Author: Steven Sahiounie

Output declines in all three major sectors were key contributors to a drop in GDP in October The UK economy contracted by 0.3% in October, the first time since July that GDP had shrunk on a month-by-month basis, according to data released by the Office for National Statistics on Wednesday. The drop comes after a gain of 0.2% in September. Services, industrial production, and construction all showed weaker-than-expected results. The three sectors, which combined had declined for the first time in five months, were the major trigger for the drop in GDP due to their size in the economy. In…

In a vigil for a Palestinian colleague killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, the Google staff in London have censured the company’s provision of technology to Tel Aviv. The event was to honor software engineer Mai Ubeid, a graduate of the Google-funded coding boot camp, Gaza Sky Geeks, and part of the Google for Startups accelerator program. Ubeid and her entire family were killed in Gaza on October 31. The No Tech For Apartheid campaign also participated in the vigil outside the Google offices near King’s Cross station. Google has been under pressure for business partnership with certain Israeli firms. Particular criticism…

Israeli troops have broken into a number of mosques in the occupied West Bank, using loudspeakers to sing Jewish songs in a “provocative step” on the third day of an onslaught on Jenin. Videos circulated on social media show the troops storming the mosques and using the loudspeakers that broadcast the Muslim call to prayer. They start singing Jewish songs afterward. One video shows Israeli troops addressing residents of a refugee camp in Jenin, telling them that the “story is over, we will not allow the presence of armed men inside the camp.” The Palestinian news agency Wafa said the move was “a…

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has warned the United Nations refugee chief of the Israeli regime’s plan to forcibly relocate Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which is subject to an unrelenting Israeli war. The top diplomat made the remarks to Filipo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), on Thursday in Geneva, where he attended the Global Refugee Forum 2023 earlier during his stay. Speaking to Grandi, Amir-Abdollahian expressed concern about the Israeli regime’s “dangerous” measures aimed at bringing about an exodus of Palestinians from the northern part of Gaza to the southern parts of the coastal sliver and…

Yemen’s Armed Forces have said they have conducted a successful operation against a container ship headed for the occupied territories, calling the attack a move taken in support of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, who are subject to a genocidal Israeli war. The forces’ spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree announced the development on Thursday, identifying the targeted vessel as Maersk Gibraltar. “The naval forces of the Yemeni Armed Forces, with the help of God Almighty, carried out a military operation against the Maersk Gibraltar container ship, which was heading to the Israeli entity. It was targeted by a drone and…

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees has warned that social order in the Gaza Strip is “teetering on the edge of a possible implosion” as a result of Israel’s war against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip. “We are teetering on the edge of a possible implosion. Why? Because there is more and more a breakdown of a civil order,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Lazzarini told reporters at a UN forum in Geneva on Thursday. The remarks came amid a genocidal war that the Israeli regime has been waging against the Gaza Strip since October 7 following…

The Palestinian resistance movement of Hamas’ military wing has announced killing at least 36 Israeli forces in the course of the past 72 hours. Al-Qassam Brigades made the announcement through a statement released by its spokesman Abu Ubaida on the Telegram messaging app on Thursday. “Our fighters confirmed the killing of 36 soldiers and the injury or death of dozens of other Zionist soldiers,” the spokesman said. He noted that the battleground gains had come about following complicated maneuvers, during which al-Qassam’s fighters “engaged them (the Israeli troops) at point-blank range” and “carried out successful sniper operations against them.” Abu…

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq says its drone has hit the US-run Ain Al-Asad airbase in western Iraq in a fresh attack in retaliation for Washington’s complicity in the Israeli genocide in Gaza. No casualties were immediately reported in the attack that occurred on Thursday night. This is the latest in a series of attacks against US bases in Iraq and Syria for its support for Israeli atrocities. Many such attacks against the US forces have been claimed by groups operating under the banner of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq. On Thursday, the resistance announced a drone attack on a US military base…

The United Nations has slammed the desecration of religious sites after a circulated video on social media showed Israeli soldiers performing Jewish rituals inside a mosque in the occupied West Bank. “The desecration of religious sites should not be tolerated and is against common decency, to say the least,” Stephane Dujarric, a spokesman for the UN secretary-general, told reporters on Thursday. He stressed that religious sites need to “be respected and cannot be perverted in one way or another.” His remarks came after Israel’s far-right minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, shared a video showing Israeli soldiers performing Jewish rituals inside a mosque during…

The collapse of the fake Israeli regime is not too distant, a clear sign of which is that the Zionists are so weak that they cannot bear the existence of Palestinian women and children, Major General Hossein Salami said in an address to a cultural conference on Thursday. Lashing out at the Zionist regime for turning the hospitals of Gaza into battlefields and massacring defenseless women and children in Palestine, the IRGC commander said such atrocities have triggered global aversion to Israel. “The world’s hatred of Zionists is not confined to Muslims anymore. People have rallied against Zionists even next…