Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, ended a trip to China last week by voicing his support for Beijing’s repressive policies towards the Muslim Uyghur minority in Xinjiang. During the four-day visit, Abbas met China’s president and ruling Communist party head Xi Jinping. Abbas and Xi issued a joint Read more…
A number of LFI MPs have today added their names to a cross-party letter addressed to Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch, calling on the government to investigate allegations in the Jewish Chronicle that scientists at British universities have been helping Iran develop technology that could be used to upgrade Read more…
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Faisal bin Farhan, said on Thursday that Riyadh normalising ties with Israel would bring significant benefits to the Middle East region, but that those benefits would be restricted in the absence of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “We believe that normalisation is in the Read more…
Scientists at British universities have helped the Iranian regime develop technology that can be used in its drone programme and fighter jets, an investigation by the Jewish Chronicle has revealed. At least 11 British universities, including Cambridge and Imperial College London, are reportedly involved, with staff producing at least 16 Read more…
LFI parliamentarians have today urged the government to take a more robust and comprehensive stance towards the Iranian regime at a Westminster Hall Debate on the topic. In his remarks, Parliamentary Labour Party chair John Cryer MP – a longstanding campaigner on the issue – once again set out the Read more…
US secretary of state Antony Blinken will travel to Saudi Arabia this week, with improving ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia on the agenda for talks. Blinken “will discuss US-Saudi strategic cooperation on regional and global issues and a range of bilateral issues including economic and security cooperation”, the State Read more…
An Egyptian policeman accused of killing three Israeli soldiers in an attack on the countries’ shared border on Saturday morning has been named as 22-year-old Mohamed Salah Ibrahim. Arabic-language media reported that Ibrahim was drafted into the Egyptian army in June 2022 and stationed on the border with Israel as Read more…
Iran may be able to produce nuclear weapons “on demand”, a leading expert warned last week. The report in The Economist magazine also provided details of a new nuclear facility being constructed by Tehran deep in the Zagros mountains. It comes as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has reportedly estimated that Read more…
The Biden administration reportedly wants the Israeli government to halt its judicial reforms and restart peace talks with the Palestinian Authority in order for the US to make progress with brokering normalisation between Israel and Saudi Arabia. The past week has seen a number of reports that Jerusalem and Riyadh Read more…
The government has been challenged over its failure to proscribe the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist group in a debate in the House of Lords yesterday. The debate follows reporting that the government was imminently about to proscribe the IRGC in early January, though this has not Read more…
Senior Labour party activists visited Israel and the Palestinian territories last week, many of them for the first time, as part of a delegation led by LFI and We Believe in Israel. The group, including leaders from Labour affiliates, thinktanks and campaign groups, visited Yad Vashem, the Knesset, met with Read more…
Bashar al-Assad triumphantly returned to the Middle East’s top table last week – 12 years after the blood-soaked dictator was suspended from the Arab League at the outset of a civil war which has killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions. What happened On Friday, Assad attended an Arab Read more…