Author: Steven Sahiounie

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and a senior Chinese military official have signed a set of documents on military-technical cooperation. Russia’s Defense Ministry says Shoigu and the Vice Chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, Zhang Youxia, signed the documents in Moscow. The ministry quoted Shoigu as saying China is Russia’s key strategic partner, and the two countries are entering a new stage of development. Zhang accused the United States of exerting strategic pressure on China and Russia. He said China has always put priority on Russia in its diplomacy, and it is ready to cooperate to achieve a new breakthrough.…

Almost 50,000 US auto workers went on strike on Monday in a pay dispute with General Motors, the largest industrial action to hit the car-maker in more than a decade. Workers from 31 plants opted to walk out after talks between the company and the United Auto Workers Union (UAW) hit an impasse as they tried to negotiate a replacement agreement when the manufacturer’s four-year contract with workers expired. How long the labor action might last was uncertain. “The strike can take a little while longer,” Brian Rothenberg, a spokesman for the powerful union, told AFP. He said that only…

By Pepe Escobar What’s going on deep down in Hong Kong? For a former resident with deep cultural and emotional ties to the Fragrant Harbor, it’s quite hard to take it all in just within the framework of cold geopolitical logic. Master filmmaker Wong Kar-Wai once said that when he came up with the idea for Happy Together, he decided to shoot the story of his characters in Buenos Aires because that was as far away from Hong Kong as possible. A few weeks ago I was walking the streets of far away Buenos Aires dreaming of Hong Kong. That Hong Kong that…

By: Mark Hunt The Muslim Brotherhood is a political group with offices around the world and throughout the USA. Their official website and platform states they believe the Koran to be the only global constitution, and Islamic Law (Shariah) to be the only law of the world. Their goal, as they have stated publically, is to abolish all secular government, and institute an Islamic State as the only global government. If we tell them this is absurd, and it is wrong, and can’t be anyone’s goal, we are in essence telling them that their religion is not good and should not…

By Abdus-Sattar Ghazali  With $295 billion 2019 defense budget, Saudi Arabia Saturday failed to stop a drone attack on its oil installations from the Yemeni rebel rag tag militia. Drones launched by Yemen’s Houthi rebels attacked the world’s largest oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia and another major oil field, sparking huge fires. The facilities are operated by Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil giant, and produce up to 70% of the country’s crude oil output. The Wall Street Journal, quoting “people familiar with the matter,” reported that Saudi Arabia is shutting down about half of its oil output following the…

by MARJORIE COHN The U.S. government has used the post-9/11 war on terror to launch two major wars, mount gunship and drone attacks on several countries, and institute a widespread program of torture and abuse. Casualties of those conflicts number in the hundreds of thousands. Another casualty of the war on terror is civil liberties. From the USA PATRIOT Act, to warrantless surveillance, to the Muslim ban, to the use of metadata to spy on people and target for drone strikes, the deprivation of constitutional rights has continued during the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations. An additional assault on the Constitution is the terrorism watchlist, a federal government database…

North Korea has called on the United States to provide security guarantees as a precondition to the resumption of stalled nuclear negotiations between the two sides. North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) cited a senior official from the North’s foreign ministry as making the remark on Monday. The director-general of the department of US affairs, who was not named, said in a statement that “discussion of denuclearization may be possible when threats and hurdles endangering our system security and obstructing our development are clearly removed beyond all doubt.” It was up to Washington whether it would prove to…

The serial production of Russia’s most advanced S-500 long-range air defense missile system will start in the second half of 2020, CEO of Russia’s state hi-tech corporation Rostec Sergei Chemezov said in an interview with business daily RBC. “I believe that the serial production will begin in one year time,” Chemezov said. According to him, Russia will not be exporting the new air defense system in the course of five years, because “first of all, we need to provide for our Army and only then start export production.” The S-500 is set to replace the S-400 air defense missile system.…

Earlier, President Trump said Washington had “reason to believe” that it knew “the culprit” of Saturday’s drone attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities, and warned that the US was “locked and loaded” pending verification from the Saudis on who they believe is responsible. The Saudi-led military coalition against Yemen’s Houthi militia has announced that ‘preliminary findings’ have shown that Saturday’s attack on Saudi Aramco facilities used Iranian-made weapons which did not originate in Yemen. Speaking at a press conference in Riyadh on Monday, coalition spokesman Col. Turki al-Malki said the investigation was still ongoing, and that investigators were presently looking…

Russian President Vladimir Putin has suggested Saudi Arabia should buy Russian air defense systems to protect its oil facilities from drone attacks, pointing to Iran and Turkey, who operate S-300 and S-400 missiles, respectively. “Saudi Arabia needs to make a smart decision, as Iran did by buying our S-300, and as Mr. Erdogan did by deciding to buy the most advanced S-400 Triumph air defense systems from Russia,” Putin told reporters in Ankara on Monday. “These kinds of systems are capable of defending any kind of infrastructure in Saudi Arabia from any kind of attack.” Putin was answering a question about the…