Middle East & North Africa

16 May 2020; MEMO: Turkey recently banned a Cypriot plane from flying over its skies, stating that Cypriot authorities did not obtain permission from Turkey, Arab48.com reported on Friday.

On Wednesday, Cyprus confirmed that it hired a plane carrying 36 tonnes of medical supplies needed for the fight against the coronavirus. The plane turned to Moscow after Turkey had refused to allow it to fly over its skies.

16 May 2020; MEMO: Israeli security officials fear an outbreak of a new “violent” Intifada in the occupied West Bank due to an economic crisis that would undermine the Palestinian Authority (PA).

16 May 2020; MEMO: Jordanian king on Friday warned that if Israel annexes the West Bank, it would lead to a “massive conflict” with Jordan, Anadolu Agency reports.

“If Israel really annexes the West Bank in July, it would lead to a massive conflict with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,” King Abdullah II said in an interview with Der Spiegel.

“Leaders who advocate a one-state solution do not understand what that would mean,” he said, adding that there would be more chaos and extremism in the region.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund has bought minority stakes in major American companies including Boeing (BA.N), Facebook (FB.O) and Citigroup (C.N), according to a U.S. regulatory filing.

The $300 billion Public Investment Fund (PIF) has been buying minority stakes in companies across the world, taking advantage of market weakness in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.

BEIRUT, May 16 (NNN-NNA) – Lebanese Finance Minister, Ghazi Wazne, said on Friday that, Lebanon may cut down half of the number of banks operating in the country, by restructuring the banking sector, a local media outlet reported.

“We have a total of 49 commercial banks and we will reduce the number gradually in different ways, including mergers,” Wazne was quoted as saying by Elnashra, a local independent online newspaper.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran has sentenced French-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah to six years in prison on national security charges, her lawyer said on Saturday.

“The court has sentenced her to six years. We have appealed and if accepted, the sentence will drop to five years,” Adelkhah’s lawyer, Saeid Dehghan, told Reuters.

In January, Iran dropped spying charges against Adelkhah but she remained in jail on other security-related charges, her lawyer told Reuters in March.

CAIRO, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Turkey, the hardest-hit country by the coronavirus outbreak in the Middle East, has reported more than 146,000 confirmed cases, while the tally in Iran surpassed 116,000.

Turkey on Friday confirmed 1,708 new COVID-19 cases and 55 more deaths, raising the tally of infections to 146,457 and the death toll to 4,055.

A Turkish company recently launched the first domestic production of a drug to be used in the treatment of COVID-19 patients.

CAIRO (AP) — Dr. Dina Abdel-Salam watched in terror last month as scores of strangers gathered under the balcony of her aunt’s empty apartment in the Egyptian city of Ismailia, where she’d temporarily sheltered after leaving her elderly parents at home to protect them from exposure to the coronavirus.

The crowd called out her name, hurling threats until she dialed the police for help.

“You have moved here to make us sick,” someone shouted.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A court in Istanbul on Friday accepted an indictment against four pilots, an airline company official and two flight attendants accused of helping former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn escape from Japan to Lebanon via Turkey, and set a trial date for July 3.

15 May 2020; MEMO: Boeing has won two contracts worth $2.6 billion to deliver more than 1,000 air-to-surface and anti-ship missiles to Saudi Arabia, the US’ defence department announced yesterday.

In an official statement, the Pentagon explained that the first contract was worth $1.97 billion, adding that it would include “modernizing SLAM ER cruise missiles and delivering 650 new missiles in support of the government of Saudi Arabia.”