Middle East & North Africa

17 May 2022; MEMO: The United Nations said yesterday that Israel's expulsion of 13 Palestinian communities in  the occupied West Bank in order to conduct military exercises is "inhumane and illegal."

HERZLIYA, Israel, May 17 (Reuters) - Iran is working on advanced uranium centrifuges at new underground sites being built near its Natanz nuclear plant, Israel's defence minister said on Tuesday, giving figures that appeared to go beyond those published by a U.N. watchdog.

Centrifuges are used to purify uranium for civilian projects or, at higher levels, to make bomb fuel. Iranian progress in the field is being watched by world powers trying to resurrect a nuclear deal with Tehran, which denies having military designs.

ISTANBUL, May 16 (Reuters) - Sweden and Finland have not granted approval for the repatriation of 33 people that Turkey requested for alleged links to groups it deems terrorists, state media said on Monday, after Ankara opposed the two countries joining NATO.

Turkey says the people sought had links to Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants or Muslim cleric Fethullan Gulen, whom Ankara accuses of orchestrating a 2016 coup attempt.

ISTANBUL, May 16 (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that Swedish and Finnish delegations should not bother coming to Ankara to convince it to approve their NATO bid.

Sweden's government has formally decided to apply for NATO membership, Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said on Monday, a day after Finnish President Sauli Niinisto confirmed that Helsinki will also apply for membership.

JERUSALEM, May 16 (NNN-PNA) – Israel’s inflation reached four percent in Apr, from a year earlier, with a monthly increase of 0.8 percent, the Israeli Bureau of Statistics said yesterday.

Apr’s rise also beat the 3.5-percent in March, to hit a new record high since June, 2011, mainly due to a 5.5-percent price increase in fresh vegetables, and a 2.8-percent increase in clothing, said the statistics bureau.

It is also the third consecutive month, for the year-on-year consumer price index (CPI), floating above the government target range of 1-3 percent.

GAZA/RAMALLAH, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of Palestinians demonstrated on Sunday in the West Bank city of Ramallah, marking the 74th anniversary of Nakba Day, or "Day of the Catastrophe," the day after Israel declared its independence in 1948.

The Ramallah-based Palestinians took part in a demonstration invited by the Supreme National Committee to commemorate the Nakba of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), while mourning whistles sounded for 74 seconds, referring to the number of years of displacement of Palestinians.

JERUSALEM (AP) — The top Catholic clergyman in the Holy Land on Monday condemned the police beating of mourners carrying the casket of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, accusing the authorities of violating human rights and disrespecting the Catholic Church.

Queen Noor Al Hussein, wife of the late Jordanian King Hussein Bin Talal, shared an article voicing criticism of Israel's account of the attack on assassinated journalist Shireen Abu Akleh's funeral.

On Saturday, the Israeli police said it would open a wide investigation into the circumstances of the attack on the pallbearers in occupied East Jerusalem, which almost led to Shireen's coffin falling to the ground.

15 May 2022; MEMO: Forces from the regional Kurdish government have taken control of some oil wells in northern Kirkuk, Iraq's state-run North Oil Company said in a statement on Saturday, but the Kurdish government denied this, Reuters reports.

It said the forces arrived with a technical team from the Kurdish region and took over some of the oil wells in the Bai Hassan oilfield, which is controlled by the North Oil Company.

The statement did not say when the forces arrived and whether they were still there.

15 May 2022; MEMO: Any agreements by Egypt's government to purchase Indian wheat will not be affected by an export ban announced by New Delhi, Egypt's supply minister said on Sunday, Reuters reports.

"For India, we are talking with them on the basis of a government agreement. The ban exempts governments including the government of Egypt," minister Ali Moselhy said at a news conference.