Author: Steven Sahiounie

The Turkish lira nears record low on Friday, with foreign investors moving away from the country. However, some local bargain hunting mitigated the losses after Turkey’s Central Bank cut its policy rate and gave no hints as to how low the rates might go. The lira, which has been experiencing sharp swings during the past few years, touched 8.86 to one dollar, near its low of 8.88, which it had reached in June. The Central Bank’s cut put the interest rates below the annual inflation rate, which was 19.3% in August. This means that the stimulus that has been long…

China’s top regulators stepped up their crackdown on cryptocurrencies on Friday, imposing a blanket ban on all crypto transactions and mining and putting pressure on bitcoin and other major coins, as well as crypto and blockchain-related companies. Ten agencies, including the central bank and finance, securities, and foreign exchange authorities, have pledged to work together to combat “illegal” cryptocurrency activities. This is the first time Beijing-based regulators have banded together to expressly prohibit all cryptocurrency-related activity. Financial institutions and payment businesses in China were barred from offering services connected to cryptocurrency transactions in May, with similar prohibitions in 2013 and…

Several news reports, quoting anonymous sources, said the United States has no backup plan in case the nuclear deal with Iran fails. According to statements reported by the Al Sharq website, negotiations between US and Gulf officials proved that the United States has no backup plan in case Washington does not return to the nuclear agreement with Iran. In a similar vein, the spokesman for the US State Department, Ned Price, said that Secretary Antony Blinken stressed continuing diplomacy to ensure a mutual return to the JCPOA and confront “Iran’s continuing hostility in the Gulf.” The last period saw back-and-forth…

Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune said that he seeks to fight corruption and guarantee transparency, coupled with seeing to the protection of honest officials. Tebboune also added, in a meeting with provincial governors, that 180 newspapers are published in Algeria today, so anyone who wishes to expose corruption should go ahead and do so. On the subject of investments, he noted that one must not be overly fearful and that investors must be welcomed because the country needs them to create job opportunities. The pandemic greatly affected the economy, he said, just as it had done with the whole world, adding…

On the sidelines of the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly, the French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian met with the Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and the Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov to discuss ways to rebuild trust and reduce tensions between Yerevan and Baku, according to the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs. “During these talks, the minister explored, together with his colleagues, the steps that can be taken to help restore trust and reduce tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan,” the statement, published on Friday, said. France, the mediator France, as one of the three…

Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesman Ahmed Hafez said Egyptian FM Sameh Shoukry and his Syrian counterpart discussed the means of ending the crisis in Syria on the margins of the UN General Assembly in New York. Mekdad stressed the importance of the relations between the two nations, especially considering the historic ties between them. The spokesman indicated that the two foreign ministers met at the Permanent Mission of Egypt to the United Nations in New York, not disclosing further details. بمقر البعثة المصرية في نيويورك… وزير الخارجية #سامح_شكري يستقبل الآن وزير الخارجية السوري فيصل المقداد، وذلك للتباحث حول سبل إنهاء الأزمة…

Nearly all of the 15,000 Haitian migrants who had been at the US-Mexico borders for days, seeking asylum, have left the camps they set up after abuse from the United States and a deal with Mexico. Mexico’s deal was with the migrants ‘causing a crisis in Mexico’ after the United States turned them back. At Ciudad Acuna, a Mexican city just across the US borders, migrants were seen packing up and getting into vans as they were being transported into shelters. Only a few hours beforehand, Washington had announced that no migrants who were ‘camping illegally’ under a bridge on the…

More than 100 officials of the Tunisian Ennahda movement announced their resignation from the movement. Tunisian channel, Nesma, reported that among the resigning officials are deputies and former members of the Constituent Assembly and the Shura Council. The resigning officials issued a signed statement in which they held the wrong political choices of the Ennahda leadership responsible for the movement’s isolation. The leader ship was also held accountable for its ‘failure to engage effectively in any common front to resist President Kias Saied’s authoritarian decisions of September 22, 2021.’ Among the resigning officials is Samir Dilou, who pointed out that there…

The unofficial page of the Moroccan Armed Forces on Facebook, Far-Maroc, reported that Morocco received the first batch of Turkish Bayraktar TB2 combat drones. Local Moroccan media said that Rabat ordered 13 Bayraktar TB2 drones in April following a $70 million signed contract with the private Turkish company Baykar. Baykar is run by one of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s sons-in-law and has been exporting its Bayraktar TB2 to Ukraine, Qatar and Azerbaijan. A circulated report mentioned that Rabat aims to “modernize the arsenal of the Moroccan Armed Forces (FAR) in order to prepare for any danger and recent hostilities.”…

A suicide car exploded Saturday at a checkpoint near the presidential palace in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital. The explosion left 8 dead and was claimed by Al-Shabaab, a Somali armed group, according to the police. “We have confirmed that eight people, most of them civilians, died and seven others were wounded in the car bomb blast,” district police chief Mucawiye Ahmed Mudey told reporters. A witness told Reuters that they saw seven cars and three rickshaws destroyed in the aftermath of the blast, adding that they saw the whole junction covered in blood. Another witness said the car bomb was detonated when police stopped the…