U.S. President Donald Trump Friday declared a national emergency, clearing the way for more federal aid to stream to states and cities to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
Read More »Yearly Archives: 2020
To Help Stem Coronavirus, Lift Sanctions on Iran
The COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic is far from the first proof of how intertwined we are as a global community. The climate crisis and the refugee crisis have long been glaring examples that the wars or CO2 emissions on one continent risk the lives and well-being of people on another continent. …
Read More »Middle East disinformation: 2020 prospects & solutions
Middle East Disinformation: 2020 Prospects & Solutions Social media has transformed the information landscape in the Middle East over the past decade. The 2009 Green Revolution and the 2011 Arab Spring demonstrated the enormous power of platforms like Twitter and Facebook for political organizing.
Read More »Russia’s Middle East: You probe with bayonets. If you find mush, you proceed …
There was a firefight During the winter of 2019, teams of U.S. Army Special Forces and U.S. Marines were positioned alongside their allied militia unit, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), by an oil field near Deir Ezzor, Syria. What looked like a Russian-led militia force, including a number of armored …
Read More »Geopolitics and propaganda: Lessons from the Black Sea
“I wish Georgia had the geographic location of Moldova” a Georgian political leader told me and a group of experts in Washington recently. Georgia and Moldova have much in common, from their geography and history to their shared status as EU Eastern Partnership countries on a track to internal reform …
Read More »Battered Survivor: Hezbollah at Home and Abroad
The past decade and a half have been a real whirlwind for Hezbollah. The Lebanese Shi’a group fought Israel to a standstill in a destructive 33-day war in 2006. It lost its iconic military chief and special operative Imad Mughniyeh in 2008 as a result of a joint assassination by …
Read More »A wake-up call: The Idlib crisis and its effects look set only to worsen
The death of at least 33 Turkish soldiers and wounding of 60 more in Syria’s Idlib on Thursday night was a game-changing development. According to informed sources, the troops were operating in a two-story frontline command headquarters when it was attacked from the air, at night, with precision munitions, including …
Read More »La fin du djihadisme au Sahel passera aussi par la lutte contre la pauvreté et les inégalités (ONU)
La réponse militaire seule ne suffit pas à résoudre les conflits au Sahel qui ont pour terreau les inégalités, a déclaré jeudi la Haut-commissaire de l’ONU aux droits de l’Homme, Michelle Bachelet, devant le Conseil des droits de l’Homme à Genève.
Read More »Niger: attaque terroriste contre un poste de police proche de la frontière avec le Burkina Faso
Un agent de la police nigérienne est porté disparu vendredi après une attaque terroriste contre le poste de police de la ville de Tamou (ouest), proche de la frontière avec le Burkina Faso, selon des sources sécuritaires.
Read More »UN-Mediated Political Talks on Libya End in Disarray
U.N.-mediated political talks aimed at resolving the crisis in Libya have ended in disarray, with nothing accomplished except an agreement to meet again next month.
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