Author: Steven Sahiounie

A solemn ceremony was held on the occasion of the Chinese president’s departure Chinese President Xi Jinping has completed the program of his state visit to Moscow and has left Russia on Wednesday morning, a TASS correspondent reported from the scene. The Chinese leader’s plane took off from Moscow’s Vnukovo-2 airport after a packed two-day program of talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on one-on-one and in the expanded circle of delegates. Russia has become the first country Xi Jinping visited after his re-election for a third term by the National People’s Congress (parliament). A solemn ceremony was held…

Vladimir Churov turned 70 last Friday Former chairman of Russia’s Central Election Commission Vladimir Churov died of a massive heart attack on Wednesday, he was 70, lawmaker Leonid Ivlev told TASS. “It’s sad news indeed. [He died] after surgery in a hospital at 8:00 a.m. today. Vladimir Yevgenyevich passed away after suffering a serious heart attack,” Ivlev said. According to Ivlev, who was deputy chairman of the election commission in 2008-2016, Churov felt good back on Tuesday and Monday and he was planning to write a book about US meddling in elections abroad. A person close to Churov also shared…

“We have no doubt left that the US’ medical-biological program is of dual purpose, and this second purpose of the US’ program is its military dimension,” Konstantin Kosachev said Russia’s parliamentary commission investigating the work of American biological laboratories in Ukraine considers its mission completed as it managed to piece together the puzzle of the US’ biological activities across the world, co-head of the commission, Deputy Speaker of Russia’s Federation Council (upper house) Konstantin Kosachev said on Wednesday. “What we saw was obviously not originally meant to be discovered, much less be investigated. But we, our parliamentary commission, considers its…

The French leader admitted that he had a responsibility to “settle the understandable anger”, however, he pointed out that this anger should not turn into violence, which he said was unacceptable French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday against the backdrop of the pension reform unfolding in the country that he was ready to sacrifice his popularity for France’s interests as he did not intend to be re-elected. “I am not going to do another term, I cannot do it according to the Constitution. Between the opinion polls and the interests of the country I will choose the latter,” he…

The Israeli government could be taking the occupation steps backward, threatening normalization agreements with Arab countries. The United Arab Emirates is considering decreasing the level of its diplomatic representation in “Israel” and is instructing its ambassador in “Tel Aviv”, Ahmed Al-Khaja, not to meet any Israeli official, member of the Knesset, or minister at this stage, and not to participate in any official ceremonies, according to Elaph. Elaph learned that this came after the Israeli Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich’s statements, in which he said that there are no Palestinian people, thus nullifying any entity for the Palestinians. The same minister had called…

Early on March 22, a series of Israeli strikes hit Aleppo International Airport in northern Syria, placing it out of service for the second time in recent weeks. The Syrian Arab News Agency, citing a military source, said that the Israeli fighter jets launched several missiles at the airport from over the Mediterranean sea, causing some material losses. The state-run agency didn’t report any casualties, however. According to a notice sent by Syrian aviation authorities, known as a NOTAM, the runway at the airport was closed after the attack. In a statement, the Syrian Ministry of Transport said that the…

The spokesperson for the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nasser Kanaani, dismissed the latest annual report by the US State Department on Iran’s human rights situation, calling it baseless, without credibility, and politically motivated. Kanaani criticized the US government’s interventionist approach towards independent countries and said the report has no legitimacy to judge or evaluate human rights issues in international relations. The spokesperson emphasized the loftiness and importance of human rights in Iran’s Constitution, laws, and regulations, and stressed that the US has no authority to speak about the values of human rights in other countries. He stated that there is…

Dmitry Peskov calls Bloomberg’s claim that no agreement has been struck “low-skilled misinformation” Western media reports on the lack of a major natural gas deal between Russia and China are fake, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday, referring to stories citing information published by Bloomberg. Peskov noted that earlier this week, Russian energy giant Gazprom announced a daily record in gas supplies to China through the Power of Siberia pipeline. “It [the Bloomberg report] looks like low-skilled misinformation. The reality is quite different,” Peskov told Russian business daily RBK. “The issues of expanding of supplies were discussed. By the way, just…

The two sides want to seal an agreement on the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline as soon as possible, Aleksandr Novak says Moscow and Beijing are actively working on the implementation of the Power of Siberia 2 energy project, which was among the issues discussed during President Xi Jinping’s official visit to Russia this week. That’s according to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak, who spoke to Izvestia news agency on Tuesday about the proposed megadeal. “The project has support. Companies have been instructed to work out the details of the project and sign it as soon as possible,” he said. It is…

Elon Musk has proposed a solution to the current banking crisis in the US. The government must do away with the current $250,000 insurance cap on all deposits to stop panicking clients from withdrawing their money, the Tesla CEO wrote in a Twitter post on Tuesday. His comments come in response to a media report that US officials are studying ways to temporarily insure deposits beyond the current limit, without having to get approval from Congress. “Absolutely required to stop bank runs,” Musk wrote. The banking crisis began in the US earlier this month with the sudden collapse of Silicon Valley…