By Francois Murphy | VIENNA VIENNA Austria will provide a new gauge of the populist wave sweeping Western democracies on Sunday, as the divided country holds a vote that could deliver the first freely-elected far-right head of state in Europe since World War Two. The knife-edge presidential run-off is all the more dramatic for being a re-run of an election held six months ago – before Britain […]
BEIRUT Syrian rebel commanders in Aleppo will not surrender eastern Aleppo to government forces, a rebel official said on Saturday, after Russia said it was ready for talks with the United States on the withdrawal of all rebels from the area. “I asked the factions, they said ‘we will not surrender’,” said Zakaria Malahifji, the head of the political office of the Aleppo-based Fastaqim faction, speaking from […]
By Ahmed Rasheed | BAGHDAD BAGHDAD No food or fuel has reached Mosul in nearly a week and the onset of rain and cold weather threatens a tough winter for more than a million people still in Islamic State-held areas of the city, residents said on Saturday. Iraqi troops waging a six-week-old offensive against the militants controlling Mosul have advanced into eastern city districts, while other forces […]
Submitted by Robert Parry via Strategic-Culture.org, Under the cover of battling “fake news,” the mainstream U.S. news media and officialdom are taking aim at journalistic skepticism when it is directed at the pronouncements of the U.S. government and its allies. One might have hoped that the alarm about “fake news” would remind major U.S. news outlets, such as The Washington Post and The New York Times, about […]
By Tom Perry, Isla Binnie and Vladimir Soldatkin | BEIRUT/ROME/MOSCOW BEIRUT/ROME/MOSCOW Russia said on Saturday it was ready for talks with the United States about a withdrawal of all Syrian rebels from eastern Aleppo where advances by the Russian-backed Syrian army and its allies threaten to deal a crushing blow to the rebellion. An official with an Aleppo rebel group accused Russia of backtracking on ideas agreed […]
By Isla Binnie | ROME ROME European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini is convinced the fall of rebel-held areas of Aleppo to the government would not end the war in Syria, she said on Saturday. “I’m convinced the fall of Aleppo will not end the war,” Mogherini said during a panel discussion at a conference in Rome war with U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura. Syrian […]
BEIJING China’s Foreign Ministry has expressed concern after Yemen’s armed Houthi movement and its political allies formed a new government, in what appeared a blow to U.N.-backed efforts to end 20 months of war in the country. Diplomats had hoped the Houthis, who control the capital Sanaa, would hold off on putting together a cabinet of their loyalists and instead form a unity government with their Yemeni […]
A worker holds part of a pair of trousers at PT Trisula Garmindo Manufacturing in Bandung, West Java province September 17, 2013. In PT Trisula International’s hangar-sized factory outside the western Indonesian city of Bandung, hundreds of workers stitch together clothes for some of the world’s top brands. Amid the clatter and hum of their machines are hopes for a renaissance that can restore Indonesia’s place among […]
Donald Trump has named Stephen Schwarzman, chief executive of Blackstone, as chairman of a new council of strategic advisers, capping a week that has seen Wall Street veterans installed at the heart of the incoming US administration. The president’s strategic and policy forum, which will meet for the first time in February, also includes JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon and Larry Fink, founder of BlackRock, among […]
By Michelle Nichols | UNITED NATIONS UNITED NATIONS The United Nations General Assembly began talks on Friday on a draft resolution that would demand an end to fighting in Syria amid frustration by some states and rights groups over U.N. Security Council deadlock on the nearly six-year conflict. More than a third of the 193-member General Assembly this week asked for a formal meeting to be held […]
By Gavin Jones | ROME ROME With his political career on the line, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi launched a final day of campaigning on Friday ahead of a Dec. 4 referendum, saying Italy would be the strongest nation in Europe if he wins. Financial markets and Europe’s politicians fear victory for the opposition ‘No’ camp could trigger political instability and renewed turmoil for Italy’s battered banks, pushing […]
A terrorist cell formed by a group seeking recognition from the ISIS terror network is already operating and planning a big attack in Manila. This comes as the Philippine capital was placed on its highest terror alert for the first time in 16 years following the arrest of two alleged militants over a makeshift bomb planted near the US Embassy on Monday. A senior police officer, who […]
