Middle East & North Africa

03 August 2023; MEMO: No one has been found guilty in connection with a port explosion in Lebanon in 2020, Amnesty International said Thursday, Anadolu Agency reports.

"The Lebanese authorities have had three years to investigate what caused the devastating explosion in Beirut's port and to hold those suspected of criminal responsibility to account," said Aya Majzoub, spokesperson for the Middle East and North Africa Director at the rights group.

03 August 2023; MEMO: Turkiye's long-standing anti-imperialist stance and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's famous motto "The world is bigger than five," has been a factor in the rising anti-colonialist sentiment in West Africa, an expert said, Anadolu Agency reports.

03 August 2023; MEMO: Turkiye has appointed a woman as an Admiral for the first time in Turkish Naval Forces history, following a Supreme Military Council meeting Thursday, Anadolu Agency reports.

Staff Colonel, Gokcen Firat Yas, will become Rear Admiral in the Turkish Naval Forces.

The decision came after the closed-door meeting that was chaired by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

03 August 2023; MEMO: As the Biden administration has been a disappointment for them, Palestine is "increasingly turning to China", said the Palestinian Foreign Minister on Thursday, Anadolu Agency reports.

04 August 2023; MEMO: Archbishop Atallah Hanna, the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Sebastia, has slammed events in the Ain Al-Hilweh camp in Lebanon as "shameful."

"The use of weapons in the camps between brothers is a very serious issue," he said in reference to fatal shootings that recently took place in the camp.

He expressed hope that steps being taken to end this "strife" and "thwart the satanic scheme that aims to harm our camp" and undermine the Palestinians' right of return are successful.

04 August 2023; MEMO: Saudi Arabia jailed an Egyptian psychiatrist on charges of terrorism last year in an "unfair trial" due to a salary dispute that he won in the kingdom, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has revealed.

04 August 2023; MEMO: Saudi Arabia will extend a voluntary oil output cut of one million barrels per day for another month to include September, it said yesterday, adding it could be extended beyond that or deepened, Reuters reported.

The kingdom's production for September will be around nine million barrels per day (bpd), the state news agency SPA cited an official source at the energy ministry as saying.

RAMALLAH, Aug 3 (NNN-WAFA) – Palestine’s ties with the U.S. are at the lowest level, as Washington fails to pressure Israel to stop its actions against Palestine, a senior Palestinian official said, yesterday.

The U.S. does not want to stop any Israeli plan or project to “save the stalled peace process from the deadlock it has reached, due to the continuing Israeli practices against the Palestinians,” said Ahmad Majdalani, a member of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

RAMALLAH, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday slammed Israel as a state "above the law" in terms of its "persecution" against Palestinians, calling on the international community to stop the practices.

Abbas made the remarks during a meeting with his Cypriot counterpart Nikos Christodoulides held in the West Bank city of Ramallah, during which they discussed bilateral relations and the Palestinian issue, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.

CAIRO, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- Intra-Palestinian reconciliation has to be achieved for reviving the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and realizing peace and security in the Middle East region, Egyptian analysts have said.

"Egypt is fully aware it will not be possible to relaunch the peace process in the Middle East amid the Palestinian division that has been ongoing for more than 15 years," Mostafa Amin, an Egyptian researcher on Arab and international affairs, told Xinhua.