International Affairs
Objective reporting by the media and reasoned thinking by the politicians on international affairs are even more difficult to come by than they are for domestic politics. An underlying nationalism, a distorted exceptionalism, and a preference for military over diplomatic solutions are widespread and unspoken. Lobbyists and their money as well as domestic political considerations cause the US to take positions that are out of step with the rest of the world, with reality, and with our own democratic values. In no area is this more apparent than in the Middle East and, in particular, in Israeli-Palestinian relations. How else can you explain the biased coverage of this past summer's brutal siege of Gaza and the unrelenting Congressional pressure, on both sides of the aisle, to increase Iran sanctions in spite of the diplomatic progress being made in the Iran nuclear talks?
GLOBAL
May Day - May 4, 2013
International Workers' Day was celebrated May 1....Across Europe and even here at home, May Day protests were held against austerity programs...So where do the workers of the world and of the US stand 123 years after the first May Day was observed?....
World Refugee Day - June 20, 2013
Sunday Roundups - International Affairs Topics
Note: Some, but not all, of the Sunday Roundups are included under the posts for a specific country. Click on the links below to see those that are not included in the individual country posts.
Dec 21, 2014 - Cuba, Occupied Palestinian Territory, Pakistan, Russia, Colombia, Venezuela
Dec. 14, 2014 - Ebola, Occupied Palestinian Territory, China, Hong Kong, Brazil
Dec. 7, 2014 - Israel, Ukraine, Gaza, South Sudan
Nov. 30, 2014 - Occupied Palestinian Territory, Iran Iraq, Ebola, Ukraine
Nov. 23, 2014 - Iran, Ukraine, Occupied Palestinian Territory, Ebola, Mexico
Nov. 16, 2014 - Mexico, Ukraine, US Military, Bolivia
Nov. 9, 2014 - Eurozone, Ukraine, Occupied Palestinian Territory, China, Ebola, Syria
Nov. 2, 2014 - Ukraine, Bolivia, Brazil, Occupied Palestinian Territory, Hong Kong, Ebola
Oct. 26, 2014 - Iran, Occupied Palestinian Territory
Oct. 19, 2014 - Gaza, Ebola, Turkey, Ukraine
Oct. 12, 2014 - Afghanistan, Khorasan, Hong Kong, Ebola
Oct. 5, 2014 - Hong Kong, Syria, Israel, Ebola
Sep. 28, 2014 - US Airstrikes, Ukraine, South Sudan, Occupied Palestinian Territory
Sep. 21, 2014 - Ebola, Ukraine, Gaza, Islamic State, South Sudan, Occupied Palestinian Territory, Scotland
Sep. 14, 2014 - Islamic State, Gaza, Scotland
Sep. 7, 2014 - Ukraine, Israel, Occupied Palestinian Territory, Islamic State, Ebola
Aug. 31, 2014 - Eurozone, Gaza, Islamic State
Aug. 24, 2014 - Syria, Iran, Iraq, Gaza, Ukraine, Obama's Foreign Policy
Aug. 17, 2014 - Ukraine, Gaza (Negotiations, Humanitarian Crisis, War Crimes), South Sudan
Aug. 10, 2014 - Iraq, Nuclear Weapons, Gaza
Aug. 3, 2014 - Gaza, Ukraine, Russia
Jul. 27, 2014 - Gaza, Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Russia, US's Morally Bankrupt Israel Policy
Jul. 20, 2014 - Gaza, Nelson Mandela, Brazil, Iran, Ukraine (Malaysian Airlines MH17)
Jul 13, 2014 - Israel, Palestine
Jul 6, 2014 - Israel, Palestine
Jun. 29, 2014 - Israel, Palestine
Jun 15, 2014 - Syria, Iraq
Jun 8, 2014 - Egypt, Afghanistan, Occupied Palestinian Territory
Jun 1, 2014 - Pope Francis, Guantanamo, Ukraine
May 25, 2014 - Brazil, Israel, Palestine, Libya
May 18, 2014 - Guatemala, Nigeria, Ukraine
May 11, 2014 - Iran, Pope Francis, Ukraine
May 4, 2014 - Ukraine, Syria, May Day, South Sudan
Apr. 27, 2014 - Israel, Palestine
Apr. 20, 2014 - Iran, Ukraine, Pope Francis
Apr. 13, 2014 - Russia, Ukraine, Syria
Apr. 6, 2014 - Syria, Ukraine, European Union
Mar. 30, 2014 - Israel, Palestine, Iran, Venezuela
