Middle East & North Africa

13 July 2022; MEMO: US President Joe Biden landed at Israel's Ben Gurion Airport on Wednesday at the start of his Middle East tour, Anadolu Agency reports.

Biden was welcomed at the airport by Israeli Prime Minister, Yair Lapid, his deputy Naftali Bennett and President Isaac Herzog, according to The Times of Israel newspaper.

Biden will visit the West Bank as part of his tour, where he will meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

TEHRAN, Jul 13 (NNN-IRNA) – Iranian President, Ebrahim Raisi, yesteday slammed Western countries, for having played a major role in global environmental destruction over the past centuries.

“The hegemonic approach of Western governments during the past centuries and their unlimited encroachment on natural resources … has been one of the main factors of environmental problems,” Raisi said, at a regional meeting on environmental issues held in the capital, Tehran.

JERUSALEM, July 13 (Reuters) - The White House would like to see a U.S. consulate for the Palestinians open in east Jerusalem, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Wednesday as President Joe Biden made his way to the region.

"Our position is that we would like a consulate in East Jerusalem. Obviously that requires engagement with the Israeli government. It requires engagement with the Palestinian leadership as well. And we will continue that engagement on this trip," Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force 1.

JERUSALEM, July 13 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid and his Greek counterpart Kyriakos Mitsotakis agreed to further enhance the two countries' energy cooperation during a phone talk Wednesday.

"The two leaders discussed the need to continue deepening cooperation between Greece and Israel, including in the field of energy," Lapid's office said in a statement, adding that they "agreed to stay in regular and close contact."

JERUSALEM (AP) — President Joe Biden’s dash through Israel and the occupied West Bank this week is expected to cut across some of the region’s most iconic places.

Both luxurious and grueling, Biden’s visit starts with a VIP arrival at Israel’s main commercial airport — an on-and-off nightmare for regular travelers this summer due to huge lines and delays — and pings through Jerusalem and the West Bank.

ISTANBUL (AP) — Military officials from Russia and Ukraine were set to hold their governments’ first face-to-face talks in months Wednesday during a session in Istanbul devoted to a United Nations plan to export blocked Ukrainian grain to world markets through the Black Sea.

Turkish military officials and U.N. representatives also planned to participate in the discussion focused on finding a way to get millions of tons of grain sitting in silos amid the war in Ukraine shipped out of the country’s ports toward the Mediterranean.

13 July 2022; MEMO: Libya's Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU) moved to replace the National Oil Corp (NOC) chairman and board yesterday, Reuters reports.

According to the text of the decision confirmed to Reuters by a GNU official, Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah will replace veteran NOC chairman Mustafa Sanalla with Farhat Bengdara, the central bank governor before Libya's 2011 revolution.

13 July 2022; MEMO: Tunisia's I Watch organisation announced that it had filed a lawsuit against President Kais Saied and the President of the Independent High Authority for Elections, Farouk Bouaskar, on charges of violating the electoral law and committing administrative corruption.

The organisation said in a statement that Saied's participation in the referendum campaign without submitting a request to do so is a violation that requires legal accountability.

13 July 2022; MEMO: Commenting on the revelation that Israel burnt alive Egyptian soldiers in 1967, the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas said yesterday that "this crime discloses the extent of Israel's terrorism."

In a statement, Hamas spokesman Hazem Qasem said: "The disclosure of the Israeli crime of burning tens of Egyptian soldiers alive during the 1967 aggression discloses the extent of Israel's terrorism and sadism which dominate Israel's behaviour in all of its wars."

13 July 2022; MEMO: Iran yesterday accused US President Joe Biden of adopting a policy that contradicts his declared desire to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement.

This came following an opinion piece written by Biden for the Washington Post and published on Saturday ahead of his visit to the Middle East this week.