University officials had threatened to cancel event on BDS unless SOAS academic Ruba Salih was replaced as chair. The University of Cambridge has apologised to a Palestinian academic, who it prevented from chairing a talk on the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement in November last year. Ruba Salih from the School of African and Oriental […]

UN official, in apparent reference to Donald Trump, says $350m is ‘peanuts’ in aid for suffering Yemeni children. The UN urgently needs $350m for hungry children in war-torn Yemen – a figure that is “peanuts” compared with what is being spent on deadly weapons in the conflict. The comments by Geert Cappelaere, Middle East and […]

Twenty-five buses to bring residents to rebel-held territory in the north as part of evacuation deals, state media says. Thousands of Eastern Ghouta residents are being evacuated from the besieged enclave on Sunday, Syrian state media reported, after large groups of residents already left towns in the Damascus suburb over the past days. State news […]

Israeli forces also confiscate three fishing boats off Gaza coast. Israeli naval forces arrested 10 Palestinian fishermen off the coast of the Gaza Strip on Monday, according to a Palestinian spokesman. “The fishermen were detained while fishing south of the Gaza Strip,” Nizar Ayyash, head of Gaza’s Fishermen’s Union, told Anadolu news agency. He said […]

Education and rights activist, targeted by Taliban, meets the prime minister as she begins her trip amid tight security. Islamabad, Pakistan – Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai has met Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi in the capital, Islamabad, hours after arriving in her home country. Speaking at a ceremony held in her honour by the prime minister, a visibly […]

Overnight pause in fighting prompts ICRC to send 13 trucks with food supplies into Eastern Ghouta, heading for Douma. Air raids have hit Douma in Syria’s rebel-held Eastern Ghouta just after 13 trucks of food aid crossed into the enclave, heading for the town, according to opposition activists and a monitor. The development came on […]

Turkey’s interests in Africa rival the ones of France, UK, and China. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan concluded his five-day tour in Africa on Saturday. “We want to walk with Africa while a new world order is being established,” Erdogan said as quoted by Tukey’s official Presidential page at the end of his five-day tour of four […]

Government forces capture largest town in Eastern Ghouta as death toll surpasses 1,000 in three weeks. Syrian forces have captured the largest town in Eastern Ghouta, effectively splitting the rebel-held enclave in three, a monitor told Al Jazeera. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said on Saturday that government forces had captured the town of Mesraba, which […]

It’s a dramatic story that has brought the restrictions faced by women in Saudi Arabia back into the spotlight. Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun, 18, garnered global attention last week after she locked herself into her hotel room and refused to fly back home. She was fleeing her family in Saudi Arabia and, after instigating a high-profile […]

SchoolsS reopened in southern Israel and traffic clogged Gaza’s streets yesterday amid signs of a de-escalation from the most serious cross-border fighting in months. While violence eased thanks to Egyptian mediation, Israeli forces and Palestinian militants were on hair-trigger footing, with rocket attacks from Gaza and Israeli air strikes in the enclave briefly resuming late […]