Author: Steven Sahiounie

The “Israel National Cyber Directorate” said on Thursday that it has reached an accord with Morocco on cybersecurity cooperation. This is their first cyber-defense agreement, since the resumption of relations between the two parties. According to the Israeli network, “I24News”, the agreement is for operational cooperation, research and development, and information and knowledge sharing. The agreement was signed in Rabat this week by Yigal Unna, Director General of the “Israeli Cyber Directorate”, General El Mostafa Rabii, and Moroccan Defense Minister Abdellatif Loudiyi. Morocco and “Israel” announced the restart of relations in December, after they were stopped in 2000 following the…

A spokesman for the Russian Emergencies Ministry announced that all the passengers of the plane “An-28,” which disappeared earlier today, are alive. A source at the Russian Ministry of Emergency told “Sputnik” that the site of the crash had been found. Four helicopters began searching for the plane, which disappeared from radar screens on Friday while flying above the “Tomsk” region in central Russia. 17 people, including four children, were on board. Last Wednesday, the Russian Ministry of Emergency announced that the bodies of 19 passengers of the An-26 plane had been found at the crash site on the Kamchatka Peninsula.…

Iran says it supports Afghan peace talks aimed at ending the violence in Afghanistan, amid an unprecedented spike in violence in the eastern neighboring country. “Iran supports an end to the violence in Afghanistan and a solution to the crisis through dialogue,” Seyyed Rasoul Mousavi, head of the West Asia Department at Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said. Mousavi made the remarks during a Kabul meeting with Abdullah Abdullah, head of Kabul’s High Council for National Reconciliation. “The Iranian people and government want an end to the long war in Afghanistan,” he reiterated. Abdullah, for his part, thanked Iran’s support for the…

China says the United States is required to take “concrete actions” and completely lift its illegal and unilateral sanctions against Iran in order to return to the 2015 multilateral nuclear deal. Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Zhao Lijian made the remarks during his regular press conference on Thursday in response to a question about Beijing’s view on the prospect of the nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), on the sixth anniversary of its conclusion and amid negotiations in Vienna to revive the agreement, which was abandoned by the US in 2018. “China welcomes the fact that the…

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has warned of a risk of the violence in Afghanistan spilling over to neighboring countries, as the Taliban militant group increases its activities in the war-ravaged country. Lavrov made the remark during a plenary session of a high-level international conference in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent on Friday. “The threat of such a scenario remains a serious obstacle to the involvement of Afghanistan in regional cooperation,” Lavrov said, adding that the situation in Afghanistan had been “rapidly degrading” in recent days. The top Russian diplomat said that the uncertainty about the development of the military and political situation in…

The Iranian foreign minister says the US government is involved in hatching assassination plots against the leaders of certain countries while accusing others of kidnapping operations to conceal its criminal acts. Mohammad Javad Zarif made the comment in a tweet posted on Friday, which was accompanied by excerpts from the American media indicating the US involvement in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise and plots for the ouster and targeted killing of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Zarif said the assassination plots against the aforementioned leaders are hatched by “US-affiliated gunmen” on American soil but the US administration “covers up its…

A Canadian indigenous group says more unmarked graves are expected to be found near former church-run residential schools as investigations continue. The Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation made the statement after releasing on Thursday its first full report on the discovery of 215 unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school in May. The First Nation’s leadership announced on May 27 that 215 unmarked and previously undocumented grave sites had been found using ground-penetrating radar at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in Kamloops, British Columbia. The group said ground-surveying research in areas close to…

Since the gruesome murder of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, Mohammad bin Salman, the de facto leader of the Saudi Kingdom, has kept a rather low profile in the international arena. But that does not mean the young prince has made a U-turn in his major policies, especially his interaction with political dissidents inside his territory. On the contrary, reports leaking out of the kingdom depict a grave picture where the iron-fist prince treats any opposition movement ruthlessly, though all under the radar. Saudi purge In one of the latest moves indicating the rule of terror inside the Saudi…

At least 81 people have died during massive flooding due to heavy rain in western parts of Germany. Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged federal support for victims as the disaster left many houses destroyed. At least 50 people died in Rhineland-Palatinate, a police spokesperson in Koblenz confirmed to the media on Friday. “There is fear that there will be more,” the spokesperson added. Around 1,300 residents are unaccounted for, although officials told reporters that some locals cannot be reached because cell phone service is down. German media earlier quoted the Interior Ministry in neighboring North Rhine-Westphalia state as saying that the death toll…

The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control has said it expects the prevalence of Covid-19 to increase sharply in the coming weeks, reaching 420 cases per 100,000 by August 1, five times more than last week. In a weekly report on Friday, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) made a concerning prediction about the growth of Covid-19 in the EU, Norway and Iceland. Over the past week, the ECDC said that the virus’ prevalence was around 90 cases per 100,000 people in the region surveyed. However, partially due to the arrival of the more contagious Delta variant of…