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...
Blog archive: All
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17th September 2021
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26th July 2021Syria'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...
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24th July 2021Two 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...
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10th July 2021Facebook 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...
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6th July 2021Four tonnes of a chemical supplied by a German firm and supposedly intended for making pharmaceuticals vanished after arriving in Syria, according to a Swiss newspaper investigation. The chemical – isopropanol – has multiple civilian uses but also is a crucial ingredient in the nerve agent...
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3rd July 2021The Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism is named in memory of a Lebanese-American journalist who died in a car crash while working for Iran's Press TV in 2014. The purpose of the award, according to its website, is to honour non-mainstream journalists who "tell...
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10th June 2021When Saudi Arabia's Haramain railway opened in 2018 it was hailed as a triumph of technology and engineering. The 450-km line linking the holy cities of Mecca and Medina was designed to carry passengers at 350 km an hour. It took 10 years to build and cost more than $16 billion. A year after...
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1st April 2021A newly-formed group has joined the campaign to discredit investigations of chemical weapons in Syria and has recruited a former high-ranking UN official to its cause. "Berlin Group 21", whose website was registered on 10 March, is promoting a "statement of concern" which accuses the...
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29th March 2021It emerged last week that a university professor who spreads conspiracy theories about chemical weapons in Syria has been passing information to someone who he mistakenly believed was working for Russian intelligence. In a lengthy email correspondence with the supposed Russian agent, Prof...
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17th February 2021The Yemeni city of Marib lies 120 km to the east of the capital, Sana'a, with mountainous territory in between. It was from Marib, in the early stages of the six-year war, that pro-government forces hoped to launch an assault against the Houthi rebels who had seized Sana'a. Since then, though, the...
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15th February 2021The US State Department confirmed on Friday that it is revoking a last-minute decision by the Trump administration to designate Yemen's Houthi movement as a terrorist organisation. The issue is not whether the Houthis deserve to be designated – their atrocities are well...
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6th February 2021As Covid-19 vaccines become more available, here is a country-by-country roundup of the situation in the Middle East and North Africa. While some countries are still waiting for supplies, in others the roll-out is well under way. Some – mostly the wealthier ones – have struck deals with...
