Author: Steven Sahiounie

Syria’s Permanent Representative at the UN Bashar al-Jaafari affirmed the need for lifting unilateral coercive economic measures imposed by some countries on the Syrian people. Al-Jaafari remarks came during a meeting of the Second Committee of the United Nations General Assembly entitled “Unilateral economic measures as a means of political and economic coercion against developing countries” on Thursday. He said that the Syrian people have been suffering for decades to date the serious repercussions of the unilateral coercive economic measures imposed on them by some governments and these repercussions have reached an unprecedented level in the recent years. He added…

Algerians marched through Algiers on Friday to protest against an election scheduled for December, rejecting a vote they say is still fraught with former regime officials. Many marched through the streets waving flags, carrying banners, and chanting against the ruling elite, the military and the recent wave of arrests on demonstrators. Algerians are expected to vote in less than a month, with five candidates in the race, but protesters say there “will not be a vote,” not with many demonstrators still in jail for expressing their opinion. The mass protests that erupted in February, and unseated veteran president Abdelaziz Bouteflika in…

Turkey has detained in Syria a member of the Daesh terror group* who has organised terror attacks in Russia and Germany, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said on Friday, as quoted by Turkish Hurriyet newspaper. “We have captured in Syria’s A’zaz one of the key Daesh terrorists, a member of the top leadership of the group, nicknamed Yusuf Huba. He used to produce bombs and to teach other people to do it, including through the Internet, he used to recruit militants, and he has created a network of suicide attackers, he used to stage terror attacks and murders with use of…

Iran’s armed forces have improved over the past 20 to 30 years, but their equipment and technology remain well behind those of other significant military powers in the region, a new report by the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), published on Tuesday, says. Head of the agency Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley said in the forward to the report that “although still technologically inferior to most of its competitors, the Iranian military has progressed substantially over the past few decades”. Ashley also pointed out that 21st-century developments in the Middle East had allowed Iran to increase its relative influence and leverage it…

Despite scaling down the US military presence in Syria, US President Donald Trump has repeatedly stated that the country intends to retain control of the oil fields in northeastern Syria. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov on Friday slammed US actions in Syria as “destructive, inconsistent”, especially those regarding the country’s oil fields. On Elimination of Former Daesh Leader Al-Baghdadi According to the senior official, the Russian military does not possess any reliable information about the results of an American operation aimed at eliminating Daesh* leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. “Our military working on the ground does not have reliable information about the conduct…

Cyprus police said on Thursday that 120 Syrian migrants have been housed at a reception center after arriving from Turkey on board a boat. Police said that the 97 men, 20 children – including 14 unaccompanied minors – and three women told authorities they’d each paid people-traffickers $4,000 for a spot on the boat. The vessel was spotted on Wednesday sailing off Cape Greco on the southeastern tip of the island nation and was escorted to an area harbor. The migrants said they’d set sail from Turkey’s southern port city of Mersin after crossing the Syrian-Turkish border on separate dates. Cyprus officials…

by Tim Korso The indictment comes at a difficult time for Netanyahu and his Likud party. The party, for the second time in a row this year, has failed to form a coalition government and now, with another snap election looming, the embattled prime minister will have to run both an election campaign and any number of court defenses. Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit announced on 21 November that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was charged on three criminal cases, involving bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. Known as Cases 1000, 2000, and 4000, Netanyahu faces the prospect of defending his innocence in…

Yemeni army forces, supported by allied fighters from Popular Committees, have intercepted and targeted an unmanned aerial vehicle belonging to the Saudi-led military coalition in the skies over the kingdom’s southern border region of Najran, in retaliation for the alliance’s military aggression against their conflict-stricken country. The spokesman for Yemeni Armed Forces, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, wrote in a post published on his Twitter page that Yemeni forces and their allies shot down the drone over al-Sawh area of the region, situated 844 kilometers (524 miles) south of the capital Riyadh, on Thursday evening. He added that Yemeni army forces and Popular Committees fighters targeted the unmanned aerial…

By Nick Cunningham Some analysts see the world dodging a recession next year, which provides some upward room for oil prices. Last week, the IEA warned last week that “the hefty supply cushion” building up in the first half of 2020 will cause OPEC+ problems as the group tries to balance the oil market. Part of the reason for another potential surplus is the steep drop in demand growth this year, forcing oil forecasters to make multiple downward revisions to their projections. “With consumption growth of just 830 thousand b/d YoY in 2019, global oil demand has easily expanded at the lowest rate since the…

By Andrew Korybko What originally began as an expression of legitimate outrage at the Mideast country’s dysfunctional government and endemic corruption quickly transformed into a Color Revolution aimed at carrying out regime change in Lebanon through the removal of Hezbollah from its government, the threat of which makes this a defining moment for the Resistance because its supporters’ loyalty is being tested to the core. Lebanon is undoubtedly in the throes of an ongoing Color Revolution that’s already succeeded in securing the resignation of Prime Minister Hariri in response to large-scale protests against the Mideast country’s dysfunctional government and endemic corruption, sparked as…