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Syria falls silent over claim that Israel destroyed evidence in Douma chemical weapons investigation
29th October 2021
Syria's Assad regime is resisting calls to substantiate its claim that Israel has destroyed evidence relating to an alleged chlorine attack on Douma in 2018.
According to the regime, two gas cylinders at the centre of the Douma investigation were among the "losses" resulting from "flagrant" … Read more
23rd October 2021
New Covid-19 cases recorded in the Middle East and North Africa averaged 19,075 a day during the past week. This is the first time since September last year that the daily average among the 20 countries monitored has dropped below 20,000.
New infections peaked in mid-August when the daily average… Read more
21st October 2021
Leaked documents show that Saudi Arabia and the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) have been lobbying to water down a crucial scientific report on climate change.
News of the lobbying comes just days before the start of the COP26 conference on international action to slow down… Read more
16th October 2021
New Covid-19 cases recorded in the Middle East and North Africa averaged 20,176 a day during the past week – the lowest figure for more than a year. Numbers have declined sharply since mid-August when they peaked at 73,000 a day.
Iran, which has been reporting high figures since the early stages… Read more
28th September 2021
In April last year a report by the OPCW, the international chemical weapons watchdog, blamed the Assad regime for two sarin attacks on Ltamenah in northern Syria. The implications of this were especially serious because the attacks took place in 2017 – four years after the regime had formally… Read more
22nd September 2021
Patrick George Zaki: detained as a "security threat"Patrick George Zaki, a 27-year-old Egyptian, was studying for a postgraduate degree at Bologna University in Italy. In February 2020 he returned to Egypt for a family visit – only to be arrested on arrival at Cairo airport.
Zaki has been in… Read more
17th September 2021
Hundreds of people died – many of them in their sleep – when rockets laden with the nerve agent sarin hit Ghouta, a rebel-held area on the outskirts of Damascus, in the early hours of 21 August 2013. It was the deadliest chemical attack anywhere in the world since the 1980s and it caused… Read more
26th July 2021
Syria's claim that crucial evidence relating to chemical weapons was destroyed by Israeli airstrikes has been greeted with widespread scepticism: it sounds too convenient to be true.
In a diplomatic note to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Syria announced that an… Read more
24th July 2021
Two gas cylinders that formed crucial evidence in connection with a suspected chemical attack in Syria have been destroyed by an Israeli airstrike, according to the Syrian authorities.
The cylinders were at the centre of an investigation by the OPCW’s Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) regarding events… Read more
10th July 2021
Facebook reported this week that it removed 2,784 accounts in June for "coordinated inauthentic behaviour". Among those, 947 related to countries in the Middle East and North Africa region: Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Algeria and Sudan.
Facebook treats online campaigns as "coordinated inauthentic… Read more
ARAB ART ONLINE: Susan Hefuna: Al Sabr Gamil (Patience is Beautiful) 2007. Ink stained on wood 140 x 170 cm. More information | Click to enlarge
