Author Archives: News Sources

Dozens killed in bombing of national hospital in Idlib

The Guardian reports: At least two dozen people including several children have been killed in northern Syria in the latest apparent attack by forces loyal to the Bashar al-Assad regime on medical facilities in opposition-held areas, UN officials and activists have said.

The bombing of the national hospital and its surroundings in Idlib city, a provincial capital wrested from regime control last year, was the latest incident in a systematic aerial campaign against medical personnel and facilities that has gone unpunished despite its intensification over the last year and a half.

“There is no use to all of this. The bombing of hospitals will continue and cannot be stopped – that much is clear,” said Zedoun al-Zoabi, head of the Union of Syrian Medical Relief Organisations, which operates a number of hospitals in northern Syria. “We have lost hope, and all we can do is build hospitals underground because there is no international decision to prevent the bombing of hospitals.” [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Syrian troops looting ancient city Palmyra, says archaeologist

AFP reports: Syrian regime troops are looting the ancient city of Palmyra like the Islamic State jihadis who controlled it until March, according to a leading archaeologist.

Hermann Parzinger, president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, said off-duty soldiers were conducting illegal excavations and had looted at the Unesco world heritage site. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Almost all of Israel’s 32 women in parliament have been sexually harassed or assaulted

The Washington Post reports: Out of 32 female members of Israel’s parliament, called the Knesset, 28 say they have been sexually harassed or assaulted, and at least two say those experiences occurred in the Knesset itself, according to a new survey by an Israeli television channel.

The survey comes two weeks after 17 French members of parliament signed a column denouncing widespread sexual harassment and impunity in their workplace. In December, the Israeli interior minister and vice premier, Silvan Shalom, resigned after almost a dozen women, including one of his former employees, came forward with allegations of sexual harassment or assault.

The survey gave the lawmakers a chance to speak publicly about the perils of being a woman in Israeli politics.

“Even today, the fact that I’m a single woman in the Knesset puts me in unpleasant situations,” said Merav Ben Ari, a Knesset member from the centrist Kulanu political party. “Sometimes people make comments. … I don’t want to elaborate, but there was a situation recently in the Knesset, and I took care of it.” [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Austerity continues spreading misery through Greece

Greece’s former finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, writes: After last summer, when the clash between Greece’s Syriza government and the insolvent state’s creditors ended, the world’s media moved on. Greece’s rebellion against the austerity measures imposed on it was snuffed out in July 2015 when Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras folded.

Greece’s disappearance from the financial headlines since then has been seen as a sign that its economy has stabilized. Sadly, it has not.

Lest we forget, Greece had by 2015 already endured years of austerity. By 2013, more than a third of Greeks were living below the poverty line. By 2014, government wages and pensions had been cut 12 times in four years.

In comparative terms, by the proportion of national income diverted to reducing budget deficits, Greece had absorbed austerity measures almost nine times the magnitude of those imposed in Italy and about three times Portugal’s. The result? Between 2009 and 2014, Italy’s economy grew by a paltry 2 percent and Portugal’s contracted by 1 percent; in the same period, Greece’s national income dwindled by a catastrophic 26.6 percent — about the same as for America in the depths of the Great Depression. The result was a humanitarian disaster only a 21st-century John Steinbeck could adequately describe. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

The new president of the Philippines says many slain journalists deserved it

The Washington Post reports: Many slain journalists in the Philippines had been corrupt and had “done something” to warrant being killed, the country’s president-elect said.

“Just because you’re a journalist you are not exempted from assassination if you’re a son of a bitch,” Rodrigo Duterte said Tuesday, Agence France-Presse reported.

The brash, tough-talking former mayor, who will be sworn in as president on June 30, was responding to a question about how he would handle the killing of journalists.

He has previously attracted international outrage for his comments, including remarks about the rape and killing of an Australian missionary in 1989. Human Rights Watch has deemed him the “Death Squad Mayor.”

The Philippines ranks as the second-deadliest country for journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. At least 75 journalists there have been killed since 1992. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

The contest between an open and a closed society

Carl Bildt, a former prime minister of Sweden, writes: With the old political landscape fading, we see the rise of parties in more or less fundamental opposition to the ideas and principles that have governed the West until now. The politics of ideology has faded, and the politics of identity has been gaining ground.

The rise of the nationalist right has been faster in Austria than in most other countries. It is obvious that it has been boosted significantly by legitimate revulsion against the old-fashioned system of Proporz. Change has been in high demand.

With faith in the future also waning in view of economic difficulties and rapidly changing societies, it has been easy for these forces to trumpet nationalist myths and gain adherents for their calls for closed borders and old values. The Muslim hordes are at the gates, they say; Brussels is just bureaucracy, trade is treason, and the United States is aggressive and alien. These have been the messages resonating in the valleys and on the plains of rural Austria.

