Middle East & North Africa

10 Feb 2023; MEMO: The presence of mind of a 19-year-old girl saved her entire family from getting trapped under the rubble of their house when two deadly earthquakes struck southern Turkiye, Anadolu News Agency reports.

Umit Aslanoglu got out of her bed when her dog started barking incessantly.

Just as she felt the first tremors, she woke up her brother, mother and aunt, who all lived with her in Antakya, a district in one of the worst hit provinces, Hatay.

10 Feb 2023; MEMO: Several Arab countries have extended vital support, with rescue teams and relief supplies, to help in earthquake relief operations in Turkiye and Syria.

More than 19,300 people have died and over 77,700 others were injured after two strong earthquakes jolted southern Turkiye on Monday, according to the latest official figures.

TOKYO, Feb 10 (NNN-NHK) – The Japanese government plans to appoint Kazuo Ueda, an economist and former member of the Bank of Japan (BOJ) Policy Board, as the central bank’s next governor, after Haruhiko Kuroda’s resignation, local media reported today.

For new deputy governors, former Financial Services Agency chief, Ryozo Himino and BOJ Executive Director, Shinichi Uchida are being eyed, reported Japanese newspaper Nikkei, citing sources familiar with the matter.

ADEN, Feb 10 (NNN-SABA) – Yemen’s defence minister, received yesterday, a military delegation from the Saudi Arabia-led coalition, in the country’s southern port city of Aden.

Mohsen Muhammad Al-Daeri, along with local Yemeni government officials, held a meeting with the high-ranking Saudi delegation, on strengthening cooperation on the combat readiness of local pro-government armed forces.

Al-Daeri thanked the Saudi-led coalition for “generous support” and for their commitment to “the legitimate government and the rights of the Yemeni people.”

ANTAKYA, Turkey/JANDARIS, Syria, Feb 10, (Reuters) - Rescue crews saved a 10-day-old baby and his mother trapped in ruins of a building in Turkey on Friday and dug several people from other sites as President Tayyip Erdogan said authorities should have reacted faster to this week's huge earthquake.

The confirmed death toll from the deadliest quake in the region in two decades stood at more than 22,000 across southern Turkey and northwest Syria four days after it hit.

RIYADH, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese tech giant Huawei has announced an investment of 400 million U.S. dollars to establish a cloud region in Saudi Arabia.

The announcement was made on Thursday during LEAP 2023, Saudi Arabia's largest and most comprehensive Information and Communications Technology exhibition.

The investment aims to boost Saudi Arabia's digital economy and enable access to more advanced and secure cloud services for government, corporate and individuals, said the company.

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey has for years tempted fate by not enforcing modern construction codes while allowing — and in some cases, encouraging — a real estate boom in earthquake-prone areas, experts say.

The lax enforcement, which experts in geology and engineering have long warned about, is gaining renewed scrutiny in the aftermath of this week’s devastating earthquakes, which flattened thousands of buildings and killed more than 20,000 people across Turkey and Syria.

09 Feb 2023; MEMO: As Turkiye continues to deal with the devastation left in the wake of two of the biggest earthquakes in its history, a young Turkish engineer in the UK wants to help quench the needs of earthquake victims with an innovatively practical water tank.

09 Feb 2023; MEMO: Too much misleading news on social media about the devastating earthquake in Turkiye and Syria in the early hours of Monday morning prompted the government in Ankara to disable Twitter before agreeing with the company to tackle fake news.

The earthquake has killed at least 15,000 people and the death toll continues to rise as rescue workers continue to search for survivors under the rubble.

09 Feb 2023; MEMO: An Iranian official has revealed that China is one of the leading customers of Iranian-manufactured drones and that a large shipment is set to be sent to Beijing, amid the ongoing controversy over Tehran's supply of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to Russia.