Middle East Experience

ESMS supports Qatar’s sustainable development goals and meets the standards of Qatar’s 2030 national vision. The Qatar Olympic Committee (QOC) has been awarded with the Event Sustainable Management Certification (ISO20121:2012 ESMS) during a…..
Source: Albawaba
Full Article: Qatar Olympic Committee receives 'International Event Sustainable Management' certification

Heavy pressure on coalition MKs Zoabi, Ghanaim to resign • Both refuse to back down, say they have no intention to quit Knesset
Source: Jerusalem Post
Full Article: Mansour Abbas refuses to rule out government with Netanyahu

After enjoying his time in Turkey, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro went to Tehran where met with President Ebrahim Raisi.
Source: Jerusalem Post
Full Article: Is an alliance emerging between Venezuela and Turkey? - analysis

Hundreds of people and several lawmakers protested Saturday in southern Lebanon against Israel moving a gas production vessel into an offshore field partly claimed by Beirut.The demonstration comes just days before the US envoy mediating maritime border talks between the two neighbors is expected in Lebanon, and after the ship operated by London-listed Energean Plc arrived in the Karish gas field last week.For the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.Several hundred people waved Lebanese and Palestinian flags at Lebanon’s border town of Naqoura to protest Israel’s claim on the area where the Karish field is located, an AFP correspondent said.“We absolutely refuse to neglect Lebanon’s maritime resources, which belong to all Lebanese,” said lawmaker Firas Hamdan, reading a joint statement from 13 independent parliamentarians, most of whom were newly elected last month.Lebanon and Israel have no diplomatic relations and are separated by a UN-patrolled border.Lebanon’s president and prime minister have condemned Israel for moving the vessel into the Karish field, and have invited US envoy Amos Hochstein to Beirut for mediation.Hochstein is scheduled to arrive in Lebanon on Monday for a two-day visit, according to the US State Department.Lebanon’s powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah group this week warned Energean against proceeding with its activities.Lebanon and Israel resumed negotiations over their maritime frontier in 2020, but the process was stalled by Beirut’s claim that the map used by the United Nations in the talks needed modifying.Lebanon initially demanded 860 square kilometers (330 square miles) of territory in the disputed maritime area but then asked for an additional 1,430 square kilometers (552 square miles), including part of Karish.The independent lawmakers said in Saturday’s statement that they supported Lebanon’s claim to part of Karish.Read more:US envoy to Beirut for talks on Lebanon energy crisis, border dispute with IsraelLebanon, Israel ‘narrowing gaps’ towards deal on maritime border: US diplomatLebanon’s Hezbollah can stop Israeli gas extraction from disputed field, chief says
Source: Al Arabiya
Full Article: Lebanese protest Israel vessel at disputed gas field

Golfer Phil Mickelson, on the other hand, went for the money, though he called the Saudis..
Source: Albawaba
Full Article: Tiger Woods Reportedly Turned Down 9-Figure Deal To Join Saudi ‘Sportswashing’ Golf Circuit

The French-Algerian author on teenage fame, the parallels between her and Zinedine Zidane, and why she admires Bernardine Evaristo..
Source: Albawaba
Full Article: Faïza Guène: ‘People wanted me to say: Thank you, France’

The project has drawn criticism over the destruction of historical monuments and the potential environmental impact..
Source: Albawaba
Full Article: Turkey’s Galataport cruise hub fuels economic hopes, environment concerns

