Author: Steven Sahiounie

Hezbollah’s stance on the Palestinian cause has not changed in the face of recent developments in the occupied territories, says the Secretary General of the Lebanese resistance movement, insisting that the Palestinian land should return to its rightful owners. “Palestine belongs to the Palestinian people, and it must return to the Palestinian people,” Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech marking the International Quds Day on Friday. Hezbollah’s position on the Palestinian issue, he said, has remained the same since the establishment of the resistance movement several decades ago. He added that Israel’s recent attempts to seize more Palestinian…

Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab said on Thursday that the country’s Central Bank would interfere with the currency exchange market to support the Lebanese pound rate against the US dollar starting on Thursday as part of measures to recover the national economy. “I am well aware of people’s suffering from the increase in the US dollar-Lebanese pound exchange rate and of an impact of this rise on the food and consumer goods’ prices. … I hereby declare that we have already taken some measures, and Central Bank Head [Riad Salameh] has made a promise to intervene in the currency market…

British and US troops invaded Iraq in 2003 and ousted Saddam Hussein, claiming he possessed weapons of mass destruction. Sanctions against the Iraqi oil industry were immediately dropped and dozens of Western companies rushed in to make money. A barrister representing a British businessman accused of bribing an Iraqi oil official has told a trial in London the evidence against him included the “flimsiest of innuendos.” Adrian Eissa QC said his client, Stephen Whiteley, 65, had not been a party to any corrupt payments made by his employer, Monaco-based Unaoil via an intermediary, Basil al-Jarah. ​Whiteley is accused, along with…

The staggering increase in wealth inequality comes despite, or perhaps in part because of, several rounds of cash injections by the federal government to corporations, big banks and to a lesser extent, ordinary Americans which have added trillions of dollars to the US national debt. The wealthiest 600+ Americans saw their total wealth increase by $434 billion between March 18, when the government began implementing coronavirus-related lockdowns, and May 19, Americans for Tax Fairness, a Washington-based nonprofit, has reported, citing Forbes data. The payday added about 15 percent to the exclusive group’s portfolios, with their total wealth jumping from about $2.948…

A Pakistan International Airlines plane en route from Lahore to Karachi crashed near Karachi’s Model Colony area, according to media reports. According to reports, the A320 Airbus was carrying at least 90 people and was scheduled to land at Jinnah International Airport. Rescue teams and law enforcement are at the crash site and have started rescue operations. The plane crashed at the Jinnah Ground area near the Jinnah International Airport, according to reports. According to Geo News citing the Civil Aviation Authority, communications with the plane were lost one minute before landing. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan is Grateful to…

Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator Among the most popular drama series this 2020 Ramadan season, has been “Hares Al Quds”, which is translated in English as “The Guardian of Jerusalem”.  Syrian director Basil Al Khatib has used the 30 episode format to narrate the life of Archbishop Hilarion Capucci, who was born George Capucci in 1922 in Aleppo, Syria. He was ordained a Greek Melkite priest in 1947, and he was elected archbishop of Caesarea in 1965.  The Syrian cast includes Rashid Assaf who plays the older Capucci, Amal Arafa, who plays a woman from Aleppo, Sabah al-Jazairi, who…

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) intercepted a U.S. military convoy that was attempting to pass their checkpoint in the northeastern region of Syria on Wednesday. According to a local source in the Al-Hasakah Governorate, the Syrian Arab Army intercepted the U.S. military convoy as it was attempting to bypass their checkpoint near the small village of Umm Al-Khayr. The source said the confrontation did not last long and the U.S. military ultimately turned around to find another route to their intended destination in the Tal Tamr countryside. As shown in the video footage above, the standoff was non-violent and did…

A suspected leader of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) has been captured somewhere in Iraq, multiple media outlets have reported citing sources within Iraqi intelligence. Reports on Wednesday evening local time spoke of the arrest of an individual, identified as Abd Nasser Qardash or Abdel Nasser Qirdash. Other reports, likewise unconfirmed, identified the captive as Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Qurashi – the name IS gave in October 2019 as the successor to their first leader Abu Bakr al-Bahgdadi, confirming his death in a raid by US special forces. Al-Baghdadi had been hiding in Syria’s Idlib province, the last holdout of militants…

Kiev should “insist” that NATO pays out $200 billion for Ukraine’s decision to abandon nuclear weapons more than a quarter of a century ago, a former Ukrainian lawmaker said, arguing that the move saved the alliance a fortune. Back in the mid-1990s Ukraine ditched the nuclear arsenal that it inherited from the Soviet Union in exchange for security guarantees provided by the US, the UK and Russia as part of the so-called Budapest Memorandum. Now, the time has come for Kiev’s “Western partners” to pay up – in cash – Andrey Senchenko, a former Verkhovna Rada deputy and interim deputy head of…

Prices of key global oil benchmarks Brent and US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) have surged on Wednesday following positive news on crude inventories. Brent crude futures were up over four percent, climbing above $36 per barrel for the first time since April 9. Meanwhile, WTI contracts for July delivery jumped more than five percent to $33.62 per barrel. Both benchmarks extended Tuesday’s gains, which came thanks to positive data from the American Petroleum Institute (API). The estimates showed that US crude inventories fell by 4.8 million barrels to 521.3 million barrels in the week ending May 15, instead of the…