Mar.23, 2014 - Ukraine, Crimea, Israel, Palestine
Mar. 16, 2014 - Pope Francis, Ukraine, Syria, Venezuela
Mar. 9, 2014 - Israel, Palestine, Ukraine, Central African Republic
Mar. 2, 2014 - Syria, Venezuela, Great Britain, European Union, Brazil
Feb. 23, 2014 - Israel, Palestine, Gaza, Ukraine, Iran, Syria
Feb. 9, 2014 - Israel, Palestine,European Union, Syria
Feb. 2, 2014 - Syria, Pope Francis, Chinese New Year
Jan. 26, 2014 - Iran, Syria
Jan. 19, 2014 - Iran, Syria, Israel, Palestine
Jan.12, 2014 - Health care in developing countries
Jan. 5, 2014 - Israel, Palestine, South Sudan
Dec. 22, 2013 - Iran, NSA Surveillance
Dec. 15, 2013 - Israel, Palestine, Syria
Dec. 8, 2013 - Nelson Mandela
Nov. 24, 2013 - Japan, Syria, Denmark
Nov. 17, 2013 - European Union
Nov. 10, 2013 - Israel, Palestine
Nov. 3, 2013 - Syria, Iran, perpetual war
Oct. 27, 2013 - Syria, China, EU (NSA spying)
Oct. 20, 2013 - Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria
Oct. 13, 2013 - Syria, Germany, jihadists
Sep. 29, 2013 - China, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Pope Francis
Sep. 9, 2013 - Syria
Aug. 31, 2013 - Syria
Aug. 25, 2013 - Israel, Palestine, Syria, European Union
Aug. 18, 2013 - Egypt
Aug. 11, 2013 - Egypt
Aug. 4, 2013 - Israel, Palestine
July 28, 2013 - Egypt, Iran, Israel, Palestine
July 21, 2013 - Israel, Palestine
July 14, 2013 - Israel, Palestine
July 6, 2013 - Egypt
Jun 23, 2013 - Iran, Palestine, Brazil
Jun 16, 2013 - China, UN Millennium Development Goals
Jun 9, 2013 - Palestine, Turkey, Malaysia
Jun 2, 2013 - Syria, arms sales
May 26, 2013 - Israel, Palestine, Syria, European Union
May 19, 2013 - European Union, Israel, Palestine, Arab League, military spending
May 12, 2013 - Italy, Russia, Bangladesh, Syria
May 5, 2013 - Israel, Palestine, Syria
Apr 28, 2013 - Italy
Apr 14, 2013 - UK, North Korea, Israel, Palestine
Apr 7, 2013 - European Union
POPE FRANCIS
Pope Francis' recent interview in the Jesuit publication America received widespread praise from around the world. In it, he calls (again) for a new emphasis on the Church's mission of serving the poor rather than focusing narrowly on certain issues that divide us...
Sunday Roundup May 11, 2014 ("Legitimate Redistribution of Wealth to the Poor")
Pope Francis spoke to UN officials in Rome May 9, urging world leaders to resist the economy of exclusion and serve the poor. As reported at the Common Dreams website: Pope Francis on Friday issued another indictment of inequality, saying that equitable economic and social progress are only possible through solidarity and generosity, and require the legitimate redistribution of wealth...
Sunday Roundup Jun 1, 2014 ("Pope Francis in Bethlehem")
Pope Francis' trip to the Holy Land drew much attention from the world's press. The Guardian, May 25: It is an image that will define Pope Francis's first official visit to the Holy Land....
To remedy this state of affairs and get closer to the truth, I began a regular Left Bank Cafe feature called the Sunday Roundup. Since April 2013, it has provided a selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream corporate media. The posts are heavy on, but by no means exclusive to, international news and US foreign relations. A list of the international affairs topics covered in each Sunday Roundup is given on this page.
Resources
I've used many sources for the Sunday Roundup's, which you can check out at the post itself. If I had to choose the best, here's where I'd look.
I've found The Guardian, Al Jazeera, BBC News, andHaaretz to be particularly good sources for international news and opinion.
For blogs, I'd especially recommend TomDispatch and Informed Comment.
