Tunisia, Algeria, Libya hold ‘advisory’ meeting to create new regional coalition
The meeting was decided on by Algerian President Abdelmajid Tebboune, Libya's head of presidential council Mohamed Al-Menfi and Tunisian President...Geostrategy
Israel strikes Syria again following overnight ‘retaliatory’ attack on Iran
Israeli strikes on Friday targeted a Syrian army position in the country's south, a war monitor said, as US media...Geostrategy
EU warns TikTok chief to respect data privacy laws
TiKTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew held official talks for the first time with EU vice presidents Margrethe Vestager and...TikTok has come under fierce Western scrutiny in recent months over concerns about how much access Beijing has to user data
Last month, TikTok admitted that ByteDance staff accessed data from the app to track journalists in a bid to identify the source of leaks to the media
US Navy says seizes weapons en route from Iran to Yemen
DUBAI, UAE - The US Navy said Tuesday it had seized over 2,000 assault rifles smuggled on a fishing boat along...A grinding war has killed hundreds of thousands and pushed Yemen to the brink of famine.
A UN-brokered ceasefire that took effect in April brought a sharp reduction in hostilities.
Israel, Arab allies talk security at Negev Forum in Abu Dhabi
Around 150 representatives from Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Morocco, the UAE and the United States discussed boosting security cooperation through information...The US State Department described the two-day discussion in #AbuDhabi as "the largest meeting between Israel and its regional partners" since a 1991 Madrid conference.
The Abu Dhabi gathering follows a visit last week to Jerusalem's Al Aqsa mosque compound by Israel's new right-wing national security minister, firebrand Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Masdar inks deal to produce 1GW of clean energy in Kyrgyzstan
ABU DHABI, UAE - Masdar has announced the signing of an agreement with the Ministry of Energy of Kyrgyz Republic...The projects, with a total capacity of up to 1 gigawatt (GW), start with a 200-megawatt (MW) solar photovoltaic (PV) plant.
The 200 MW plant is scheduled to begin operation by 2026.
Record cocaine seizures in Antwerp as Belgium battles drug gangs
The annual figure was released one day after an 11-year-old girl was shot dead in a gun attack on an...Seizures in 2022 were up from 89.5 tons last year. Across the Netherlands border, in nearby Rotterdam and Vlissingen, Dutch police battling the same gangs intercepted a further 52.
The European drugs monitoring agency estimated in 2020 that the EU retail cocaine market was worth between 7.7 billion and 10.5 billion euros.
2022 fifth warmest year on record, EU climate report says
The last eight years were the warmest. Average temperatures across 2022 -- which saw a cascade of unprecedented natural disasters...Pakistan and northern India were scorched by a two-month spring heatwave with sustained temperatures well above 40 degrees C, followed in Pakistan by massive floods.
Large swathes of the Middle East, China, central Asia and northern Africa also saw unprecedented warmth averaged across the whole of 2022.
Saudi Arabia lifts restriction on hajj pilgrim numbers
The pilgrimage - one of five pillars of Islam, and which all able-bodied Muslims with the means are required to...The number of pilgrims will return to what it was before the pandemic, without any age limit, Minister of Hajj and Umrah Tawfiq al-Rabiah told reporters in Riyadh.
In 2022, nearly 900,000 pilgrims, including some 780,000 from abroad, were welcomed to Islam's holiest cities of Mecca and Medina
Israel parliament begins vote on controversial West Bank settler law
The law gives settlers in the occupied West Bank access to civilian law, while their Palestinian neighbours face military courts....The legislation, which has been repeatedly renewed since Israel seized the Palestinian territory in the 1967 Six-Day War, hit a stumbling block in June.
The text will face a second and third reading in parliament before its final approval. Some 2.9 million Palestinians living in the West Bank are subjected to Israeli military law.
Prince Harry’s memoir goes on sale, after months of publicity
Some British stores stayed open late for the midnight release of the biggest royal book since Harry's mother Princess Diana...The book contains a claim from Harry that his brother William physically attacked him as they argued about Meghan
A YouGov poll on Monday found that 64 percent people now have a negative view of the once-popular ginger prince -- his lowest-ever rating
Iran sends ex-president’s daughter to jail for ‘propaganda’
The 60-year-old former lawmaker and women's rights activist was charged with "collusion against national security, propaganda against the Islamic republic...Hashemi was arrested in the capital Tehran on September 27 for encouraging residents to demonstrate amid nationwide protests sparked by Mahsa Amini's death
Her late father, president between 1989 and 1997 who died in 2017, was considered a moderate and advocated improved ties with the West
