Author: Steven Sahiounie

The CDC will reportedly ask some fully vaccinated Americans to once again wear face masks in certain indoor settings. The decision, made amid a surge in Covid-19 cases, dramatically reverses the organization’s earlier guidance. Two months ago, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cleared fully vaccinated Americans to return to indoor areas such as restaurants and work spaces without masks. Now, they’re ready to backpedal, according to media reports on Tuesday. With the more transmissible Delta variant of the coronavirus infecting even the vaccinated, and with cases rising in areas with low inoculation rates, the CDC is expected to…

Members of an armed cell who allegedly worked with Israel’s Mossad spy agency and planned to provoke violence during protests in Iran have been detained, Tehran’s Intelligence Ministry has told local media. The group, which allegedly had access to a heavy shipment of weapons and ammunition, was recently apprehended after entering Iran through its western border, an official from the ministry told the Fars news agency. The official didn’t elaborate on the size of the unit or the nationality of those arrested, but they insisted that the suspects were acting in cooperation with Mossad, the Israeli spy agency. The weapons seized from…

Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator Najib Mikati has received 73 votes from the Lebanese Parliament, making him the new Prime Minister elect. He stated he would not have accepted the position unless he had international support, and he agreed with President Michel Aoun to form a government using the French model. The UN will co-host along with France an international conference scheduled for August 4. Diplomates believe the topics will be how to force Lebanese political elites to agree on reforms, and how to deal with the humanitarian crisis unfolding. The fate of the Lebanese Army also is threatened,…

Al Jazeera said police broke into its office in Tunisia after President Kais Saied suspended parliament activities and sacked the country’s prime minister. Saied’s move was labeled a coup by opponents. The Qatari state-funded channel said at least 20 armed plainclothes police officers entered its Tunis office on Monday and instructed all journalists to leave. Al Jazeera quoted its Tunisian bureau as saying that police did not have a warrant, but claimed they were acting under orders from the country’s judiciary. The journalists had their phones and other equipment seized and were not allowed back into the building to get…

Campbell Newman, the former premier of Queensland and ex-leader of the Liberal National Party, has accused his colleagues of abandoning Australian values during the Covid-19 pandemic after publicly resigning from the party. Newman resigned on Monday, accusing the party – which he led between April 2011 and February 2015 – of failing “to stand up for our core values” during the Covid-19 pandemic, such as “fiscal responsibility, smaller government, support for small business,” and “the defence of free speech and liberty.” “The last straw for me has been the destruction of people’s livelihoods, jobs and freedoms under governments’ heavy-handed response to COVID-19 across the nation,” he…

Iran has broken another sad record in daily Covid-19 infections, just days after its capital, Tehran, tightened lockdown measures. The country is one of the hardest hit in the Middle East. The Iranian health ministry released its daily coronavirus report on Monday, with 31,814 infections recorded in under 24 hours. The figure is the highest recorded in the Islamic Republic to date. On July 20, Iran reported 27,444 infections, the highest level the country had seen since mid-April. The government announced the rollout of Covid-19 curbs in Tehran and neighboring Alborz province last Tuesday. Government offices, as well as non-essential…

The antibody protection generated in recipients of the Sinovac Biotech Covid-19 vaccine begins to fall 6 months after the second dose has been administered, according to a new study from China-based researchers. A research paper published on Sunday found that only 16.9% of people who had received two doses of the Chinese vaccine two weeks apart, and 35.2% of those who had both jabs four weeks apart, still had antibodies above the neutralizing threshold six months after that second vaccine. While the paper has not yet been peer-reviewed, researchers at the disease control authority in China’s Jiangsu province examined blood samples of…

Hundreds of Malaysian doctors have staged walkouts from major hospitals, demanding that the government offer better job security and wages. The protests come amid a spike of coronavirus infections. Medical workers protested en masse across the country to fight for the better treatment of over 20,000 junior contract doctors that have worked at the forefront of the coronavirus pandemic. “Our strike is not about resistance, we only want the government to give us the same rights and benefits that permanent doctors get,” one of the participants told local media. The junior doctors account for almost half of the country’s medical doctors in…

Crime agency Interpol has released details of ‘Operation Liberterra’, a mission coordinated by authorities in dozens of states which led to the rescue of 430 human trafficking victims and the arrest of 286 suspects. Law enforcement agencies across 47 countries participated in the mission, under which some 500,000 inspections were carried out at checkpoints and airports following local intelligence and tip-offs, Interpol said in a statement on Monday. As well as the overarching mission to combat migrant smuggling, the agency said that a further 60 transnational investigations have been launched to focus on forged identification, after an influx of fake or stolen…

The New Zealand government announced on Monday that it has agreed to repatriate a suspected ISIS member and her kids from Turkey, after the Australian government stood by its decision to strip them of their citizenship. The woman, named in the media as Suhayra Aden, and her two children were detained by Turkish authorities in February 2021 after they attempted to illegally cross over into the country from Syria. However, as dual Australian-New Zealand citizens, with the mother having grown up in the former country, there has been an ongoing debate over where she will be repatriated. Alongside 16 other…