Author: Steven Sahiounie

By Mark Taliano A Canadian political commentator and author of “Voices from Syria” said if a new constitution is approved by the Syrian Constitutional Committee, the foreign-backed “unelected” opposition cannot guarantee to adhere to it. “Unelected opposing parties cannot guarantee anything,” Mark Taliano said in an interview with Tasnim. “Their (opposing parties’) masters are not Syrian,” he said, adding, “Ultimately they will have no say in substantive matters.” The following is the full text of the interview. *** Tasnim: The United Nation’s envoy for Syria said recently that first talks in the Swiss city of Geneva on the country’s constitution involving Syrian…

Palestinian resistance fighters in the Gaza Strip have likely taken possession of a “highly advanced” Israeli projectile that has fallen into the territory intact and can be reverse-engineered to reveal its industrial technology, a report suggests. The unexploded ordnance, a “Tamir” interceptor used in Israel’s so-called Iron Dome missile system, was recovered after being fired into Gaza during Israel’s recent 48-hour attacks on the enclave, which died down with a ceasefire on Thursday. In a report on the same day, the website The Drive used images from a tweet by Joe Truzman, purportedly a security analyst, for a visual investigation of the…

Turkey has sent more than 6,000 Syrian migrants in Istanbul to temporary housing centers in other provinces since early July, the local governor’s office said on Friday. His statement came two weeks after a deadline for Syrians not registered in the city to leave. Authorities had given undocumented Syrians in Istanbul until October 30 to move to another province or face forced removal from the city. The Istanbul governor’s office said 6,416 unregistered Syrians were removed from Istanbul since July 12. Turkey hosts more than 3.6 million Syrians, the largest population of Syrians displaced by an eight-year civil war. The…

Sixty-six Iraqi security officers have been put on trial over the excessive use of force in dispersing protesters, government spokesman Saad Hadisi, said amid unrest in the Middle Eastern country. On Thursday, the spokesman said live on Al Arabiya that “1,600 demonstrators arrested for participating in protests have been released and 66 security officers faced trial”. The UN Human Rights Council said last week that at least 269 people had been killed in the protests. Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said that he would carry out a cabinet reshuffle and introduce changes to election laws. Mahdi said that the government’s…

by Tim Korso Lebanon has recently been rocked by weeks-long protests over the government’s plans to introduce a tax on online calls made via the WhatsApp messenger, leading to the resignation of Prime Minister Saad Hariri. Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil has stated that former Minister of Finance Mohammad Ahmed Safadi has agreed to assume the post of prime minister in a new government, Lebanese MTV reported. Bassil further praised Safadi as an appropriate person to occupy the position, although his candidacy has yet to be approved by the country’s major political factions. The foreign minister said that consultations on the…

Iraq’s prominent Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has called on legislators to promptly introduce a fair electoral law that would restore people’s faith in elections in the wake of weeks of protests in the capital Baghdad and a host of southern cities. “No one can give the government legitimacy but the people… Passing a law that does not provide this opportunity to voters would not be acceptable or useful,” Ayatollah Sistani said in a statement read out by his representative Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalaei during a sermon in the holy city of Karbala on Friday. In a statement on Saturday,…

Syria’s Ambassador to the United Nations Bashar al-Jaafari says Takfiri terrorist groups operating in the northwestern province of Idlib continue to take civilians as human shields, stressing that it is the Damascus government’s duty to purge the area of their presence. Speaking at a UN Security Council session on the situation in the Middle East, Jaafari argued that whilst some members of the world body were hindering the efforts being made by the Syrian government and its allies to fight Daesh and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly known as al-Nusra Front, terrorist groups, others bragged about an alleged operation that led to the death of…

New figures from a US military watchdog group have tallied the incredible costs of the US war on terror since September 11, 2001, finding that well over $6 trillion have been dropped on dozens of conflicts in which some 800,000 people have died. “Since late 2001, the United States has appropriated and is obligated to spend an estimated $6.4 trillion through Fiscal Year 2020 in budgetary costs related to and caused by the post-9/11 wars,” the Costs of War Project reported in a November 13 paper. The Brown University-based project went on to note that the cost figure comprises “an estimated $5.4…

Every year, on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, references are made with the Cypriot capital of Nicosia, the last divided capital city of Europe. In Berlin, the wall fell under the weight of a political cosmogony and pressure from citizens, who dismantled the wall with their hands, hammers and other tools until Berlin was once again united. However, the partition of Germany and the division of Cyprus did not have the same starting point. Germany was divided between a communist east and a capitalist west after the Nazis were defeated by Soviet forces after the Battle…

Syrian state media is reporting that government forces have started deploying in areas close to the Turkish border in the northeast. Troops are deploying between the towns of Jawadiyeh and Malkiyeh, also known as Derik, according to SANA. The deployment began on Thursday, and Syrian border guards will be positioned at six points near to the border, state TV reported. The deployment is part of a deal reached between Russia and Turkey last month along much of the northeastern boundary that seeks to ensure Kurdish fighters leave the area, AP said. Russia and Turkey began joint patrols along a narrower…