Author: Steven Sahiounie

Led by Rosatom, the $30 billion project is expected to be completed by 2028  Russian state-owned Rosatom has begun construction on the El Dabaa nuclear power plant, the company said in a press release published on Wednesday. “The start of construction on the El Dabaa power plant’s first reactor means Egypt is now joining the club of the world’s nuclear energy producing nations,” Rosatom CEO Alexey Likhachyov said at a ceremony launching the construction. Located on Egypt’s northern coast some 130 kilometers northwest of Cairo, El Dabaa will be Egypt’s first nuclear power plant as well as Rosatom’s first major project…

China calls on the United States to halt its illegal activity of siphoning Syria’s resources out of the country as its occupation persists. The United States must stop siphoning oil and grain out of Syria and make up for the damage caused by its military presence on Syrian soil, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Wednesday. “The US must … immediately lift unilateral sanctions on Syria, stop plundering Syrian national resources and take concrete steps to compensate Syrians for the damage,” Wang Wenbin told a press briefing. The US occupation forces remain largely in control of oil and grain-rich…

President Erdogan criticizes US aiding and working with YPG/PKK terrorists in northern Syria, close to Türkiye’s border The US needs to withdraw its forces from regions of Syria east of the Euphrates River, as part of the Astana peace process for Syria, the Turkish president said Wednesday. “America has to leave east of the Euphrates now. This is an outcome that came out of the Astana process,” said Recep Tayyip Erdogan, one day after an Astana process summit with the Russian and Iranian presidents, stressing that his Astana partners agree with this judgement. “Türkiye expects this as well because it…

The seventh package includes a ban on Russian gold imports and jewelry. The European Union has adopted the seventh package of sanctions against Moscow that will take effect this Thursday after they are published in the official journal, according to the Czech EU Presidency on Wednesday. In a tweet, the presidency said, “Ambassadors approved the next sanctions package in response to the Russian aggression against Ukraine. The new measures will align the EU with G7 partners, reinforce implementation and close loopholes where necessary… This package will be adopted by the Council by written procedure, which will end tomorrow at 10:00. The sanctions…

Kiev will receive four additional advanced rocket systems in the next military aid package, Pentagon chief says  Ukraine will receive four more high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS) from Washington as part of the next security assistance package, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced on Wednesday. “Later this week, we’ll roll out our next presidential drawdown package of weapons, ammunition and equipment for Ukraine,” Austin said while hosting a virtual meeting of the US-led Ukraine Contact Group. “It will include four more HIMARS advanced rocket systems, which the Ukrainians have been using so effectively and which have made such…

At least nine people were killed and 25 injured in a Turkish rocket attack in Iraq’s northern province of Dohuk, a Kurdish security source and a Kurdish official said on Wednesday. The Kurdish official said that the attack hit a resort in Zakho, a city on the border between Iraqi Kurdistan and Türkiye. Kurdish sources, publishing a video, reported that the Howitzer missile hit a resort in northern Iraq in the attack, and several people were injured. News sources also confirmed that several Arab tourists were killed and wounded in the artillery assault. Moments later, media sources reported that several women…

On July 20, Kiev forces carried out another attack on the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) which is controlled by the Russian military. Local authorities in Zaporizhia said that none of the power plant’s reactors were damages as a result of the attack, which was carried out with Polish-made Warmate loitering munition. The authorities and RIA Novosti shared photos showing the remains of the munitions. The Warmate, which was developed by WB Electronics, has a range of 40 kilometers and an endurance of up to 50 minutes. The loitering munition relies on a GPS-aided inertial navigation system. For target…

On July 20, Russian sources shared two videos showing recent strikes with Lancet and KUB-BLA loitering munitions on Ukrainian military targets. The first video shows Lancet loitering munitions targeting two fortified positions of Kiev forces on one of the frontlines in the Kherson region. The other video shows a Lancet loitering munition destroying a Ukrainian armored personnel carrier and a strike with a KUB-BLA loitering munition on a gathering of Kiev forces. Both strikes also took place on a frontline in Kherson. Both the Lancet and the KUB-BLA were developed by the ZALA Aero Group, a s subsidiary of Russian…

Sergey Lavrov says the shortage of competent politicians is “convenient” for the EU’s bureaucracy The bureaucrats in Brussels are the real winners from today’s lack of competent leaders in Europe, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with RT and Sputnik on Wednesday. “The [current] Western elites are very adequate in their own eyes, but they are restricted [in terms] of political experience and vision,” Lavrov told RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan. “The lack of bright leaders is something really convenient.” “To whom?” Simonyan asked. “To the bureaucrats that make up the European Commission,” he said. “They have become ‘a thing-in-itself’. It’s no…

According to Maria Zakharova, Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio continues to look for external causes of his country’s domestic political problems European politicians should search for the causes of domestics crises in their mistakes and unprofessionalism, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday in a commentary distributed in connection with the statements of Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio. “We would advise European politicians to look for the causes of their domestic crises in their own mistakes and unprofessionalism, the social and economic consequences of which are increasingly felt by ordinary citizens of EU countries,” the commentary…