Some organizations also high on my list are:
Ploughshares Fund - a "publicly supported foundation that funds, organizes and innovates projects to realize a
world free from the threat of nuclear weapons."
Today, June 20, is World Refugee Day. World Refugee Day was established by the United Nations "to honor the courage, strength and determination of women, men and children who are forced to flee their homes under threat of persecution, conflict and violence." [US World Refugee Day website]...currently 45 million people have been forced to leave their homes - displaced either internally or internationally. This total is a fourteen year high and was announced by the UN's refugee agency yesterday. Were they a nation, refugees would form the 30th most populous country on Earth....
Imagining a Better 2014 - Dec 31, 2013
We've already posted the best news of the year, so let's imagine what 2014 might look like if peace and justice somehow overwhelmed the nations of the world. The late Howard Zinn wrote in A People's History of the United States that the world would be a better place if the United States chose to be a humanitarian, rather than a military, superpower - using "this wealth to improve the living conditions of Americans and people in other parts of the world." This seems like a good place to start....
MIDDLE EAST
REGIONAL
Turmoil - Feb. 1, 2011
Tunisia, Egypt, and most recently Jordan. The "street" is forcing change in the Middle East. In an uprising led mostly by young working-class men, Tunisians ousted authoritarian President Zine el Abidine ben Ali on January 14...
Obama's Middle East Speech - May 19, 2011
President Obama signaled a dramatic and welcome break with previous administrations in calling for an independent Palestinian state based on the borders prior to the 1967 war...Combined with his message that it "will be the policy of the United States to promote reform across the region and to support transitions to democracy",,,
The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Perpetual War in Sunday Roundup Nov. 3, 2013
The October 29 TomDispatch post presents the case against drone warfare. Along with the blanketing surveillance (including that of allied world leaders), the increased use of drones is a symptom of a larger disease. "Devoted since [9/11] to perpetual war across significant parts of the planet and to a surveillance apparatus geared to leave no one anywhere in privacy, the U.S. now resembles a rogue superpower to an increasingly resistant and restless world...."
Earth to Hillary: We Don't Need An Ignorant Hawk in the White House Aug 19, 2014
As a one-term Secretary of State, she accomplished nothing of note. Today, her rhetoric on foreign policy as she gears up for the 2016 campaign is becoming hawkish to the point of stupidity. She is distancing herself from Obama's more moderate policies, getting in line with AIPAC's support of Likud policies, and, just may be, endangering the last chance for a two-state solution and a just settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis....
ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY
History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
The historical roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were examined in a three-part series of posts. I had written the posts shortly after the "Kerry talks" collapsed and auto-posted them while I was on a vacation in Italy. On July 8, two days after the second post, Israel launched its military operation against Gaza.
Sunday Round-Up Jun. 29, 2014 - Part 1: World War I - 1950
For hundreds of years prior to World War I, Palestine was ruled by the Ottoman Empire. The late 19th and early 20th century saw the beginning of Arab nationalist and Zionist (i.e., Jewish nationalist) movements...At the outbreak of WWI, the population of what would later become British-ruled Mandatory Palestine was about 800,000, 92% of whom were Arabs...
Sunday Round-Up Jul. 6, 2014 - Part 2: 1950-2000
Today we continue to look at the historical roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, covering the period from 1950 to 2000. Tensions remained high after the armistice agreements that ended the Arab-Israeli War of 1948. Conflict along the Jordanian border went through gradual stages, building up from small Israeli raids with Palestinian counter raids through major Israeli incursions....
Sunday Round-Up Jul. 13, 2014 - Part 3: 2000-2012
Seven years of the Oslo Process failed to achieve the creation of a Palestinian state. Israel still occupied the West Bank and Gaza. Israeli settlements were being built in the Occupied Territories. Following a visit to the Temple Mount by right-wing opposition leader Ariel Sharon in September 2000, fighting erupted between Muslims and Israeli police....
Gaza War and Aftermath
Sunday Roundup Dec.7, 2014 (In Brief-Gaza)
UN inquiry, rubble cleanup, housing crisis
Sunday Roundup - Aug. 31, 2014 (Gaza + The Top 5 Myths About the War Against Gaza)
The seven-week war against Gaza has stopped with the announcement Tuesday of an indefinite ceasefire...The Palestinian death toll is currently over 2,100...The Israeli death toll is 70...As the ceasefire allows for more in-depth sectoral assessments to be conducted, it is clear that the scale of damage is unprecedented...
