9 Nov 2019; MEMO: On Friday Iranian authorities confirmed reports that Iranian defence forces have downed a foreign drone in the early morning, over the port city of Mahshahr, IRNA reported.
9 Nov 2019; MEMO: Turkey will not leave Syria until other countries pull out, President Tayyip Erdogan was quoted as saying on Friday, and Ankara will continue its cross-border offensive against Kurdish fighters until every one of them has left the region, Anadolu reports.
Turkey launched its third military incursion into northeast Syria last month to drive Kurdish YPG fighters from its border and establish a “safe zone” where it aims to settle up to 2 million Syrian refugees.
9 Nov 2019; MEMO: Israel is worried about the potential European Court of Justice’s (ECJ) binding ruling to label products of illegal Israeli settlements built in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Golan Heights, Israel Hayom reported on Friday.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq’s Prime Minister Abdul Mahdi said on Saturday that although protests were important in bringing about reform, life in the country must be allowed to return to normal.
“The protests have helped and will help pressure political groups, the government ... to reform and accept change. However continuing protests must allow for a return to normal life, which will lead to legitimate demands being met”, he said.
The Iraqi prime minister also said in a statement that new electoral reforms would be announced in the “coming few days”.
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon’s grand mufti, the top cleric for Sunni Muslims, called on Saturday for the formation of a new emergency government of technical experts and for those in power to meet protesters’ demands.
The country is in political and economic turmoil after three weeks of nationwide protests that prompted Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri to resign last week.
JERUSALEM, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has appointed Naftali Bennett, one of the leaders of the New Right party, as the minister of defense.
According to local media reports on Friday, Netanyahu offered Bennett the position at their meeting in the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, and Bennett accepted it.
The appointment is expected to be approved at the upcoming government meeting.
BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s protests are bringing out people from across the country’s spectrum of faiths and communities trying to throw out the entire ruling elite. They give a glimpse into a Lebanon transcending longtime divisions among sects.
But the young protesters face an entrenched political leadership that depends on sectarianism and an older generation that fears disrupting it could bring back civil war.
That threat resonates less with a generation that has little or no memory of a war that ended in 1990.
8 Nov 2019; MEMO: Qatar’s emir has ordered that a committee be established to organise the country’s first ever elections to the Shura Council, state news agency QNA reported.
The committee will be chaired by the prime minister, QNA said.
8 Nov 2019; MEMO: A US-led naval coalition yesterday officially launched a mission from its base in Bahrain to protect shipping in the Gulf region following a series of attacks on ships and oil tankers.
The operation, dubbed Sentinel, will provide escorts to commercial vessels passing through the Gulf waters, the Strait of Hormuz, the Sea of Oman and the Bab El-Mandab Strait in the Red Sea.
8 Nov 2019; MEMO: Turkey has not forgotten the atrocities that Greeks committed against Turks during the former’s war of independence, the Turkish Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson Hami Aksoy said today.
Responding to a statement regarding the Armenian genocide made by Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos in his recent visit to Armenia, Aksoy stated that “Greece systematically annihilated Turks and Muslims in the region during and after the period of independence from the Ottoman Empire.”
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