Breaking News, 24th of July, 2018

Israel rejected the idea formulated by Russia about creating a 100-kilometers long zone in front of the demarcation line between Israel and Syria, in which the Iranian military can’t be located. This was reported by Interfax with a reference to the newspaper »the Times of Israel». Israel rejected the proposal and continued to demand that Iran must not have a military presence on Syrian territory, the newspaper adds. In addition, as the newspaper writes, Israel insists that there should not be long-range missiles in Syria, and also — all missile manufacturing facilities in the country must be closed.

US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley announced that the United States treat Russia and the Russian leadership with distrust, and they will never trust Moscow, Interfax reported. «We do not trust Russia, we do not trust Putin, and we will never do so» — she explained in an interview to CBN. She added: «They will never become our friends, it’s a fact.» Nevertheless, she admitted that the meetings of the American president with the leaders of both North Korea and Russia were necessary.

The chairman of the Supreme Political Council of the Husit people, Mahdi Al-Mashat, appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin with a request of help in ending of the civil war on the territory of Yemen. In the telegram Al-Mashat expressed a hope that Russia will play an important role in stopping the aggression, and lifting the blockade from Yemen, RIA NEWS reports with a reference to the SABA news agency. The chairman of the Supreme Political Council of the Husits also drew attention to the «aggression against Yemen» and the «military escalation» coming from the coalition led by Saudi Arabia.

Reporters of ANNA NEWS report from Syria: The Syrian army has established control over the last stronghold of the terrorists in the province of Daraa. The city of Nava in southern part of Syria was the last stronghold of the terrorists in the province. The terrorists and members of their families were relocated to Idlib. Thus, the Syrian army managed to completely free Daraa from the members of «Jabhat al-Nusra».

Russian Parliament passed a law on raising the value-added tax from 18% to 20% starting from 1st of January, 2019, Interfax reported. The document was submitted to the Parliament by the government on 16th of June. According to the financial and economic justification for the law — an increase of Value-added tax by 2% will additionally get 620 billions of rubles per year to the budget. The initiative also proposes to establish the tariffs of insurance premiums for mandatory pension insurance in 22% and 10% — over the established limit.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced that Ankara does not intend to join the US sanctions against Iran, RIA NEWS reported. Previously, the US State Department announced that Washington will try to convince the allies to completely stop buying oil from Iran by November, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo added that US sanctions against Iranian oil industry will begin on 4th of November — after that date, any purchase of oil from there will be considered a violation of sanctions.