This Aleppo neighborhood divides government and rebel forces, and the only things the two sides exchange are hostages and dead bodies.
Tag: putin
The failure of the Western allies to weigh on the situation in Syria is a humanitarian disaster. It’s also a sign for Putin that he can also have his way elsewhere.
Categories
Is The Smartphone Past Its Peak?
The ills of the Smartphone industry go beyond the meltdown of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7. A market sector that was still booming not so long ago is now expected to suffer losses this year for the first time, and is forecast to stagnate for the foreseeable future, a recent report from tech research and advisory […]
Categories
Yemen, Airstrikes And Air Time
Beyond the threats and name-calling, foreign policy was high on the agenda of Sunday night’s second U.S. presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Russia was mentioned 35 times. Syria 14 times. China, usually a Trump favorite, was uttered a mere four times by the candidates during the 90-minute debate. That was still more […]
The past few months have left a feeling of an ever less stable future. But a clean defeat of the Republican in November is the quickest way to bring back some order to the world.
Aleksei Arbatov, member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, analyzes Kremlin’s foreign policy and offers an inside look at where international relations are headed.
-OpEd- So let’s stipulate: Donald Trump is not Vladimir Putin’s willing agent, and it’s not certain if or to what extent Putin is trying to elect Trump president. The real issue is that Trump and Putin share the same nihilistic approach to international relations. Together, they could transform our world. Putin already has fostered a current of ruthless, cynical and utterly unprincipled opportunism in what, before his arrival, was thought of as an increasingly cooperative and rational international community. The Russian president has embraced and perfected the use of lies for geopolitical advantage, pursued and murdered his opponents in foreign […]
MOSCOW — Russia is increasingly deporting U.S. citizens on its soil in recent years. Americans living in Russia have also seen a sharp spike in the number of residence permits that have been revoked since the start of this year, signaling a deterioration in relations between the two former Cold War foes. Russian authorities say […]
-OpEd- ISTANBUL — Having survived the coup attempt is not enough to put our minds at ease in Turkey. Turkey is on a road that doesn’t lead to a pluralistic and democratic system. We wake up to a new nightmare every day about our nation’s direction. What’s happening on Turkish soil is worrisome. But it’s […]
MOSCOW — He is described as the Russian equivalent of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. After launching VKontakte, Russia’s biggest social network, a decade ago, Pavel Durov has more recently become one of President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest, if ever discreet, opponents. Forced into exile after quarrels with the Kremlin, he is never where you’d expect him […]
A generation ago we saw the Berlin Wall come down and Nelson Mandela go from prison to the presidency. Today, we have Orban, Erdogan, Trump. What happens next?
Sergei Magnitsky died on Nov. 16, 2009 in a solitary confinement cell of the infamous Matrosskaya Tishina Prison in Moscow. He was 37. His death rocked U.S.-Russia relations and sanctions were put in place by Washington, followed by countermeasures from Moscow. Magnitsky had been a lawyer and auditor and, while working for the investment company Hermitage Capital, had uncovered an alleged case of fraud amounting to several million U.S. dollars. According to his research, Russian civil servants had, in conjunction with criminals, managed to steal $230 million from the treasury and transfer it abroad through a very complex web of […]
MUNICH — What would become far and away the largest leak of information in newspaper history began more than a year ago, when an anonymous source contacted Munich-based daily Süddeutsche Zeitung. The leak consisted of encrypted internal documents from Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca, which sells offshore shell companies to clients around the world who […]
–Analysis – MOSCOW — Vladimir Putin’s decision to withdraw the lion’s share of Russia“s troops from Syria might have come as a surprise, but insiders in Moscow say the timing makes perfect sense. Many factors can explain why now. “Putin promised this operation would be limited in time and wouldn’t lead to an Afghanistan-like stalemate,” […]
RUSSIAN WITHDRAWAL BEGINS IN SYRIA After yesterday’s unexpected announcement from Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian armed forces have begun to withdraw from Syria on the civil war’s fifth anniversary. A first group of warplanes has already left its Syrian base for Russia, the Defense Ministry said. “The main task now is to take every measure […]
-Analysis- PARIS — Could the trap of the Syrian crisis break up NATO? This question, which carries potentially grave implications for the security of the West, might sound overblown. After all, NATO’s unfailing cohesion eventually brought down one of the most formidable war machines of all time, the Soviet Union. Still, the spreading corrosive capacities […]
“If War Comes Tomorrow,” read this week’s edition of Moscow-based magazine The New Times, quoting the title of a famous 1938 Russian propaganda movie on a very Soviet-looking cover, as it wonders what the consequences a new “big war” would be for Russia. The weekly magazine focuses on the dangers of what it calls “the […]
Fed up of waiting for Brussels to act, countries in Eastern Europe and the Balkans are building an anti-migrant fortress bloc with Hungary’s Viktor Orbán as the architect.
Categories
On This Day – December 31
RUSSIA ACCUSED OF KILLING 200 SYRIAN CIVILIANS The human rights organization Amnesty International released a 28-page report Wednesday accusing the Russian military of launching air attacks with munitions and unguided bombs on civilian areas in Syria in the past three months, killing at least 200 people in what could constitute war crimes. The report, quoting […]
After its standoff with Moscow over the downed Russian fighter jet, Ankara is making waves with its troop presence in Iraq. But Turkey does not want Shia militia to be the heroes to “rescue” Mosul from ISIS.
