Category Archives: News

With help from Pope Francis, Obama ends 50 years of failed policy towards Cuba

Christopher Dickey reports: President Barack Obama made the dramatic announcement Wednesday that his administration is ending efforts to isolate Cuba that go back more than 50 years. While Congress will have to decide whether to end a formal economic embargo and a ban on casual tourism, senior administration officials said in a White House conference call that they would do everything within their power to end what Obama called a “failed policy.”

“Isolation has not worked,” said Obama from the White House.

Isolation has not helped to promote human rights in Cuba, it has not led to the downfall of the Castro government, and it is a policy carried out by the United States alone in the world. “I do not believe we can continue doing the same thing for five decades and expect a different result,” said Obama in a none too subtle allusion to a popular definition of insanity.

The initiative comes after 18 months of secret talks, with a major impetus provided by Pope Francis, who hosted the final discussions between Cuban and U.S. officials at the Vatican in the fall. [Continue reading…]

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U.S. will veto Palestinian UN bid

Ben Caspit writes: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State John Kerry met in Rome on Dec. 15, in an effort to formulate a joint position in response to planned moves by the Palestinians at the United Nations in the coming weeks.

Following the meeting, the big question still lingered: Would the Americans cast a veto over a potential Palestinian request that the United Nations’ Security Council recognize Palestine as an independent state? Netanyahu did not divulge to reporters who accompanied him on the plane whether he received an American guarantee for the sought-after veto. White House officials said the issue was still being debated.

On the night of Dec. 16, however, it became known that the decision has been made. The Americans will indeed cast a veto over the Palestinian request. This veto will be welcomed with satisfaction in Jerusalem. Surprisingly enough, Ramallah will also receive it with understanding. [Continue reading…]

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EU court takes Hamas off terrorist organisations list

BBC News reports: A top court of the European Union has annulled the bloc’s decision to keep the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on a list of terrorist groups.

The decision had been based not on an examination of Hamas’ actions, but on “factual imputations derived from the press and the internet”, judges found.

The court said the move was technical and was not a reassessment of Hamas’ classification as a terrorist group.

It said a funding freeze on the group would continue for the time being. [Continue reading…]

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Report: Mossad spy that infiltrated Hezbollah was in charge of Nasrallah’s security

The Jerusalem Post reports: The reported Israeli spy who infiltrated Hezbollah and foiled attacks against Israel was responsible for the personal security of the organization’s leader Hassan Nasrallah, according to Kuwaiti newspaper Al Rai.

The spy, known as M.Sh. caused great damage to the Shi’ite militant organization but his arrest was also seen by the Hezbollah leadership as an important achievement, Al Rai reported.

The alleged Mossad member was reportedly arrested weeks ago and belonged to Hezbollah’s Unit 910, which carries out operations against specific Israeli targets. [Continue reading…]

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A contrivance of an alliance against ISIS

Time reports: The U.S. is largely flying solo when it comes to attacking ISIS

The U.S.-led bombing campaign against Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) is complex. A coalition made up of the U.S. and seven allies began bombing ISIS targets in Iraq in August. A month later, the U.S. began bombing targets belonging to the militant group in Syria, along with four allies.

Should the civilized world care that none of the seven U.S. allies bombing ISIS targets in Iraq (Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Netherlands and the United Kingdom) are bombing ISIS in Syria? And that, ipso facto, none of the four U.S. allies bombing targets in Syria (Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) are bombing ISIS targets in Iraq?

Does it matter that the U.S. stands alone when it comes to bombing both?

Perhaps more important is the lopsided nature of the air strikes: since Sept. 23, the allies have accounted for nearly 40% of close air support, interdiction and escort sorties, and 25% of total missions flown. “Many of those sorties that conduct dynamic targeting in support of ground forces require specialized capability, and frequently they do not result in a necessary strike on [ISIS] forces, equipment or facilities,” Gary Boucher, spokesman for the campaign, dubbed Operation Inherent Resolve, said Tuesday. [Continue reading…]

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Libya conflict revives front lines from 2011 civil war

Reuters reports: His Kalashnikov across his back, Libyan soldier Adel Howas rushed to the front line when air strikes targeted his comrades at a border crossing with Tunisia.

For Howas, it was a return to familiar territory from 2011 when he joined rebels in a NATO-backed uprising to topple Muammar Gaddafi.

But where Howas once fought Gaddafi loyalists on the coast road to the capital, the grizzled veteran now finds himself defending the same route against former comrades-in-arms using jets to seize Tripoli.