While the politics in the past was about different ideas about a better future, this is about bringing protection against change and a future that many fear will be even more different. Previously you won elections by saying that tomorrow will be better than yesterday. These forces are promising to bring back a yesterday that they portray as better than the tomorrow they see coming.

Immigration is clearly one part of the story that Austria has had difficulties handling. But that voters in more diverse Vienna strongly rejected the siren songs of closed borders is a good sign in the darkness.

It was Karl Popper, born in Imperial Vienna, who not only conceived the ideas of open society but also warned of the “strain of civilization” that can occur when change is seen as too rapid, and the lure of a return to the tribe makes itself felt. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Effort to expose Russia’s ‘troll army’ draws vicious retaliation

The New York Times reports: Seeking to shine some light into the dark world of Internet trolls, a journalist with Finland’s national broadcaster asked members of her audience to share their experience of encounters with Russia’s “troll army,” a raucous and often venomous force of online agitators.

The response was overwhelming, though not in the direction that the journalist, Jessikka Aro, had hoped.

As she expected, she received some feedback from people who had clashed with aggressively pro-Russian voices online. But she was taken aback, and shaken, by a vicious retaliatory campaign of harassment and insults against her and her work by those same pro-Russian voices.

“Everything in my life went to hell thanks to the trolls,” said Ms. Aro, a 35-year-old investigative reporter with the social media division of Finland’s state broadcaster, Yle Kioski.

Abusive online harassment is hardly limited to pro-Russian Internet trolls. Ukraine and other countries at odds with the Kremlin also have legions of aggressive avengers on social media.

But pro-Russian voices have become such a noisy and disruptive presence that both NATO and the European Union have set up special units to combat what they see as a growing threat not only to civil discourse but to the well-being of Europe’s democratic order and even to its security.

This “information war,” said Rastislav Kacer, a veteran diplomat who served as Slovakia’s ambassador to Washington and at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels, “is just part of a bigger struggle.” While not involving bloodshed, he added, it “is equally as dangerous as more conventional hostile action.” [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Germany considers easing of Russia sanctions

Der Spiegel reports: With the Wednesday evening sun shining in his face, German Economics Minister Sigmar Gabriel is standing at the entrance to the HanseMesse convention center in the northern German city of Rostock. He’s surrounded by cardboard sandwich boards displaying the center’s motto: “Where the world comes together.” Today, the sentence is half true at best: The world isn’t coming together in Rostock, rather German and Russian business leaders are converging here. It is the second “Russia Day” and Gabriel is the keynote speaker.

The focus of the gathering is on business, but when Russia is involved, politics are never far away. Even Gabriel’s appearance sends a political message, as is his demonstratively friendly treatment of Russia’s industry minister — not to mention the first sentence he speaks into the microphone: “Isolation is not at all helpful.”

Later in his speech, Gabriel expands on that sentiment, saying isolation is not a tenable policy and that only continued dialogue is helpful. He says that Russia has recently shown that it can be a reliable partner and mentions the nuclear deal with Iran as an example. He says that Russia and the world are dependent on each other — and that the time has come for a step-by-step easing of sanctions.

Gabriel voiced a similar message prior to the most recent extension of the sanctions against Russia. Nothing came of it then, but things could be different this time.

As expected, G-7 leaders reiterated their hardline approach to Moscow in the Japan summit’s closing statement. Chancellor Angela Merkel complained last Thursday that there still isn’t a stable cease-fire in Ukraine and the law pertaining to local elections in eastern Ukraine, as called for by the Minsk Protocol, still hasn’t been passed. That, she said, is why “it is not to be expected” that the West will change its approach to Russia.

What Merkel didn’t say, though, is that behind the scenes, her government has long since developed concrete plans for a step-by-step easing of the sanctions against Russia and that the process could begin as early as this year. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Microsoft back EU hate speech rules

isis-twitter

Reuters reports: Facebook, Twitter, Google’s YouTube and Microsoft on Tuesday agreed to an EU code of conduct to tackle online hate speech within 24 hours in Europe.

EU governments have been trying in recent months to get social platforms to crack down on rising online racism following the refugee crisis and terror attacks, with some even threatening action against the companies.

As part of the pledge agreed with the European Commission, the web giants will review the majority of valid requests for removal of illegal hate speech in less than 24 hours and remove or disable access to the content if necessary.

They will also strengthen their cooperation with civil society organisations who help flag hateful content when it goes online and promote “counter-narratives” to hate speech.

“The recent terror attacks have reminded us of the urgent need to address illegal online hate speech. Social media is unfortunately one of the tools that terrorist groups use to radicalise young people,” EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova said.

