Author: Steven Sahiounie

Gold prices hit near seven-year highs on Wednesday before declining to stay above the key $1,500 support as President Donald Trump refrained from escalating the United States’ conflict with Iran after Tehran launched missile attacks on US-Iraqi airbases without killing anyone. Gold futures for February delivery on New York’s COMEX was down $11.35, or 0.7 percent, at $1,562.95 per ounce by 1:25 PM ET (18:25 GMT). They earlier hit $1,612.95, the highest since March 2013. The dollar, a contrarian trade to gold, rose on Wednesday as gold prices fell. The US Dollar Index, which pits against the greenback against a basket…

Two loud blasts followed by sirens were heard in the Iraqi capital on Wednesday night, Reuters reported, citing witnesses. According to Al-Mayadeen, two rockets fell in the Green Zone in central Baghdad, where government buildings and diplomatic facilities are situated. A Sputnik security source has confirmed that two rockets fell in Baghdad’s Green Zone. “Two rockets fell in the Green Zone in the centre of Baghdad, there is no information on any damage yet,” the source said. Later, the country’s security services said that no people were injured. “Two Katyusha rockets fell in the Green Zone, no people were injured,” the security services’ press service…

The LNA announced that the city of Sirte is now under its full control. However, the LNA is not going to develop the advance on the pro-GNA city of Misrata right now. Most likely, the LNA leadership is planning to negotiate a kind of a deal with the Misrata militia leadership. units of the Libyan National Army (LNA) took control of the Gardabiya Airbase near the city of Sirte and entered Sirte itself. According to reports from the ground, a part of Sirte(Misrata) militia loyal to the Government of National Accord (GNA) defected to the LNA. The rest of them…

Turkey is paying higher salaries to militants who go and fight in Libya, Foreign Policy Research Institute fellow Elizabeth Tsurkov said. According to her, fighters from the Turkish-backed Syrian militant groups were paid approximately $50 a month in Syria, but the rumored salary in Libya was $1,500 per month. In addition, fighters are being promised Turkish citizenship after 6 months of deployment in Libya. Reportedly 3 Turkish-backed militants died fighting against the Libyan National Army (LNA), and there is even a debate on how to report their deaths, and even if to report them at all. Meanwhile, there was a…

Iran is considering “13 revenge scenarios,” the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani said on January 7th, Fars News Agency reported. The initial report has since been removed from the website, it could be found on this dead link. Other media, such as Hezbollah affiliated al-Manar, however, republished the story. Ali Shamkhani was quoted as having said the following: “Iran has 13 scenarios to respond to America, in retaliation for the blood of the martyr leader Qassem Soleimani, the weakest of which will be a historical nightmare for America.” He spoke of the scenarios in a press statement: “We…

By: Nebojsa Malic While protests in India and Hong Kong may look similar at first glance, Western reactions to them reveal fundamental differences. Dig deeper, and we hit the bedrock of hypocrisy about “human rights” and “democracy.” There are superficial similarities between the protests that have rocked the Chinese autonomous territory of Hong Kong since May, and the protests around India for the past several weeks. Both ostensibly started due to a proposed law; extradition to the mainland in the case of Hong Kong, a citizenship amendment in the case of India. In both cases, protesters have set public property…

The US says that Iranian General Qassem Soleimani was plotting “imminent and sinister” attacks against its diplomats and military personnel. But when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was pressed for evidence of this, he gave none. Soleimani, commander of the Iranian military’s Quds Force, was assassinated in a drone strike in Baghdad, Iraq, on Friday. Before the strike, President Donald Trump implicated Iran in a fatal rocket attack on an American base in Iraq in December, and in the storming of the American embassy in Baghdad by protesters last week. Afterwards, he said that Soleimani was killed to prevent “imminent and…

China’s annual quotas for corn, wheat and rice will remain unchanged, the country’s senior agriculture official has reportedly said. The news comes days before the first part of the US-China trade agreement is due to be signed. “They are quotas for the whole world. We will not change them just for one country,” Vice Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Han Jun told Chinese news outlet Caixin. As part of the breakthrough trade deal reached between the two sides last year, China promised to significantly boost purchases of American goods, including farm products critical to the US, over the next two…

Saudi authorities captured the country’s “most wanted terrorist” in the city of Qatif in the kingdom’s Eastern Province, state-run broadcaster Al Ekhbariya reported on Tuesday. “The most wanted terrorist, Hussein Ali Aal Ammar, has been detained in Al-Qatif,” the broadcaster said. The Saudi Interior Ministry accuses Aal Ammar of a number of major crimes, including the abduction and murder of prosecutor Mohammed Al-Jirani, the shooting of a patrol car in Dammam and an attack on cash collectors.

Earlier, the alliance announced that it would be scaling down its activities in the Middle Eastern country following the spike in tensions caused by the US assassination of a senior Iranian military commander. The NATO alliance is moving ‘some personnel out of Iraq’ amid concerns for their security, an alliance official cited by Reuters has said. “We are taking all precautions necessary to protect our people. This includes the temporary repositioning of some personnel to different locations both inside and outside of Iraq,” the official said. The official added that the continued safety of NATO personnel was “paramount.” On Monday,…