In the messy transition since Gaddafi’s demise, Libya is bitterly divided between two rival factions of former rebels who have established competing governments and parliaments in a complex struggle for control of the North African state. [Continue reading…]

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Why the Pakistani Taliban’s war on children keeps on going

Ishaan Tharoor writes: A horrific attack on a military-run high school in Peshawar, Pakistan, has killed at least 141 people, 132 of whom were children and teenagers attending the academy. The slaughter, carried out by six Taliban terrorists, is the single worst terror attack in the country’s history and one of the most brutal assaults on a school anywhere. Even in conflict-ravaged Pakistan, it seems an unprecedented act.

The Pakistani Taliban asserted responsibility for the massacre, calling it retaliation for the military’s ongoing campaign against the militants’ strongholds in the tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan. For the Pakistani Taliban, schools are vulnerable, “soft targets.” By some accounts, the group has struck at more than 1,000 schools in the country since 2009.

These include many schools for girls. In areas under their watch, the militants seek to discourage female education. The conspicuous defiance of one Pakistani schoolgirl, Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai, nearly got her killed in 2012, when Taliban militants attempted to gun down the teenager and a few of her friends.

In addition to turning education into a security risk for countless children, the Pakistani Taliban has created a public health crisis in corners of the country. Polio has returned among children after the militants banned health workers from distributing vaccines, a consequence, in part, of a CIA vaccination ruse a few years ago in its search for Osama bin Laden. [Continue reading…]

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Earth faces sixth ‘great extinction’ with 41% of amphibians set to go the way of the dodo

The Observer reports: A stark depiction of the threat hanging over the world’s mammals, reptiles, amphibians and other life forms has been published by the prestigious scientific journal, Nature. A special analysis carried out by the journal indicates that a staggering 41% of all amphibians on the planet now face extinction while 26% of mammal species and 13% of birds are similarly threatened.

Many species are already critically endangered and close to extinction, including the Sumatran elephant, Amur leopard and mountain gorilla. But also in danger of vanishing from the wild, it now appears, are animals that are currently rated as merely being endangered: bonobos, bluefin tuna and loggerhead turtles, for example.

In each case, the finger of blame points directly at human activities. The continuing spread of agriculture is destroying millions of hectares of wild habitats every year, leaving animals without homes, while the introduction of invasive species, often helped by humans, is also devastating native populations. At the same time, pollution and overfishing are destroying marine ecosystems.

“Habitat destruction, pollution or overfishing either kills off wild creatures and plants or leaves them badly weakened,” said Derek Tittensor, a marine ecologist at the World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge. “The trouble is that in coming decades, the additional threat of worsening climate change will become more and more pronounced and could then kill off these survivors.” [Continue reading…]

Miles King writes: Humans are “the ultimate invasive species” having spread from Africa to every corner of the planet (and beyond) in 100,000 years. In doing so, we have removed the habitats of other species, or affected them by moving other invasive species around, causing pollution and driving climate change. We do so at our peril, because humans depend on nature utterly for our survival.

If it is possible to stop this mass extinction, humans need to take rapid and radical action.

Here are five actions that I think will be needed: [Continue reading…]

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Islamophobic ‘pinstripe Nazis’ take to the streets in Germany

The Guardian reports: Its members have been dubbed the “pinstriped Nazis” and they refer to their demonstrations as “evening strolls” through German cities. But on Monday night, an estimated 15,000 people joined Pegida, or Patriotic Europeans Against Islamisation of the West, in a march through Dresden carrying banners bearing slogans such as “Zero tolerance towards criminal asylum seekers”, “Protect our homeland” and “Stop the Islamisation”.

Lutz Bachmann, the head of Pegida, a nascent anti-foreigner campaign group, led the crowds, either waving or draped in German flags, in barking chants of “Wir sind das Volk”, or “We are the people”, the slogan adopted by protesters in the historic “Monday demonstrations” against the East German government in the runup to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Associating themselves with the freedom demonstrations has given Pegida protests an air of moral respectability even though there are hundreds of rightwing extremists in their midst, as well as established groups of hooligans who are known to the police, according to Germany’s federal office for the protection of the constitution.

“The instigators are unmistakably rightwing extremists,” a federal spokesman said.

It was the ninth week in a row that Pegida had taken its protest on to the city’s streets in the eastern German state of Saxony.

Its first march, advertised on Facebook and other social media, attracted just 200 supporters. By last week the figure had risen to 10,000. By Monday night it had grown to an estimated 15,000. [Continue reading…]

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Saudi oil weapon bites on Russia’s strategic projects

Neil Barnett writes: This week the International Energy Agency cut its demand growth forecast. In combination with still-growing US production and Saudi determination to keep prices low, it means that prices next year are likely to fall yet further. Today Brent crude was trading at $63.12/barrel – a fall of 40% since July.

