Author: Steven Sahiounie

France’s National Agency for the Security of Information Systems (ANSSI) has confirmed that three French journalists had their devices infected with the Israeli spyware Pegasus. Iconic whistleblower Edward Snowden called the development “enormous.” Traces of the Israeli NSO Group’s spyware were found by ANSSI on the phones of Mediapart co-founder and president Edwy Plenel, Mediapart investigative journalist Lénaïg Bredoux, and a journalist at the French state-owned news channel France 24, according to Le Monde. It marks the first time an official state authority has confirmed the findings of news outlets who reported the spyware last month. ANSSI reportedly informed the Paris public prosecutor…

North Korea has hit out at the UK after Britain announced it would be permanently stationing two ships in the Asia-Pacific, claiming that London would be better off focusing on Brexit rather than “restoring its declining status.” In a statement on Tuesday, the North Korean Foreign Ministry decried Britain’s decision to permanently station military vessels in the Asia-Pacific. “The UK, which is intensifying the situation by pushing warships into the distant Asia-Pacific region, is using our ‘threat’ as an excuse,” a statement on the Foreign Ministry’s website read, labelling Britain’s actions as “dangerous” and a “provocation.” The statement says that the UK is acting on an “absurd…

Chinese officials mocked The Washington Post and The New York Times for putting the United States first or “tied” with China in its coverage of the Tokyo Olympics, despite China receiving more gold medals. China currently has eight more gold medals than the US, but both The New York Times and The Washington Post list the US at the top of the Tokyo Olympics leaderboard. The US outlets are using total medals won as their methodology, despite the fact that traditionally, the country with the most gold medals sits at the top of the table. However, even when China and…

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has said Israel is able to “act alone” against Iran, following a fatal attack on an oil tanker which Tel Aviv, the US and UK claim was carried out by Tehran. Speaking on Tuesday, Bennett warned of the “price” to those who threaten the Jewish state and declared that Israel is fully capable of defending itself unilaterally against Tehran, saying: “We are working to rally the world, but at the same time we also know to act alone.” Iran already knows the price we exact when someone threatens our security. The Iranians need to understand that it is impossible…

France has announced in a statement on Monday that the United Nations has set Lebanon’s needs for the international aid conference, co-hosted by France and the UN on Wednesday, at $350 million. The international conference will take place on the same day as the anniversary of the Beirut Port explosion, which killed more than 200 people and injured thousands on August 4th, 2020. Lebanon has fallen into an unprecedented economic crisis, which was ranked by the World Bank as one of the three worst crises since the mid-19th century. The Lebanon aid conference comes in the backdrop of Hariri resigning from forming the…

Iran’s telecoms minister says infrastructure and data centers deployed for the domestic internet service in the country have reached a bandwidth capacity of over 221 terabits per second (Tb/s). Mohammad Javad Azari said on Monday that bandwidth used in the National Information Network (NIN) was only 648 gigabits per second in 2013 when the project kicked off. The NIN is a safe network based on Internet Protocol which allows high-speed internet services in Iran without the need for data requests to be routed outside of the country. The system proved very critical during an internet blackout in Iran in November…

The Iranian government has approved to allocate a fixed budget for dispensing loans to home businesses as the country seeks to provide more support for self-employed people and to encourage more economic activity among women in the country. Iran’s labor minister Mohammad Shariatmadari said on Monday that a fixed sum of 20 trillion rials ($80 million) will be available annually for offering cheap loans to home businesses. Shariatmadari said the funding will mostly target women and housewives who rely on home businesses for their living. He said over 350,000 people have applied to receive loans under the home business scheme.…

The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas says Israel will never obtain a single piece of information about the fate of its soldiers who were captured during the Israeli war on the besieged Gaza Strip in 2014 unless it pays a price. Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, said in a statement on Monday that “the Israeli army, with its technical and intelligence capabilities, had been desperately attempting since seven years [ago] to get information about the fate of its captive soldiers,” adding, “such information is impossible to get without paying specific prices,” the Palestinian Information Center reported. On August 1, 2014, Israeli soldier Hadar…

The Lebanese army has detained two men wanted over a deadly attack on Shia mourners at a funeral in a town south of the capital Beirut. In a deadly incident on Sunday afternoon, armed assailants attacked a convoy of mourners in the town of Khaldeh, shooting down at least three people and wounding a number of others. The funeral ceremony had been held for Ali Shibli, a member of Hezbollah resistance movement, who had been shot dead during a wedding ceremony the day before. The resistance movement said the killing of Shibli reflected lawlessness and bigotry. Sunni Arab tribes claimed…

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh has called upon the international community to put an end to the Israeli regime’s policies of persecution, racism, and ethnic cleansing against Palestinians in the occupied East al-Quds neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan, which are being carried out in order to make way for extremist Jewish settlers. Speaking during a weekly cabinet meeting in the central West Bank city of Ramallah on Monday, Shtayyeh described the Israeli judicial system as a cover for the regime’s policies against Palestinians throughout the entire occupied territories. He noted that such policies are in blatant violation of the…