Author: Aadam Galla

Today the Foreign Affairs Committee launches a new inquiry into the UK’s engagement with the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The UK has a long history of involvement in the Middle East and North Africa. While there are positive opportunities for the UK to engage with MENA countries, it is a region that also faces significant challenges. Threats to stability in the region include geopolitical rivalries, climate change and internal socio-political complexities. This inquiry will examine the main medium and long-term challenges facing countries in the Middle East and North Africa. It will ask whether there are key countries…

Geneva, London (29/7 – 50) Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, condemned the arrest and imprisonment of journalists, bloggers and civil society activists in Tajikistan, and questioned the credibility of the evidence presented in court against them. Lawlor was on a two-week official visit to Tajikistan last December. The report prepared by her and members of the delegation on the results of this visit was published in May of this year, but only now became available to the public. The authorities of Tajikistan will have to prepare an official response to the document, which…

The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas announced on Friday that popular support for the Palestinian resistance paves the way for victory against the Israeli occupation. In a statement, Hamas said that the Israeli occupation’s 2014 aggression against Gaza marked a milestone in the Palestinian people’s freedom struggle against the Israeli occupation. Hamas said that 2014’s aggression, along with the aggression on Jenin, like all aggressions, reminded the Palestinian people of Israeli brutality, and the Palestinian resistance reminded the people of the sacrifices made in defence of Palestine and Palestinian rights. On the 9th anniversary of the 2014 Israeli offensive against Gaza,…

Rahmon’s war against the Ismaili. Dubai (5/7 – 75) The government of Tajikistan’s campaign against the operations of a charitable organization funded by the Agha Khan, the spiritual leader of the country’s Ismaili minority, has intensified over the past few weeks. In the most recent development, the authorities have revoked the license of the Aga Khan Lycée in Khorog, the capital of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region, or GBAO. A source at the Aga Khan Foundation told Eurasianet that June 30 was the last day that the secondary school would operate under its aegis. The Aga Khan Development Network, the umbrella…

NASA has released the footage of an unidentified flying object that was reportedly flying over the Middle East. It held its first public meeting on the study of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP). During this meeting, NASA showcased footage of an orb-shaped UFO flying over the middle east. During a press briefing, Dr Sean Kirkpatrick, the director of the Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, showed a picture of a metallic orb flying over the Middle East. “This is an example of one that I showed at the hearing recently. This is a spherical orb metallic in the Middle East 2022 by an MQ-9.…

What’s going on with Saudi Arabia? A lot. Saudi Arabia is hosting world leaders, signing enormous deals with China and going all-in on sport. The kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund will be taking over the four largest football clubs, two of which have wooed the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and N’Golo Kante, upping Saudi football’s star power. Saudi Arabia is also working on improvements to its tourism sector and has signed deals with China to bring in Chinese tourists. In another sign of the two countries’ increasing closeness, they signed a $5.6bn deal for the production of electric vehicles. And Hannibal Gaddafi? The…

The Iranian foreign minister said on Sunday that Iran has received messages through Qatar from the parties to a 2015 nuclear deal, including the United States. At a joint press conference with his Qatari counterpart Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani after their meeting in Tehran, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian appreciated Qatar’s goodwill in helping bring all sides closer to the final steps toward reaching an agreement on the revival of the nuclear deal, official news agency IRNA reported. For his part, the Qatari foreign minister said the United States has handed over a series of messages to Qatar to be conveyed to…

Children’s involvement in violence-prone terrorist and extremist groups has become a widely-discussed global issue. Sopar Peranto, a Senior Researcher at The Habibie Center, revealed that many children are known to have committed terrorist acts, intentionally or unintentionally. The Habibie Center, supported by the USAID-Harmoni Program, has conducted research on “The Repatriation, Rehabilitation and Reintegration of Children Affiliated with Violence-Based Terrorist and Extremist Groups”. Data collected from 2010 to 2022 reported that 22 children were detained for involvement in violence-based terrorist and extremist groups, in conflict with the law. Meanwhile, from 2017-2022, 132 children were enrolled in “social rehabilitation” services upon…

The Iraq war, filled with lies concocted by the U.S. government, ushered in the post-truth era for the world, according to an opinion piece carried by The Guardian. In the two years following the 9/11 attack, then U.S. President George W. Bush and his top officials publicly uttered at least 935 lies about the threat that then Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein posed to the United States, the article said on Tuesday, citing the Center for Public Integrity. The U.S.-led invasion not only destroyed Iraq, but it displaced some 9 million people, killed at least 300,000 civilians by direct violence, and…

Iran seized a Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman in international waters on Thursday, the U.S. Navy said, the latest in a series of seizures or attacks on commercial vessels in sensitive Gulf waters since 2019. Iran’s army said it had seized a Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman after it collided with an Iranian boat, injuring several crewmen, Iranian state media reported. “Two members of the boat’s crew are missing and several were injured due to the collision of the ship with the boat,” an army statement said. The U.S. Navy identified the vessel as the Advantage Sweet which,…