Author: Steven Sahiounie

A Russian Su-34 fighter-bomber was shot down by Ukrainian forces in the area of Alchevsk in the Luhansk People’s Republic. The incident took place last night. The city of Alchevsk, as well as the entire territory of the Luhansk People’s Republic, is under control of Russian-led forces. According to Russian military reporters, the warplane was flying over the area at the moment when Ukrainian forces opened fire with MLRS HIMARS supplied by the U.S.. The aircraft was reportedly intercepted by Russian air defence systems aimed at intercepting Ukrainian missiles. The same sources reported that the crew successfully ejected and was…

Oil prices have taken to new heights after it was revealed that US President Joe Biden failed to persuade Saudi Arabia and the UAE to increase their oil output into the global market. The price of oil rose on Monday after US President Joe Biden left West Asia without striking a deal with Saudi Arabia on Riyadh pumping out more oil into the global oil market. Biden traveled to Saudi with hopes of persuading Saudi Arabia to promise to increase its oil output in a bid to relieve the pressure on the global supply chain. Following his meeting with Saudi Crown…

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in a virtual meeting with his Syrian counterpart Faisal Mekdad called on the US to refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of the Middle Eastern countries. Taking a dig at Biden’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia, Wang Yi blamed the US for attempting to transform the region based on their own standards and called on the United States and other Western nations to truly respect the national sovereignty of countries in the Middle East, China Daily reported. They should contribute more to peace and development in the Middle East by listening to the needs…

On July 18th, the Russian Ministry of Defence reported that Russian Forces in Ukraine destroyed hundreds of foreign mercenaries, including members of the Ukrainian Foreign Legion. According to the report of the Ministry, Russian high-precision missiles hit the enemy military positions in the village of Konstantinovka in the Donetsk People’s Republic. The village is located 15 kilometers to the west of Bakhmut (Artyomovsk). As a result of the strike, up to 250 foreign fighters, seven armored vehicles, as well as 12 special vehicles were destroyed. Another target of Russian missiles were military positions of the battalion of the 118th Brigade of the…

Iraqi forces killed a militant of the Daesh (ISIS or ISIL) terrorist group in northern parts of the country, the Iraqi military said. Acting on intelligence reports, a joint force from the army and Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), also known as Hashd al-Shaabi, shot dead a Daesh militant wearing an explosive belt in the Tarmiyah area, some 30 km north of the capital Baghdad, the media office of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command said in a statement. In a separate incident, a soldier was killed and another wounded in an attack by militants from the terrorist group on an…

An unprecedented heat wave is underway in France and the U.K. that is likely to topple all-time national high temperature records and potentially kill several thousand people. The scorching heat is moving north into a more vulnerable region after tormenting Spain and Portugal. This is a climate change-related public health emergency. Already, hundreds are dead from heat-related causes in Portugal and Spain and the toll is likely to climb much further. The U.K. Met Office is forecasting the country’s first-ever occurrence of 104°F (40°C) temperatures during this event, with a high of 97°F Monday. The U.K.’s national temperature record stands at 101.66°F (38.7°C) set in 2019. That…

By:Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator There is indication that the P5+1 (US, UK, Russia, China, France and Germany) will agree to a new nuclear deal.The EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell traveled to Tehran and succeeded in gaining a resumption of indirect talks between the US and Iran in Qatar.Trade between Iran and the EU reached $5.07 billion in 2021, up 9 percent compared to the previous year. The war in Ukraine has caused the EU to urgently seek the Iran nuclear deal. Borrell said in May, “We Europeans will be very much beneficiaries from this (nuclear) deal, the…

Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator aThe UN Security Council has agreed to extend a system for cross-border aid to Idlib, Syria until January 2023. The US and its allies had demanded a year-long extension, but Russia used its veto on Friday. UN and other NGO aid delivery trucks will cross from Turkey into Syria at the Bab al Hawa crossing. The system has been in place since 2014, but expired on Sunday. At stake are daily supplies for about 2 million people in the northwestern Idlib region of Syria. According to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian…

Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator The battlefields in Syria are quiet, but the conflict is far from resolution. Despite the lack of focus on Syria by the US, EU and NATO, there are still developments in the region and among the various players. Resolving the Syrian conflict seems to be on the back-burner of the Biden administration, and yet the US President will soon visit the Middle East. What new developments are brewing in Syria?  To answer that question, Steven Sahiounie of MidEastDiscourse interviewed Basma Qaddour, a Syrian journalist, co-author of “Voices from Syria” book, and head of the…

The American troops transited a batch of 45 oil tankers plundered to their military bases in Iraq. The US continued to plunder Syrian oil from the al-Jazeera area, as its forces brought out tens of tankers loaded with fat and vehicles carrying military equipment from Syrian territory towards Iraqi territory through illegitimate crossings in the Hasaka countryside, Syrian official News Agency, SANA reported on Thursday. A convoy consisting of 35 vehicles, including 20 tankers, loaded with stolen oil from the oil wells occupied by the US occupation forces in al-Jazeera, in several covered trucks and refrigerators, headed through the illegal…