Author: Steven Sahiounie

Masked vandals targeted Hong Kong shopping malls and MTR light rail stations at several locations around the city during the 24th consecutive weekend of violent anti-government protests. The Sha Tin station and the nearby New Town Plaza mall were closed due to the unrest. Hong Kong police used tear gas in a confrontation with protesters in the Tsuen Wan district. In Tuen Mun, protesters erected several roadblocks and set at least one of them on fire. The violence in the Chinese city follows a relatively peaceful Saturday.

By Steve Brown The largest reserve gold traders on the planet are the six bullion banks. A bullion bank is a large multi-national bank authorized to serve as a conduit through which Central Banks – and the Fed primary dealers – loan their gold out into the market. All central banks lease gold, to maintain their balance sheet and to provide sovereign collateral when a currency swap or paper trade won’t work. It’s called the gold carry trade. There are currently six clearing banks on the LBMA handling gold lease transactions: Barclays, Scotia, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JPM, and UBS all of which are…

A small truck exploded outside a bakery in the Syrian village of Suluk, located southeast of the town of Tel Abyad on Sunday, according to the Turkish military and local emergency workers. The blast is said to have killed at least eight people, but it remains unclear whether or not they were civilians. The Turkish military was quick to blame Kurdish-led militias for the attack. Ankara launched a military invasion into northeastern Syria in early October, targeting Kurdish-led militias that it believes to be “terrorists.” Following two separate deals with the US and Russia, Turkey agreed to halt the operation, while the…

Iraqi security forces used stun grenades and tear gas on Saturday to capture the Al Sinak bridge, one of the flashpoints of mass protests in Baghdad. The demonstrators were pushed back to nearby Khilani Square and further away from the Green Zone, which is located on the other side of the Tigris River. Some 35 people were injured in the altercations, AP reported. Violent protests across Iraq have been raging for over a month with an estimated 280 people killed so far. The Friday clashes have been among the heaviest in Baghdad. The Iraqi government’s promises to curb corruption, tackle…

US President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of US military from Syria amid Turkey’s operation against Kurdish forces in the northeast of the country. At the same time, the United States said it would remain in the oil-producing areas in the east of the country and would help local Kurds to control them. Up to 600 US military staff will remain in Syria, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley told broadcaster ABC. “Less than a thousand, somewhere around 500, maybe even 600,” Milley said when asked about the number of the US troops in Syria. “There…

Iran is considered a global energy superpower; the country reportedly possesses 10% of the world’s oil reserves. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday a new oilfield containing 53 billion barrels of crude had been discovered in the country. Hassan Rouhani said that the discovered field was located in Iran’s oil-rich Khuzestan province. The discovery of a new oilfield would boost Iran’s proven crude oil reserves by a third. At the moment, Iran has some 150 billion barrels of crude oil reserves. In January, the International Energy Agency (IEA) presented a report in which it stated that oil production in Iran, constrained by US…

Iraq’s Martyrs Foundation says there are nearly a dozen mass graves in the southern Iraqi province of al-Muthanna containing the bodies of dozens of innocent civilians believed to have been killed during the former Ba’athist regime’s deadly Anfal campaign against the Kurds three decades ago. Dhiaa Karim Tohmeh, Director of the Department of Mass Graves Affairs and Protection at the foundation, told the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) media on Sunday that the Sheikia area in the desert about 170 kilometers (106 miles) west of the city of Samawa is very vast, and it is thought to be containing more than 10…

A combat unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), operated by Turkish military forces, has reportedly launched an airstrike against a residential neighborhood in Syria’s northeastern province of Hasakah, in the aftermath of a cross-border incursion by Turkish army troops and their allied militants into the Arab country’s Kurdish-populated region. Syria’s official news agency SANA reported that the drone fired a missile at al-Dardara village on the outskirts of the key border town of Ra’s al-Ayn on Sunday. There were no immediate reports about possible casualties, and the extent of damage caused. Separately, a landmine planted by the Turkish forces in al-Assadiya village went…

By Drago Bosnic Russia’s decision to develop weapons previously banned by a now-defunct deal was only a reciprocal measure amid steps taken by Washington, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a conference on non-proliferation in Moscow. The foreign minister stressed that NATO is making it clear that it will not agree to a moratorium on short- and intermediate-range missile deployment in Europe, Sputnik reported. The INF Treaty, signed by the US and the Soviet Union in 1987, was terminated in August at Washington’s initiative after the country formally suspended its INF obligations six months earlier. Both countries had repeatedly accused…

The earlier company’s report showed that the net profit of Saudi Arabia’s state oil company Saudi Aramco for the first nine months of this year amounted to $68 billion, revenue for the same period reached $244 billion. According to the largest state-run oil company in the Kingdom, the prospectus confirms to offer up to 0.5 percent of its shares to individual investors, adding that selling shareholders will receive all of the proceeds of the offering and will reimburse Saudi Aramco for all fees, costs and expenses in incurs. The document also stresses that the company will be prohibited from listing additional shares…