Author: Steven Sahiounie

Iranian diplomats have yet again taken aim at ongoing US sanctions which are hampering the country’s efforts to battle the coronavirus outbreak, this time showing off decent photo-editing skills. The image, posted by the ministry on Twitter, is a call to “stop aiding war crimes” and “obeying immoral and illegal US sanctions,” echoing earlier comments by the country’s top diplomat Javad Zarif. The picture features “sanction” written in large right in the center, its letter “O” stylized as coronavirus with a translucent US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo lurking behind it. Smaller coronaviruses can be seen in the background, possibly representing those states that abide by the anti-Iranian sanctions, or…

The Iranian president has warned that “the new way of life” in Iran was likely to be prolonged. The Islamic republic is one of the countries worst-hit by the virus. “We must prepare to live with this virus until a treatment or vaccine is discovered, which has not yet happened to date,” Hassan Rouhani said in a cabinet meeting on Sunday. “The new way of life we have adopted” is to everyone’s benefit, he said, adding that “these changes will likely have to stay in place for some time.” After weeks of refraining from imposing lockdown or quarantine measures, Tehran decided on Wednesday to ban…

EU countries should allow the hundreds of thousands of seasonal migrant workers who plant or harvest crops to cross borders despite national measures to contain the coronavirus, the European Commission said on Monday. States across the 27-nation European Union have set up border controls to stem the spread of the virus, but with the side effect of delaying food and medical supplies, as well as cross-border workers. The EU executive last week urged EU countries to limit to 15 minutes the time it takes for goods traffic to cross a border. However, some crossings into and out of Hungary had…

Palestinian people in Gaza Strip have staged an anti-occupation rally despite concerns about the spread of coronavirus. The Monday rally was held in the besieged enclave on the anniversary of the Palestinian Land Day, which is marked on March 30 every year. From March 30, 2018 onward, Palestinians in Gaza have held weekly “Great March of Return” protest rallies against the Israeli occupation of their lands, demanding the return of those driven out of their homeland by Israeli aggression during the past decades. According to the Palestinian Information center, Israeli forces have killed some 350 protesters during the weekly demonstrations.…

Iraqi resistance forces say they stand fully ready to confront any possible act of aggression by the US military, which is widely reported to be gearing up for operations against the positions of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) — an elite pro-government anti-terror force. Mohammed Muhyee, spokesman for the Kata’ib Hezbollah (Hezbollah Brigades), which is a major PMU faction, warned on Monday that the latest activities by the American occupation forces in Iraq were “not accidental,” the Arabic-language Almaalomah news agency reported. He said Washington considered Kata’ib Hezbollah the main obstacle to its schemes in Iraq, and therefore sought to…

Both sides of the Russian-Turkish commission monitoring the implementation of the Syrian truce has recorded no ceasefire violations in Syria over the past 24 hours, the Russian Defence Ministry said in its daily bulletin on Monday. “The Russian side of the Russian-Turkish joint commission reviewing issues related to the ceasefire violation has not recorded any cases of truce breaches. The Turkish side has not registered any cases of firing”, the bulletin said. In a separate bulletin, the ministry reported that no Syrian refugees had returned to their home country from foreign states over the last 24 hours Additionally, the Syrian army engineering…

On 29 March, the Saudi military shot down three rockets during attempted strikes on the capital city of Riyadh and the port city of Jazan, near the border with Yemen, the broadcaster Al-Arabiya reported. The Saudi-led coalition has carried out several strikes on the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, Reuters reported citing witnesses. A military spokesman for Yemen’s Houthi movement claimed a day earlier that the group targeted Riyadh and several southern Saudi cities with drones and rockets overnight. The attacks were reportedly launched in retaliation for airstrikes by the Saudi-led military coalition on Houthi positions in Yemen’s capital Sanaa and areas close to…

On Sunday, the US-led coalition officially handed over the K1 Air Base in northern Iraq’s Kirkuk province to the Iraqi Army in a pre-planned move that they said was unrelated to recent attacks by Shiite militias against Iraqi bases hosting foreign troops. The US-led international coalition’s headquarters in the northern Iraqi province of Nineveh near the Syrian border has been transferred to Iraq’s army, the country’s Baghdad Al Youm news outlet reports. According to Baghdad Al Youm, the coalition forces transferred the Nineveh headquarters on Monday as part of the process of withdrawing foreign troops from some Iraqi provinces. At…

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is coordinating closely with Turkey, including processing samples in Turkish laboratories to prevent COVID-19 from spreading into northwestern Syria, the head of the WHO’s operation in northwestern Syria has said in an interview. “WHO’s work in northwest Syria is based on a Security Council resolution that permits delivery of humanitarian relief from across Turkey’s border into NW Syria. In the context of the pandemic, WHO is working closely with Turkish authorities on access, coordination, and processing of samples in Turkish laboratories”, Mahmoud Daher said. The WHO official also stressed that their operation in government-controlled areas…

Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator While the COVID-19 pandemic has taken center stage of the global media, there is little attention paid to a tragedy playing out in southeastern Syria.  Far away from the western media coverage of the “Islamic State of Idlib”, the scene is set in a desolate area on the border between Syria and Iraq, adjacent to the illegal US military base of ‘Al Tanf’.  The ‘Rukban Camp’ holds 13,500 Syrian civilians, who are displaced, and 6,000 armed Radical Islamic terrorists of Maghawir Al-Thawra and their families.   On March 28 the Russian-Syrian Coordination Committee released a…