BAGHDAD (REUTERS) – Iraq’s Electricity Ministry said Iranian gas supplied to the central and southern regions was reduced to eight million cubic metres per day from 49 million, causing a risk of serious power shortages. The ministry said in a statement on Wednesday (Sept 1) that there has been contact with the Iranian Energy Ministry […]

JERUSALEM (REUTERS) – Israel will lend the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority (PA) more than US$150 million (S$201.5 million) after the sides held their highest-level meeting in years, Israeli officials said, while playing down prospects of any major diplomatic breakthrough. Defence Minister Benny Gantz, who has overall responsibility for the Israeli-occupied West Bank, travelled to the Palestinian […]

JERUSALEM (AFP) – As scientific warnings of dire climate change-induced drought grow, many in Israel and Jordan cast worried eyes at the river running between them and the critical but limited resources they share. This month, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change showed unequivocally that the climate is changing faster than previously feared, heaping […]

JERUSALEM (REUTERS) – Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett sought on Monday (Aug 30) to play down any notion of a move towards renewed peace negotiations with the Palestinians after the highest-level Israeli-Palestinian meeting in years. Hours after Defence Minister Benny Gantz and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met, the main Israeli media outlets quoted “a source […]

BETHLEHEM, WEST BANK (NYTIMES) – Since the coronavirus first emerged in the occupied West Bank, Ms Suha Gadeon has worn her mask assiduously, avoided mingling with friends and declined to host family members or attend public gatherings. But Ms Gadeon, 41, the membership director at the Bethlehem Chamber of Commerce, has refused to receive the […]

JERUSALEM — The Israeli government has long forbidden Jews to pray on the Temple Mount, a site sacred to Jews and Muslims, yet Rabbi Yehudah Glick made little effort to hide his prayers. In fact, he was livestreaming them. “Oh Lord!” prayed Rabbi Glick, as he filmed himself on his phone on a recent morning. […]

ISMAILIA, EGYPT (REUTERS) – The giant container ship Ever Given, which blocked the Suez canal for six days in March, crossed the waterway on Friday (Aug 20) for the first time since it left Egypt after the incident. The ship, en route from the United Kingdom to China, crossed the canal among a convoy of […]

WARSAW (REUTERS) – Poland’s president has decided to sign a Bill that would set limits on the ability of Jews to recover property seized by Nazi Germany occupiers and retained by post-war communist rulers, drawing fury from Israel which branded the law anti-Semitic. “I made a decision today on the act, which in recent months […]

TEL AVIV (REUTERS) – Israel on Friday (Aug 13) lowered to 50 from 60 the minimum age of eligibility for a Covid-19 vaccine booster shot and will also offer them to health workers, hoping to stem a surge in Delta variant infections. The director-general of Israel’s health ministry, Nachman Ash, accepted a recommendation late Thursday […]

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel is to require Covid-19 tests from next week for children as young as three years old to enter schools, swimming pools, hotels or gyms as infections surge despite extensive adult vaccinations. Israel already required children aged 12 and over to show a Green Pass reintroduced late last month showing a person’s […]