Middle East Experience

The number of diagnoses on Wednesday is the highest number since the start of the pandemic.
Source: Jerusalem Post
Full Article: Coronavirus cabinet ends over political crisis as cases continue to rise

Book Club: Adania Shibli's evocative novel is a searing reflection on the Palestinian experience of violence and memory..
Source: Your Middle East
Full Article: Minor Detail: A haunting meditation on violence and memory in Palestine

Kuwaitis wearing face masks flooded shopping centers and malls on Tuesday following four months of lockdowns as coronavirus restrictions were eased.Read the latest updates in our dedicated coronavirus section.Commercial entities were allowed to reopen as part of the governments second phase of lifting measures that were implemented to slow the spread of the deadly virus.Videos and photos shared on social media showed shoppers lining up outside of luxury retail stores – including Rolex and Cartier – waiting their turn to get their hands on some new items.Strict measures such as limiting crowds inside shops and maintaining social distancing are enforced to ensure the safety of residents and nationals.Employees in both the private and public sectors have also been allowed to return to work but with a 30 percent capacity limit for offices.On Monday, Kuwait announced that it will resume commercial flights to its international airport starting from August 1 after they were halted as a coronavirus countermeasures, the country’s Center for Government Communication announced on Monday.Kuwait has so far recorded 46,195 coronavirus cases as the death toll reached 354 as of June 30. However, more than 37,000 people have recovered so far.For all the latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app.Read more:Infections in GCC surpass 400,000 COVID-19 cases, Reuters tally showsKuwait records 671 new cases, four COVID-19 deathsKuwait reduces coronavirus curfew hours starting June 21, lifts lockdown on districts
Source: Al Arabiya
Full Article: Coronavirus: Kuwait shoppers flood to malls as COVID-19 lockdowns lifted

The dollar is continuing its steady and brisk decline in Lebanon. In a week, the Lebanese lira lost over 40 percent of its value against the dollar. To date, the lira has lost around 80 percent of its value and is trading at close to 9,000 lira to $1 as of Wednesday.Heavy dollar shortages, increasing hoarding behavior by Lebanese, continuous currency outflows to Syria, as well as restrictive measures imposed by the central bank and the government, have created a chaos in the foreign exchange market.The local currency has seen sharp devaluation over the past months. While the official exchange rate remains set at 1,507 lira to the dollar, the rate to buy dollars has hit 8,900 and to sell them, the rate hit 9,200 at around noon Wednesday. Days ago, the unofficial rate was 8,600 lira to the dollar, according to the app Lira. The country is suffering from a severe shortage of foreign currency, namely dollars needed to pay for imports.Read more:Lebanon raises subsidized bread prices as currency tumblesLebanese turn profit selling US dollars in exchange shops, raise hyperinflation alarm“We really do not know whether it’s a heavy decline of the supply side or an expansion of the demand side. But it is definitely making imports more complicated because the central bank can only ensure 10-15 percent of our cash needs, while money changers provide us with another 20 percent, while finally less than a third of our needs comes from the black market,” said Hani Bohsali, president of the Syndicate of Importers of Foodstuffs, Consumer Products and Drinks.Lebanon is reliant on imports for the majority of its needs, including around 80 percent of its food.Challenges faced by Bohsali and other Lebanese traders resulted from a series of circulars issued by the central bank in an attempt to tamp down inflation. Last month the central bank set a maximum price of 3,200 lira for the dollar which triggered a strike by the syndicate of money exchange houses. The price has been has been raised this month to 3,850 lira for the dollar.Recently, money changers have been arrested and imprisoned, including the head of the syndicate, for not respecting the central bank’s pre-determined market rates. Other shops have been forced to close.“The various circulars have created five different dollar to Lebanese pound market rates: the official one applied by the central bank, another one applied exceptionally by commercial banks for small amounts of money that clients can withdraw monthly, another applied by international money transfers, and the black market one [for] sale and purchase,” said Bahaa, a currency changer from the Bekaa who spoke on a first name basis, out of fear of being prosecuted.Another money changer, Mohamad, said the low rate imposed by the central bank does not match the very high market demand and has pushed most people to resort to the black market. Mary Chamaa, a private individual who receives dollar transfers on a regular basis from her husband who lives abroad has stopped selling her dollars through money changers.“They offer me a low rate. I can go instead to any trader or to friends who will give a much higher rate instead, and that is what I have been doing lately. I sold $1,000 last week. In an hour I had three clients, with each trying to give me a better deal.”Mohamad underlines that such behavior is what is driving the black market continuously higher, which leads to more chaos. Nassib Ghobril, chief economist at the Byblos bank explained that the deep confidence crisis reigning in Lebanon is pushing more people to hoard dollars and estimates that over $7 billion are held in cash by people in their homes, adding that deposits in banking sectors declined by $25 billion from September 2019 to the end of April 2020 alone, with people rushing to close the totality of their loans or withdraw their cash due to uncertainty.Complicating the situation, is Syria’s large dependence on Lebanon’s market for goods and fresh money. In the last few years, Lebanon has supplied subsidized fuel and flour to Syria, which has only further depleted Lebanon’s foreign currency reserves.Read more: Link between Lebanon and Syria's economies spells disaster for both“We are basically providing currency needed for two markets – Lebanon and Syria,” said Bahaa. Money changers Al Arabiya English spoke to attributed the large devaluation in the Lebanese pound in March to transfers to Syria. But other factors, including a slowing of remittances and deposits from abroad, as well as a long-running deficit in the electricity sector, have also heavily contributed to Lebanon’s problems.“We are not talking of a few hundred dollars sent by Syrian workers but of millions, such operations don’t take place in Lebanon without significant political backing,” said Mohamad who does not think the Lebanese pound devaluation is ending any time soon or that transfers to Syria will stop soon.
Source: Al Arabiya
Full Article: Lebanon's inflation reaches new highs as increasing chaos reigns over exchange market

