Author: Steven Sahiounie

A vote at the UN Security Council on a new text calling for an “immediate” ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war was postponed to Monday, diplomatic sources said, after a separate, US-lead draft resolution was vetoed.The United States, Israel’s main ally and military backer, had put forward a resolution mentioning “the imperative of an immediate and sustained ceasefire” and condemning the October 7 attack by Hamas.Russia and China on Friday vetoed that resolution, which was also opposed by Arab states for stopping short of explicitly demanding Israel immediately end its campaign in Gaza.The new ceasefire text was meant to go to…

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi called on the international community to bring to justice the plotters and perpetrators of Friday night’s deadly terrorist attack in Moscow. In a message to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Saturday, the Iranian president offered his condolences on the loss of innocent citizens in a brazen attack on Moscow’s Crocus City Hall that has killed at least 115 people and injured more than 187 others. Raisi strongly condemned the attack and expressed Iran’s support for the Russian officials’ efforts to protect their country’s national security. The Iranian president also called on the international community to act…

Türkiye ‘strongly’ condemned the terror attack on a concert hall in Moscow that killed at least 115 people, said the country’s president on Saturday. “We express our condolences to the Russian government for the terrorist attack on a concert hall in Moscow, and we strongly condemn the attack,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a meeting in the Turkish capital Ankara. “As a country that knows the bloody and treacherous face of terrorism very well, Türkiye shares the pain of the Russian people,” Erdogan said. Terrorism is “unacceptable” no matter where it comes from or who the perpetrator is, he…

UN aid chief Martin Griffiths on Friday called for an immediate ceasefire and said Israel needs to lift all impediments to aid distribution to Gazans. “Limits to aid distribution within Gaza are set by those who block the movements of convoys meant to feed tens of thousands of critically hungry people,” Griffiths said in a post on social media platform X.Meanwhile, the Israeli government announced it was confiscating 800 hectares of land in the occupied West Bank, which activists called the largest such seizure in decades.An area of about 1,980 acres in the northern Jordan Valley has been declared “state…

Intelligence agencies have detained 11 people, including four terrorists, who were directly involved in an attack on the Crocus City Hall, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said in a statement. “The activities of intelligence and law enforcement agencies have resulted in the detention of 11 people, including four terrorists, who directly participated in the terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall,” the statement reads. Work is underway to identify terrorist accomplices and establish all the circumstances of the attack. “It has already been established that the terrorist attack was carefully planned. The weapons that the terrorists used had been placed…

The Israeli regime is “deliberately causing thirst” and spreading diseases in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Authority president said. Mahmoud Abbas made the remark on Friday, according to the Palestinian news agency, WAFA. Abbas made the remarks on World Water Day, which is celebrated annually on March 22. “World Water Day this year comes at a time when our Palestinian people in Gaza are experiencing, like never before, the most heinous inhuman crimes of the occupation, which have claimed the lives of thousands of innocent victims, including martyrs, wounded, mostly children, women, and elderly,” he said. Abbas added that Gazans…

The death toll from the terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall music venue near Moscow has climbed to 133 people, the Russian Investigative Committee told TASS. “As the rubble was being removed in the concert hall of the Crocus City Hall, the number of people killed in the terrorist attack has risen to 133. The search operation is underway,” the statement said. Source: TASS

Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared March 24 a day of nationwide mourning after the terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall mall. “I declare March 24 a day of nationwide mourning,” he said in a televised address to the nation. source: TASS

The UN on Friday announced Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ annual “solidarity trip” to Egypt and Jordan marking the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. “In a few hours, the Secretary-General will arrive in Cairo, Egypt. He will embark on his annual Ramadan solidarity trip, which comes this year in turbulent times, with the conflict in Gaza,” deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said at a news conference. Noting that Guterres would be visiting the northern Sinai Peninsula and the Rafah border with the Gaza Strip, Haq said the UN chief would meet with humanitarian aid workers. Haq added that Guterres will have a Ramadan…

Poland’s Foreign Minister says that if we go with what is presented in the media, the US knew about the Nord Stream attacks but did nothing to prevent them. The United States knew in advance about the impending attacks on the Nord Stream pipeline but did not step in to prevent them, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski revealed today. In September 2022, Sikorski was not yet foreign minister but was a member of the European Parliament. Back then, he insinuated that Washington was complicit in the attack on the Nord Stream gas pipeline. Sikorski tweeted a photo from the scene of the accident…