Middle East & North Africa

TEHRAN, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- Iran said on Tuesday that the United States should stop making additional demands in the talks over reviving the 2015 nuclear deal.

"The talks regarding the agreement are continuing and the other party should stop making additional demands because a constructive path has been taken" in the negotiations so far," Ali Bahadri Jahormi, the Iranian government spokesman, told reporters at his weekly press conference.

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — The eastern Mediterranean and Middle East are warming almost twice as fast as the global average, with temperatures projected to rise up to 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century if no action is taken to reverse the trend, a new report says.

The region will experience “unprecedented” heat waves, more severe and longer-lasting droughts and dust storms and rainfall shortages that will “compromise water and food security” for the region’s 400 million people, according to a summary of the report released Tuesday.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Gulf Arab countries on Tuesday asked Netflix to remove “offensive content” on the streaming service, apparently targeting programs that show gays and lesbians.

A joint statement issued on behalf of a committee of the Gulf Cooperation Council made the request, saying the unspecified programs “contradict Islamic and societal values ​​and principles.”

05 Sep 2022; MEMO: Israeli Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman yesterday described opposition leader and Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the "scum of the human race who has no red lines," the Times of Israel reported.

Lieberman, leader of the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu Party, was asked to comment on allegations that he had offered to pay $100,000 to kill a police director.

He rejected the allegations and said this was a smear campaign orchestrated by Likud leader Netanyahu.

05 Sep 2022; MEMO: Iran's Nour News has rejected a report by London-based Asharq Al-Awsat that Russia asked Iran to remove its forces and militias from western and central Syria due to an increase in air strikes by Israel.

05 Sep 2022; MEMO: In one of the largest protests against Israeli apartheid, more than 300 filmmakers signed a petition in which they refuse to cooperate with the Shomron Film Fund.  Oscar-nominated filmmakers were amongst the signatories who slammed the fund as being "part of the apartheid mechanism". Shomron is the Hebrew word for Samaria – which is the Biblical name of the occupied West Bank.

06 Sep 2022; MEMO: Qatar and Malaysia are discussing ways to enhance their defence cooperation, especially with regard to their air forces, the defence ministry in Doha said on Sunday. Talks have been held between the Deputy Commander of Al-Zaeem Mohammed Bin Abdullah Al-Attiya Air Academy, Brigadier General (Pilot) Ali Salem Al-Athba, and the Commander of the Malaysian Air Force, Tan Sri Dato Mohd Khan Goriman.

05 Sep 2022; MEMO: The US Air Force yesterday flew two nuclear-capable B-52 bombers over the Gulf, passing through Israeli airspace, amid tensions with Iran.

Israeli media reported that the American bombers entered Israeli airspace on their way to the Arabian Gulf, escorted by Israel's F-16i fighter jets.

05 Sep 2022; MEMO: The US Ambassador to Israel has said that he has "aggressively engaged" with the Israeli government over its new rules for foreigners visiting the occupied West Bank. The rules devised by COGAT, the Israeli Defence Ministry body concerned with Palestinian civil affairs, have been widely condemned.

05 Sep 2022; MEMO: A Palestinian journalist from the Arab Israeli city of Umm Al-Fahm was shot and killed in his car yesterday evening. According to eyewitnesses, two masked men approached the car in which Nadal Ijbaria was sitting and shot him in the head at close range before fleeing the scene.