Author: Shuaib Hassan

A court in Tehran has ordered the U.S. government to pay $330 million in damages for “planning a coup” against the newly established Islamic republic in 1980, the judiciary said Saturday. A year after the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed shah, a group of mostly army officers tried to overthrow the new government. State news agency IRNA said the “insurgents” were led by Saeed Mahdiyoun, a former Iranian air force commander, and had their headquarters in Nojeh, an air base in the western Hamedan province. Several people were killed in clashes between the coup plotters and government forces,…

The Philippine president said the main mission of his country’s military has changed to ensure the protection of its territory as disputes with China and U.S.-China rivalry intensify. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. stressed the urgency of shifting the military’s focus to external defense in a speech before troops Monday afternoon. He spoke two weeks after summoning China’s ambassador to protest the use of a military-grade laser by the Chinese coast guard that briefly blinded some of the crew of a Philippine patrol vessel in the South China Sea. The Philippines condemned the Feb. 6. incident in one of the more than 200 diplomatic protests…

Despite public denunciations, Moscow has done little to dissuade Tel Aviv from expanding its wars across the Middle East After the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel, western analysts and media promoted the notion that Russia was attempting to exploit Tel Aviv’s confrontation with the Iranian-backed axis of resistance in order to undermine western support for Ukraine. Amid unconfirmed reports of Moscow’s military and intelligence assistance to Hamas and Hezbollah, an image of an anti-Israel Russian strategy emerged. A closer look at Russian actions in the region, however, reveals that this perspective is unfounded, and that Moscow has embraced an appeasement strategy in response to Israel’s aggressive regional behaviour. This appeasement strategy…

Casablanca (14/11 – 50). In a recent scan of the local left-wing press, an unsettling trend of pseudo-journalism was uncovered, aimed at manufacturing a scandal using the typical playbook of disinformation. The target? A concoction of conspiracy-laden narrative that blends elements of real-world controversies, celebrity gossip, geopolitical issues, and unfounded claims—essentially, an elaborate form of astro-turfing designed to mislead and create fake influence. At the heart of this questionable journalism is Philippe Engels, a reporter who seems to have drawn inspiration from various disjointed and unrelated stories. The method is familiar: take an American scandal, such as Scientology, mix it…

The Tajikistani authorities are perpetuating systemic discrimination and severe human rights violations against the Pamiri minority, according to new research by Amnesty International. The Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) in East Tajikistan is home to several ethnic groups forming the Pamiri minority, mostly practicing the Shia Ismaili branch of Islam. Denied official recognition as a minority and regarded as ethnic Tajiks by the central authorities, Pamiris face systemic discrimination, suppression of cultural and religious institutions, political oppression, and brutal reprisals for defending their rights. “The ongoing persecution and human rights violations against the Pamiri minority in Tajikistan reached an alarming scale…

Washington/Vienna/Berlin (10/8 – 45.45)After a tip-off by U.S. intelligence officials and only a few hours left Austrian police made swift arrests. The plot seems too bizarre not to be true. Abul Baraa, aka Ahmad Armih, the German based hate-preacher in Berlin radicalized via Tik-tok or Istagram a 19-year Beran A. to swear the oath of alliance to the Islamic State. After a tip-off by U.S. intelligence officials and only a few hours left Austrian police made swift arrests. The plot seems too bizarre not to be true. Abul Baraa, aka Ahmad Armih, the German based hate-preacher in Berlin radicalized via…

Au revoir Paris, Hola LA. In a nutshell, that was the just completed ceremony of the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad. It was Tom Cruise leaping off the rim of the Stade de France to take the Olympic flag from LA Mayor Karen Bass and Simone Biles. As the guitar riffs of H.E.R. filled the air, Cruise then exited on a motorbike to deliver the flag to a sunny West Coast. It was the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Billie Eilish and Olympic fixture Snoop Dogg getting into the pre-recorded groove down in Long Beach. It wasn’t telling of the full scope of Los Angeles and no mention was made of Snoop’s…

Ex-defense minister and head of national security council Sergei Shoigu to meet Pezeshkian, counterparts; Moscow condemned Haniyeh killing, relies on Iranian-made arms in Ukraine Russia’s National Security Council secretary Sergei Shoigu arrived in Tehran Monday for a series of meetings with Iranian counterparts, Russian and Iranian news agencies reported, amid fears of a wider war in the region following last week’s killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran. Russia’s state Tass and RIA Novosti news agencies reported that Shoigu, Russia’s former defense secretary, was scheduled to meet with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian; the secretary of the Supreme National Security…

Former Russian Deputy Defense Minister Tatyana Shevtsova, who officially was dismissed mid-June, fled to France ‘with hundreds of millions of dollars saved in cryptocurrency.’. Tsargrad and other Telegram channels report this with reference to several sources, although confirmation or refutation of this data has not yet been received. If she fled to France, it must be a deal with the French security service, as she is sanctioned in Europe. There is a version that Shevtsova allegedly cooperated with the investigation against the detained generals, trying to avoid her own charges. According to another version, the generals, to reduce their sentences,…

Reformist Masoud Pezeshkian has been elected as Iran’s new president, beating his hardline conservative rival Saeed Jalili. The vote was declared in Dr Pezeshkian’s favour after he secured 53.3% of the more than 30 million votes counted. Mr Jalili polled at 44.3%. The run-off came after no candidate secured a majority in the first round of the election on 28 June, which saw a historically low voter turnout of 40%. The election was called after Iran’s previous president Ebrahim Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash in May, in which seven others also died. The leaders of China, India and Russia have all congratulated…