Author: Steven Sahiounie

Palestinian prisoner Bassam Jaber continues his open hunger strike for the eighteenth day, in protest against his unlawful administrative detention in the Israeli occupation prisons. Jaber, from Qalqilya, has refrained from drinking water since the seventh day of his hunger strike after he was arrested about a month ago from his home in the town of Qatanna, northwest of Al-Quds (Occupied Jerusalem). Jaber’s lawyer spoke of his client’s dehydration and its dangerous repercussions on his health. The occupation forces had arrested the young Palestinian about a month ago and issued an administrative detention order against him for six months. Prisoner…

UNITED NATIONS (Sputnik) – Russia will not support the extension for 12 months of the cross-border humanitarian aid delivery mechanism into Syria as the UN Security Council prepares to vote on the issue on Friday, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia told reporters on Thursday. Norway and Ireland had submitted a draft resolution to extend the mechanism, which is due to expire July 10, for one year using two crossings from Turkey and Iraq. “Twelve months [do not play],” Nebenzia said when asked whether Russia intends to use the veto power as the permanent member of the…

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The decision by some European Union countries to prevent Syrian expats from voting in the Syrian presidential election was a violation of international law, Hasan Khaddour, Syrian Ambassador in Vienna, said. “Doing this is a violation of international law. This is the right of any Syrian, like other people in other countries. They have the right to participate. So obstacles erected by certain countries are a clear violation of both humanitarian and international law,” Khaddour said. He noted that many Western countries have a hypocritical approach to Syria, on the one hand saying that they support its people,…

Sudan’s Kassala region is known to host numerous funerary structures, such as ancient stone mounds and Islamic domed mausoleums, constructed over generations and representing different cultures. However, their remote location has made it challenging to study their secrets. A method designed for cosmology has been applied to the topography study of thousands of fascinating medieval Islamic tombs in eastern Sudan, according to a paper published on 7 July in the journal PLOS One. In an effort to shed light on the mysteries of the funerary landscape dotted with some 10,000 monuments in the Kassala region of eastern Sudan, a team of experts from…

Iran has had a notoriously poor relationship with the Taliban in past decades, even threatening to launch a military invasion targeting the Sunni fundamentalist movement in the late 1990s over the killings of diplomats at an Iranian consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif in 1998. More recently, Tehran’s position has softened somewhat. Iran’s border with Afghanistan is tranquil and will remain secure due to the “zealousness” with which the country’s border guards patrol it, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh has indicated. “The borders of the Islamic Republic of Iran are in full tranquility and security thanks to the zealous border guards of our…

ussia says all humanitarian aid to war-ravaged Syria should be delivered through the central government in Damascus, rejecting the so-called “cross-border” aid delivery mechanism. The remarks were made by Russia’s special envoy on Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev, who headed the Russian delegation to the 16th international meeting on the Syria conflict within Astana Format, Syria’s official SANA news agency said Thursday.  The meeting was held recently in the Kazakh capital, Nur-Sultan. “We reject prolonging the so-called ‘cross-border aid delivery mechanism’ in Syria,” he said during a press conference after the meeting, stressing that all humanitarian assistance should be delivered to the Syrian state to support the…

The 16th round of the Astana talks aimed at resolving the Syrian conflict concluded on Thursday, with the guarantor states renewing their commitment to Syria’s sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity. The final statement condemned the Israeli regime’s “continued attacks against the Syrian territories, which violate international law and international humanitarian law,” and called for an end to the aggression, Syria’s official news agency SANA reported. Held in the Kazakh capital of Nur Sultan, the meeting began on Wednesday, with the 17th round scheduled to be held before the end of 2021, taking into consideration the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.…

United Nations special envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen has praised the role being played by Iran, Russia and Turkey in efforts to resolve the Syria crisis, saying he counts on the trio’s continued support for the world body’s political process to achieve that goal. The 16th round of talks on Syria started in Kazakhstan’s capital Nur-Sultan on Wednesday with the participation of Iran, Russia, and Turkey — the three guarantor states in the Syrian peace process — as well as representatives from the Syrian government and opposition groups besides the UN envoy. Source: Press TV

Speaker of Syrian People’s Assembly Hammoudeh Sabbagh says forces of global aggression, led by the US, besiege Syria and Iran together under the false guise of fighting terrorism but in fact they support and protect the scourge. Sabbagh made the remarks in a Thursday meeting with a visiting Iranian parliamentary delegation, headed by deputy chairman of the two countries’ friendship group, Abbas Golroo, in Damascus, Syria’s official news agency, SANA, reported. He affirmed the importance of boosting parliamentary relations between Tehran and Damascus through the exchange of visits, viewpoints, and joint coordination at regional and international conferences. Golroo, for his part,…

US President Joe Biden has raised the issue of ransomware attacks “by criminals based in Russia” in his phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling on Russia “to take action,” the White House said.Biden “underscored the need for Russia to take action” to deal with the cybercriminals acting on its territory while pointing to what the White House described as “the ongoing ransomware attacks … that have impacted the United States and other countries around the world.” Source: RTV