With his hands blackened from work, wearing a baggy T-shirt stained with motor oil, 40-year-old Said Eid stands among the bits of scrap metal from which he scrapes together a living of 600 Egyptian pounds (£24) a month. In his open-air workshop, high on the eastern hills of a slum neighbourhood of Cairo, the father-of-four says with a sigh: “Life… Read more »
(CNN) Thirty-nine people, including military personnel, were killed when a Russian transport plane crashed Tuesday while trying to land at Hmeimin air base in northwest Syria, Russian state media reported. All 33 passengers and six crew members were killed in the crash, state-run RIA-Novosti reported, citing the Defense Ministry. Earlier, it had been reported that 32 people had died. Russian… Read more »
(CNN) — Saudi Arabia is opening to tourists. The conservative, often closed-off country has announced plans to roll out a new visitor visa from April 1, 2018. When it goes live, it’ll allow travelers (including women 25 and older) to enter the country once in 30 days. It’s part of a bold plan to boost visitor numbers — and revenue… Read more »
An Iranian woman who publicly removed her veil in protest against Iran’s compulsory headscarf law has been sentenced to two years in prison, the judiciary said on Wednesday. Tehran’s chief prosecutor, Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, who announced the sentence, did not give the woman’s identity but said she intended to appeal against the verdict, the judiciary’s Mizan Online news agency reported…. Read more »
The Guardian- In the midst of ongoing turmoil in Eastern Ghouta, the Syrian government has finally seized control of the Damascan suburb. The government has effectively split the area in half, resulting in a blockade of the enclave. This has some upsides and drawbacks to it. On the one hand, the rebels have now been contained to one area, preventing… Read more »
“Oh my God,” the architecture student replied. She climbed into the driver’s seat, put on her seatbelt, found the pedals, released the hand brake and put the car into drive. Then she took a deep breath, eased her foot off the brake and began doing, for the first time, what women will soon be doing all over Saudi Arabia: driving…. Read more »
The plane carried out a series of attacks in November on the town of Al Atarib, west of Aleppo, killing at least 84 people and injuring more than 150, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Syria said. The strikes may not have specifically targeted civilians, the panel ruled, but the use of unguided blast bombs in a densely populated… Read more »
The request followed an announcement from the Kurdish forces, which are allied with the United States in the fight against the Islamic State militant group, that they intended to send 1,700 fighters from Deir al-Zour, a strategically important eastern province, to the fight against Turkey in Afrin, a Kurdish enclave. Ibrahim Kalin, a spokesman for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of… Read more »
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/05/middleeast/ghouta-protest-intl/index.html Activists in besieged Eastern Ghouta have taken to wrapping dead bodies in United Nations banners to express residents’ “frustration” with the international community, activist monitoring group the Damascus Media Center told CNN. One such photo, showing two children wrapped in the flag of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), made the rounds on social media over the weekend. Activist Rami… Read more »
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/04/middleeast/guatemala-jerusalem-embassy/index.html Recently at the American Israel Public Affairs committee’s conference in Washington D.C., Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales announced that the Guatemalan Embassy in Israel would move from Tel Av iv to Jerusalem. This will follow two days after the movement by the United States moves there embassy to Jerusalem in just two months. Morales further recognized Jerusalem as the capital… Read more »