On 24 June 2020, Egyptian security forces raided the offices of the online al-Manassa news agency and arrested its editor-in-chief, Noura Younis, reported the agency on Twitter.

On 21 June 2020, the Cairo Criminal Court sentenced 16 people for links with the terrorist Al-Nusra group in Syria. The court sentenced 13 defendants to life in prison, and three others to 15 years on charges of joining Al-Nusra Front and participating in its operations.

Turkey has continued its military offensive against the Kurdish PKK in northern Iraq.

Young LGBT+ activist, Sarah Hegazy, was found dead in her home in Canada, where she’s lived in exile since 2018.

On 14 June 2020, Iranian authorities announced a rapid increase of Covid-19 deaths. More than 100 deaths were reported within the last 24 hours, taking the total death toll up to 8,837.

For the first time since it was founded in 1932, Saudi Arabia is contemplating the cancellation of the most important annual Muslim ritual – Hajj pilgrimage – this year after the number of coronavirus cases has exceeded 100,000.

On 12 June 2020, Turkey criticised claims by Twitter that thousands of fake profiles had been set up to amplify political narratives favourable to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party. Twitter said that 7,340 accounts, primarily targeted at domestic audiences…

On 3 June 2020, Russia confirmed the delivery of more MiG-29 combat aircraft to Syria; just days after the US military had accused Moscow of using Syria to transfer warplanes to Libya. This is the “second batch” of advanced MiG-29…

On 1 June 2020, Qatar Petroleum (QP) said that it has signed agreements with South Korea’s “Big 3” shipyards to secure more than 100 ships costing more than 70 billion Qatari riyals (approximately $19.3bn).

Turkey and Russia have been discussing a joint development of aviation and air defence systems, Director of the Russian Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation Dmitry Shugayev said 2 June 2020.