Besides partially destroying a key nuclear installation, the suspected sabotage at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility is also exacerbating tensions within Iran’s leadership ranks. Was that part of the purpose of the attack?
Tag: kerry
MAY DAY PROTESTS TURN VIOLENT Photo: Philippe Wojazer/Reuters/ZUMA While the United States reserves Labor Day for early September, the rest of the world marks International Workers’ Day on May 1, which was actually originally established in the U.S. to mark the 1886 Haymarket affair. Take it as a sign that the world is growing both […]
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Syrian Aid, Chinese Missiles, Romance Scams
NEW AID TO REACH BESIEGED SYRIAN TOWNS The Syrian government has granted aid convoys access to seven besieged towns, the United Nations announced today after talks in Damascus. The aid is due to arrive “within days,” Al Jazeera reports. The areas concerned are Deir ez-Zor, an eastern city under siege by ISIS, Foah and Kefraya, […]
“WAR CRIMES” ON SYRIAN HOSPITALS, SCHOOLS France and Turkey have denounced the bombing of five hospitals and two schools in Syria, labeling them as war crimes, the BBC reports. At least 50 people were killed by yesterday’s strikes in the Aleppo and Idlib provinces, the UN has said. Different warring parties are blaming one another. […]
PRE-CEASEFIRE, SYRIA FIGHTING ESCALATES Fighting has intensified in Syria just days after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov announced that an agreed ceasefire would begin by the end of this week. According to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an airstrike on a Doctors Without Borders hospital 70 […]
A redeployment of Russian missiles to Kaliningrad and the Western borders could be a response to reports of U.S. nuclear bombs arriving at a German air force base.
KERRY: QUASI COLD WAR U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he was “concerned” and warned of a return “to a kind of Cold War status” after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the addition of more than 40 new intercontinental ballistic missiles to Russia’s nuclear arsenal. These new missiles will be “capable of overcoming any, […]
NSA’S SPYING POWERS EXPIRE Key parts of the U.S. Patriot Act that allow the National Security Agency to collect citizen data in bulk have expired after the Senate failed to reach a deal before last night’s midnight renewal deadline. Sen. Rand Paul, who strongly opposes the NSA’s carte blanche spying powers, was triumphant, The Hill […]
ANOTHER EARTHQUAKE HITS NEPAL A 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck eastern Nepal, near Mount Everest, today, two weeks after the devastating quake killed at least 8,000 in the Himalayan nation. EXTRA! French President François Hollande became the first top Western leader to visit Cuba since the island nation moved to reestablish relations with the United States late […]
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Anti-Terror Raids Across Europe
ANTI-TERROR SWEEP ACROSS EUROPESuspected terrorists were arrested in France, Belgium and Germany in a series of dawn operations aimed at preventing future attacks. According to Le Figaro, 12 people were arrested in several outlying towns around the French capital, with some of the suspects believed to have provided weapons, hideouts and cars to to Said […]
Did you notice that the Geneva deal on Ukraine made no mention of Crimea? Actually it may have been an unspoken license for Russia to continue to pursue control of the rest of the country.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had high hopes of bringing the Israelis and Palestinians together, but fell into the same traps as other would-be saviors of the Middle East of the past.
PARIS — Will Syrians pay for the Ukrainians? Will the millions of victims of a protracted and bloody conflict in Syria suffer the backlashes of the situation playing out in Ukraine? Sadly, the answer is yes. Posed in these simplistic terms, the question might seem odd. But in reality, the growing hostility between Moscow and […]
MOSCOW — The U.S. government seems to believe that Russia has already established “complete operational control of the Crimean Peninsula.” American intelligence sources have cited no fewer than 6,000 Russian soldiers who were used to achieve this goal. (In a press conference Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin denied his country’s troops were currently occupying Crimea, […]
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Rouhani Slams ‘Semiliterate’ Critics
With his rapprochement policy and chummy tweets in English, Iran’s Hassan Rouhani has carved out a rather pleasant public image since being elected president last year. But don’t tell that to his conservative critics in the Iranian parliament. Rouhani lashed out this week at critics of the Geneva accords as being “semiliterate,” the Farsi-language Prague-based […]
Tuesday, December 16, 2014 TALIBAN MASSACRES DOZENS IN SCHOOL ATTACKAt least 126 people, including at least 84 children, were killed and another 122 wounded when Taliban gunmen attacked an army-run school in Peshawar, in northern Pakistan, this morning, Dawn reports on its live blog. A rescue operation is still ongoing with more children believed to […]
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius was smart to reject a pact that offered no long-term guarantees for Iran to dismantle its nuclear program. A Le Monde editorial.
Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2014 U.S. AND RUSSIA TO TEAM UP AGAINST ISIS The United States and Russia have agreed to share more intelligence on ISIS, as part of a renewed cooperation on global security and counter-terrorism efforts, Secretary of State John Kerry said after he met with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Paris […]
Edward Snowden’s father spoke up this week, so did Bashar Al-Assad. Meanwhile in Washington…
-OpEd- PARIS — The Kerry-Lavrov agreement finally ends any illusion of a new “Cold War” that would have featured a showdown in Syria between friends of Washington and allies of Moscow. With the deal inked between American Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, it has become clear that the U.S. […]
A strange thing has happened on the way to the war in Syria: U.S. public opinion, like in Turkey, has lined up this time alongside Europe’s perennial reflex against intervention.
Tuesday, September 9, 2014 MH17 PRELIMINARY REPORT Dutch experts this morning published their preliminary report into the causes of the July 17 crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine. The report stopped short of saying whether a missile had hit the aircraft, explaining instead that it broke in mid-air after being hit by […]
BBC, NEW YORK TIMES, AL JAZEERA, AFP Worldcrunch DAMASCUS – As the United States appeared to toughen its stance against Syria, United Nations inspectors were forced Tuesday to postpone their investigation into the sites of the alleged chemical attacks in the suburbs of Damascus, according to the AFP. The Syrian Foreign Affairs Minister Walid Muallem […]
John Kerry has convinced Israeli and Palestinian leaders that the region’s upheaval requires them to at least search for a solution. Whether they find it is another question.
Friday, August 1, 2014 GAZA CEASEFIRE BROKEN, SOLDIER CAPTURED, VIOLENCE SPIRALS A planned 72-hour ceasefire lasted just two hours after taking effect Friday morning, as fighting broke out and casualties quickly began piling up again. The temporary truce had been announced late Thursday by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and UN Secretary General Ban […]
Monday, July 14, 2014 GAZA STRIKES CONTINUE AS OFFENSIVE ENTERS 7TH DAY The Israeli army continues to launch air strikes in Gaza, while more rockets are fired towards Israel, as the open conflict reaches its seventh day. At least 172 Palestinians are reported killed with more than 1,100 wounded. The United Nations said that 17,000 […]
Friday, July 11, 2014 NEW EVIDENCE OF EASTERN UKRAINE TORTURE NGO Amnesty International says it has gathered evidence of “stomach-turning beatings and torture” committed by pro-Russian and pro-Kiev groups against “activists, protesters and journalists” in Eastern Ukraine. In its report, the organization notes however that pro-Kiev forces have committed “a smaller number of abuses,” and […]
BUENOS AIRES – The meeting between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Venezuelan counterpart, Elias Jaua, was certainly one of the most significant during the recent annual assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Guatemala. During their 40-minute encounter, the two top diplomats agreed to reopen a dialogue at the highest […]
DAWN, NEWS PAKISTAN, PAKISTAN TODAY (Pakistan), WASHINGTON POST (U.S.), REUTERS Worldcrunch MIRAMSHAH – At least seven people were killed in a reported U.S. drone attack early Wednesday in northeastern Pakistan. The drone fired two missiles at a mud-built house in the tribal region of North Waziristan, which is considered a bastion of Taliban and al-Qaeda […]
GIVAT ASSAF – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry passed right by this town’s entrance — just a few dozen meters away — while on his way to meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas last Thursday. We can only hope that his driver slowed down, and that one of his accompanying local diplomats showed him […]
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A New Push For Mideast Peace
After a successful visit to Israel, President Obama has apparently turned the Israeli-Palestinian portfolio over to Secretary of State John Kerry, says Martin Indyk, a leading Middle East expert. Past secretaries of state Henry Kissinger, Cyrus Vance, James Baker, and Warren Christopher, distinguished for their work on Middle East issues, always had their president’s complete […]
UKRAINE’S ULTIMATUM TO PRO-RUSSIAN PROTESTERS Ukraine’s acting Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has said that the situation in Eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian separatists are still occupying state buildings, will be “resolved in 48 hours,” threatening “the minority who want conflict” with a “forceful answer”, the BBC reports. “There are two options — political and negotiations, and […]
BANGKOK “SHUTDOWN”Anti-government demonstrators in Bangkok are blocking the main access points to Thailand’s capital as they try to shut down the city to increase pressure on the government and on Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to resign. It comes just a few weeks ahead of a general election, The Bangkok Post reports. According to Reuters, 10,000 […]
BBC, CNN, NEW YORK TIMES Worldcrunch WASHINGTON – Barack Obama’s choice for Secretary of Defence is Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam War veteran and former Republican senator from Nebraska. White House officials have also confirmed to multiple sources that Obama is set to name his counter-terrorism advisor John Brennan as the new director of the CIA. […]