Middle East & North Africa

03 September 2022; MEMO: Lebanese Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi has revealed that his country's prisoners are overcrowded by 300 per cent, and 75 per cent of inmates are not convicted, Anadolu Agency reported on Friday.

"We demand a reduction in all penalties, and we are studying the proposal from a legal point of view with the Minister of Justice and with the presidency of the government to find a solution to overcrowding," Mawlawi shared.

03 September 2022; MEMO: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared on Friday that "without Türkiye, NATO is weak," Turkish media reported.

As Erdogan spoke to journalists following Friday prayer in Istanbul, he commented on NATO's removal of a tweet about Turkish Victory Day (marked on 30 August) following a Greek complaint.

"Greece's negative approach to NATO [in relation to Türkiye] does not weaken Türkiye-NATO relations," Erdogan remarked.

03 September 2022; MEMO: The Egyptian president has purchased a new presidential jumbo jet at the cost of $500 million, triggering fierce debate on social media over the timing of the purchase, which comes amidst a severe economic crisis.

Egypt has been struggling to generate foreign currency for imports and to tackle inflation, which has been hitting the country hard for years.

CAIRO, Sept 3 (NNN-MENA) – At least five people were killed and 50 others injured yesterday, when a double-decker bus overturned in the north-eastern governorate of Suez, according to Egyptian police.

The accident happened on Egypt’s Cairo-Ain Sokhna road, and all the injured have been taken to hospitals, according to the Emergency Police Operations Room.

RAMALLAH, Sept 3 (NNN-WAFA) – A senior Palestinian official said yesterday that, the United States should take its “important” role in stopping the unilateral Israeli measures in the Palestinian territories, mainly in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Hussein al-Sheikh, secretary general of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, made the remarks, during his meeting with Barbara A. Leaf, the visiting U.S. Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

TEHRAN, Sept 3 (NNN-TASNIM) – The Iranian Navy briefly seized two “surveillance vessels” of the U.S. Navy in the Red Sea on Thursday, Iran’s state TV reported yesterday.

On Thursday, while carrying out a counter-terrorism mission in the Red Sea, the Iranian Navy’s destroyer, Jamaran, encountered U.S. unmanned surveillance vessels on the international shipping route, according to the report.

“After warning the American side twice, to prevent possible accidents, the Jamaran destroyer seized the two (surveillance) vessels,” it said.

TEHRAN, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) -- A senior Iranian military official said on Saturday that Iran will "in no way" negotiate over its defense power and will increase it "by as much as needed," semi-official Mehr news agency reported.

"If today we have missiles, this is because we have understood that we need this weapon. If we have drones and have developed cutting-edge technologies in this field ... this is because we had understood the issue way sooner," Amir Hatami, military advisor for army affairs to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, told a conference held in the capital Tehran.

ANKARA, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a warning against Greece on Saturday over what Ankara calls recent "harassment" of Turkish fighter jets in the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean.

"Hey Greek, look at history. Go back to history. If you go too far, it will cost a lot. We have only one sentence for Greece, don't forget Izmir," Erdogan said at the aerospace and technology festival Teknofest in the Black Sea province of Samsun.

03 September 2022; MEMO: The Israeli Beersheba District Court yesterday rejected an appeal to remove the "terrorism" classification under which Palestinian prisoner Ahmad Manasra is being held, in spite of the fact that he was detained at the age of 13 in a brutal manner, violently interrogated without an adult or lawyer present and then held in jail even though he did not carry out a crime.

02 September 2022; MEMO: Morocco has raised the minimum wage for the public sector by 9.3 per cent to 3,500 dirhams ($350) as of September, amid a surge in prices.

Following a cabinet meeting yesterday, Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch said the government has taken a number of decisions that would improve citizens' income and increase their purchasing power as part of implementing the national social dialogue.