Author: Steven Sahiounie

by Tim Korso The US established what it calls a “maritime coalition” to ensure the safety of shipping routes in the Persian Gulf after at least six tankers suffered attacks there this year. Iran has argued that local forces are more than capable of ensuring the maritime security in the region without external help. Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commander Major General Gholam Ali Rashid has cautioned foreign states hostile to Iran against acting irresponsibly in the Persian Gulf region, stressing that the message is mostly directed at the US. He added that otherwise, the safety of their military contingency could not be…

Iraqi Kurdistan is not presently considering at closing its border with Syria given the continuous flow of refugees, Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Representative to the United States Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman stated. When asked whether there are any talks about closing the border with Syria, Rahman said, “Not at the moment”. Rahman noted that the KRG has never closed the border to refugees. “Even when we were being flooded with refugees and displaced people, we kept the border open”, she said. Rahman said earlier that Iraqi Kurdistan received 16,700 Syrian refugees after Turkey’s military operation in northeast Syria, but refugees…

Kazakhstan will host a fresh round of Syria peace talks sponsored by Russia, Turkey and Iran on December 10-11, Kazakh Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tleuberdi told reporters on Friday. UN special envoy Geir Pedersen said on November 8 that a UN-backed panel on Syria will meet again in Geneva later this month, after it met for the first time seeking political reconciliation, Reuters reported. “The two co-chairs have agreed to meet here again in 14 days. The next round of discussions will start on November 25,” Geir Pedersen said of the Constitutional Committee. The Syrian Foreign Ministry appealed to the international community…

Tech titans Google and Facebook employ “surveillance-based business models” that threaten human rights and erode privacy worldwide, Amnesty International said in a new report, calling for an end to the data-grabs. Published on Wednesday, Amnesty’s “Surveillance Giants” report outlined how Facebook and Google, and their many affiliated platforms, operate in ways that are simply incompatible with the right to privacy and pose a “systemic threat” to free expression on the internet, World News reported. “Despite the real value of the services they provide, Google and Facebook’s platforms come at a systemic cost,” the report added.“The companies’ surveillance-based business model forces…

Sa’ada, Yemen – At least 10 African refugees have been killed and 35 others wounded after mortar shells fired by Saudi-backed militiamen targeted a district in Manba border town in Yemen’s northern province of Sa’ada. According to the Yemeni Al-Masirah television network, the shells hit the al-Raqo district on Wednesday. Last month, Saudi forces fired artillery rounds at al-Maton district in the northern Yemeni province of al-Jawf, killing at least one African refugee and injuring three others. Despite the ongoing Saudi-led military campaign and escalating humanitarian crisis in Yemen, this year has seen a spike in the number of arrivals of…

With national expertise and through Syrian cadres, WDRVM company for renewable energy and heavy industries has succeeded in manufacturing, assembling, installing and operating a wind turbine with all of its components for the first time in Syria, the Middle East, the Gulf and North Africa. Syrian experts of engineers, technicians and workers have overcome all obstacles encountered in the current circumstances, unilateral coercive measures and the economic siege imposed on the Syrian people as they were able to complete the manufacturing of the turbine with all its components from the tower and blades and control devices with high accuracy. The…

Syria’s Permanent Representative at the UN Bashar al-Jaafari affirmed the need for lifting unilateral coercive economic measures imposed by some countries on the Syrian people. Al-Jaafari remarks came during a meeting of the Second Committee of the United Nations General Assembly entitled “Unilateral economic measures as a means of political and economic coercion against developing countries” on Thursday. He said that the Syrian people have been suffering for decades to date the serious repercussions of the unilateral coercive economic measures imposed on them by some governments and these repercussions have reached an unprecedented level in the recent years. He added…

Algerians marched through Algiers on Friday to protest against an election scheduled for December, rejecting a vote they say is still fraught with former regime officials. Many marched through the streets waving flags, carrying banners, and chanting against the ruling elite, the military and the recent wave of arrests on demonstrators. Algerians are expected to vote in less than a month, with five candidates in the race, but protesters say there “will not be a vote,” not with many demonstrators still in jail for expressing their opinion. The mass protests that erupted in February, and unseated veteran president Abdelaziz Bouteflika in…

Turkey has detained in Syria a member of the Daesh terror group* who has organised terror attacks in Russia and Germany, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said on Friday, as quoted by Turkish Hurriyet newspaper. “We have captured in Syria’s A’zaz one of the key Daesh terrorists, a member of the top leadership of the group, nicknamed Yusuf Huba. He used to produce bombs and to teach other people to do it, including through the Internet, he used to recruit militants, and he has created a network of suicide attackers, he used to stage terror attacks and murders with use of…

Iran’s armed forces have improved over the past 20 to 30 years, but their equipment and technology remain well behind those of other significant military powers in the region, a new report by the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), published on Tuesday, says. Head of the agency Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley said in the forward to the report that “although still technologically inferior to most of its competitors, the Iranian military has progressed substantially over the past few decades”. Ashley also pointed out that 21st-century developments in the Middle East had allowed Iran to increase its relative influence and leverage it…