Middle East & North Africa

11 Mar 2021; MEMO: At least 20 people were killed and 24 others injured in Egypt on Thursday when a fire broke out in a garment factory north of Cairo, the local governor's office said in a statement, reports Reuters.

The fire started in a four-story factory in El-Obour City, just north of Cairo, at about 11 a.m. (0900 GMT) and was later brought under control, the statement added.

11 Mar 2021; MEMO: Qatar exported its first shipment of oil to a neighboring country in the Arab Gulf since Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain imposed an economic embargo in 2017, Bloomberg reports.

According to the news site, tanker tracking data appears to show Qatar, a small oil producer, shipped some 700,000 barrels of oil to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in early March.

12 Mar 2021; MEMO: The Palestinian Fatah movement has dismissed Nasser Al-Qudwa, the nephew of the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, from the movement and its central committee, the Wafa news agency reported.

11 Mar 2021; MEMO: A new mass grave has been found in the Libyan city of Tarhouna, located to the south of Tripoli, the Libyan government has said.

Tarhouna was a stronghold of militia affiliated with renegade General Khalifa Haftar, the self-proclaimed military strongman who launched an armed insurgency against the internationally-recognised government in the country.

11 Mar 2021; MEMO: Turkey plans to vaccinate 50 million people against COVID-19 by autumn in order to combat the spread of coronavirus, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Thursday, after the number of daily cases surged to their highest level this year, reported Reuters.

12 Mar 2021; MEMO: Algerian President Abelmadjid Tebboune has set June 12 for early legislative elections, the presidency said on Thursday, after announcing the dissolution of the lower house of parliament last month, according to a report by Reuters.

The vote is part of political reforms promised by Tebboune following mass protests that forced his predecessor, Abelaziz Bouteflika, to resign in 2019 after two decades in power.

11 Mar 2021; MEMO: Egypt's former vice president on Wednesday criticised the country's authorities for holding people in detention without trial.

"It is painful that Ziad [Al-Alimi] and his countless colleagues languish in prisons without trial, facing accusations of terrorism. They are the future of Egypt and it is dangerous to kill hope in their souls," Mohamed ElBaradei said on Twitter.

As the law says, justice delayed is justice denied, he added.

11 Mar 2021; MEMO: The war in Syria has left the lives and futures of a generation of children hanging by a thread, UNICEF warned today, as the conflict nears the ten-year mark.

11 Mar 2021; MEMO: EasyJet has paid compensation to a woman who was forced to move twice on flights from Tel Aviv to London after ultra-Orthodox Jewish men said they did not want to sit next to a woman.

Thirty-eight-year-old Melanie Wolfson was asked if she would swap seats with a man a few rows ahead of her so that she would not be sitting next to an ultra-Orthodox man and his son.

11 Mar 2021; MEMO: Palestinians received 40,000 doses of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine on Thursday, a donation by the United Arab Emirates that could boost a long-time rival of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ahead of an election, reported Reuters.

Mohammad Dahlan, who fell out with Abbas and was dismissed from the president's Fatah party more than a decade ago, took credit for securing the shipment to Gaza from the UAE, where he lives in exile.