Middle East & North Africa

07 Oct 2020; MEMO: The association representing Islamic scholars in Algeria has expressed its reservations and concerns about some of the articles in the draft constitution which is due to be voted on in a referendum on 1 November. “These articles are a threat to the future of the nation,” said the association, “which everyone will be responsible for if we all keep silent or fail to draw attention to the danger and provide advice.”

07 Oct 2020; MEMO: Qatar’s Committee for the Reconstruction of the Gaza Strip yesterday began distributing $100 each to 100,000 poor Palestinian families in the besieged coastal enclave.

In a statement, the Chairman of the Committee, Ambassador Mohamed Al-Emadi, said that the payments are being distributed in cooperation with the government ministries in Gaza.

07 Oct 2020; MEMO: Iran will require face masks in public in the capital Tehran from Saturday, authorities said on Tuesday, announcing a daily record of 4,151 new coronavirus cases as hospitals face shortages of beds during a third wave of infections.

07 Oct 2020; MEMO: Lebanese authorities have blocked an oil tanker taking off from Greece and heading to Syria’s Assad regime, Safa news agency reported yesterday.

According to Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, Safa said that the Lebanese judiciary has been investigating the arrival of the tanker to the country’s coast.

07 Oct 2020; MEMO: A Palestinian prisoner in Israel is now in his 36th year behind bars, the Palestinian Prisoner Society (PPS) has revealed. Muhammad Altus from Jabaa in the Bethlehem governorate in the occupied West Bank, was arrested in 1985 for resisting the Israeli occupation as a member of Fatah.

BAGHDAD, Oct 6 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Two Katyusha rocket attacks targeted Baghdad airport and the heavily fortified Green Zone in the Iraqi capital on Monday without causing human casualty, the Iraqi military said.

One of the attacks took place before dawn when two rockets were fired from al-Jihad neighborhood in southwestern Baghdad and landed on al-Jadriyah neighborhood near the Green Zone, without causing human casualty, the media office of the Joint Operations Command said in a statement.

06 Oct 2020; MEMO: The Islamic Resistance Movement — Hamas — has revealed that it has agreed with Fatah and other Palestinian factions to hold elections across the occupied Palestinian territories in order to rearrange the institutions under the PLO umbrella as the sole representative of the people.

06 Oct 2020; MEMO: The heads of the Palestinian factions will meet in Cairo within weeks, Anadolu reported PLO Executive Committee member Bassam Al-Salhi saying yesterday.

Speaking to Anadolu, Al-Salhi, who is also the head of Al-Shaab Party, said: “There is another meeting for all the Palestinian factions to be held in Cairo.”

06 Oct 2020; MEMO: If Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden, wins November’s US presidential election, he could undermine Washington’s efforts to confront Iran, US envoy to Israel David Friedman warned on Sunday.

06 Oct 2020; MEMO: A spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Saeed Khatibzadeh, said his country will not tolerate the conflict between neighbouring Azerbaijan and Armenia spilling over onto its borders.

IRNA news agency quoted Khatibzadeh as saying that Tehran had contacted both countries and informed them of its readiness to help solve the Nagorno-Karabakh crisis.