Sunday Roundup - Aug. 3, 2014 (Gaza + Why the Ceasefires Aren't Working)
After two brief lulls in the fighting in the past week, Israel's siege of Gaza continued. Palestinian civilian casualties continue to rise and the devastating destruction of Gaza by Israeli military strikes continues...
Sunday Roundup - Jul. 27, 2014
Gaza
"Today's attack underscores the imperative for the killing to stop and to stop now."
- Ban Ki Moon after the Israeli shelling of a UN refugee shelter...
The United States' Morally Bankrupt Israel Policy
Stephen Walt: ...the U.S. government is siding with Israel, even though most American leaders understand Israel instigated the latest round of violence, is not acting with restraint, and that its actions make Washington look callous and hypocritical in the eyes of most of the world...This Orwellian situation is eloquent testimony to the continued political clout of AIPAC and the other hardline elements of the Israel lobby....
Updates and Briefs - Jul 23, 2014
Where Is the Outrage? - Jul. 16, 2014
...Have we become so used to the tragedy that is Gaza that we no longer care?...so inured to the collective punishment of these stateless people that additional hundreds of mostly civilian deaths mean nothing?...
See also related posts in the other Sunday Roundups starting July 16, 2014.
Peace Process
Sunday Roundup - Apr. 27, 2014
Israel Walks Away from the Table
...After continuing to build illegal settlements on Palestinian land in the midst of the peace talks, after demanding that the Palestinian authority abandon the Palestinian right of return and acknowledge Israel as a "Jewish state", after reneging on the fourth and final round of freeing Palestinian prisoners, the Israelis decided that they had had enough. So the Kerry talks are dead...
Sunday Roundup - Mar. 23, 2014
"Right wing Israeli officials expressed rage at US Secretary of State John Kerry for saying that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu should “drop” his demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state." Both the Arab League and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have "rejected Netanyahu’s diction. It is a red line for them. Insisting on it will mean no agreement."
Sunday Roundup - January 19, 2014
Reuters reported on Thursday of the hardening settlement demands of Benjamin Netanyahu.... "Israel's prime minister has increased the amount of occupied territory he wants to keep after any peace deal with the Palestinians, ...a move that could complicate U.S.-backed efforts to reach an accord...
Assassinations and History - Nov 13, 2013
Probably no single event has had as great an impact on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process as the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a right-wing Israeli fanatic in 1995....
Sunday Roundup - Nov. 10, 2013
Israeli settlements on Palestinian land, considered illegal by international organizations and by most countries, continue to be approved and Palestinian anger over the continued settlement building is rising. John Kerry is in the Middle East trying to save the peace talks....
The past week has seen the official resumption of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Al Jazeera praises Kerry's efforts and presents a round-table discussion on whether the talks are likely to resolve the conflict...As one participant (Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine) notes: "One can only welcome the resumption of the negotiations, because in the end the only way to resolve this conflict is through an agreement....
The Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process - May 16, 2011
The Middle East peace process took a serious blow when George Mitchell resigned on Friday as Obama's special envoy after two frustrating years.
The Occupation
Sunday Roundup Dec 14, 2014 (Occupied Palestinian Territory)
With the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks earlier this year and after the widespread devastation and civilian death toll in Gaza during the Israeli attacks this summer, European states are beginning to seriously debate recognition of a Palestinian State. As Richard Youngs writes in a post for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: Considerable momentum has built up behind the idea that giving formal recognition to a Palestinian state is now the only way forward ...
Sunday Roundup Nov 30, 2014 (Occupied Palestinian Territory)
Palestinians are particularly sympathetic to the Ferguson protests - some even tweeted advice to the US protesters on dealing with tear gas. In Gaza on November 23, a Palestinian man was shot dead by Israeli forces as he ventured into one of the "no-go" zones near the Israeli border....
Sunday Roundup Dec 21, 2014 (Occupied Palestinian Territory)
With the US warning of a possible veto, Palestinian leaders and negotiators are pressing ahead with a Palestinian statehood resolution...
Israel
Sunday Roundup Dec 7, 2014 (Israel)
Russia is wrong to send troops into the Ukraine. Not anywhere on the scale of US wrong in invading Iraq, for example, but wrong nonetheless. The Ukraine and Russia share more than 1400 miles of border and you can see how Russia may have concerns about stability on its door step....
