Author: Steven Sahiounie

Over the past two weeks, President Trump has repeatedly commented on the need to “secure” and “keep” Syria’s oil, prompting Syrian President Bashar Assad to characterise him as “the best” US president in recent memory for at least being “transparent” about Washington’s sinister intensions. Speaking to reporters late last week, US President Donald Trump told reporters that although he has been pulling troops out of Kurdish-held areas in northern Syria, the US has “stayed back and kept the oil” in northeastern Syria. “I like oil. We’re keeping the oil,” he emphasised. Just how much oil is Trump talking about? On October 26,…

Steven Sahiounie, political commentator Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have continued to pull back as agreed, while the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and their Russian military allies have taken positions through much of the northeast of Syria, to counter the Turkish invasion.  There are clashes sporadically, and the Turkish backed sectarian militias have committed murders of unarmed civilians reportedly.  Generally, the agreement between Turkey and the US, and between the SDF and the Syrian government, brokered by Russia, has been holding. On Oct. 29 the US House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to officially recognize the Armenian genocide at the hands…

A senior Turkish official says the delivery of a second batch of Russian S-400 missile defense systems may be postponed beyond a planned 2020 timeline after bilateral talks on technology sharing and joint production. “We are planning a timeline for next year. As opposed to the first (batch), there is joint production and technology transfer here. It is beyond the ‘let’s buy it quickly and install it’ of the first system,” Ismail Demir, head of the Turkish Defense Industries Directorate, said on Monday. “The joint production concept may move the timeline. We have some sensitivities regarding some of the production…

The European Union has called on Israeli authorities to put an end to their illegal settlement expansion activities in the occupies West Bank, as the Tel Aviv regime goes ahead with land expropriation and settlement construction policies in violation of international law and UN Security Council resolutions. “The EU calls on Israel to end all settlement activity, in line with its obligations as an occupying power,” an EU spokesperson said in a statement released on Monday. The spokesperson said Israeli authorities had in October approved the advancement of over 2,000 housing units in illegal settlements in the West Bank. “The European Union’s position…

Iraq’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has condemned an attack on the Iranian consulate in the holy city of Karbala, reaffirming Baghdad’s commitment to protection of diplomatic missions in the Arab country. The ministry censured on Monday the attack by a group of so-called demonstrators on the Iranian consulate and voiced Baghdad’s commitment to the security and “inviolability” of foreign missions in the country. “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemns the attack by some demonstrators on the Consulate General of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the holy city of Karbala, and reaffirms the ministry’s commitment to the inviolability of diplomatic missions guaranteed by…

By Ahmed AbdulKareem The country of Yemen, known in the medieval period as “Green Yemen,” is one of the most extensively terraced areas of the world. There, Yemeni farmers transformed rugged mountain slopes into terraces and built dams like the Great Marib, a structure whose history spans long enough that it was mentioned in the Quran. During the medieval period, Yemen had one of the widest ranges of agricultural crops in all of the Middle East.  Farhan Mohammed is one of the richest farmers in Qama’el, a rural village in the region of Baqim in northwestern Yemen. He owns 50 hectares…

By Andrew Korybko The interview that Russian Prime Minister Medevedev gave to the Bangkok Post during his recent visit to Thailand to attend the ASEAN Summit there served to remind everyone of Russia’s skepticism towards the US’ “Indo-Pacific” concept, which he believes reduces the bloc’s centrality in regional affairs and also unnecessarily pressures its members to depart from their historic position of non-alignment, though this stance shouldn’t be interpreted as signaling that Russia is against this strategy’s publicly proclaimed goals of free trade and improved regional connectivity. *** Keen observers were already aware that Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov slammed the US’…

American troops heading towards the Iraqi border have been attacked from land held by Turkish-backed militants in Northern Syria, Russia’s Ministry of Defence has claimed. The attack comes amid a US withdrawal from the region. The convoy was traveling along the M4 motorway – which runs parallel to the Turkish border through land captured by Turkey during its anti-Kurdish ‘Peace Spring’ offensive last month – when it was attacked, the ministry reported on Sunday.The Americans were fired upon from “territory controlled by Pro-Turkish fighters” of the Syrian National Armies, the Russian statement read. Nobody was hurt in the incident.

On Friday, Trump said he “liked” Syria’s oil and that the US would be “keeping the oil,” with his remarks coming in the wake of a report by Russian military intelligence that the US military and CIA had teamed up with US oil companies and military contractors to illegally smuggle tens of millions of dollars of oil out of the war-torn country. Former Vice President and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden criticised Donald Trump over his Syria policy, saying it has only worked to strengthen Russia, Iran and Daesh (ISIS)* terrorists. “Leaving troops behind like [Trump’s] doing now –…

Following an international tour, President Jair Bolsonaro returned from the Middle East with a $10 billion investment pledge from Saudi Arabia. The amount, however, is 10 times lower than promised to India. Bolsonaro has signed agreements in the areas of visa granting, defense cooperation, cultural cooperation and strengthening bilateral investments with Saudi Arabia. The deals were one of the last chapters of an international agenda that also went through Japan, China, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The Saudi sovereign wealth fund’s $10 billion investment in Brazil has not yet had a schedule or more details disclosed. However,…