Author: Steven Sahiounie

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Saudi Arabia on Monday, the first stop in a broader trip to the Middle East to discuss issues including the governance of Gaza once the war with Israel ends. Speaking in Riyadh at the opening of a US-Gulf Cooperation Council meeting, Blinken said the most effective way to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza was to achieve a ceasefire. He also said Washington continued efforts to prevent the Gaza war from expanding. The United States has seen “measurable progress” in the humanitarian situation in Gaza over the past few weeks, he said, but…

DUBAI: A panel of ministers and experts gathered at the World Economic Forum in Riyadh on Sunday to discuss the road map for tripling renewables by 2030.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Sunday met with his counterparts from Norway, Jordan and Yemen as well as the EU foreign policy chief in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh. “We agreed on the urgency to address regional issues and in particular to end the suffering in Gaza,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on X after the meeting, adding that they had a good conversation on EU-Türkiye relations, emphasizing the need for “cooperation” and continuation of the “engagement.” During his meeting with Norway’s Espen Barth Eide, Jordan’s Ayman Safadi and Yemen’s Shai Muhsin Zindani, Hakan Fidan drew attention to…

Iranian students have staged mass rallies to express their solidarity with pro-Palestine academic demonstrations across the United States and Europe demanding an end to Israel’s months-long genocidal war against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip. Iranian students, professors, and personnel in Iran held gatherings on their academic campuses after noon prayers on Sunday to condemn Israeli crimes and atrocities in Gaza over the past seven months. “Academics all over the world, especially American and Western countries, have established humanitarian movements in defense of humanity and human rights, and launched a strong wave of support for the oppressed people of Gaza,”…

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warns that even a “small strike” on Rafah would lead the population to flee the Gaza Strip. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has urged efforts that would pressure “Israel” against the invasion of Gaza’s southern city of Rafah because it would “mean a new Nakba against the Palestinian people”. In a statement, Abbas stated that he expects “Israel” to invade Rafah in the upcoming few days. He advocated for a political solution that would combine Gaza and the West Bank, including occupied al-Quds, under an independent Palestinian state. “What will happen in the coming few days is what Israel…

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Sunday spoke over the phone with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa, according to diplomatic sources. Hakan Fidan, who is in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh to attend meetings on Gaza, discussed the latest situation in Gaza and the West Bank with Mustafa, who is also Palestine’s foreign minister. Both also evaluated efforts to gain recognition of the state of Palestine from more countries.
 Source: Anadolu Agency

Kiev is negotiating with Washington military, financial and other support volumes for the next ten years, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said. “Today, our teams – of Ukraine and the United States – are working on a bilateral agreement on security. They are already working on the concrete wording. <…> Discussing the concrete basis of our security, our cooperation. We are working to commit to paper concrete levels of support for this year and for the next ten years. It will include military, financial, and political support, as well as what concerns joint production of weapons,” he said in a video…

Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator The students in America and Canada have a war to stop, and they are determined to protest the Israeli war on Gaza. The US and Canadian government’s undying support for the genocide in Gaza has brought them under massive protests across university and college campuses, and the students are not backing down, and more campuses in Europe and Australia are joining in a global solidarity movement. The students are asking for their individual institutions to stop investing in companies aligned with the Israeli war on Gaza. Higher education is a big business and institutions…

Iran’s top human rights official has condemned the United States’ violent treatment against professors and students protesting the Washington-backed Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip, saying the suppression emboldens the occupying regime to continue atrocities. Kazem Gharibabadi, secretary of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights, made the remarks in a letter sent on Sunday to United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, amid US police brutality against pro-Palestinian demonstrators on college campuses. “Undoubtedly, the violent crackdown on student movements by the United States and other Western governments is in line with their policy of openly supporting the Zionist…

The US State Department says that the secretary of state will make the visit on Monday and Tuesday to meet regional partners and discuss efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza. The State Department said in a statement, “[Blinken] will discuss the recent increase in humanitarian assistance being delivered to Gaza and underscore the importance of ensuring that increase is sustained.” “The Secretary will also emphasize the importance of preventing the conflict from spreading and discuss ongoing efforts to achieve lasting peace and security in the region, including through a pathway to an independent Palestinian state with security guarantees for…