The US and Russia traded sanctions on Thursday and the EU is mulling additional sanctions against Russia. The new sanctions have been prompted by the Crimean vote to leave Ukraine and Russia's subsequent annexation of it....
The overthrow of Russia-leaning Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, the Crimean referendum to rejoin Russia, and Russia's subsequent annexation of Crimea have placed US-Russia relations in about as bad a place as they have been since the end of the Cold War. Congressional Republicans have ratcheted up their rhetoric and seem to have lost their senses on the issue of nuclear safety....
With military operations by Ukrainian government forces underway against a rebel-held city, the crisis in the Ukraine has taken another step towards civil war. The Guardian reported the Russian reaction to the Ukrainian offensive on Friday: A spokesman for Vladimir Putin said the Geneva agreement to defuse the situation in eastern Ukraine was no longer viable after Kiev launched a military operation against the rebel-held city of Slavyansk...
Turning a deaf ear to both Kiev and Moscow, Donetsk went ahead with its referendum last Sunday and voted overwhelmingly to separate from Ukraine. As the country unravels amidst uncertainty and chaos, Eugene Rumer and Andrew S. Weiss, writing in Politico in a story picked up by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, propose a four-step solution to the crisis....
The partially-boycotted presidential elections in Ukraine provided an overwhelming majority vote to EU-leaning billionaire Petro Poroshenko. Violence between the government and separatist forces continued unabated in the ensuing days....
The death toll from conflict in eastern Ukraine has doubled in the past fortnight, the UN's human rights office said on Wednesday, as international wrangling continued over a controversial Russian aid convoy to the region.The UN office said its "very conservative estimates" suggested the death toll has risen to 2,086...
A controversial Russian aid convoy to eastern Ukraine has been completed. After being delayed at the Ukrainian border for a week, the convoy proceeded without permission from the government in Kiev...
Tuesday was marked by contradictory statements. Vladimir Putin proposed a seven-point peace plan and Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, announced that a permanent ceasefire had been agreed in the civil war. But, as The Guardian reported on Wednesday, Arseny Yatsenyuk, Ukraine's prime minister, dismissed the peace plan....On the ground there was no sign of a ceasefire....
Benjamin Netanyahu's government collapsed after the ouster of two cabinet ministers who opposed the so-called "Jewish state" bill. Three days after the Peace Now demonstration outside the Prime Minister’s home in Jerusalem...the government did in fact collapse....
The UN overwhelmingly passed a non-binding resolution urging Israel to renounce possession of nuclear weapons and put its nuclear facilities under UN supervision and criticizing the country for not being part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Israel possesses an estimated 80 nuclear weapons....
IRAN
Stop Stumbling Into War Now - Feb. 15, 2012
Inconceivable as it may be after the recent disasters in Afghanistan and Iraq and in the midst of the ongoing economic problems in this country, the US may find itself in a war with Iran in the near future. With increasingly belligerent talk and accusations against Iran from Israel's Netanyahu and with Israeli and American drones in the area, there is an increasing sense of a mindless drift towards war....
A Diplomatic Victory - Nov.25, 2013
The G3+3 have reached an interim six-month agreement with Iran on its nuclear program. This is the best news on foreign relations that we have had for a long time. Let's hope the war-mongers, neocons, lobby-influenced Congressmen, and Benjamin Netanyahu don't manage to find a way to scuttle it before the next stage....
Sabotaging Diplomacy? - Dec. 20, 2013
Yesterday, thirteen Senate Democrats joined thirteen Republicans and began circulating a new Iran sanctions bill with the potential to derail the Iran nuclear talks. This action came in spite of requests from the White House that Senators hold off on any new Iran legislation while the nuclear talks are in progress...
Sunday Roundup - Dec. 22, 2013
The Jewish-American group Americans for Peace Now has condemned the proposed Iran sanctions bill circulated Thursday by 26 US Senators. "The mere act of introducing such a bill at this delicate juncture represents a reckless, provocative and wholly gratuitous step...
Sunday Roundup - Jan. 19, 2014
World powers and Iran are "likely to start talks on a final settlement to the long dispute over its nuclear ambitions in February, shortly after a six-month deal curbing its atomic activity takes effect...
