Author: Steven Sahiounie

European stocks bounced and government bond yields dropped on Monday as investors looked forward to an interest rate cut from the European Central Bank (ECB), while U.S. jobs data kept the focus squarely on inflation.

Read More

Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said on Monday that the humanitarian situation in Gaza, where Israel has killed more than 36,400 Palestinians since October, is approaching “catastrophic” levels. “Almost all major international organizations have called the humanitarian situation in Palestine unacceptable. In fact, it is approaching catastrophic,” Tokayev said during a meeting with the heads of parliament of Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) member states in the city of Almaty, according to a presidential statement. Expressing that their meeting on the sidelines of the CSTO’s Parliamentary Assembly meeting is taking place in “conditions of unprecedented aggravation of the international situation,” Tokayev…

Read More

Russia strongly condemns Israeli airstrikes on the outskirts of Syria’s Aleppo; these aggressive actions grossly violate Syria’s sovereignty and international law, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. “Moscow strongly condemns these aggressive actions, which come in gross violation of Syria’s sovereignty and basic rules of international law,” the ministry stressed. “Such use of force, which in the current tense regional situation can lead to extremely dangerous consequences and trigger a large-scale armed escalation, are unacceptable,” it added. The Russian Foreign Ministry “once again urges the Israeli leadership to abandon this vicious practice fraught with uncontrolled destabilization of the situation in the…

Read More

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has arrived in Guinea, where he will begin a new African tour, a TASS correspondent reported. The top Russian diplomat is scheduled to meet with the country’s political leadership in Conakry. Lavrov’s last working visit to Guinea was in February 2013. “Russian-Guinean relations are friendly. There is an active political dialogue,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said. On July 27, 2001, a declaration on the principles of friendly relations and partnership between Russia and Guinea was signed in Moscow. Since 2002, the Russian-Guinean intergovernmental commission on economic, scientific, technical and trade cooperation has been working. On September…

Read More

The foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE, Qatar and Egypt said on Monday it was important to “deal seriously and positively” with a proposal presented by US President Joe Biden that would lead to a ceasefire in Gaza. Biden on Friday presented what he labelled an Israeli three-phase plan that would end the conflict in Gaza, free all hostages and lead to the reconstruction of the devastated Palestinian territory without Hamas in power. The foreign ministers met virtually to discuss the proposal and US-Qatari-Egyptian mediating efforts for a swap deal of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners that would…

Read More