CALIFORNIA SHOOTING: 14 DEAD, COUPLE SUSPECTED Photo: David Bauman/Press-Enterprise/ZUMA Police have identified a couple in their late 20s as the two shooters in the latest mass killing in the United States that left at least 14 people dead and 17 injured Wednesday in the southern Californian city of San Bernardino. UK BEGINS SYRIA STRIKES Britain’s […]
GERMAN CABINET BACKS ANTI-ISIS CAMPAIGN After agreeing last week to send 650 soldiers to Mali to support 1,500 French troops deployed to fight Islamist extremists, Germany could be about to launch a military campaign in Syria. The German cabinet voted today to send reconnaissance aircraft, a naval frigate and a 1,200-strong military force to the […]
Since Turkey shot down a Russian military jet, discord between the two sides has escalated. The upshot could be unfreezing a war between Azerbaijan and an Armenian minority who have occupied its territories.
KREMLIN WON’T JOIN SINGLE ANTI-ISIS COALITION Photo: Dai Tianfang/Xinhua/ZUMA The Kremlin said today that Western nations were “not ready” to form a single coalition with Russia to defeat ISIS, AFP reports. The comments come one day after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s meeting with French President François Hollande at the end of a diplomatic blitz in […]
TURKEY-RUSSIA TENSIONS REMAIN HIGH Photo: Russian Look/ZUMA “An unprecedented crisis,” warns Turkish daily Hürriyet on the front page of its Wednesday edition, a day after two Turkish jets shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border. Although the downing of the plane sparked fears of increased tension between the two nations, Turkey’s President Recep […]
“An unprecedented crisis,” warns Turkish daily Hürriyet on the front page of its Wednesday edition, a day after two Turkish jets shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border. Although the downing of the plane sparked fears of increased tension between the two nations, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a televised speech, […]
NEW YORK — French President Francois Hollande pledged a “pitiless” war on ISIS after Friday’s Paris massacre. Russian President Vladimir Putin says his nation is focused on “finding and punishing the perpetrators” who downed a Russian passenger jet over Egypt. U.S. President Barack Obama says the goal is to “degrade and ultimately destroy this barbaric terrorist organization.” How? That’s the question none of these men seems willing to answer. Here’s one idea that, while not optimal militarily, might hedge the political risk: Form a broad alliance, akin to the one that pushed Saddam Hussein’s forces out of Kuwait in 1991, […]
Monica Maggioni, head of Italy’s Rai news service, recounts her meeting this week with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad inside his private Damascus villa: “He looks nothing like the defeated leaders of this era.”
FRENCH POLICE LAUNCH BLITZ, TWO DEAD Photo: Ying Qiang/Xinhua/ZUMA At least two suspected terrorists died and seven others were arrested in a large-scale French police operation early Wednesday in the rugged Paris suburb of Saint-Denis. The location of the raid is not far from the Stade de France stadium where three jihadists blew themselves up […]
-OpEd- PARIS — A majority of historians describe the Spanish Civil War, fought from 1936 to 1939, as a dress rehearsal for what came next, World War II. Will historians of the future be saying the same about the Syrian civil war? All you need to do is replace Nazi Germany and the Italian fascists […]
Accused of one of Syria’s worst atrocities in 1982, and then exiled after a falling out with his brother’s regime, Rifaat al-Assad may again be eyeing power, and with Moscow’s help.
GOP BENGHAZI HEARING FAILS TO RILE CLINTON Photo: Ron Sachs/CNP/ZUMA Democrat presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton kept her composure throughout an 11-hour congressional special hearing set up by the Republican majority Thursday on the deadly Benghazi attack that killed the U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens and three colleagues on Sept. 11, 2012. […]
TEL AVIV — Israeli Defense Forces are turning their attention to a new front: the war raging in cyberspace. And in an attempt to coordinate what up to now have been disjointed, sometimes overlapping operations, the Israeli military’s chief of staff recently announced the creation of a special cyber unit. The unit will be similar […]
TURKEY AIRSPACE VIOLATION AN “ERROR,” RUSSIA CLAIMS The violation of the Turkish airspace by a Russian warplane over the weekend was a “navigation error,” Moscow has told Ankara, according to Turkish military sources quoted by Hürriyet. Two Turkish F-16 jets intercepted a Russian SU-30 hundreds of meters into Turkey’s airspace, near the Syrian border, for […]
RUSSIA’S SYRIA AIRSTRIKES TO LAST 3-4 MONTHS The Russian airstrike campaign in Syria could last three to four months, Alexey Pushkov, the head of the lower house of the Russian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, was quoted as saying Friday by the French radio station Europe 1. Pushkov, a close ally of Vladimir Putin, also said […]
U.S. SAYS RUSSIA TARGETING REBELS, NOT ISIS Russia’s intervention in Syria has elicited anger from U.S. officials who are accusing Moscow of aiming at the region’s Western-backed rebels — not ISIS fighters, as the country claims. The New York Times reports that Russia’s participation in the civil war is an effort to help Syrian President […]
Categories
Russian Air Strikes Shake Up Syrian Conflict
Al-Akhbar, Oct. 1, 2015 “Toward a new Middle East,” reads the front page of the Thursday edition of Lebanon’s Arabic-language daily Al-Akhbar, together with a picture of a Russian aircraft ready for take-off, as Moscow hits targets in Syria for a second day. On Wednesday, Moscow launched a series of airstrikes against what it said […]
OBAMA AND PUTIN TALK SYRIA Photo: Klimentyev Mikhail/TASS/ZUMA Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin met Monday evening on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York to discuss the Syrian conflict and efforts to end it. “WATER ON MARS” FRONT PAGES Take a look at our collection of front pages from planet Earth […]
The bloody Syrian stalemate unites Russia and the West, in a shared urgency to defeat ISIS. But the Syrian dictator, also an ISIS foe, should not be seen as a lesser evil.