Sunday Roundup Jan. 26, 2014
In a January 21st Op-Ed...CEIP President Jessica Tuchman Mathews writes that after a decade long impasse on Iran's nuclear program, world powers and Iran are on the verge of a solution. "Yet the US Congress, acting reflexively against Iran, and under intense pressure from Israel, seems ready to shatter the agreement..."
Sunday Roundup Apr 20, 2014 (Iran Nuclear Talks)
Hardliners on all sides of the Iran nuclear talks have put pressure on the negotiators trying to hammer out an historic agreement...Hardliners aside, Iran continues to reduce its nuclear enrichment capabilities as demanded by the West...
Iran and six world powers have agreed to a four-month extension of negotiations on a nuclear deal with Tehran after failing to meet a July 20 deadline due to "significant gaps" between the two sides...
Updates and Briefs - Jul 23, 2014
Progress was made in Iran's dilution of its uranium. Reuters reported on October 20: Iran is taking further action to comply with an interim nuclear agreement with six world powers, a monthly U.N. atomic agency report showed...Gareth Porter, in an October 22 Truthout article, lays out the story of the deception behind the Western claim that Iran was "stonewalling" investigations into alleged past nuclear weapons research...
November 24 is the self-imposed deadline for Iran and the P5+1 (the permanent security council members (US, Russia, China, France, UK) plus Germany) to come to a permanent agreement on Iran's nuclear program. The main remaining issues are the timing of the removal of the sanctions against Iran and what degree of nuclear enrichment for peaceful purposes will satisfy both sides...
Although a final agreement in the Iran nuclear talks was not reached by the November 24, the talks are being extended. Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme have been extended until the end of June next year in the hope that the broad outlines of a deal can be agreed within three months...
IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN
Sunday Roundup Nov 30, 2014 (Iraq)
Tom Englehardt writes of the recent US escalation in the Middle East...The article...begins with a thought experiment asking what would be the reaction if Russia or China were the power re-entering the region militarily after the failure of its earlier interventions. ...after 13 years of doing its damnedest, on one side of the Greater Middle East this power has somehow overseen the rise of the dominant narco-state on the planet ....On the other side of the region, it’s been complicit in the creation of the first terrorist mini-oil state in history, a post-al-Qaeda triumph of extreme jihadism....If this had been the work of any other power we thought less well of than we do of ourselves, imagine the blazing headlines right now...
Devils and Dust - Mar. 15, 2012
Events over the past several weeks have added to the already overwhelming case for an immediate pullout of US troops from Afghanistan...
US Ends Iraq War - Dec. 15, 2011
The Iraq War is the greatest US foreign policy debacle since Vietnam...
Get Out Now - Jun 23, 2011
Obama's announcement of the beginning of the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan is welcome news but far from adequate. By the end of 2012, we will still have more troops in Afghanistan than when our Nobel Peace prize winner took office. The end must come immediately for this ill-advised war with no defined objective...
SYRIA
The transport of containers packed with 40% of Syria's chemical weapons to the port of Latakia for shipment outside the country is being has been delayed because of violence in the area....
"It is a vision of unimaginable desolation: a crowd of men, women and children stretching as far as the eye can see into the war-devastated landscape of Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus....[The Guardian]
With 130,000 dead and 9.5 million displaced, the Syrian Civil War is approaching the end of its third year. Amidst low expectations, the Geneva II Conference got underway this past Wednesday....
The September 5 ceasefire in the Ukraine appears to be holding in spite of sporadic violations. The Independent reported on September 15: The conflict-wracked eastern Ukraine city of Luhansk had a rare day of jubilation yesterday as pro-Russian fighters paraded military vehicles victoriously through city streets – as other areas saw continued shelling in the conflict between government forces and the rebels...
In spite of recent fighting near the Donetsk airport, there is hope for the shaky ceasefire in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine and the pro-Russian rebels said Thursday they had agreed to halt fire on December 9 under the terms of a truce aimed at ending one of Europe's bloodiest conflicts in decades. The unexpected announcement provides the latest glimmer of hope that fighting across the eastern rustbelt of the ex-Soviet nation was nearing to a close after eight months that saw 4,300 people killed...
President Obama signed a bill that will allow the White House to levy further sanctions on Russia over Ukraine, though the Administration has said it has no immediate plans to introduce them....Dmitri Trenin at The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace believes that the West and Russia may now be entering a state of permanent crisis. "Conflict resolution is not on the agenda. It is time for permanent crisis management."...
