Author: Steven Sahiounie

Two rockets struck Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone Monday, according to reports. According to Reuters, there are currently no reports of casualties or damage. There are siren sounds near the US embassy in the Green Zone, according to reports on Twitter. The rockets may have hit the area housing US troops and staff. Iraqi security officials confirmed to AP that the rockets landed about a half-mile from the US embassy in the Green Zone. There are also reports that the rockets are “Katyusha.” Katyusha multiple rocket launchers are a type of rocket artillery used by the Soviet Union in World War II. Two…

Police in Egypt have killed six members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood movement during a shootout on the outskirts of the capital, Cairo, the Egyptian Interior Ministry says. In a brief statement, the ministry said police forces had exchanged fire with the “terrorist” group in 6th of October City, located some 32 kilometers southwest of the capital, in Giza Province, on Tuesday. It also accused the group of “planning a series of terror operations,” without giving details. The Muslim Brotherhood was outlawed as a “terrorist organization” in late 2013 following the ouster of the country’s first-democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, through…

Moscow has lashed out at the United States for denying visas to several members of the Russian delegation to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), saying the move contravenes the US’s international commitments. In a statement on Tuesday, Russian Foreign Ministry said that 10 members of the Russian delegation to the UNGA session, including seven employees of the ministry and Leonid Slutsky, the head of the International Affairs Committee of the Russian lower house, had been denied visas, Interfax reported. The ministry also dismissed as “untenable” the US’s references to technical reasons for denying visas. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei…

Oil giant Saudi Arabia is blocking the adoption of a major UN report on oceans and climate change by challenging an earlier UN assessment highlighting the need to slash carbon emissions caused by burning fossil fuels, multiple sources told AFP. Already deep into overtime, a meeting of the 195-nation Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Monaco remained deadlocked early Tuesday, with delegates tweeting pictures of the rising Sun. A 30-page executive summary is scheduled for release on Wednesday morning. “It has been 24 hours and there has been absolutely no compromise from the Saudis,” said a participant. “They are…

By Sarah Abed On September 23rd, the 74th annual United Nations General Assembly conference commences at U.N. Headquarters in Manhattan, New York. The General Assembly is one of six main organs of the U.N. and all 193 member states are represented. Every September world leaders meet to discuss international issues covered by the Charter of the United Nations including international law, development, peace and security. Hundreds of meetings will take place this week between attending world leaders on the most prominent diplomatic stage. Some topics that will be discussed include climate change, trade wars, migration, eradication of poverty, the volatile situation in the Middle East between the…

Steven Sahiounie, Middle East observer The Syrian war ends in Idlib While most of Syria struggles to recover from 8 years of bloody conflict, Idlib is left as the last hot-spot.  The population in Idlib today includes foreign terrorists following the tenets of Al Qaeda.  The terrorists have wives and children, and while they may be seen as innocent, they remind us of the ISIS wives and children now in the Al Hol “concentration camp”, who is seen to be the seeds of the next ISIS resurgence.  Every war has an ending, and the Syrian conflict is ending in Idlib…

Washington earlier proposed that Ankara buy Patriot air defence systems in a bid to thwart its deal with Moscow on the purchase of S-400s. Turkey, however, stuck to its deal with Russia, but hasn’t discarded the possibility of buying Patriots either. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated ahead of his visit to the US in order to participate in the UN General Assembly that the idea of Ankara buying American Patriot missiles is “not off the table”, Daily Sabah reported. He noted, however, that for a deal to happen, the US must make some concessions. “If our conditions are fulfilled we…

A British-flagged tanker detained by Iran in mid-July will be released soon, according to a Fars news report citing an Iranian maritime official. “After the issuing of the ruling for the end of detention of the English tanker Stena Impero this vessel will soon, and after the passing of 65 days, begin its movement from the port of Bandar Abbas toward international waters,” said Allahmorad Afifipour, the head of the Ports and Maritime Organization of Iran in Hormozgan Province. The vessel, registered in Britain but owned by Swedish logistics firm Stena Bulk, is one of the ships at the center of…

Dozens of Palestinian prisoners behind bars in Israeli jails are continuing their open-ended hunger strike for the 13th consecutive day to protest the presence of cancer-causing mobile phone jammers in prisons. According to a report by the Palestinian Information Center on Sunday, the hunger strike began after the Israeli prison service recently installed many cell phone jamming devices in its detention centers and later boosted the level of their hazardous radio signals. It added that Israeli prison authorities still refused to meet the demands already made by the representatives of Palestinian prisoners about removing the jammers, activating public telephones, and…

By: Pepe Escobar the Yemeni Shiite group’s spectacular attack on Abqaiq raises the distinct possibility of a push to drive the House of Saud from power We are the Houthis and we’re coming to town. With the spectacular attack on Abqaiq, Yemen’s Houthis have overturned the geopolitical chessboard in Southwest Asia – going as far as introducing a whole new dimension: the distinct possibility of investing in a push to drive the House of Saud out of power. Blowback is a bitch. Houthis – Zaidi Shiites from northern Yemen – and Wahhabis have been at each other’s throats for ages. This book is…