China on Wednesday played down the threat of a new swine flu strain with pandemic potential that researchers discovered in pigs, saying the study is “not representative.”For all the latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app.The deadly COVID-19 pandemic, which has now infected more than 10 million people worldwide, first emerged in China and is thought to have originated in bats and jumped to humans through an unknown intermediary animal.The new swine flu strain found in China, according to the study published Monday in the US science journal PNAS, had “all the essential hallmarks” to infect humans and raised fears over another potential pandemic.But China's foreign ministry moved to downplay fears on Wednesday.“The G4 virus mentioned in the relevant report is a subtype of the H1N1 virus,” foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said in a routine briefing.“Experts have concluded that the sample size of the report is small and not representative.”Zhao added that “relevant departments and experts” will continue to step up monitoring of the disease, send warnings and handle it in a timely manner.Read the latest updates in our dedicated coronavirus section.The new G4 swine flu strain is genetically descended from the H1N1 strain that caused a pandemic in 2009, according to the study, which was authored by scientists at Chinese universities and the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.G4 was observed to be highly infectious, they said, replicating in human cells and causing more serious symptoms in ferrets than other viruses.Researchers took 30,000 nasal swabs from slaughterhouse pigs in 10 Chinese provinces, allowing them to isolate 179 swine flu viruses.According to the study, 10.4 percent of pig slaughterhouse workers tested had already been infected.So far, there has been no evidence of human-to-human transmission. China did not elaborate further on how many had been infected by G4.“It is of concern that human infection of G4 virus will further human adaptation and increase the risk of a human pandemic,” the researchers wrote, calling for urgent measures to monitor people working with pigs.Read more:New pig ‘flu’ virus, G4 strain of H1N1, has human pandemic risk: Chinese research‘Very real’ fear that people may never fully recover from coronavirus, scientists sayCoronavirus can cause severe brain damage, psychosis and strokes: COVID-19 study
Source: Al Arabiya
Full Article: China downplays new pig ‘flu’ virus, G4 strain of H1N1 amid COVID-19 outbreak

