronavirus, but said his condition was stable and did not warrant any concern and that he was still working.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel plans to nominate a far-right former general and Cabinet minister who once called for the expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank to head the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, officials said Tuesday.

Effie Eitam, a religious nationalist with a history of harsh rhetoric toward the Palestinians and Israel’s Arab minority, is also a staunch advocate of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, which are widely seen as a violation of international law and an obstacle to peace.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Qatar apologized Wednesday after authorities forcibly examined female passengers from a Qatar Airways flight to Australia to try to identify who might have given birth to a newborn baby found abandoned at the airport earlier this month.

Under pressure after Australia condemned the searches, Qatar’s government said it had begun an investigation into the treatment of the women who were taking Qatar Airways Flight 908 to Sydney on Oct. 2.