Author: Steven Sahiounie

The Russian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday resolutely condemned the statement of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo the previous day that the US is terminating the sanctions waiver related to Iran’s Fordow nuclear plant. “There is no legitimate reason for Iran to resume enrichment at this previously clandestine site,” Pompeo said. Washington’s intentions are a blatant violation of international obligations, the Russian ministry said. Taking into account the US statements, a substantial reaction from the Commission on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) will be required, according to the statement. Moscow hopes that European colleagues “will find the strength to go beyond the…

Lebanese protesters gathered on Tuesday morning in the vicinity of the country’s parliament and are preventing lawmakers from attending the legislative session against the backdrop of the tightening of security measures following nationwide mass anti-government protests, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported. Last week, UN spokesman Farhan Haq said that the United Nations called on all Lebanese authorities to make sure that the rights to assembly and peaceful protest were fully observed after a protester was shot in the head on 12 November in Khalde, south of the Lebanese capital of Beirut, becoming the first victim of the unrest. The shooter…

A report by the Bloomberg shows Saudi households and investors have no choice but to buy overvalued shares of Saudi Arabia’s state oil company Aramco under pressure from “ruthless” de-facto ruler Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MbS. The Bloomberg report published on Monday said that Saudis are forced to accept the ruthless manners of Prince Mohammed, the young son of Saudi Arabia’s king Salman, as he goes ahead with an initial public offering (IPO) planned for Aramco in the local stock market. “Many of the rich Saudi families that will now become key investors in Aramco learned the ruthlessness…

US troops have abducted two Syrians from their home in the northeastern Hasakah province, the Al-Ikhbariya television channel said Tuesday. US forces were deployed from a helicopter straight onto a house in the province’s south and detained two brothers, the broadcaster claimed. There was no immediate information on who the brothers were. The United States announced troop pullout in October, shortly before the start of a Turkish cross-border offensive, but the US military said later that several hundred forces would stay behind in the northeast to secure oil fields.

On Monday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu warned that Ankara could resume its Syrian operation if the United States and Russia did not implement their commitments on the withdrawal of Kurdish militia forces from the so-called safe zone near the Turkish border. The Russian military has announced that it has taken measures to beef up military police patrols in northern Syria with the aim of calming the situation along the Syrian-Turkish border. “Additional Russian military police units are being deployed to normalize the situation along the border regions of Syria. Field hospitals are being deployed to provide medical assistance to…

By Johanna Ross The UK is very keen at reminding certain countries – Syria, Russia, China – of their human rights abuses and yet, when it comes to looking closer to home, this current government quite frankly prefers not to, and in some cases deliberately try to obfuscate the truth. Leaked documents have revealed that not only was the UK army involved in war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2000s, but Conservative ministers succeeded in covering it up. Military detectives unveiled alleged ‘daily’ abuse dating back as far as 2003 by the Black Watch regiment in Basra as well…

By William D. Hartung It’s no secret that Donald Trump is one of the most aggressive arms salesmen in history. How do we know? Because he tells us so at every conceivable opportunity. It started with his much exaggerated “$110 billion arms deal” with Saudi Arabia, announced on his first foreign trip as president. It continued with his White House photo op with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in which he brandished a map with a state-by-state rundown of American jobs supposedly tied to arms sales to the kingdom. And it’s never ended. In these years in office, in fact, the president has been a…

Iraqi security officials said Monday that anti-government demonstrators in the south had blocked roads leading to the country’s main port while protesters in Baghdad forced the closure of Iraq’s central bank. Protesters burned tires, blocking the roads to the Umm Qasr port, responsible for the bulk of the country’s imported commodities, AP quoted a Basra official as saying. This is the second time the port has been blocked since the protests began on October 1. In Baghdad, staff were evacuated from the Central Bank of Iraq located on Rasheed Street as crowds approached the area.

The goal of the patrol was to monitor the situation in Syrian settlements eastward from the customs checkpoint in Aylishar along the Syrian-Turkish border. The Russian military police and the Turkish border service have carried out their eighth joint patrol in northern Syria, the Russian Defence Ministry said on Monday. “On 18 November, starting at 10:06 a.m. local time [08:06 GMT], the joint patrol of Russian military police and the Turkish armed forces began operating in the border area, located several kilometers north from the settlement of Kobane,” the ministry said in a statement. The joint patrol included eight units…

At least seven civilians have been killed, most of them foreign workers, and 30 wounded in an airstrike that hit a biscuit factory in southern Tripoli, Libya’s health ministry says. Ministry spokesman Amin al-Hachemi told AFP that two Libyans and nationals from Bangladesh, Egypt and Niger died when the factory in Wadi Rabi took a direct hit, with foreign workers also accounting for the 30 wounded. The suburb has been at the center of an assault launched in April by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar’s forces to wrest control of the capital from fighters loyal to the Tripoli-based Government of National…