The overwhelming vote for Kurdish independence in the referendum in northern Iraq is re-energising Kurdish nationalism and the demand for a separate Kurdish state. “Bye bye, Iraq! Bye bye, Iraq!”, chanted demonstrators in Irbil, capital of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), as they danced in the streets after the polls closed. The impact of the referendum is…
As the Islamic State (IS) group is slowly but surely routed from its former Syrian “capital” in Raqqa, the last stand looks to be the most vicious, with civilians being used as human shields, and mines circling the city. Reduced to its last few positions in Raqqa, from where IS once planned major attacks against…
Israel is attempting to bury information about its arms sales to the military regime in Myanmar, which the UN accuses of a “brutal” campaign against the country’s Muslim Rohingya population, amounting to a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.” Hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas have fled their homes as the military and Buddhist mobs burn their…