EUROPE
The Guardian, which played a key role in bringing the NSA spying documents to the public's attention, had several stories on the European reaction to recent revelations...
...it was interesting to read that people in the Netherlands, who are among the strongest supporters of the austerity policies being applied in the European Union, are becoming fed up with the results. The World Policy Blog had a post earlier this month on the growing opposition to the economic policies that have been unsuccessful in returning Europe to economic growth....
The German magazine Der Spiegel reported on the increasing number of German newspapers acknowledging that the austerity policies put in place by the European central banks and supported by Merkel's government "may not be working..."
A Trip to France - June 10, 2012
I recently returned from a vacation in the south of France, easily one of the most beautiful regions on the planet. Besides the markets and cafes, the sun and sea, the mountains and fields, the hilltop villages and historical cities, I got a brief glimpse of European politics. The French had just elected Socialist Francois Hollande as their President, rejecting the center-right politics of the previous President, Nicolas Sarkozy, and sending a resounding "no" to the rest of Europe on the austerity program...
Norwegian Terror - July 24, 2011
The tragedy that unfolded this weekend in Norway is a reminder of the dangers posed by hate groups of all stripes. Once you dehumanize others, you become capable of the most egregious crimes...
LATIN AMERICA
Hugo Chavez and 21st Century Latin America - Mar. 6, 2013
Hugo Chavez, the charismatic and provocative leader of Venezuela for the past 14 years, passed away yesterday at the age of 58...He had overwhelming support among Venezuela's poor, whose lives he sought to better, and he encountered great opposition from many of Venezuela's wealthy. I spent some time in Venezuela in the late '90's...
Sunday Roundup May 18, 2014 (Guatemala)
The United States has a long, sordid history of interference in Guatemala, a Central American nation with a population of about 14.6 million...The back-sliding in Guatemala began in earnest earlier this year when the prosecutor who won the case against Rioss Montt was removed from her position as attorney general....
Mexico
On September 26 in the southwestern town of Iguala. 43 Mexican college students were detained by police after a protest against what the students considered to be discriminatory hiring and funding practices by the government. They have not been seen since...
Bolivia's Evo Morales
Sergi Halimi writing in Le Monde Diplomatiquewonders why the success of Bolivia's indigenous, leftist president Evo Morales has gone unremarked by the media...
Sunday Roundup Dec 21, 2014 (Cuba)
President Obama took a major step towards normalizing relations with Cuba on Wednesday. The shift will see the reopening of a U.S. embassy in Havana and an easing of the decades-long trade embargo of the island. Obama detailed the changes in a White House address that coincided with a prisoner swap with Cuban authorities...[Al Jazeera]
ASIA
China
On September 22, Chinese politician Bo Xilai was sentenced to life imprisonment for embezzlement, bribery and abuse of power. Bo is a popular leader who rose from utter poverty and family misfortune to a seat on the Politburo....
Japan
The Good, the Bad, and the Tragedy - Mar. 18, 2011
The earthquake/tsunami/nuclear power plant disaster in Japan continues to worsen. The devastation is incredible and the loss of life heart-breaking. Meanwhile, a small crew of technicians remained on...
Reuters reported Thursday on a "rare success in the often fraught battle to control the [Fukushima nuclear reactor] site." The first batch of fuel rods were successfully removed....
Pakistan
Seven heavily-armed Taliban gunmen carried out an attack on a school in Pakistan that left at least 141 people, mostly teenagers and younger children, dead. ...
AFRICA
Sunday Roundup Dec 13, 2013An Al Jazeera post on Friday reminds us of the harsh conditions facing refugees from the Syrian civil war. Describing the scene at the refugee tent camp in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon...
Syria has met the first deadline set by arms inspectors for the destruction of its chemical weapons. "The Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) announced ...that Syria's declared chemical weapons production and mixing facilities had all been destroyed...
Al Jazeera reports on the start of the regimen to destroy the Syrian weapons. "On Sunday [Oct 6], the U.N. began the long process of securing and destroying Syria's estimated 1,000-ton stockpile of chemical weapons....