This seems extraordinary and there are some who doubt how much further oil can fall. But it is worth remembering that in the early 2000s oil was under $10/barrel. It might not fall so far this time, but it would be a brave trader who bet on a floor having been reached.

The reasons for this drop in prices are numerous, including weak demand and unexpectedly strong production in places like Libya and Iraq. But there is no doubt that low prices are a Saudi policy, as seen in the Kingdom’s continued practice of discounting below the market price and its equanimity at the OPEC conference in late November. The question, then, is why the Saudis are taking this position.

The policy can best be described as a rope with several strands. Since Saudi has modest military power (not to be confused with vast military spending), its influence on oil prices is its best means of shaping the world. At this point low prices serve Saudi strategic interests in the following, inter-related ways: [Continue reading…]

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Mystery Twitter leaker of raids has Turkey guessing

AFP reports: He has access to top secret information, has been able to stay one step ahead of the authorities and is nearly always right.

Who is Fuat Avni, the mystery Turkish Twitter user who once again correctly predicted Sunday’s raids against critics of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan days before they took place?

The controversial swoop on media allied to exiled US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen — who Erdogan blamed for orchestrating a corruption probe to unseat him — was just the latest in over half a dozen such raids since the summer.

On each and every occasion, the raids have been correctly predicted by Fuat Avni before they took place, allowing the suspects to brace themselves for their arrest.

But no one has a firm idea of who Fuat Avni is and from where he obtains his information, leaving Turkey abuzz with rumours over the user’s real identity. [Continue reading…]

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Jabhat al-Nusra takes two Syrian bases in major blow to regime

AFP reports: Militants linked to Al-Qaeda dealt a major blow to Syria’s regime on Monday by seizing two key army bases within hours, giving them control over most of Idlib province.

The gains also signalled another defeat for Western-backed rebels who were driven out of most of the northwestern province last month by the jihadist Al-Nusra Front.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Al-Nusra Front — the battered country’s Al-Qaeda branch — seized Hamidiyeh and Wadi al-Deif, the regime’s largest outposts in Idlib.

The jihadists advanced in coordination with Islamist rebel groups Ahrar al-Sham and Jund al-Aqsa, the Observatory said, adding that a string of villages in the area also fell.

Al-Nusra Front claimed via Twitter it was “the only faction that took part in the liberation of Wadi al-Deif”, and that it was now “chasing down” soldiers.

State television cited a military source as implicitly acknowledging the loss. [Continue reading…]

Reuters adds: Around 100 Syrian soldiers and 80 Islamist fighters were killed during a two-day battle in which insurgents captured the Wadi al-Deif military base, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said on Tuesday.

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Iraq government combats ‘ghost soldier’ corruption

The Associated Press reports: The Iraqi government has identified and stopped payment of tens of millions of dollars in salaries previously disbursed to nonexistent troops, known here as “ghost soldiers,” as part of the prime minister’s vow to tackle corruption in the military and regain a foothold in the battle against the Islamic State group, two senior government officials said.

The initiative is part of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s plan to rebuild the U.S.-trained military which crumbled in the face of last summer’s onslaught by Islamic State militants.

Al-Abadi recently purged the military and interior ministry from a number of senior officials who were appointees of his predecessor, Nouri al-Maliki. While it is unclear whether any of the sacked officials are among those accused of collecting misappropriated funds, al-Abadi vowed to pursue the sensitive matter “even if it costs me my life.”

According to the two senior officials, authorities prevented the loss of over $47 million of improper military spending in November, mostly from salaries that were previously paid to soldiers who are dead, missing or did not exist and which were pocketed by senior commanders. The two officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to media, said the money was the first of several tranches of funding to be regained by Iraq’s Defense Ministry. [Continue reading…]

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The torture photos Obama didn’t want revealed

The Daily Beast reports: The Obama administration is withholding hundreds, perhaps even thousands of photographs showing the U.S. government’s brutal treatment of detainees, meaning that revelations about detainee abuse could well continue, possibly compounding the outrage generated by the Senate “torture report” now in the public eye.

Some photos show American troops posing with corpses; others depict U.S. forces holding guns to people’s heads or simulating forced sodomization. All of them could be released to the public, depending on how a federal judge in New York rules—and how hard the government fights to appeal. The government has a Friday deadline to submit to that judge its evidence for why it thinks each individual photograph should continue to be kept hidden away.

