Headlines

 Dubai, Nov. 16.- One person was killed in the Iranian city of Sirjan during protests that erupted after President Hassan Rouhani’s government imposed gasoline rationing and price hikes of at least 50%, Iranian ISNA news agency reported on Saturday.

The government announced on Friday that the price of a litre of regular gasoline would increased to 15,000 rials ($0.13 cents) from 10,000 rials and the monthly ration for each private car was set at 60 litres. Additional purchases would cost 30,000 rials per litre.

The House is holding the first public hearings of the impeachment probe, with two key diplomatic officials testifying before the Intelligence Committee.

• Diplomat says aide heard Trump ask about "investigations" day after Ukraine call. 
• Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, told the committee he recently learned a member of his staff overheard President Trump asking about "the investigations" the day after his July 25 call with the president of Ukraine.  

Washington DC, Nov.13.– The top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine revealed new information about the events at the center of the House impeachment inquiry as the first open hearings before the House Intelligence Committee got underway Wednesday.

Bill Taylor, the chargé d'affaires at the U.S. embassy in Kiev, said in his opening statement that he recently learned about a conversation a member of his staff overheard between President Trump and Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the E.U. The conversation supposedly took place on July 26, the day after the president's call with the Ukrainian president.

• He was appointed and served under the Obama administration and has been for long suspected of attempting to damage President Trump's foreign policy from the inside. "He was Joe Biden's point man on Ukraine", reported Senator Rand Paul.
• According to the Wall Street Journal, Burisma Holdings’ campaign to clean up its image in the West reached beyond the 2014 hiring of Hunter Biden, son of the then-U.S. vice president, to include other well-connected operatives in Washington.
• Burisma hired well-connected operatives in Washington to help persuade Ukrainian prosecutors to drop criminal cases against it. 
  

Washington, DC, Nov.12.– Eric Ciaramella, the alleged Ukraine whistleblower, was long suspected of deliberately attempting to damage President Trump's foreign policy from the inside and had access to policy information far beyond his regional expertise, according to former National Security Council officials.

Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be capitalizing on ways immigration can destabilize Western countries.  

Tripoli, Nov.11.– Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested to the West last month that the widening chaos in Libya after almost a decade of war should have been obvious: "A flow of migrants went through Libya to Europe," he said in an interview, recalling the displacement of refugees that has reached crisis levels in recent years. "They have what they were warned about."

This week, The New York Times documented the deployment into Libya of Russian mercenaries. While Moscow denies its involvement, the situation mirrors tactics it has successfully employed in Syria and Ukraine to gain influence in chaotic war zones by dispatching private forces Putin can disavow until the point of victory.