"The right to life of the Syrian people is being ruthlessly violated by the US," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Tuesday in response to Syrian state news agency's report of US looting more of the country's oil, noting that the banditry is seriously exacerbating the energy crisis and humanitarian disaster in Syria.
US occupation forces in Syria continued plundering the country's wealth and resources as they brought out a convoy consisting of 53 tankers on Saturday loaded with oil they looted bound for a US base in northern Iraq via al-Mahmoudiya illegitimate crossing, Syrian Arab News Agency reported.
Wang commented on Tuesday that the US illegal plundering of Syria has become blatantly obvious, quoting official data from the Syrian government that in the first half of 2022, more than 80 percent of Syria's daily oil production was illegally smuggled by US forces.
According to media reports, the US forces and their mercenaries are stealing an average of 66,000 barrels of oil per day in Syria as the country's average daily oil production is estimated to have reached 80,000 barrels in the first half of 2022.
The Syrian oil ministry said in August last year in a statement that the US practices in Syria including its unlawful trafficking of Syrian oil have caused direct and indirect losses of about $107.1 billion to Syria's oil and gas sectors.
Earlier this month, the US forces looted higher quantities of Syrian oil and wheat via 60 tankers, delivering it to their bases in Iraq via illegitimate maritime crossing.
In such miserable situation lacking oil and food, the US robbery could only make this winter even colder for the Syrian people, Wang said.
Greedy as the US is in stealing Syrian resources, it has been pretty "generous" in providing military aid to others, often in the billions or even tens of billions.
Whether the US is to "take" or "give," the results are all the same - to plunge other countries into turmoil and disaster, thereby preserving US interests and hegemony, the spokesperson said. This is the reality of the so-called rule-based order of the US, Wang added.
He urged the US to give the Syrian people and the international community an explanation for the oil theft, and to stop trampling on international suspicions and undermining international law.
The Syrian government has slammed the US' brazen robbery behavior repeatedly over an extended period. However, since the US retained a military presence in northeastern and eastern Syria since 2014, it has been transporting Syrian oil it stole to Iraq where they later sell it to Iraqi oil companies at a lower price and use the money to support the Kurdish-led, US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces and other opposition armed groups in Syria, experts noted.
The overthrow of PM Sheikh Hasina in 2024 was funded by USAID and Clinton family money, Mohibul Hasan Chowdhury told RT
The unwillingness of Bangladesh to condemn Russia over the Ukraine conflict was one of the reasons the US wanted to oust Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, former cabinet minister and chief negotiator Mohibul Hasan Chowdhury has said in an interview with RT.
Hasina, who led Bangladesh for 15 years, fled the country in August 2024, following weeks of violent student-led protests which claimed 700 lives, according to some estimates.
Chowdhury, who served as the country’s shipping minister, was at the heart of negotiations between the authorities in Dhaka and demonstrators during the crisis. The country has been led by an interim government since then, which pledged to hold an election in 2026.
Chowdhury told RT in an exclusive interview to be aired on Monday that the uprising was instigated by NGOs linked to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the ...
The fighting in southern Lebanon marks the collapse of a fragile truce – and could redraw the region’s balance of power
On Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a series of coordinated strikes on Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon. According to Israeli sources, the strikes targeted weapons depots, command centers, and communication systems used by militants to coordinate their activities along the border area.
Before the operation began, the IDF issued warnings urging residents of several towns to leave areas that could come under fire. The Israeli military emphasized that its actions were aimed solely at military targets but did not rule out the possibility of expanding the operation if provocations from Hezbollah continued.
West Jerusalem accuses Hezbollah of violating ceasefire terms and attempting to rebuild its military capabilities. Just days earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that Hezbollah was taking steps to regroup and ...
A recent report has revealed that Paramount Global, an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate, maintains an internal blacklist of entertainment figures it labels “anti-Semitic,” applying the term to any artist who supports Palestine or denounces Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Variety magazine reported on Tuesday that Paramount’s new CEO, David Ellison, has moved to sever ties with all pro-Palestine or anti-Israel movements.
To that end, the company has dismissed executives critical of Israel and refuses to collaborate with any artist or public figure who views the occupying regime’s actions in Gaza as genocidal.
In a statement released on Friday, Paramount said it “disagreed with recent efforts to boycott Israeli filmmakers,” claiming that “silencing individual creative artists does not promote better understanding or advance the cause of peace.”
The statement came after Film Workers for Palestine, supported by over 4,000 international ...