Author: Steven Sahiounie

Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator Iraq’s National Security Council formed a committee to investigate the assassination attempt on Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, who was targeted on early Sunday morning by three explosives-laden drones, two of which were intercepted. Kadhimi appeared only lightly injured, wearing a bandage on his wrist, in a video soon after the attack on his residence in the Green Zone. According to sources who spoke to Reuters on Monday, the attack was carried out by at least one Iranian-backed militia group and said the drones and explosives used in the assault were Iranian-made. Two Iraqi…

Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator Tunisia has issued an international arrest warrant against former president Moncef Marzouki, it was reported on November 4.  The charges may be connected to allegations Marzouki had conspired against state security after he had asked France to end support of the current administration last month. President Kais Saied accused “traitors that seek refuge overseas” of threatening Tunisia’s sovereignty and urged the new Justice Minister Leila Jaffel to open an inquiry. Marzouki fled Tunisia for France, the former colonial power in Tunisia, and he told Al Jazeera TV he was not surprised by the arrest…

Iran’s foreign minister says the United States has not shown any serious determination to back up its verbal claims that it is ready to return to the nuclear deal with Iran from which Washington withdrew under former President Donald Trump back in 2018. In a Sunday interview with Iran daily newspaper, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian reflected on the diplomatic efforts launched to resume talks, several rounds of which have been already held in the Austrian capital, Vienna, to remove unlawful sanctions imposed by the United States on Iran following the former’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of…

By Charles Kennedy OPEC+ is ready to risk prices going higher and affecting demand rather than add more supply to curb the upward potential of benchmarks, Reuters’ John Kemp wrote in a column this week. According to Kemp, OPEC+, like US shale oil drillers, tend to put more weight on the downside risks for prices than on upside risks. Indeed, Saudi Arabia’s oil minister Abdulaziz bin Salman earlier this week said OPEC+ was in no rush to boost production in response to calls for more barrels as the cartel didn’t take anything for granted. “We don’t take things for granted,” the official said.…

Sergey Lavrov has condemned the US’ move to deploy a guided-missile destroyer to the Black Sea, stating that the ship’s mission was not an “isolated incident” but part of a consistent confrontational policy targeting Russia. Speaking on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Rome on Sunday, Lavrov criticized the deployment of the USS Porter to the Black Sea region. “Demonstration of the US Navy flag in the Black Sea is not an isolated incident. There were several times when the United States explicitly explained the need for its warships to enter this waterway to ‘contain’ Russia,” Lavrov told reporters. Such…

With the participation of a number of Syrian youth, activities of the Arab Youth Solidarity Initiative with Lebanon were kicked on Saturday, organized by the Arab National Forum in Lebanon. 40 youth graduates from Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Yemen, Bahrain and Kuwait take part in the four-day initiative. In a speech by the Revolution Youth Union, Solina Hamadeh, affirmed the importance of the Syrian participation to renew solidarity with brotherly Lebanon, with both countries face an unjust economic blockade that affected people’s livelihoods because they defended their territory and rejected all forms of occupation.source : sana.sy

Meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, his US counterpart, Joe Biden apologized for the announcement of a submarine deal with the UK and Australia, calling it “clumsy” and France an “extremely valued partner.” “What we did was clumsy, it was not done with a lot of grace,” Biden said on Friday. I was under the impression certain things had happened that hadn’t happened. “I want to make it clear, France is an extremely, extremely valued partner,” he added. France is a power in its own right, and “we have the same value system.” “For me, it’s the future we need to look at,” the…

Iran and Russia have underlined that any new negotiations with the remaining members of the 2015 nuclear deal would succeed only if they lead to the removal of anti-Iran sanctions and the full implementation of the deal by all parties. On Friday, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Baqeri-Kani met with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Ryabkov, during his visit to Moscow. Baqeri-Kani arrived in Moscow on Thursday evening to continue talks he started in Brussels on how to remove the United States’ unlawful sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic. “The new talks will only be successful if they lead to the…

Iran says the US Treasury Department’s latest move to impose a fresh round of sanctions on Iranian natural and legal persons contradicts Washington’s claim of seeking to return to the nuclear deal of 2015 and proves the White House is by no means reliable. “The imposition of new sanctions exposes the quite contradictory behavior of the White House,” Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Friday. He added that an administration that speaks about its intention to return to the JCPOA – the nuclear deal officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – and continues the same…

Israeli media agencies quoted former senior officials in the Israeli occupation’s security establishment as ‘concerned’ about the exposure of their secret bases via satellite. “Anyone who knows how to decipher satellite images can obtain information about valuable strategic or military targets in Israel and anywhere in the world,” Yedioth Ahronoth (Ynet) newspaper reported. The newspaper noted that “former senior officials in the security establishment are concerned about allowing US companies to increase the accuracy of satellite images on map sites, and thus erase secret bases and sites.” The newspaper added that the former head of the National Security Council of the occupation,…