Author: Steven Sahiounie

Argentina’s President Alberto Fernandez announced a new cabinet on Friday in a bid to end a political crisis with his Vice President Cristina de Kirchner this week, following an electoral defeat in legislative primaries. Juan Manzur, governor of Tucuman Province, will take over as Prime Minister from Santiago Cafiero, one of Kirchner’s most controversial officials, the presidency announced. The new cabinet will be sworn in on Monday. What caused the political crisis? The crisis flared up after the resignation of left-wing ministers who allied with Vice President de Kirchner due to the economic crisis, as a result of which the…

Syria stressed that “Israel” remaining outside the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) “represents a grave danger to regional and international peace and security.” Syria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations and other international organizations in Vienna, Hussein Khaddour, stated in a statement published by SANA that with the Israeli occupation entity with all its nuclear capabilities remaining outside the framework of the NPT and the comprehensive safeguards agreement with the IAEA poses a grave danger to the non-proliferation system. Khaddour’s statement came during the September session of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors in Vienna. He…

Washington admitted on Friday that it had killed 10 civilians, including seven children, in the drone strike the US airforce carried out in Kabul. The US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin apologized Friday for a drone strike in the Afghan capital Kabul that killed 10 civilians, including children, during the chaotic US pullout last month. “I offer my deepest condolences to surviving family members of those who were killed,” Austin said in a statement. “We apologize, and we will endeavor to learn from this horrible mistake,” he said. It is worth mentioning that a US drone strike in Kabul that killed 10 civilians, including…

The former president of Algeria, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, has died at the age of 84, as announced by the Algerian state television. Bouteflika had ruled Algeria for 20 years since 1999. He was forced to relinquish power following pressure from a popular movement that rose to reject his candidacy for a fifth term. At the time, the popular demand was supported by army generals led by the late Chief of Staff Ahmed Gaid Salah. Bouteflika assumed the presidency in 1999 Since his resignation, Bouteflika has been living out of sight in isolation in his medically equipped residence in Zeralda, in western…

Al Mayadeen correspondent reported that the second group of diesel tankers (of the first shipment), which Hezbollah brought from Iran for the people of Lebanon, has crossed the Syrian border toward Lebanon. Images of the new batch entering Lebanon last night were circulated on social media. On Thursday, the first batch of 104 diesel tankers had arrived in Lebanon. Earlier, Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah called on people to refrain from organizing any popular gatherings in Baalbeck in celebration of the diesel trucks’ arrival. Meanwhile, the Director of Al-Amana Petroleum, which is set to distribute the fuel, told Al Mayadeen that the shipment is being…

On Saturday, the online voting monitoring service in Moscow revealed that more than one million people voted in the State Duma elections remotely. The service indicated in published data that about 1.2 million people participated in e-voting in Moscow on the first day of the elections. The votes included both major and minor federal electoral districts, the service reported. 450 seats in the Russian State Duma Members of the State Duma will be elected for a term of 5 years. Russia has a mixed electoral system: 225 deputies from multi-member districts, and 225 deputies from single-member districts. Fourteen parties are…

Confrontations between Palestinian youths and the occupation forces broke out on Friday evening near al-Jalama checkpoint, northeast of Jenin (north of the occupied West Bank). According to eyewitnesses, the Israeli occupation forces at the checkpoint fired stun grenades and tear gas at the young men who took to the streets in support of the four re-arrested prisoners who had broken out of the Israeli Gilboa Prison. No injuries were reported. The occupation forces had called in reinforcements to al-Jalama checkpoint and to the west of Jenin, during the past few days, after six prisoners had managed to break out of…

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a joint venture between Russia’s Gazprom and five European partners, aims to carry Russian natural gas to Germany across the Baltic Sea.The construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline has come to an end, Russian energy giant Gazprom said on Friday. “At a morning operational meeting […], the chairman of Gazprom’s Management Board, Alexey Miller, said that this morning at 08.45 Moscow time [05:45 GMT] construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline had been fully completed,” Gazprom announced on its Telegram channel.Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova emphasised that stopping Nord Stream 2 is “impossible”,…

Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), Ali Shamkhani, said on Sunday, during his meeting with Iraqi PM Mustafa al-Kadhimi, that “terrorist activity in Kurdistan is worrisome,” adding that such activity targets both countries’ border security and that terrorists “must be expelled from northern Iraq.” Shamkhani also highlighted the normalization of ties with the Israeli occupation by some regional countries, saying that it serves US interests and “destabilizes regional security.” He also said that the strengthening of relations on all levels with neighboring countries is a long-standing policy of Iran and one of its most important priorities. “20 years…

A senior US envoy said on Saturday he had delivered reassurances to Ukraine and Poland on mitigating any threat posed by Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, but that the project was now a “reality”. Amos Hochstein, the State Department’s senior adviser for energy security, told Reuters there was “breathing room” until 2024 to ensure Ukraine kept its status as a gas transit country but urged Kyiv to move towards alternative energy sources. The United States has been Ukraine’s most powerful backer in a standoff with Moscow since Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula in 2014, but Kyiv opposed a US-German…