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Items by Reuters
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Allegations of ‘sexual slavery’ in Ethiopia’s Tigray; women blame soldiers
The young mother was trying to get home with food for her two children when she says soldiers pulled her off a minibus in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, claiming it was overloaded. It was the beginning of an 11-day ordeal in February, during which she says she was repeatedly raped by...
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Syria’s ‘Catman’ saved 100 animals from Aleppo, now centre cares for 1,000
When Syria’s war forced Alaa Al-Jaleel to close his cat sanctuary in Aleppo in 2015 and head north to the opposition stronghold of Idlib, he took around 100 animals with him and reopened it there. Now his successors at Ernesto’s Sanctuary care for more than 1,000 – and feeding time...
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Suez Canal: A vital global waterway
The Suez Canal, blocked by a giant container ship that ran aground on Tuesday, is the quickest sea route between Asia and Europe and about 15 per ent of global shipping traffic moves through it. The 193 kilometre waterway, run by the state-owned Suez Canal Authority, is a vital source...
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Lebanon’s political stalemate may lead to civil war
Just 18 months have passed since mass protests against Lebanon’s political class brought down one government, and nearly eight more months since a huge explosion destroyed the port of Beirut and toppled its successor. Since then the currency has lost 90 per cent of its value, inflation has driven more...
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After Israel's tight election, who matters and what happens next?
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to secure a solid parliamentary majority in Israel’s election, according to TV exit polls early today which predicted no clear winner. The right-wing bloc led by Netanyahu’s Likud party had a slight edge but was in a tight race with a grouping of centre, left...
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Saudi, Egypt embark on ending causes of Arab rift with Qatar
Saudi Arabia and Egypt have begun tackling thorny issues with Qatar to rebuild ties, easing an inter-Arab feud seen by the United States as benefiting only mutual enemy Iran, but two Gulf states have been slow to follow suit as promised, diplomats say. Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain,...
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Exiled Syrian who helped light fuse of uprising mourns the terrible cost
When Syrian teenager Bashir Abazed was arrested a decade ago for scrawling anti-government graffiti on his school wall, he never imagined an uprising would flare that would devastate his country. Now, he mourns the terrible human cost of the revolt. “The war…broke a lot of things in our lives, it...
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Syria’s conflict has made a 10-year-old his family’s only breadwinner
Mohammed Abu Rdan has known nothing but conflict throughout his short life. Born in rural Aleppo in 2011 when peaceful protests against President Bashar Al-Assad’s government began, his childhood is anything but typical. The protests quickly turned into a multi-sided conflict that has sucked in world powers, killed hundreds of thousands of people...
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Gaza boy, 11, voices pain through rap
Gaza rapper Abdulrahman Al-Shanti may only be 11 years old but his rhymes on war and hardship in the Palestinian enclave have reached thousands of people...
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'Feels like prison': Palestinian family cut off from their village by Israel’s Separation Wall
Omar Hajajla may have a private gateway to his home in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, but it is hardly a sign of luxury: it runs beneath an Israeli barrier that cuts him and his family off from the rest of their nearby Palestinian village. Israel began building its illegal West...
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Climate change threatens Egypt's historic monuments
It’s a steamy November day in the southern Egyptian city of Luxor, and the tourists tramping through the ancient temples of Luxor and Karnak are sweating. But the city’s famed 7,000-year-old antiquities are feeling the heat too. Increasingly high temperatures linked to climate change, as well as wilder weather, particularly...
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Behind Trump-Erdogan 'bromance,' a White House meeting to repair US-Turkey ties
At the 2012 opening of Trump Towers in Istanbul, real estate mogul Donald Trump sang the praises of Tayyip Erdogan, telling a mostly Turkish audience that their leader, prime minister at the time, was “highly respected” around the world, reports Reuters. “He’s a good man. He’s just representing you very...
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How Lebanon's Hariri defied Hezbollah
After hitting a dead-end in efforts to defuse the crisis sweeping Lebanon, Saad al-Hariri informed a top Hezbollah official on Monday he had no choice but to quit as prime minister in defiance of the powerful Shi’ite group, Reuters reports. The decision by the Sunni leader shocked Hussein al-Khalil, political...
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Israel’s election: A government without Netanyahu?
Israelis head to the polls tomorrow for the second time in less than six months in an election that could see Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu win a record fifth term – or end his decade-long dominance of Israeli politics. He faces formidable challengers to his reign and, after the vote,...
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With Bolton's departure, an Iran hawk leaves the chessboard
John Bolton’s departure from the White House removes an obstacle to the possibility of US-Iranian nuclear talks, but the odds of such a dialogue leading anywhere remain low, current and former US officials said on Tuesday, Reuters reports. President Donald Trump fired his national security adviser, a hawk on Iran...
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Sisi is damaging the lives of ordinary Egyptians
Economists and investment banks say Egypt’s economic reforms have been a huge success. Zeinab doesn’t think so. “Everything is expensive,” said the elderly woman, walking through a market in central Cairo. “I mean, the basic things – expensive electricity, expensive gas, expensive water, expensive living. What are people to do?...
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Palestinian app helps drivers avoid Israel checkpoints
A new locally-developed app helps Palestinian drivers in the occupied West Bank negotiate traffic at Israeli military checkpoints and uncover routes to towns mainstream providers often miss. Launched in June and designed by Palestinians, Doroob Navigator crowd-sources road closures and traffic data from users. It aims to supplant apps like...
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Egypt prisoners’ families: ‘Humans have no value here’
Security forces detained Lotfy Ibrahim, a young construction worker, as he left a mosque near his home on the Nile Delta in the spring of 2015. When his family finally saw him again nearly three months later, he was in jail, looking badly brutalised. “He rolled his sleeves down so...
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Bouteflika: from revolutionary to ailing recluse
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, a veteran of Algeria’s war for independence who has ruled for two decades, announced on Monday he had reversed his decision to seek a fifth term following weeks of mass demonstrations. Bouteflika, 82 and rarely seen in public since a stroke in 2013, had returned to Algeria...
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Street unrest breaks down taboo in Algeria: talk is of politics at last
Until last week the number one topic that Algerian engineer Mohamed Aissiou and his mates would discuss over coffee was soccer. Specifically, local star Riyad Mahrez and his English club Manchester City. Now it’s all about whether President Abdelaziz Bouteflika should go. Many Algerians have for years avoided politics in public,...
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As EU-Arab summit approaches, more headaches than planned
When plans for a summit between the European Union and the Arab League were first hatched last year, it was envisioned as the start of a new friendship across the Mediterranean. What a difference a few months makes. The EU hopes that improving ties with its Arab neighbours would help...
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Calls for Saudi arms embargo pit EU values against interests
Among others trying to continue arms sales to Saudi Arabia, Spain is trying to go ahead with the sale of 400 bombs in order to protect a Saudi contract with a shipyard in the Andalusia region that would create 5,000 jobs...
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Fake news or chilling message? Journalist's disappearance divides Saudis
Some Saudis are treating Turkish allegations that prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed in their country’s consulate in Istanbul as fake news. Others see the alleged murder of Khashoggi, an outspoken critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as a chilling message for opponents of the Saudi government and a...
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Why Yemen is at war?
The battle for the western Yemeni port of Hudaydah could be an important milestone in the three-year civil war. But analysts say the conflict is so complex that even a decisive outcome there might not bring peace. Why is Yemen so divided? Yemen’s internal splits have festered for years. North and...