Saudi Arabia has confirmed 3,4022 new coronavirus cases, raising the total to 194,225, the health ministry announced on Wednesday.Read the latest updates in our dedicated coronavirus section.The city of Riyadh had the highest number of infections over the past 24 hours with 401 new cases detected. Dammam had the second highest with 283.The health ministry also announced 49 new fatalities, taking the death toll to 132,760.Despite an increase in cases, 1,994 people who had previously tested positive for the virus have recovered. The total number of recoveries has reached 132,760 as of July 1.There are currently 59,767 active cases in the Kingdom with 2,272 individuals in critical conditions.On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia saw its highest daily increase after recording 4,387 new cases within 24 hours.Read more:Saudi Arabia records highest single day increase with 4,387 new casesSaudi Arabia: International community needs ‘firm stance’ on Iran after UN reportSaudi Arabia raises VAT tax to 15 pct amid coronavirus: How does it affect consumers?
Source: Al Arabiya
Full Article: Coronavirus: Saudi Arabia confirms 3,402 new cases, COVID-19 total reaches 194,225

Qatar has been accused of hiring a team of former CIA and US military intelligence officials to hack a prominent financier for the Republican party for questioning the country’s support of terrorism, according to a new lawsuit reported by US-based news site The Washington Free Beacon on Tuesday.Elliott Broidy, the Republican financier, has filed a lawsuit against Qatar alleging that the country employed former clandestine operatives to carry out a cyber-espionage operation on his personal and business emails in 2018, the Beacon said.The information garnered from the hack was later leaked to the media to discredit Broidy, his allegations against Qatar, and advance Qatari interests in the US, Broidy alleges, the Beacon reported.For all the latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the appThe hackers who were allegedly part of the Global Risk Advisors (GRA) consulting group and were paid by Qatar to conduct the raid on Broidy, as well as other critics of Doha.The group “conspired with [American] public-relations strategists to steal Mr. Broidy’s confidential materials and plant carefully curated excerpts and manipulated materials with the press to cause Plaintiffs maximum damage,” the lawsuit said, according to the Beacon.The consulting group is made up of former CIA and military intelligence officials with experience in cyber espionage, the Beacon said.“GRA was perfectly suited for this work because it employs former National Security Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, and U.S. Armed Forces personnel with extensive offensive hacking expertise,” the lawsuit continued.Broidy is seeking for the lawsuit to go to trial, to determine if GRA and other US consulting groups were complicit in the Qatari conspiracy, the Beacon reported.Employees of GRA “are the world-class hackers who, primarily from their US locations and with US citizen hackers, illegally broke into the email servers of Mr. Broidy, his wife, [and] his executive assistant,” the lawsuit said, according to the Beacon.“They then distributed the hacked materials in a secure manner to various media outlets, as directed by other members of the conspiracy, to inflict maximum damage on Mr. Broidy,” it added.Long battle against QatarThe lawsuit is a continuation of a long-running battle between Broidy and Doha.In September 2018, he said that cybercriminals working for the Qatari government had targeted hundreds of people, including senior officials from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Bahrain and Syria.Broidy’s legal team identified as many as 1,200 individuals targeted by the same cybercriminals as part of the case.Earlier that year, Broidy had made statements alleging that Qatar targeted him because of his advocacy work against Doha and “strong political views against Qatar’s state sponsored terrorism and double dealing.”Read more:Qatari Emir’s brother withheld wages, drugged workers, bought supercar: US lawsuitQatar leak: Kuwaiti ex-MPs, Libya’s Gaddafi plot to undermine Saudi ArabiaInside the palace: Al Arabiya’s documentary on Qatari royal’s criminal lawsuits
Source: Al Arabiya
Full Article: Qatar hired ex-CIA, US military officials to hack Republican activist Broidy: Reports

New campaigns by the Israeli political left seem to be effectively throwing cold water on the public's support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s annexation plan.
Source: Al Monitor
Full Article: Israeli left chills public support for annexation

A bipartisan group of US lawmakers urged the United Nations to reopen a key border crossing into Syria, which Russia shut down in January using its veto power at the Security Council.
Source: Al Monitor
Full Article: Intel: Congress urges UN to reopen humanitarian aid crossings into Syria

More than 1,000 people have been arbitrarily detained and hundreds tortured by Yemen's warring parties, finds a new report.
Source: Al Monitor
Full Article: Horrific patterns of torture catalogued in Yemen’s unofficial prisons