Author: Steven Sahiounie

The Israeli premier has been going through some tough times lately, as he is currently facing criminal charges on corruption, including bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, with three corruption cases in total. 5,000 protesters have gathered at Habima Square, Tel Aviv, demanding that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu resign, The Times of Israel reported on Saturday. The demonstrators were holding signs with slogans “Strong democracy, strong Israel” and “Netanyahu, resign, Israel is more important” written on them. According to the newspaper, the Movement for Quality Government advocacy group was behind Saturday’s rally. Ex-IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Yair Golan was also captured on…

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced the day that TurkStream, the 917 km pipeline across the bottom of the Black Sea, will officially be commissioned in Istanbul, capping an ambitious energy project with success. TurkStream will be operative from January 8, 2020, Erdogan said on Saturday, according to local press. Moscow had earlier confirmed that President Vladimir Putin is likely to attend the opening ceremony in the Turkish city. The pipeline runs from Gazprom’s Russkaya compressor station, located near the southern city of Anapa, all the way to the Turkish town of Kiyikoy, where it connects to other pipelines. Comprising two…

The United Nations says Israeli authorities have demolished or confiscated 39 Palestinian buildings in the occupied West Bank over the past two weeks, on the grounds that they lacked the required construction permits. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in its biweekly Protection of Civilians Report on Saturday that the Israeli demolitions, which took place between November 12 and 25, led to the displacement of 63 people, and badly affected 380 others. The report added that 35 of the targeted buildings, including two which were being used for humanitarian purposes, were located in the so-called Area C. Area…

China has arrested a citizen of Belize in its southern city of Guangzhou for allegedly interfering in the internal affairs of Hong Kong. Lee Henley Hu Xiang, a Belizean businessman who lives in China, had funded “hostile forces” in the United States and participated in activities that have led to unrest in Hong Kong, according to the official Guangdong Communist Party newspaper, citing Chinese security officials. He has been charged with violating national security laws. Beijing has repeatedly accused foreign nations, particularly the United States, of providing direct and indirect support to Hong Kong protesters. The increasingly violent demonstrations have…

Previously, demonstrators set a local Iranian consulate on fire, with the staff fleeing the building through a back door, while scores of police officers and protesters were injured in clashes that followed. Iraqi protesters set fire to the Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Bakir Al-Hakim’s shrine in the city of Najaf on Saturday, the Reuters news agency reported. According to the video, which the agency received from an eye-witness, the demonstrators cheered and made video recordings of the burning building. Police forces used tear gas to disperse the protesters, the agency added, citing police officers and a demonstrator at the scene. The incident…

Houthi Rebels said they have shot down an unmanned drone over northern Yemen just a day after claiming to bring down a Saudi Apache helicopter, Yahya Sarea, the group’s military spokesman, said on Saturday. “Yemeni air defences were able to shoot down a Chinese-made Wing Loong fighter reconnaissance aircraft in the Hiran district of Hajjah province this evening during hostilities”, Sarea said in a post in Twitter. Sarea added that the operation was caught on tape and that footage will be published shortly. Earlier in the day, Yemeni news outlet Almasirah released footage it said showed the Saudi Apache military…

At least 13 civilians were killed or wounded on Saturday in a car bomb blast in Ayn al-Arous town in northern Raqqa where the Turkish occupation forces and terrorist groups supported by them are positioned. Local sources said that a car bomb exploded in the center of Ayn al-Arous town south of Tall Abyad in Raqqa northern countryside, claiming the lives and injuring 13 civilians at least.

A high-ranking Iraqi official says authorities are going to issue arrest warrants for a number of high-ranking officials and refer them to the judiciary for trial over charges of corruption, as part of the government’s reforms after a wave of protests over unemployment, corruption and lack of public services hit the country. Iraqi government spokesman Saad al-Hadithi told the official Iraqi News Agency on Saturday that a special central court, formed in coordination between executive and judiciary bodies, deals with important corruption cases. Hadithi added that the Supreme Court has ordered investigative bodies in the courts of appeal nationwide to summon, issue arrest…

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has engaged in a war of words with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron after the latter said NATO was dying owing to a lack of coordination between member states to respond to Ankara’s Syria offensive. In an interview with The Economist magazine earlier this month, Macron said NATO was dealing with “brain death” due to the US being an unpredictable ally under President Donald Trump and tensions with Turkey over Ankara’s “crazy” incursion into northern Syria. “You have no coordination whatsoever of strategic decision-making between the United States and its NATO allies. None,” he said. “You have an uncoordinated aggressive action…

Russian military police have conducted reconnaissance along a new patrol route near the city of Kobane in northern Syria, a Sputnik correspondent reported on Saturday. The new route covered 120 kilometres (75 miles) and lasted four hours. Due to the route being new, the military police placed special attention on safety. Terrain scouts first passed through, then sappers, and finally machine-gunners went through in Tigr infantry mobility vehicles. Last week, a Russian military official said that the military police were conducting reconnaissance missions in northern Syria to scout new patrol routes. On 23 October, Turkey and Russia struck a memorandum that prevented Ankara from…