Published reports suggest the United States is preparing to provide lethal assistance to Syrian rebels. Something the administration has averted doing until now. What prompted the change in policy? A determination by the White House that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons on its own people. President Obama had previously said that the use of [...]
The UK and France have said it. News organizations say they’ve confirmed it. But the Obama administration has been dragging its feet, late to the table, to acknowledge it. But now, the White House is finally acknowledging that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons on its own people. This puts the president in a tough [...]
By ANAV SILVERMAN Tazpit News Agency Ben Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) graduated its first class of Jordanian and Israeli students who completed a special joint-emergency medicine BA program earlier this year. The first graduating class at the Israel-Jordan Academic Emergency Medicine Collaboration included 54 graduates who spent three years studying emergency medicine and [...]
Former President Bill Clinton, speaking about White House inaction on Syria, told Sen John McCain (R-AZ) during a closed-press event (recorded by an attendee): “Sometimes it’s best to get caught trying, as long as you don’t over-commit – like, as long as you don’t make an improvident commitment.” Clinton repeatedly said it would be “lame” to [...]
Gen Salim Idris, the top Syrian rebel commander backed by the West, has issued a desperate plea for weapons from Western governments to prevent the fall of his forces in Aleppo, pushing the Obama administration to decide quickly whether to agree to arm rebels for the first time. The Wall Street Journal reports Idris issued a detailed [...]
The numbers are staggering. They come from the UN. Thus far, nearly 93,000 people have died in the civil war in Syria. But what’s even worse, says UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, most of the dead are civilians. And the number of actually dead may be much higher.
At least 60 people are reported dead in an attack on a Shitte village in Syria. This time, the government is not to blame. Reportedly, Syrian rebels were behind this one. The government turning the tables on the rebels, blaming them for a massacre of civilians this time.
An uneasy calm has descended over Istanbul’s Taksim Square, the focal point of protests in Turkey, after a night of violent clashes that ended with demonstrators being ejected by the police. Riot police used tear gas and water cannon on Tuesday evening, just hours after Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, demanded an immediate end to [...]
Riot police stormed Istanbul’s Taksim Square on Tuesday, using tear gas and water cannon to scatter protesters demonstrating against plans to redevelop a nearby park. “Now that the theater is over, I don’t know what will happen now but we are waiting and we are trying to save the park still,” said Nuri Kayserilioglu, 24, [...]
Majorities in most of 39 countries polled have an unfavorable opinion of Iran, and most say Tehran does not respect the personal freedoms of its people. Meanwhile, any nuclear ambitions harbored by the Iranian government continue to draw strong opposition from Western countries, as well as neighboring states, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Unfavorable views [...]