The coronavirus pandemic is about to enter a new phase as vaccines become available. Countries in the Middle East are making preparations and here is a round-up of what they are doing.
Some – mostly the wealthier ones – have struck deals with major pharmaceutical companies, often for more than...
Blog archive: All
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18th November 2020
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9th November 2020Framed certificates printed in the style of medieval manuscripts and adorned with seals and signatures are much sought after in the Middle East. They are a way of acquiring prestige, getting jobs and, in some cases, laundering a person’s reputation. Thus, when it emerged recently that two Iraqi...
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1st November 2020REGIONAL OVERVIEW The number of people known to have been infected with Covid-19 in the Middle East and North Africa passed the three million mark at the end of October. Across the region as a whole the level of new infections continues to rise,...
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13th October 2020When Algerian police searched the home of 52-year-old Yacine Mebarki they found among his books a copy of the Qur'an. It was an old copy, he says, that he inherited from his grandfather. On closer examination, the police spotted that one of its pages was missing – and charged him with...
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6th October 2020An interesting situation is developing at the OPCW – the global chemical weapons watchdog – regarding Syria and Russia. Last July the OPCW's executive council set a 90-day deadline for Syria to provide further information about its chemical weapons programme – some of which it was supposed to...
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3rd October 2020Week ending 3 October 2020 REGIONAL OVERVIEW Almost 2.4 million Covid-19 infections have now been recorded in the Middle East and North Africa and the situation has worsened considerably over the past month. New cases, which were averaging around...
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29th September 2020Two Iraqi politicians have been awarded bogus degrees by a self-proclaimed university in Denmark, it has emerged. ● Former interior minister Qasim al-Araji received a worthless MA certificate from the unrecognised Aalborg Academy of Science in February 2019. ● Ahmad al-Ubaidi,...
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28th September 2020On Saturday police in the Indian city of Mysore raided a ceremony where more than 100 people dressed in gowns and mortarboards were about to receive fake degrees. The would-be graduates had paid up to 100,000 rupees ($1,357) for doctorates from the bogus International Global Peace University...
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26th September 2020Week ending 26 September 2020 REGIONAL OVERVIEW More than 2.2 million Covid-19 infections have now been recorded in the Middle East and North Africa and the situation continues to worsen. The total of new cases across the region, which was averaging...
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19th September 2020Week ending 19 September 2020 REGIONAL OVERVIEW Covid-19 infections in the Middle East and North Africa continue to rise. The total of new cases across the region, which was averaging around 15,000 a day at the start of this month, is now around 20,...
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17th September 2020There are a few countries in the world where the coronavirus pandemic has not followed the course that scientists expected – and the reasons are puzzling. Yemen is one example in the Middle East and there are others in Africa such as Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan and Somalia...
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17th September 2020Guest post from Nima Khorrami: Iran’s angry reaction to the normalisation of relations between Israel and Bahrain and the UAE was to be expected. However, its fury, especially with regard to the UAE, has less to do with the possibility of a future military strike staged from Emirati soil...
