Microsoft cuts Russia operations due to Ukraine invasion
Updated 09 June 2022
Reuters
LONDON: Microsoft Corp. is substantially cutting its business in Russia in response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday.
Earlier in March, Microsoft said it was suspending new sales of its products and services in Russia.
The company did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
More than 400 employees will be affected, the report said, citing a company spokesperson.
Several major companies, including Apple Inc, Nike and Dell Technologies, have severed connections with Russia.
Facebook-owner Meta Platforms Inc. and Alphabet Inc’s Google have also taken measures to restrict Russian state media from making money off ads on their platforms.
BBC defends Gaza coverage after White House criticism
Updated 04 June 2025
Reuters
LONDON: The BBC Wednesday defended its reporting of an incident in which Palestinians were killed near a Gaza aid center, after the White House accused the broadcaster of taking “the word of Hamas.”
Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israeli gunfire killed at least 31 people on Sunday near the US-backed aid center.
The Israeli military, however, denied its troops had fired on civilians in or around the center, and both it and the aid center’s administrator accused Hamas of sowing false rumors.
Responding to a question about the incident, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday the BBC had to “correct and take down” its story about the incident.
“The administration is aware of those reports and we are currently looking into the veracity of them because, unfortunately, unlike some in the media, we don’t take the word of Hamas with total truth,” she said.
“We like to look into it when they speak, unlike the BBC, who had multiple headlines,” she said, citing stories that gave different death tolls.
“And then, oh, wait, they had to correct and take down their entire story, saying ‘We reviewed the footage and couldn’t find any evidence of anything’,” she added.
But the BBC said the White House claims were not accurate and that it had not removed its story.
“The claim the BBC took down a story after reviewing footage is completely wrong. We did not remove any story and we stand by our journalism,” it said in a statement.
It said headlines giving varying death tolls were “totally normal” journalistic practice due to the story being “updated throughout the day with the latest fatality figures as they came in from various sources.”
It said the death tolls were always “clearly attributed, from the first figure of 15 from medics, through the 31 killed from the Hamas-run health ministry to the final Red Cross statement of ‘at least 21’,” it added.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said its field hospital in Rafah received 179 people, including 21 pronounced dead on arrival.
Leavitt also criticized the Washington Post for its reporting of the incident.
The Post deleted one article over sourcing issues “because it and early versions of the article didn’t meet Post fairness standards.”
“The article and headline were updated on Sunday evening making it clear that there was no consensus about who was responsible.”
The BBC has previously faced criticism of its coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
In February, it apologized and admitted “serious flaws” over a documentary — “Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone” — after it emerged its 13-year-old narrator was the son of a senior Hamas figure.
Houthis abduct 4 journalists, jail another for criticizing leader, says watchdog
Committee to Protect Journalists and local authorities condemn the action, saying it “exemplifies the Houthis’ escalating assault on press freedom”
Updated 03 June 2025
Arab News
LONDON: At least four journalists have been abducted and another jailed for criticizing the Houthis’ leader, media watchdog the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Tuesday.
Local reports claim freelance photographer Abduljabbar Zayad, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reporter Hassan Ziyad, Soorah Media Production Center director Abdulaziz Al-Noum and deputy head of the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate Walid Ali Ghalib were abducted between May 21-23.
On May 24, the Specialized Criminal Court in the Houthi-held capital Sanaa sentenced Yemeni journalist Mohamed Al-Miyahi t0 18 months in prison for criticizing Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi online.
Al-Miyahi was also ordered to sign a pledge not to resume his journalistic work and to pay a guarantee of SR5 million ($20,500), which he would forfeit if he continued to publish material critical of the state.
Regional director of the CPJ, Sara Qudah, condemned the actions and said: “The kidnapping of at least four Yemeni journalists and media workers and the sentence issued against Mohamed Al-Miyahi exemplify the Houthis’ escalating assault on press freedom.
“We call on Houthi authorities to immediately release all detained journalists and stop weaponizing the law and courts to legitimize their repression of independent voices.”
The Yemeni Journalists Syndicate also condemned the kidnapping, calling it an “arbitrary campaign targeting journalists and freedom of opinion and expression.”
A statement released by the organization said: “The syndicate considers these abductions a continuation of the approach of repression and targeting of journalists and opinion holders, and a hostile behavior towards freedom of opinion and expression, holding the Houthi group fully responsible for the lives and safety of the detained colleagues.”
Al-Miyahi has criticized the Iran-backed Houthis in a series of articles, broadcasts and social media posts. In his last article, prior to his abduction in September 2024 and enforced disappearance for more than a month, he accused the group of suppressing freedom of expression and “not respect(ing) people and treat(ing) them like mindless and unconscious herds.”
In January he appeared in court accused of “publishing articles against the state.” The YJS called the trial a “sham (…) where the verdict was read aloud by the judge from a mobile phone inside the courtroom, violating the most basic standards of fair trial procedures.”
The CPJ accused the Houthis, who control Sanaa and govern more than 70 percent of Yemen’s population, of running a “parallel justice system (…) widely seen as lacking impartiality” and argued Al-Miyahi’s prosecution violated Article 13 of Yemen’s press law, which protects journalists from punishment for publishing their opinions.