Germany got Google, Facebook and Twitter to agree to delete hate speech from their websites within 24 hours last year and even launched an investigation into the European head of Facebook over its alleged failure to remove racist hate speech. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

U.S. struggles with goal of admitting 10,000 Syrians

refugees3

The New York Times reports: President Obama invited a Syrian refugee to this year’s State of the Union address, and he has spoken passionately about embracing refugees as a core American value.

But nearly eight months into an effort to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees in the United States, Mr. Obama’s administration has admitted just over 2,500. And as his administration prepares for a new round of deportations of Central Americans, including many women and children pleading for humanitarian protection, the president is facing intense criticism from allies in Congress and advocacy groups about his administration’s treatment of migrants.

They say Mr. Obama’s lofty message about the need to welcome those who come to the United States seeking protection has not been matched by action. And they warn that the president, who will host a summit meeting on refugees in September during the United Nations General Assembly session, risks undercutting his influence on the issue at a time when American leadership is needed to counteract a backlash against refugees. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

America’s Middle East allies could win friends for ISIS

Hassan Hassan writes: The tortuous war against Isis is taking a treacherous turn. Two years after the militant Sunni group declared its brutal caliphate, the US and its allies in Iraq and Syria have begun a two-front offensive to dislodge the militant group from its strongholds in the Iraqi city of Fallujah and Raqqa in Syria. But, while the campaign has made progress, the composition of the forces leading the battles in the two Arab Sunni cities is intensifying sectarian and ethnic tensions in the bitterly divided nations and beyond. The danger is that the US-led action will, ultimately, help Isis gain legitimacy as a defender of Sunnis — even if it cedes territory.

Heightened fears in Syria, Iraq and the wider region about the offensive in Falluja and Raqqa bode ill for the long-term fight against the group. With western help channelled to militias beholden to the Shia regime in Iran and close to Tehran’s allies in Damascus, the fight is widely seen in the region as nakedly sectarian.

The US-backed offensive is the first of its kind since the American-led anti-Isis campaign began soon after the group swept into Iraq. America has long sought to avoid providing air support for Shia and Kurdish militias to fight in two Sunni areas at once: when Baghdad launched the battle to retake the city of Tikrit from Isis in March last year, Washington refrained from providing air strikes in support of the estimated 30,000 Shia fighters until the battle stalled three weeks later. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Elite U.S. soldiers and Kurdish troops moving on ISIS near Mosul

Florian Neuhof reports: The operation is the largest by the Kurds in Iraq since they took Sinjar from the Islamic State last November. Intent on driving ISIS out of nine villages facing them at the Khazir front, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) threw 4,700 men into the offensive, according to Arif Tayfor, the sector commander at Khazir.

By Monday afternoon, seven of those nine villages had been taken.

The Kurds, without question, benefitted from some hands-on U.S. support. A few miles from Mufti, on the road leading directly to Mosul, I came across a U.S. special operations commando shoveling empty machine-gun cartridge cases out of the turret of an armored car.

These camera-shy elite soldiers usually refrain from engaging the enemy directly, instead gathering intelligence and directing air strikes. But at Khazir, U.S. ammunition clearly was expended.

It is not the first time American special operations forces have tangled with ISIS on the Kurdish front lines in Iraq. Early in May, U.S. Navy Seal Charlie Keating was killed when a group of Seals helped contain an ISIS attack on Telskuf, an abandoned Christian town near Mosul.

The Khazir operation’s immediate aim is to relieve the pressure on the nearby frontline town of Gwer and push ISIS further away from Erbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region that is barely an hour’s car ride away.

The long-term goal is to carve out a greater Kurdistan from the crumbling caliphate and a disintegrating Iraq. The villages at Khazir are part of the disputed territories, areas claimed by both the KRG and the central government in Baghdad. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Erdogan warns Muslims against using birth control

Middle East Eye reports: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that Muslim families should refrain from birth control and have more children.

Erdogan said it was the responsibility of mothers to ensure the continued growth of Turkey’s population, which has expanded at a rate of around 1.3 percent in the last few years.

“I will say it clearly … We need to increase the number of our descendants,” he said in a speech in Istanbul.

“People talk about birth control, about family planning. No Muslim family can understand and accept that!

“As God and as the great prophet said, we will go this way. And in this respect the first duty belongs to mothers.”

Erdogan and his wife Emine have two sons and two daughters. Earlier this month, the president attended the high-profile marriage of his younger daughter Sumeyye to defence industrialist Selcuk Bayraktar.

His elder daughter Esra, who is married to the up-and-coming Energy Minister Berat Albayrak, has three children.

