Middle East & North Africa

04 May 2021; MEMO: An anti-corruption group has submitted a legal complaint in France against Lebanon's central bank governor over foreign investments including property he owns worth millions of euros, Reuters reported two people involved in the filing saying yesterday.

Sherpa, a non-governmental organisation that defends victims of economic crimes, said in a statement that it and a group of lawyers had filed the complaint on Friday over "suspicious" real estate purchases in France.

03 May 2021; MEMO: Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has asserted that the continued targeting of Palestinians leaves the latter with no choice but an uprising, adding that the situation is on the brink of a breakdown.

04 May 2021; MEMO: Iraq intends to invest $3 billion in the Basra Gas Company over the next five years, local media reported.

The company said in a statement yesterday that the investment plan will provide about 2,000 jobs during the project's construction period, noting that it started exporting cooking gas in 2016.

04 May 2021; MEMO: Tunisian President Kais Saied warned on Saturday that the threats to states come not from terrorist operations, but from attempts to divide states from within. Saied made his comment after meeting with some army, National Guard, and police officers at the closed military zone in Chaambi Mountain, Anadolu has reported.

04 May 2021; MEMO: Postponing the general Palestinian elections was not a national endeavour, but proof that Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas is closer to Israel than to the Palestinians, a prominent Israeli writer asserted on Saturday.

03 May 2021; MEMO: Senior Fatah official and former Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser Al-Qudwa has criticised Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas's postponement of the general elections, announcing that he may create a new Fatah current, Shehab News Agency reported on Sunday.

02 May 2021; MEMO: British-Iranian national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe will be released "after the payment of a military debt" owed by Britain to Tehran, Iran's state TV said on Sunday, citing an Iranian official, Reuters reports.

02 May 2021; MEMO: Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif on Sunday apologized for his leaked comments that stirred controversy in Iran, Anadolu Agency reported.

Writing on his Instagram account, Zarif asked forgiveness from the family of former Iranian general Qassim Soleimani, who was killed in January 2020 in a US drone attack.

"I hope that the great people of Iran, all General [Soleimani]'s lovers and especially the great family of Soleimani, will forgive me," Zarif wrote.

ISTANBUL, May 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Turkey logged 340 coronavirus-related deaths and 25,980 new cases in the last 24 hours, Health Ministry data showed, the third day of a nationwide lockdown, including curfews, closed schools and many shuttered businesses.

Turkey ranks fourth globally in daily cases based on a seven-day average, down from second briefly last month.

BAGHDAD, May 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) –– Two rockets targeted an airbase at Iraq’s Baghdad airport housing US-led coalition troops on Sunday, in the second such attack in 10 days, the Iraqi army said.

One of the projectiles was intercepted by the C-RAM counter rocket, artillery and mortar system deployed to protect US troops in Iraq, a security source said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack which the army said caused no casualties.

Washington routinely blames Iran-linked Iraqi factions for such attacks on its troops and diplomats.