Middle East & North Africa

05 May 2021; MEMO: Extreme right-wing Jewish settlers set fire to Palestinian farmlands and attacked houses in the occupied West Bank village of Burin, near Nablus, yesterday evening, Wafa has reported.

According to Ghassan Douglas, the Palestinian official in charge of the settlements' portfolio in the northern West Bank, settlers set fire to a large tract of farmland in the eastern section of the town and attacked at least three houses.

05 May 2021; MEMO: Turkey has confirmed that its soldiers are deployed in Libya to protect the rights and interests of the Libyan people, Anadolu has reported. Defence Minister Hulusi Akar also stressed the importance of Libya's sovereignty and independence during a meeting with Turkish officers operating in Libya attended by Libyan Chief of Staff Mohamed Al-Haddad.

05 May 2021; MEMO: The Secretary of the Egyptian Parliament's Manpower Committee, MP Abdel Fattah Mohamed, said he has submitted a bill requiring the dismissal of public sector employees with links to the Muslim Brotherhood, local media reported.

05 May 2021; MEMO: Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki yesterday arrived in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, for fresh mediation efforts aimed at resolving the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, local media reported.

05 May 2021; MEMO: Yamina party MK Ayelet Shaked has described Israeli Prime Minister and Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, and his wife Sara, as "dictators" and "tyrants" with a "lust for power", Israeli media revealed on Tuesday.

(Reuters) --- Turkey and Egypt will try to improve strained ties at talks starting in Cairo on Wednesday after an eight-year rift which led them to back rival factions in Libya's war and put them at odds in a dispute over east Mediterranean waters.

Relations between the regional powers have been tense since Egypt's army toppled a democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood president close to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in 2013.

(Reuters) --- Saudi Arabia is considering barring overseas pilgrims from the annual haj for the second year running as COVID-19 cases rise globally and worries grow about the emergence of new variants, two sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

Such a move would restrict the pilgrimage to Mecca, a once in a lifetime duty for every able-bodied Muslim who can afford it, to Saudi nationals and residents of the kingdom who were vaccinated or have recovered from COVID-19 at least months prior to attending.

(Reuters) --- A British academic, who was detained in the United Arab Emirates two years ago on spying charges, has launched legal action against a number of senior officials from the Gulf state, accusing them of assault, torture and false imprisonment.

Matthew Hedges returned to Britain in November 2018 after more than six months in detention after he was pardoned from a life sentence for espionage. His release came after the UAE had released a video of him purporting to confess to being a member of Britain's MI6 intelligence agency.

(Reuters) --- An Iranian diplomat sentenced to 20 years in prison for planning a bomb attack in France has dropped an appeal in Belgium and will serve his sentence, lawyers said on Wednesday.

Belgian authorities have said they will oppose any potential swap deal with Western prisoners, prosecution lawyers said.

DAMASCUS, May 5 (Xinhua) -- One civilian was killed and six others wounded when Israeli missiles hit several military sites in Syria's northwestern coastal city of Latakia on Wednesday, state news agency SANA reported.

The attack, which took place before daybreak, prompted the Syrian air defenses to respond, destroying some of the missiles, according to the report.

A child and his mother were wounded as one of the missiles hit a plastic factory, the report said.

The attack was the latest by Israeli military, targeting militias and military sites in Syria.