The Platform to Stop Violence Against Women, which campaigns to stop the killings of hundreds of woman every year, condemned Erdogan’s comments as violating the rights of women.

“You [Erdogan] cannot usurp our right to contraception, nor our other rights with your declarations that come out of the Middle Ages,” the group said in a statement on Twitter. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Syrian opposition negotiator quits peace talks

The Wall Street Journal reports: The chief Syrian opposition negotiator in Geneva resigned, citing both the international community’s failure to make concrete progress toward ending the country’s conflict and continuing hostilities by the regime.

Mohammad Alloush’s departure could be a particularly troubling development for the fractured opposition, which has faced difficulties nominating consensus leaders wielding both political clout with the international community and influence among rebels on the ground.

The High Negotiations Committee, the opposition’s representative body in Geneva, will meet in Riyadh in 10 days to form a delegation for coming peace talks and select his successor, a spokeswoman said.

The resignation is the latest hitch in the continuing peace negotiations, as President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, the opposition and their respective allies appear no closer to finding a mediated solution to the five-year conflict.

The latest cease-fire attempt, brokered by the U.S. and Russia, broke down weeks after it began in February.

“The last three rounds of negotiations in Geneva under U.N. auspices have been unsuccessful because of the unwillingness of the regime to compromise and its continuation in the bombing and aggression against the Syrian people,” Mr. Alloush said Sunday night in the letter to the HNC. “Also, the international community [has been unable] to implement its decisions especially with regard to the humanitarian angle from breaking the siege, allowing aid into besieged areas, the release of detainees and a commitment to cessation of hostilities.” [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Russia’s draft constitution: End of Syria’s Baath era?

Assad-4

Al Jazeera reports: Last Tuesday, Lebanese daily newspaper, Al-Akhbar, reported that Russia had finished drafting a constitution for Syria that would remove many of the Syrian president’s powers and set up a more decentralised government, both possible concessions to rebel groups fighting the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

According to the Al-Akhbar report, the new constitution, done with the blessing of the United States, would be put to referendum before the end of the year. This would put the countries on pace to meet their self-imposed deadline to draft a Syrian constitution by August 2016.

The Syrian presidency quickly dismissed the report, describing it as “untrue”.

“No draft constitution has been shown to the Syrian Arab Republic. Everything which has been said in the media about this subject is totally untrue,” a statement on the Syrian Presidency’s official Facebook page said.

Barely six weeks after their military intervention began, Russian officials put forth an eight-point plan called: “Approach to the Settlement of the Syrian Crisis” that provided the basic contours of Russia’s vision for ending the conflict.

This vision was rather narrow, however, as the first five points dealt specifically with the fight against the Islamic State group (ISIL, also known as ISIS), and the remaining three carried vague commitments to a political process carried out under international auspices.

For most observers, the plan represented little more than the fulfilment of the regime’s wish-list and carried with it no substantive political concessions. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Eric Holder says Edward Snowden performed a ‘public service’

CNN reports: Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder says Edward Snowden performed a “public service” by triggering a debate over surveillance techniques, but still must pay a penalty for illegally leaking a trove of classified intelligence documents.

“We can certainly argue about the way in which Snowden did what he did, but I think that he actually performed a public service by raising the debate that we engaged in and by the changes that we made,” Holder told David Axelrod on “The Axe Files,” a podcast produced by CNN and the University of Chicago Institute of Politics.

“Now I would say that doing what he did — and the way he did it — was inappropriate and illegal,” Holder added. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Drowned baby picture captures week of tragedy in Mediterranean

Reuters reports: A photograph of a drowned migrant baby in the arms of a German rescuer was distributed on Monday by a humanitarian organization aiming to persuade European authorities to ensure safe passage to migrants, after hundreds are feared to have drowned in the Mediterranean last week.

The baby, who appears to be no more than a year old, was pulled from the sea on Friday after the capsizing of a wooden boat. Forty-five bodies arrived in the southern Italian port of Reggio Calabria on Sunday aboard an Italian navy ship, which picked up 135 survivors from the same incident.

German humanitarian organization Sea-Watch, operating a rescue boat in the sea between Libya and Italy, distributed the picture taken by a media production company on board and which showed a rescuer cradling the child like a sleeping baby.

In an email, the rescuer, who gave his name as Martin but did not want his family name published, said he had spotted the baby in the water “like a doll, arms outstretched”.

“I took hold of the forearm of the baby and pulled the light body protectively into my arms at once, as if it were still alive … It held out its arms with tiny fingers into the air, the sun shone into its bright, friendly but motionless eyes.”

The rescuer, a father of three and by profession a music therapist, added: “I began to sing to comfort myself and to give some kind of expression to this incomprehensible, heart-rending moment. Just six hours ago this child was alive.” [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail