Middle East & North Africa

25 Sep 2021; MEMO: Hundreds of thousands of migrant and refugee children are missing in Europe, with no one knowing what happened to them, according to a member of the Turkish delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Anadolu Agency reports.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency on Friday, Serap Yasar said migration has been a hot topic around the world since 2011 and the recent situation in Afghanistan shows it will be on the agenda in the future as well.

25 Sep 2021; MEMO: Denmark has provided Palestine with a  $72 million grant to support its efforts to reach independence. The funds will be spent on local government, agriculture, civil society and in other fields.

Palestinian Authority (PA) Minister of Finance, Shukri Bishara, and Denmark's Representative to Palestine, Ketil Karlsen, signed the deal today in Ramallah, during which PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh was also in attendance along with the ministers of agriculture and local government.

25 Sep 2021; MEMO: Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday gave Israel only one year to withdraw from the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem.

"Without this condition being met, the Palestinian recognition of Israel on the 1967 borders might be questionable," he indicated in a recorded statement aired before the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA)'s 76th session in New York.

25 Sep 2021; MEMO: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan informed journalists on Friday that the Syrian regime of Bashar Al-Assad poses a threat to the south of Turkey, Daily Sabah reported.

Speaking about his upcoming visit to Sochi, the Russian resort city, Erdoğan stated that he will discuss the issue of Syria with Russian President Vladimir Putin: "I expect from Mr Putin, actually from Russia, different approaches as a necessity of our solidarity."

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel is pressing ahead with its aggressive campaign of offering coronavirus boosters to almost anyone over 12 and says its approach was further vindicated by a U.S. decision to give the shots to older patients or those at higher risk.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Fatima Alzahra Shon thinks neighbors attacked her and her son in their Istanbul apartment building because she is Syrian.

The 32-year-old refugee from Aleppo was confronted on Sept. 1 by a Turkish woman who asked her what she was doing in “our” country. Shon replied, “Who are you to say that to me?” The situation quickly escalated.

24 Sep 2021; MEMO: The United Arab Emirates has opened bilateral talks with South Korea in a bid to boost atomic energy cooperation, the UAE foreign ministry said today.

According to the National, Park Il, the Director-General of South Korea's Nuclear Affairs Ministry, met with the CEO of the UAE's Barakah One Company, Nasser Al-Nasseri, in Dubai yesterday. They plan to hold higher level talks as a result.

24 Sep 2021; MEMO: Jordan's foreign minister has said that the Syrian crisis can only be resolved through exclusively US-Russian dialogue, alongside a collective Arab role.

"Russia has a major role in any effort to resolve the Syrian crisis, and an important role in stabilising southern Syria," Ayman Safadi told Asharq news channel. "The crisis cannot be resolved without US-Russian dialogue, but it is a disaster that must end, and a political solution in Syria will preserve its unity."

24 Sep 2021; MEMO: Over half of all worldwide casualties caused by cluster bombs in 2020 were in Syria, a new report has revealed.

According to the publication released by the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) last week, cluster bomb casualties in Syria resulted in a staggering 52 per cent of all similar casualties around the world last year, with 44 per cent of those Syrian injured being children.

24 Sep 2021; MEMO: Saudi authorities yesterday released human rights defender, Abdul Rahman Al-Shamiri, after detaining him for 15 years .

The rights organisation ALQST and the Prisoners of Conscience Twitter account quoted sources as saying that Al-Shimiri was released "following the expiry of his sentence."

Al-Shamiri is a retired Saudi academic who worked at Umm Al-Qura University, he was also a consultant in the kingdom's Shura Council for years.