Middle East & North Africa

19 April 2020; MEMO: Palestinian Prisoners Day, EuroPal Forum hosted a webinar via the ZOOM communications platform titled ‘5000 Prisoners: Israeli Racism and Medical Negligence Amidst the COVID-19 Outbreak’.

The webinar, which heard from Motasem Dalloul, Akram Satari, and Charlotte Kates, sought to bridge the lack of coverage on the issue of Palestinian prisoners through facilitating a forum to better understand the current status quo for Palestinians in Israeli jails amidst the COVID-19 outbreak.

19 April 2020; MEMO: Libya’s UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) announced on Sunday that it had downed a United Arab Emirates unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in the north of the country, Anadolu Agency reports.

“Our forces successfully shot down an Emirati drone south of Misrata city,” said Mohammed Kanunu, the spokesman for the GNA-led Burkan Al-Ghadab Operation (Volcano of Rage).

“It was a Chinese-made drone equipped with guided missiles,” Kanunu added.

19 April 2020; MEMO: Saudi Arabia is set to sell about 600,000 barrels of crude per day to the United States in April, which will be the highest volume in a year, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing a Saudi industry official familiar with allocations to US refiners.

19 April 2020; MEMO: Algeria will extend a lockdown by 10 days until April 29 as it tries to limit the spread of the coronavirus amid increases in deaths and confirmed cases, the prime minister’s office said on Saturday.

The government had imposed a full lockdown in the Blida area, south of the capital Algiers, and a night curfew in the country’s remaining 47 provinces until April 19.

Pune, Apr18 (PTI) One hundred and twenty-five Bahrain nationals, stranded here because of coronavirus outbreak, were evacuated on Saturday, an airport official said.

A special flight of Gulf Air evacuated 125 Bahrain nationals from here and flew to Chennai to take on board others, said a senior official of the Pune International Airport.

Before boarding the flight, they were screened.

"One of them had a high temperature so he was not allowed to get onto the plane. He was referred to a hostel facility," the official said.

JERUSALEM, Apr 19 (NNN-MA’AN) – Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced the doubling of activity at workplaces, as part of a plan to gradually restore the economy, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The rate of workers allowed to go to workplaces will increase from 15 to 30 percent. Those who go to work are subject to fever measurement at entrances, and asked to keep at least two metres away from one another.

In addition, public transport activity will be increased, mainly to allow more workers to get to work.

TUNIS, Apr 19 (NNN-TAP) – Tunisian Minister of Health, Abdellatif Mekki, said that, the number of COVID-19 cases in Tunisia remains moderate, which shows that the country has passed the danger stage.

“The situation would have been better if we were more engaged in general confinement,” Mekki assured, while speaking on regional radio station of Tatouine, a public radio broadcast from the province of Tataouine in southeastern Tunisia.

RIYADH, Apr 19 (NNN-SPA) – Saudi Arabia registered, on Saturday, 1,132 new COVID-19 cases, and 79 percent of them are expatriates, it was reported.

The spokesman of the Ministry of Health, Mohammed Al-Abdulali, told the daily press briefing that, Mecca tops the affected cities with 315 cases, followed by Jeddah, 236, Riyadh, 225, Madinah, 186, and Dammam, 88.

The total infections in the country is 8,274 with 6,853 active cases undergoing medical treatment. There are 78 cases in critical conditions and the others are stable.

BAGHDAD, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Four Islamic State (IS) militants and a policeman were killed on Saturday in separate incidents in the Iraqi provinces of Kirkuk and Diyala, security source said.

In the northern province of Kirkuk, a joint force from the federal police and paramilitary Hashd Shaabi carried out a raid on an IS hideout at a village in the south of the namesake provincial capital Kirkuk, some 250 km north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, Abbas al-Obaidi from Kirkuk police told Xinhua.

TRIPOLI, April 19 (Xinhua) -- Libya's UN-backed government said Saturday it launched a massive attack on the rival east-based army in Tarhuna city, killing eight soldiers of the army and capturing more than 100 others.

The government's forces said they launched 17 airstrikes on the east-based army positions in Tarhuna, some 90 km south of the capital Tripoli, seizing a number of military vehicles.

Meanwhile, the government's forces accused the east-based army of attacking civilian areas in Tripoli and injuring 10 civilians, including four children.