Ahead of the Eagle-meets-Bear Trump-Putin summit on July 16 in Helsinki, Syria-centered spin has gone into overdrive. Unknown sources have leaked what is billed as President Trump’s alleged Syria deal discussed with Jordan’s King Abdullah. Trump would “allow” Damascus, supported by Russian air power, to regain its territory along the borders of Jordan, Israel and Iraq. …
Continue reading Eagle-Meets-Bear and the Syria Tug-of-War
Helsinki after Singapore! The summit Trump-Putin will hopefully take place this month in the Finnish capital, after being delayed and delayed for ages. We had expected the two strong men to meet right away after Trump’s historic election, but the summit didn’t take place, for Trump had been besieged by Mueller’s Gestapo and accused of …
Israel and the US are in a race against time with Gaza. The conundrum is stark: how to continue isolating the tiny coastal enclave from the outside world and from the West Bank – to sabotage any danger of a Palestinian state emerging – without stoking a mass revolt from Gaza's two million Palestinians? In …
Continue reading Sisi Holds Key to Trump’s Sinai Plan for Palestinians
“A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.” Albert Camus Since the Saudi-led coalition declared war on impoverished Yemen: March 26, 2015, foreign journalists and independent news organisations have been prevented from entering the country – de facto putting Yemen …
Continue reading Yemen’s Media Blackout — the Language of War
After only two weeks since the beginning of the military operation, jihadists and militants in most of eastern rural Daraa in south Syria have either surrendered or were overwhelmed, the over 70 villages they occupied were liberated by the Syrian Army. Meanwhile, Israel has reduced its requests or conditions pronounced in the last two weeks: …
Work on the Syrian Constitution Should be Preceded by an agreement of Moscow and Tehran with Ankara and Washington Government forces, having freed the Damascus suburbs from militants, begin cleaning the southern provinces of Syria, which is a zone of US interest. The latter continue to support the Islamists on the border with Jordan, trying …
The UN General Assembly recently demanded the withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers from Transnistria. The non-legally binding decree was passed with a simple majority and intended to send a political message to both Russia and Moldovan President Dodon. The first-mentioned has had its troops deployed in the contested region for more than two decades per an …
Continue reading Moldova’s “Deep State” Is Exploiting the UN to Undermine Peace in Transnistria
There have been two developments in the past month that illustrate clearly what is wrong with the White House’s perception of America’s place in the world. Going far beyond the oft-repeated nonsense that the United States is somehow the “leader of the free world,” the Trump Administration has taken several positions that sustain the bizarre …
A recent Reuters report about the supposed prevalence of so-called “fake news” ahead of Mexico’s upcoming election this weekend quotes an anonymous Facebook employee who alleged that people are being paid to like, share, and comment on posts, which disturbingly suggests that the company might take punitive action against users who innocently interact with what …
Continue reading Will Interacting with the “Wrong” Post Get You Sent to Facebook Jail?