War or Peace in Syria? Sep. 12, 2013
Just when you thought US military intervention in Syria was getting less likely and perhaps diplomacy would win out in the end, there's this from the Washington Post: The CIA has begun delivering weapons to rebels in Syria...Unbelievable as it may seem, Russian president Putin seems to have gotten it right in an Op-Ed in the New York Times. In it, the Russian president says a military strike at Syria "would increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism"...
Saturday Roundup Aug. 31, 2013
The Obama Administration is scrambling to define a position justifying a potential strike on Syria for the alleged use of chemical weapons by that country's security forces. There is no such justification...
On Friday, Al Jazeera America reported on Russia's call for a UN probe in the alleged Syrian gas attack earlier this week and on UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's request that the inspection take place without delay....
Wednesday's Guardian reported on the increasing difficulty of getting all the parties to the peace table to end the Syrian conflict: "Plans for Syrian peace talks in Geneva next month appeared in danger of being derailed on Wednesday night as the country's divided opposition movement issued a fresh demand for Bashar al-Assad's government to be excluded...
Secretary of State John Kerry was in Moscow Tuesday, May 7, on a "working visit" trying to enlist Russian assistance in ending the Syrian civil war. The civil war has resulted in more than 70,000 deaths...
ISLAMIC STATE
Sunday Roundup Aug 31, 2014 (The Rise of ISIS)
The Democracy Now! website posted two interviews in August on the rise of ISIS...."They want to deny the fact that the Islamic State has its roots fundamentally in the destruction of the Iraqi state by the American invasion in 2003" [Prashad]..."The idea, which is very widespread, that there was a moment that, with a few more guns and ammunition, that a moderate Syrian opposition could have taken over in Syria in 2011 or '12 or ’13, is just unreal...: [Cockburn]...
The drums of perpetual war are beating again on the banks of the Potomac. Without a Congressional vote or debate, American military might is being thrown at Islamic State (aka ISIS) in the midst of the sectarian war that has been gripping the Middle East....There are other options short of war to weaken ISIS....Bennis presents six steps short of war to accomplish this...
No Threat to Us and Not Our Fight Sep. 17, 2014
Sunday Roundup Dec 14, 2014 (Ebola)The number of probable, confirmed and suspected deaths from the Ebola virus stood at 6,388 as of December 7. The World Health Organization has declared the outbreaks in Nigeria and Senegal officially over....
Sunday Roundup Dec 7, 2014 In Brief (South Sudan)
Ebola - the threat, the heroes, the politics - Oct 15, 2014
On Friday of last week, the World Health Organization raised the number of confirmed or suspected deaths from the 2014 Ebola virus outbreak to 4,033 - greater than the death toll from all previous outbreaks. And unlike previous outbreaks, generally confined to the villages where the disease appeared, the 2014 outbreak has spread to cities and countries outside the epicenter...
The civil war in South Sudan continues. The country has teetered for months on the brink of a man-made famine. The Guardian's Andrew Greene reports on the agencies battling to stave off starvation in South Sudan’s civil war sanctuaries....
Sunday Roundup Sep 21, 2014 (Ebola)
The death toll in the Ebola outbreak afflicting west Africa has now surpassed 2,600. Besides the west African nations of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, cases have also been reported in Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo and Senegal. Healthcare workers, already in very short supply in the impoverished countries hardest-hit by the outbreak, have paid an especially heavy price....
As many as four million South Sudanese are facing starvation following the civil war that broke out there last year. America is sending $180m (£107m) in aid to help people in South Sudan, where four million people are at risk of starvation. More than a third of South Sudan's population has been hit, says the United Nations, calling it "the worst food crisis in the world"....
Obama's proposed airstrikes against Islamic State are wrong on many levels. To quote Phyllis Bennis, writing in The Progressive, "We have to recognize that military attacks are not only wrong in a host of ways (illegal in international law, immoral because of civilian casualties, a distraction from vitally needed diplomacy) but also that those strikes are making real solutions impossible." Incredibly, we are now hearing bleatings from hawks for "boots on the ground" (again) in Iraq and (at last) in Syria...
Since ISIS was acknowledged to have no intention of bringing its jihad to the US, the Administration was having a hard time justifying its bombing campaign in Syria. Enter Khorasan - an unheard of jihadist group allegedly with designs to attack the "homeland" - to save the day for the militarists. Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain in a hard-hitting report in The Intercept disclose how the Administration and the military created a wholesale concoction of a brand new terror threat...