Tag: Middle East
Prisoners Released Across Region to Stem Outbreak On Monday, with a COVID-19 outbreak confirmed in Turkey’s prisons, the country’s parliament approved a new law that would relax sentencing requirements and reduce the prison population by nearly a third, despite criticism that inmates held on terrorism charges will not eligible for early release. Furloughs and the […]
On Monday morning, Turkey started sending detained foreign IS fighters back to their home countries. According to the New York Times, one of the deported detainees is an American who requested to be sent to Greece rather than the United States. Upon arriving in Greece, the former fighter was denied entry and sent back to […]
On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his inability to form a new government. BBC reported that since Netanyahu failed, his opponent Benny Gantz will have the opportunity to build a government. The results of the September election showed that Gantz’s Blue and White party won 33 seats; just 28 seats shy of being […]
On Monday, 61-year-old Kaïs Saïed was announced as Tunisia’s new president. Saïd earned 76.90% of the vote and gained an endorsement from the Ennahda party and former president, Moncef Marzouki. Saïed said that his win brings a significant responsibility to change frustration into hope and and that his success signals the start of a new […]
Over the past few years, the Southern Transitional Council (STC), a secessionist movement focused on gaining independence for South Yemen, has attempted to mediate peace talks warring factions in the country in order to bring an end to one aspect of the conflict. On Monday, Reuters announced that Saudi Arabia “has been hosting indirect talks […]
From Morocco to Turkey, rap music is a popular method of protest among the young generation of activists in the Middle East. Most recently, Amir al-Muarri, a 20-year-old Syrian rapper from Idlib, has been making headlines for his powerful, politically-charged single On All Fronts, which targets all actors in the Syrian conflict, but most notably […]
On Monday, the Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen warned that the drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities, which they had claimed to be responsible for, could continue. Drone attacks on September 14 targeted Saudi Arabia’s national oil company facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais, which led to a 15% increase in oil prices a 5.7 million […]
On Thursday, September 5th, multiple news outlets reported that Jason Greenblatt, President Donald Trump’s special envoy for Middle East peace, had resigned —adding new obstacles to the “deal of the century” between Israel and the Palestinians that Trump and his team have been pushing since the beginning of his term. Vox reported that Greenblatt, whose previous job […]
In the latest on the Iran crisis, the United States announced new sanctions against the Islamic Republic on Tuesday. After the decision last week to not retaliate militarily after Iran shot down a U.S. drone, the Americans instead punished Iran with further economic penalties. These new sanctions target the personal assets of Iran’s supreme leader […]
Mohamed Morsi, the first democratically elected president of Egypt, died in a Cairo courtroom on Monday. Morsi was in court facing espionage charges when he suddenly collapsed in the glass cage used to hold prisoners in Egyptian courts. He was the first freely-elected president in the Arab world, voted into office on June 17, 2012, […]