Author: Steven Sahiounie

US President Donald Trump lauds his relationship with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan amid S-400 tensions between Washington and Ankara. Pro-Kurdish protesters gathered outside the White House Wednesday to censure Erdogan’s visit and slam Trump’s abandoning of Kurds ahead of Turkey’s assault on Syria. “America Stand With Your Kurdish Allies,” read one sign, according to Reuters. “We’ve been friends for a long time, almost from Day 1. We understand each others’ country. We understand where we are coming from,” Trump told Erdogan in the Oval Office. “We’re also talking about the trade deal…Frankly, we’re going to be expanding our trade relationship…

A high-ranking official from the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah says the United States and its allies in the Middle East are taking advantage of the anti-government protests in the country in order to attain their own political objectives. Vice President of the Executive Council of Hezbollah Sheikh Ali Damoush said on Wednesday that his movement distinguishes between the righteous demands of protesters and the political schemes of those who are exploiting the mass protest movement to achieve their own goals. “It is wrong to confuse the sufferings of people and their real demands with the political projects, which seek to take advantage…

By Tony Cartalucci After the supposed US “withdrawal” from Syria – Western media outlets have causally reported on US troops now preparing to occupy Syria’s oilfields east of the Euphrates River. Articles include carefully selected “experts” who avoid any mention of how illegal or indefensible the presence of US forces in Syria is to begin with, let alone any mention of “why” US troops are preparing to “claim” Syria’s natural resources. The Guardian in its piece, “US plans to send tanks to Syria oil fields, reversing Trump troop withdrawal – reports,” illustrates a voluntary dereliction of due diligence in investigating or…

By Rep. Ron Paul When the New York Federal Reserve began pumping billions of dollars a day into the repurchasing (repo) markets (the market banks use to make short-term loans to each other) in September, they said this would only be necessary for a few weeks. Yet, last Wednesday, almost two months after the Fed’s initial intervention, the New York Federal Reserve pumped 62.5 billion dollars into the repo market. The New York Fed continues these emergency interventions to ensure “cash shortages” among banks don’t ever again cause interest rates for overnight loans to rise to over 10 percent, well above…

Steven Sahiounie, political commentator Turkey is deporting terrorists to their country of origin. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Tuesday, “Some countries have started panicking after we began the repatriation process of foreign Daesh terrorists. Turkey has been worrying about this issue for years, let others worry now,” He added, “The American Daesh terrorists stranded in the buffer zone on Greece border is none of Turkey’s concern, deportations will continue regardless.” The Turkish Interior Minister, Süleyman Soylu, said last week that Ankara would start sending ISIS terrorists back to their country of origin even if they had been stripped of their…

Protesters in Iraq’s southern province of Maysan on Tuesday blocked the local oil firm, a technological institute and the office of the state television network al-Iraqiya, Shafaq news agency reported, citing activists. Demonstrators also attempted to shut down the al-Iraqiya office in Dhi Qar province, where protests have continued for more than a week. The security forces formed a cordon to stop the protesters. The people are reportedly angry at the Iraqi state channel’s coverage of the protests in Baghdad and Dhi Qar. On Monday, Anadolu Agency quoted sources as saying that the protesters had closed the roads leading to…

At least two civilians have lost their lives when Turkish military forces fired live rounds at a group of people, who were taking part in a protest against their presence in northern Syria following a cross-border incursion by Turkish army troops and their allied militants against members of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that Turkish troops, conducting a joint patrol near the mainly Kurdish town of Kobani (officially known as Ayn al-Arab), opened fire at local residents on Tuesday afternoon as the latter threw stones and shoes at them in an expression of boiling…

Thousands of people have held yet another ant-government rally in Lebanon against alleged corruption. On Tuesday, banks and schools were closed in Lebanon as thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in the capital, Beirut, and some other cities and towns and attempted to prevent employees from clocking in at state institutions. In the town of Aley, east of Beirut, the southern city of Tyre, and the eastern town of Baalbek, protesters held sit-ins outside and inside the offices of the state telecommunications provider. Since October 17, people have been holding protest rallies in Beirut and other cities to express…

By Robert Inlakesh Israel has re-initiated its targeted assassination strategy for killing Palestinian leaders and perceived combatants, a move which was calculated to stir up regional tensions and potentially initiate a fourth large scale war with the Gaza Strip. In the Early hours of Tuesday morning, Israel launched unprovoked airstrikes against the North of the Gaza Strip killing the senior commander of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Baha Abu al-Ata (43 years old). The strike also killed the PIJ commander’s wife Asma Mohammed (39 years old) and a young man named Mohammed Atiyah (20 years old), injuring several others. The later…

BY KHALED ISKEF Monday afternoon, 7 civilians were killed and 70 others were injured when three car bombs exploded in the populated city of Qamishli in Hasakah countryside in northeastern Syria. Local sources said that the blasts began at 3 p.m. by a car bomb exploded at the intersection of “Al-Wehdah” and “Al-Ra’es” streets, followed immediately by a second car bomb explosion near a cafe in the city in “Al-Ra’es” street within short distance from the site of the first explosion. The second explosion coincided with the explosion of a third car bomb next to the restaurant “Abu Dalil” in “Al-Wehdah”…