Israeli army blocks Oscar media tour of villages in West Bank
Soldiers bar journalists from visiting Palestinian residents on trip organized by award winners
Updated 02 June 2025
AP
JERUSALEM: Israeli soldiers on Monday barred journalists from entering villages in the West Bank on a planned tour organized by the directors of the Oscar-winning movie “No Other Land.”
The directors of the film, which focuses on Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territory, said they had invited the journalists on the tour Monday to interview residents about increasing settler violence in the area.
In a video posted on X by the film’s co-director, Yuval Abraham, an Israeli soldier tells a group of international journalists there is “no passage” in the area because of a military order.
Basel Adra, a Palestinian co-director of the film who lives in the area, said the military then blocked the journalists from entering two Palestinian villages they had hoped to visit.
‘They don’t want the world to see what is happening here’
“They don’t want journalists to visit the villages to meet the residents,” said Adra, who had invited the journalists to his home. “It’s clear they don’t want the world to see what is happening here.”
Some of the surrounding area, including a collection of small Bedouin villages known as Masafer Yatta, was declared by the military to be a live-fire training zone in the 1980s.
Some 1,000 Palestinians have remained there despite being ordered out, and journalists, human rights activists, and diplomats have visited the villages in the past.
Palestinian residents in the area have reported increasing settler violence since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel and kick-started the war in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli soldiers regularly move in to demolish homes, tents, water tanks, and olive orchards — and Palestinians fear outright expulsion could come at any time.
Adra said the journalists were eventually able to enter one of the villages in Masafer Yatta, but were barred from entering Tuwani, the village where he lives, and Khallet A-Daba, where he had hoped to take them.
Adra said settlers arrived in Khallet A-Daba on Monday and took over some of the caves where village residents live, destroying residents’ belongings and grazing hundreds of sheep on village lands.
The military demolished much of the village last month.
“No Other Land,” which won the Oscar this year for best documentary, chronicles the struggle by residents to stop the Israeli military from demolishing their villages.
The joint Palestinian-Israeli production was directed by Adra, Hamdan Ballal, another Palestinian activist from Masafer Yatta, along with Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor.
The film has won a string of international awards.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.
The Palestinians want all three for their future state and view settlement growth as a major obstacle to a two-state solution.
Israel has built well over 100 settlements, home to over 500,000 settlers who have Israeli citizenship.
The 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the Palestinian Authority administering population centers.
‘No safe place’: Writer’s group PEN International calls for arms embargo on Israel
NGO says Palestinian writers have built growing body of evidence demonstrating systematic Israeli efforts to erase the Palestinian people and their cultural heritage
Open letter details ‘irreversible loss of much of Gaza’s tangible and intangible cultural heritage’
Updated 03 June 2025
Arab News
LONDON: Writer’s group PEN International on Monday urged the international community to impose an arms embargo on all parties involved in the war in Gaza, calling specifically for a ban on weapons used by Israel in attacks that have targeted Palestinian civilians across the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
In an open letter, the London-based association expressed outrage at what it described as the global community’s failure to hold Israel accountable for the “ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.”
The letter condemned the daily killing of civilians and the prolonged blockade, calling for immediate action to halt the assault.
“PEN International has documented harrowing testimonies of Palestinian writers across the OPT, all of whom have reported and corroborated the growing body of evidence demonstrating concerted and systematic efforts by Israel to erase the Palestinian people and their cultural heritage, particularly in Gaza,” the open letter said.
The group said it shared the view of other international organizations that “genocide is being perpetrated against Palestinians in Gaza through various means,” and reported that at least 23 writers — excluding artists and other cultural workers — have been killed in Israeli bombardments since Oct. 7, 2023.
Describing the current period as “the deadliest for writers since the Second World War,” PEN International said the assault on Palestinian culture — through the destruction of heritage sites, cultural spaces, and the targeting of writers and journalists — was “a deliberate strategy to silence and erase the Palestinian people.”
The NGO joins a growing number of organizations, experts and legal scholars that have concluded Israel’s conduct in Gaza meets the threshold of genocide.
The International Court of Justice ruled last year that Palestinians face a “plausible risk of genocide,” and UN experts, aid agencies, and hundreds of legal specialists and genocide scholars have echoed that assessment.
Even former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, writing in Haaretz, recently described the offensive as a “war of extermination,” though he stopped short of using the term “genocide.”
PEN International’s letter also detailed the “irreversible loss of much of Gaza’s tangible and intangible cultural heritage,” including independent cultural institutions, personal libraries and literary work, many of which were created under extreme restrictions and later destroyed in the war.
As of the end of May, UNESCO confirmed damage to 110 cultural sites in Gaza since the war began, including religious landmarks, historic buildings, museums and archaeological sites.
Testimonies gathered by PEN International also described the conditions faced by Palestinian writers amid the persistent threat to their lives.
“The relentless Israeli military operations, the indiscriminate bombardment of so-called ‘safe zones’ with high explosives, unexploded ordnance, sniper attacks targeting civilians, and the ongoing arbitrary restrictions and ban on humanitarian aid — are a grim, daily reality,” the letter read.
