Author: Steven Sahiounie

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…

By Prof. James Petras As the US strives to overthrow the democratic and independent Venezuelan government, the historical record regarding the short, middle and long-term consequences are mixed. We will proceed to examine the consequences and impact of US intervention in Venezuela over the past half century. We will then turn to examine the success and failure of US ‘regime changes’ throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Venezuela: Results and Perspectives 1950-2019 During the post WWII decade, the US, working through the CIA and the Pentagon, brought to power authoritarian client regimes in Venezuela, Cuba, Peru, Chile, Guatemala, Brazil and several…

By Philip Giraldi Intelligence documents reveal how Tehran took advantage of US blundering The American invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of that nation’s government in 2003 has rightly been described as the greatest foreign policy disaster in the history of the United States. Eight thousand one hundred and seventy five American soldiers, contractors and civilians have died in Iraq since 2003 as well as an estimated 300,000 Iraqis. By some more expansive estimates the so-called “global war on terror,” of which Iraq was the major component, may have directly killed 801,000, of which at least 335,000 were civilians. Other estimates indicate that…

By Andrew Korybko Trump, as he’s proven himself prone to do, once again defied convention by talking about the Taliban of all things on Thanksgiving during a surprise visit to Afghanistan, though it wasn’t without good reason since he wanted to show the world that the US is back in the driver’s seat of the Afghan peace process and ready to advance its regional agenda as a result. Replacing Turkey With The Taliban On Thanksgiving While most Americans have little more than turkey on their mind during Thanksgiving, all that Trump could think about was the Taliban. He surprised everyone by…

Dozens of people have staged a demonstration in Lebanon to express their resentment over the acute economic crisis in the country, as nationwide anti-government demonstrations demanding departure of the ruling elite enters its seventh week. The protesters converged outside the building of the central bank, officially known as Banque du Liban, in Hamra neighborhood of the capital Beirut on Thursday evening, accusing the bank and all financial institutions of being partly behind the economic crisis that Lebanon, one of the most heavily indebted states in the world, is grappling with. Protesters chanted slogans against Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh, blaming him…

The US Navy has inadequate surveillance assets to support and protect its expanded fleet, according to a new report by The Hudson Institute, which warns that when facing Chinese forces with increasingly long ranges, US commanders will be unable to “shape the combat environment”. In naval warfare, awareness and range are key. Fleets are by their nature projections of power that contest a given area of the sea, and their commanders must be aware of everything that comes into and goes out of that zone. A new report by the conservative Hudson Institute think tank warned that the US Navy doesn’t have…

Tens of thousands of protesters in Algeria marched on Friday to demand that a presidential election next month be canceled until the old ruling guard steps aside and the army quits politics. The marches, held across the country, marked the 41st consecutive week of protests, Reuters reports. The protest movement’s continued momentum now poses a major challenge to the military, which has pushed for the December 12 election as the only way to resolve the deadlock between the authorities and the leaderless opposition movement. After protests began in February, and the army pushed veteran leader Abdelaziz Bouteflika to quit in…

A second week-long round of Syrian talks has ended without a meeting of the group of 45 delegates meant to be negotiating on the constitution, United Nations Special Envoy Geir Pedersen has said. The Syrian government and opposition co-chairs were unable to agree an agenda for the constitutional talks, the UN envoy said in Geneva on Friday. “We have been trying to reach consensus but, as I said, we are not there yet,” Reuters quoted Pedersen as saying. The talks are intended as a step forward in what the UN says will be a long road to political rapprochement, followed by elections.