Blog archive all
17th June 2020
Amnesty International has accused Bahrain and Kuwait of running "roughshod over people's privacy" in their use of surveillance technology during the coronavirus pandemic.
The human rights organisation carried out a detailed technical analysis of phone apps in seven Arab states plus France, Iceland… Read more
16th June 2020
On Sunday Egypt announced that it will be ready to receive foreign tourists again in a couple of weeks. On Monday it announced a record number of new coronavirus cases and a record number of related deaths.
While many countries have waited for the Covid-19 epidemic to pass its peak before… Read more
15th June 2020
Regional round-up
● Saudi Arabia reported 4,233 new Covid-19 infections yesterday – the kingdom's highest daily total so far. Around 40% of the new cases are in the capital, Riyadh, and according to the health ministry they were found mainly "among young people… Read more
14th June 2020
Yemen's health system is "overwhelmed and collapsing" as a result of the coronavirus epidemic, the UN body that coordinates relief in emergencies and natural disasters has warned.
People with symptoms are often not receiving health care in Yemen "due to a lack of resources or the inability of… Read more
13th June 2020
According to health ministry figures only a couple of hundred people have been infected by the Covid-19 coronavirus in Sudan's Darfur region but reports from this remote and troubled part of the country tell a different story.
For several weeks now, unusually large numbers of people have been… Read more
12th June 2020
More than half a million people in the Middle East and North Africa have now been infected with the Covid-19 coronavirus according to official figures, and the number is increasing by about 12,000 every day.
Official figures don't tell the whole story, though. Nobody knows how many cases have… Read more
11th June 2020
With no new cases reported during the last seven days, Tunisia looks like becoming the first Arab country to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic. This is good news for the tourism industry, raising hopes that European holidaymakers will soon be flocking once again to its beaches.
By global… Read more
10th June 2020
The UN's latest report on the coronavirus situation in Libya makes grim reading. Just about everything that could go wrong is going wrong.
None of it is helped by the ongoing conflict between the UN-backed Government of National Unity (GNA) in Tripoli and Field Marshall Haftar's forces based in… Read more
9th June 2020
Syria has imposed a lockdown on the town of Ras al-Ma'ara following a cornavirus outbreak there which has so far resulted in 20 people becoming infected. This is the largest cluster of related cases reported by the Syrian authorities since the pandemic began.
According to government figures,… Read more
8th June 2020
Saudi Arabia's Covid-19 epidemic passed two unwelcome milestones at the weekend when the daily number of new cases rose above 3,000 for the first time and the overall total of confirmed cases crossed the 100,000 mark.
During the last couple of months the kingdom has reported more new infections… 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
