Author: Steven Sahiounie

BY MONA ISSA Lebanon was one of the earliest experiments for sectarianism by France and other imperial powers. While it suffers from corruption and sectarianism, it also suffers from accumulated financial burden. The economic basis of the country is founded on the fiscal terms of the old aristocrats, who are what we call the “international financial class” today. This class, according to the Economist, monopolizes 18 out of 20 of all major banks in Lebanon. However, the Lebanese banking sector is hardly ever Lebanese. Engineered and driven by IMF, neoliberal fiscal policy, and their Lebanese billionaire minister-proxies, the West bloc in…

Hundreds of Syrian refugees have headed home in the first batch to leave Lebanon since protests broke out in the small Arab country more than a month ago. Since the early hours of Tuesday, scores of Syrians boarded buses in several locations in Lebanon before heading back to their hometowns in Syria. Vanessa Moya of the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said some 225 Syrian refugees were scheduled to head back to Syria, raising the number to about 27,000 refugees who have returned to Syria over the past two years, AP reports. Thousands of Syrians have returned home from Lebanon since…

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) says Turkish-backed militants are plundering historical artifacts in Syria’s northwestern province of Aleppo and smuggling them over the border to sell in Turkey. The Britain-based war monitor group, citing reliable sources requesting anonymity, reported on Tuesday that the militants have been systematically looting antiquities in the Afrin district, particularly in the city of al-Nabi Hori – also known as Korsh — ever since Turkish military forces and their Syrian proxies launched an operation to push Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militants away from a “safe zone” along Syria’s border with Turkey. The SOHR highlighted that Turkish-affiliated militants,…

By Arabi Souri The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs slammed the regime of Donald Trump for its attempts to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries after the US State Department issued a statement to interfere in the works of the Syrian Constitution Committees deliberations in Geneva. A spokesperson for the ministry said to the Syrian official news agency SANA ‘the dialogue is a Syrian-Syrian one and no one has the right to interfere in it or support any party under any pretext.’ The spokesperson outlined that the role of the United Nations represented by its special envoy Geir Pederson is limited to facilitating…

Iran has begun mass production of the new submarine-launched Jask cruise missiles, said Iranian Navy commander Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi. The information was released by the official during an event to demonstrate new weapons and new Iranian military projects. Despite the revelation, the navy commander did not disclose details or characteristics of the missile, it is only known that Jask can be fired from submarines. The missile was first shown in action to the public in February this year during the Veleyat-97 naval exercises. Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi also reported that work on updated versions of the weapon is already…

The map with the Economic Exclusive Zone (EEZ) boundaries agreed by Turkey and Libya is today being made public by a senior Turkish Foreign Ministry official via his twitter account. Chagatay Ertziges, deputy director of the Turkish Foreign Ministry’s Directorate-General for Bilateral Political Affairs and Maritime-Aviation-Border, gave a map depicting the point they agreed to declare EEZ between Turkey and Libya right next to Crete. From point A to B are the boundaries of the Turkish continental shelf between Turkey and the pseudo-state Muslim Brotherhood government in Libya, based on the illegal agreement signed in 2011. The CDE is the…

BY MARTIN LUKACS The following is an excerpt from Martin Lukacs’ new book, The Trudeau Formula: Seduction and Betrayal in an Age of Discontent, released this year by Black Rose Books. In late, April 2019, the stunned friends and relatives of Abdullah Salman Al Asreeh held a prayer ceremony for the 24-year old man in Toronto. Without a warning by phone-call, they had learned on the evening news that he had been executed by the Saudi government. He was among 37 men, most belonging to the country’s persecuted Shia minority, killed in one of the biggest executions in recent Saudi history.…

An international relief group has said another five years of fighting in Yemen will cost as much as $29 billion just to sustain the current level of humanitarian aid – more than the entire annual global humanitarian budget. The International Rescue Committee said in a report on Monday that with the current rate of aid, it will take 20 years to return Yemen to pre-conflict levels of child hunger. The IRC says Yemen has the world’s worst humanitarian crisis with 24 million Yemenis, or 80 percent of the population, needing humanitarian aid and 16 million living on the verge of…

Beijing has stopped allowing US Navy vessels to visit Hong Kong and “sanctioned” foreign NGOs after President Donald Trump signed a bill, which targets China over its response to anti-government protests and riots in the city. Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Hua Chunying, said on Monday that China will no longer review requests by the American warships to dock in Hong Kong. The nation has already barred several US Navy ships from visiting Hong Kong in recent months. Hua also announced that the country has sanctioned NGOs, such as Human Rights Watch (HRW), Freedom House and the National Democratic Institute (NDI), for…

Turkish military forces have claimed the lives of at least 11 civilians, including eight children, in an artillery attack that struck near a school in the northwestern Syrian province of Aleppo.The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported on Monday that the shelling took place in the Kurdish-held town of Tal Rifaat as students were leaving the building and left 21 others injured. Rami Abdel Rahman, the Observatory head, said most of those killed in the attack had been displaced from the Syria’s northwestern region of Afrin, which was captured last year by Turkish troops. The strategic town of…