“All writers who spoke to PEN International have consistently stressed that: ‘There is no place safe in Gaza’.”
Founded in London in 1921, PEN International has grown into a global cultural institution. It has not remained untouched by the rippling political effects of the Gaza war.
In September 2024, the group passed a resolution condemning the rise in targeted killings, arbitrary detentions, and restrictions on access to information in both Palestine and Israel following the Oct. 7 attacks. The resolution placed primary responsibility for these violations on Israeli authorities.
In April 2024, PEN America, the group’s US branch, was forced to cancel its annual literary awards after several authors boycotted the event over what they viewed as the organization’s failure to take a clear stance against Israel’s war on Gaza.
The decision followed an open letter signed by dozens of authors and translators who withdrew their work from the awards in protest.
Missing US journalist Austin Tice was detained by Assad regime despite denials, BBC claims
Top-secret documents are most definitive evidence yet tying the Syrian government to his disappearance
Though he vanished in August 2012 while covering Syrian civil war, US intelligence believes Tice is still alive
Updated 02 June 2025
Arab News
LONDON: Top-secret Syrian intelligence files have confirmed that missing American journalist Austin Tice was held in detention by the regime of Bashar Assad, the BBC claimed on Monday, marking the most definitive evidence yet tying the former regime to his disappearance.
Tice, a former US Marine turned freelance journalist, vanished in August 2012 near Darayya, a suburb of Damascus, just days after his 31st birthday while reporting on the escalating conflict.
For years, the Syrian regime has consistently denied any involvement.
However, files obtained by the BBC — alongside testimonies from former Syrian officials — appear to corroborate longstanding suspicions by US authorities that the Assad regime was behind his abduction.
The documents include internal communications between branches of Syrian intelligence that explicitly name Tice and detail aspects of his detention following his capture near the capital, the BBC claimed.
Shortly after his disappearance, the only public evidence of Tice’s status came in the form of a video posted online showing him blindfolded, surrounded by armed men, and reciting the Islamic declaration of faith.
Although the footage suggested extremist involvement, US intelligence at the time raised doubts about its authenticity, with one analyst calling it possibly “staged.”
Austin Tice in Cairo in March 2012. (AFP/File)
In early 2013, Reuters reported that “an American man, dressed in ragged clothing,” was seen attempting to escape through the streets of Damascus’ upscale Mazzeh neighborhood before being recaptured after more than five months in captivity.
He has not been seen since, and no group has ever claimed responsibility for holding him.
The BBC’s investigation, part of a long-running project for Radio 4, claimed that Tice was held in a regime-run detention facility believed to be the notorious Tahouneh prison in Damascus.
A former senior Syrian intelligence officer testified that Tice was detained by the pro-Assad National Defence Forces “until at least February 2013.”
According to the report, Tice suffered from stomach problems while in the NDF’s captivity and was treated by a doctor at least twice, including for a viral infection.
A witness who saw him during detention said Tice “looked sad” and “the joy had gone from his face,” though he was reportedly treated more humanely than Syrian inmates due to his perceived value.
A former member of the NDF, described by the BBC as having “intimate knowledge of Austin’s detention,” said the regime saw Tice as a “card” to be used in negotiations with the US.
The files also confirm that he attempted to escape through a window but was quickly apprehended and later interrogated at least twice, the BBC claimed.
These newly uncovered documents appear to be the first hard evidence directly tying the Assad regime to Tice’s imprisonment, undermining more than a decade of Syrian denials.
The investigation was conducted in collaboration with a Syrian war crimes investigator, who granted BBC reporters access to the intelligence archive.
Screengrab taken from a video on YouTube on October 1, 2012 shows Austin Tice, 31-years-old, blindfolded with men believed to be his captors at an undisclosed location in Syria.
Despite the collapse of the Assad regime in December, no trace of Tice was found among the prisoners released. Yet hope remains. In the immediate aftermath, then-US President Joe Biden reiterated his belief that Tice was still alive.
That view was echoed by Nizar Zakka, head of a US-based hostage advocacy group, who claimed Tice was likely being held by “very few people in a safe house in order to do an exchange or a deal.”
Two days before Biden’s remarks, Tice’s mother, Debra, said a “significant source” had confirmed her son was alive and being treated well. In early May, she told The Washington Post that the US government was aware of his location, though no further details were disclosed.
President Donald Trump also placed a spotlight on the case during his recent visit to the Gulf.
After meeting the Syrian Arab Republic’s new president, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, in Riyadh, Trump told reporters, “Austin has not been seen in many, many years,” without elaborating.
The comment came days after Sky News Arabia falsely reported that Tice’s body had been discovered in a cemetery in northern Syria, a claim the family condemned as “deeply disrespectful.”
The Tice family, who have led a decade-long campaign for answers, are aware of the new evidence, as are US officials and Syrian human rights groups.
Tice, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan before studying law at Georgetown University, is believed to be one of the longest-held American hostages in history.
According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, more than 100,000 people disappeared during Assad’s rule.