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said no one knows how long the war in his country will last but that Ukrainian forces are defying expectations by preventing Russian troops from overrunning eastern Ukraine, where the fighting has been fiercest for weeks.In his nightly video address, Zelenskyy said he was proud of the Ukrainian defenders managing to hold back the Russian advance in the Donbas region, which borders Russia and where Moscow-backed separatists have controlled much of the territory for eight years.For the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.“Remember how in Russia, in the beginning of May, they hoped to seize all of the Donbas?” the president said late on Saturday. “It’s already the 108th day of the war, already June. Donbas is holding on.”After failing to capture Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, early in the war, Moscow focused on seizing the parts of the largely Russian-speaking Donbas still in Ukrainian hands, as well as the country’s southern coast. But instead of securing a swift, decisive takeover, Russian forces were drawn into a long, laborious battle, thanks in part to the Ukrainian military’s use of Western-supplied weapons.Both Ukrainian and Russian authorities said Sievierodonetsk, an eastern city with a prewar population of 100,000, remained contested. The city and neighboring Lysychansk are the last major areas of the Donbas’ Luhansk province not under the control of the pro-Russia rebels.Leonid Pasechnik, the head of the separatist-declared Luhansk People’s Republic, said Ukrainian fighters remained in an industrial area of the city, including a chemical plant where civilians had taken shelter from days of Russian shelling.“Sievierodonetsk is not completely 100 percent liberated,” Pasechnik said on Saturday, alleging that the Ukrainians were shelling the city from the Azot plant. “So it’s impossible to call the situation calm in Sievierodonetsk, that it is completely ours.”Luhansk Governor Serhii Haidai reported on Saturday that a big fire broke out at the plant during hours of Russian shelling.Elsewhere in Ukraine, a counteroffensive pushed Russians out of parts of the southern Kherson region they took early in the war, according to Zelenskyy. Moscow has installed local authorities in Kherson and other occupied coastal areas, offering residents Russian passports, airing Russian news broadcasts and taking steps to introduce a Russian school curriculum.Zelenskyy said that while an end to the war was not in sight, Ukraine should do everything it can so the Russians “regret everything that they have done and that they answer for every killing and every strike on our beautiful state.”The Ukrainian leader asserted that Russia has suffered about three times as many military casualties as the number estimated for the Ukrainian side, adding: “For what? What did it get you, Russia?” There are no reliable independent estimates of the war’s death toll so far.The Institute for the Study of War, a think tank based in Washington, said in its latest assessment that Ukrainian intelligence suggested the Russian military was planning “to fight a longer war.”The institute cited the deputy head of Ukraine’s national security agency as saying that Moscow had extended its war timeline until October, with adjustments to be made depending on any successes in the Donbas.The intelligence “likely indicates the Kremlin has, at a minimum, acknowledged it cannot achieve its objectives in Ukraine quickly and is further adjusting its military objectives in an attempt to correct the initial deficiencies in the invasion of Ukraine,” the think tank said.Read more:Ukraine in control of Sievierodonetsk plant sheltering hundreds, governor saysRussian strike on western Ukraine wounds at least 22First Russian passports handed out to Ukrainians in occupied south: Agencies
Source: Al Arabiya
Full Article: Ukraine’s Zelenskyy says his troops keep defying predictions

Aside from India, the protests sparked over outrage from derogatory Islamophobic remarks were also heard in other South Asian countries, including Pakistan and Bangladesh..
Source: Albawaba
Full Article: Police kill two in India protests amid Muslim outrage over Islamophobic remarks

A pro-Russian separatist leader in eastern Ukraine said Sunday he would not alter the death sentences handed to two Britons and a Moroccan for fighting with the Ukrainian army. “They came to Ukraine to kill civilians for money. That’s why I don’t see any conditions for any mitigation or modification of the sentence,” Denis Pushilin, the leader of the separatist Donetsk region, which tried them, told reporters. For the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.Pushilin said the court had “issued a perfectly fair punishment” to the three fighters. He also accused British Prime Minister Boris Johnson of ignoring their fate and failing to contact the separatist authorities. Pushilin was speaking at a press conference attended by AFP in Mariupol, the capital of the breakaway area, as part of a trip organized by the Russian defense ministry to the battle-scarred Ukrainian city which was captured by Russian and separatist forces in May. On Saturday, Johnson’s spokesman said he was “appalled” by the death sentences handed down to Britons Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner and Moroccan Brahim Saadun. “It is clear they were Ukrainian armed forces members and are therefore prisoners of war,” and not mercenaries as the separatist authorities in Donetsk accuse them of being, the spokesman said. According to the families of Aslin and Pinner, the two men have been living in the country since 2018.On Friday, the United Nations expressed concern over the death sentences handed down against the prisoners by pro-Russian rebels. Read more:UK government urged to aid Moroccan man facing death penalty in Ukraine warFamily of British man facing the death penalty in Donbas calls for his releaseUK ‘concerned’ over death sentences for British fighters in Ukraine
Source: Al Arabiya
Full Article: Pro-Russian separatist leader upholds death sentences of two Britons, Moroccan