The photographs are part of a collection of thousands of images from 203 investigations into detainee abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan and represent one of the last known secret troves of evidence of detainee abuse. While the photos show disturbing images from the Bush administration’s watch, it is the Obama administration that has allowed them to remain buried — all with the help of a willing Congress. [Continue reading…]

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@ShamiWitness arrest rattles ISIS’ cages on Twitter

Joyce Karam reports: The arrest of Mehdi Masroor Biswas, author of the highly influential pro-ISIS twitter account @ShamiWitness, on Saturday in Bangalore, India, is putting jihadist tweeps on notice. Deactivation, suspension and anxious-ridden tweets have been widely visible in the last two days, while more questions are being raised to improve Twitter’s anti-extremism tools and prevent ISIS from using it as a platform.

“He became a hub for ISIS recruits and propaganda,” that’s how Frances Townsend, president of the “Counter extremism Project” (CEP), sums up the rise and fall of Shami Witness, who raked up more than 18,000 followers on Twitter in the last two years.

From his executive office in India’s “silicon valley,” Shami Witness cheered on ISIS and its reign of horror more than 4,000 km away in Iraq and Syria. His outing and arrest this week after a Channel 4 investigation is a “very good development,” Townsend tells Al Arabiya News, proving that an anonymous address and fake Twitter handles are no guarantee for impunity. [Continue reading…]

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Netanyahu years continue surge in illegal settlements

The Associated Press reports: The population of Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank has continued to surge during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s years in office, growing at more than twice the pace of Israel’s overall population, according to newly obtained official figures.

Settlement growth also was strong beyond Israel’s separation barrier, seen by many as the basis for a border between Israel and a future Palestinian state.

The figures reflect Netanyahu’s continued support for settlement construction, even while repeatedly stating his commitment to the eventual establishment of an independent Palestinian state as part of a future peace agreement. They also could be a topic of discussion as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry meets with Netanyahu and European officials this week over a promised U.N. Security Council proposal dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. [Continue reading…]

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Ex-Mossad chief: Peace will elude us until we treat Palestinians with dignity

The Times of Israel reports: There will never be peace in the Middle East as long as Israelis don’t treat the Palestinians as equals, Efraim Halevy said last week, accusing senior government officials of advancing “condescending” policies toward the Palestinians.

In a wide-ranging interview with The Times of Israel, the former head of the Mossad intelligence agency accused the outgoing government, especially Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, of having violated the fragile status quo in Jerusalem. The elections of March 2015 are not merely a referendum on Israel’s leadership, he said, but constitute an unprecedented opportunity to determine Israel’s policy vis-à-vis the peace process.

Israel’s 1979 peace treaty with Egypt was made possible by the fact that both sides considered themselves the victors of the Yom Kippur War six years earlier, according to Halevy. Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat could only reach an agreement because they each felt “equal” — and precisely such a framework of equality, which allows for both sides to feel dignified, is needed for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, he said.

“I do not think we will make any progress until that moment arrives, and I fear that it will take a very long time before it happens, if at all,” he said. “And if it never happens, there will never be peace between us and the Palestinians. And if it never happens, we’re sentenced to a very long term of struggle.” [Continue reading…]

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ISIS supporter @ShamiWitness arrested in Bangalore while his defenders threaten to decapitate more journalists

IBT reports: Mehdi Masroor Biswas, who was arrested Saturday in the southern Indian city of Bangalore, was only a sympathizer of the Islamic State group, and was not directly involved in recruiting for the militant outfit, M.N. Reddi, chief of Bangalore police, announced at a press conference. Biswas will be produced before a judge within 24 hours.

Biswas was detained by local police earlier in the day after a search was triggered following a report from UK-based Channel 4, which revealed that he was managing a popular Twitter account sympathetic to ISIS. Biswas, “who was never directly recruited” or left the country, will now be charged under Section 125 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 66 of the Information Technology Act, authorities told the media in Bangalore on Saturday. He will also be charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.

“Mehdi Masroor Biswas has confessed to the fact that he was operating @ShamiWitness Twitter account for the last many years,” according to a press release from the Office of the Commissioner of Police in Bangalore, which added that “he was particularly close to the english speaking terrorists of ISIS & became a source of incitement and information for the new recruits trying to join ISIS/ISIL.”

The 24-year-old man, who reportedly worked for a local office of ITC, a multinational conglomerate, was “only active in the virtual world,” Reddi said, at the press conference, adding that most of his 17,000 followers were from the UK. Indian authorities will also investigate Biswas’ online followers. [Continue reading…]

A #FreeShamiWitness campaign has already been launched on Twitter. Here’s one tweet which threatens kafir (“infidel”) journalists with decapitation:


But as @ShamiWitness and ISIS supporters speak out on Twitter, they highlight not only the extent to which their cause has been advanced by social media but also the fact that their favorite tool for propaganda is also indispensable for gathering intelligence.

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