By Yimou Lee and Aye Win Myint | YANGON YANGON A team led by former U.N. chief Kofi Annan arrived in Myanmar’s northwestern Rakhine State on Friday to address the plight of Rohingya Muslims, amid an army crackdown that has killed at least 86 people and sent 10,000 fleeing to Bangladesh. Annan will spend a day in the state capital, Sittwe, before travelling to the north, which […]
Fully operational since July, Electrochaea’s one-megawatt BioCat facility near Copenhagen converts excess electrical power from wind turbines and waste CO2 from the neighboring water treatment plant into methane for the natural-gas grid. Credit: Ronnie Ranch Hedegaard, courtesy of Electrochaea One of the biggest challenges to wider adoption of wind and solar power is how to store the excess energy they often produce. A technology developed at the […]
By Emily Stephenson | INDIANAPOLIS INDIANAPOLIS President-elect Donald Trump warned on Thursday that U.S. companies would face “consequences” for outsourcing jobs abroad, as he touted his early success in persuading an air conditioner maker to keep about 1,000 jobs in the United States rather than move them to Mexico. “Companies are not going to leave the United States anymore without consequences. Not going to happen,” the Republican […]
By Alonso Soto and Lisandra Paraguassu | BRASILIA BRASILIA Venezuela will be suspended from the Mercosur regional trade bloc as early as Friday for failing to meet membership requirements, a Brazilian official said, in the latest blow to the oil-producing country during a deep political and economic crisis. According to the official, who asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, Mercosur understands that Venezuela […]
Russian President Vladmir Putin played a crucial role in helping OPEC rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia set aside differences to forge the cartel’s first deal with non-OPEC Russia in 15 years. Interventions ahead of Wednesday’s OPEC meeting came at key moments from Putin, Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani, OPEC and non-OPEC sources said. Putin’s […]
The month that stunned investors with Donald Trump’s US election victory was a record-breaker in markets. The prospect of big tax cuts and fiscal spending from the incoming administration has stirred the market’s animal spirits, driving Wall Street into record territory, while bond prices have been hit hard by expectations of higher inflation. Here is how November played out in numbers: 13 — The dollar index — […]
GENEVA About 30,000 people are receiving aid after fleeing the besieged eastern zone of the Syrian city of Aleppo in the past few days, taking the total number of displaced people in the city to 400,000, U.N. special envoy Staffan de Mistura said on Thursday. The U.N. has food for 150,000 people ready in western Aleppo but it still cannot reach roughly 200,000 who remain in the […]
MOSCOW Warships from Russia’s Black Sea Fleet have taken up position off Crimea’s western coastline to help strengthen the peninsula’s air defences in response to the start of Ukrainian missile tests nearby, the RIA news agency reported on Thursday. Kiev began two days of missile tests on Thursday, angering Russia, which has put its air defence forces on high alert saying it hopes the war games won’t […]
Submitted by Federico Pieraccini via Strategic-Culture.org, Looking at US history over a fairly long period of time, it is easy to see the destructive path that has accompanied the expansion of the American empire over the last seventy years. While World War II was still raging, US strategists were already planning their next steps in the international arena. The new target was immediately identified in the assault […]
Thursday 06:00 GMT Overview Markets across Asia saw a day of solid gains as oil continued to trade higher following Opec’s decision to cut output for the first time since the financial crisis and as Japanese stocks benefited from recent weakness in the yen. European bourses are expected to open little changed, with spreadbetters predicting the UK’s FTSE 100 will add 2 points to 6,785 and Germany’s […]
He is now one of just a few surviving witnesses to the Islamic State’s killings in Hamam al-Alil. One evening around 8 p.m. several weeks ago, he said, he watched from his rooftop as eight minibuses drove toward the area where the mass grave was discovered, and he heard gunshot after gunshot. “I saw Daesh bury 200 bodies over here,” he said, using an Arabic acronym for […]
By Jack Kim | SEOUL SEOUL South Korean opposition parties differed on Thursday on when to bring an impeachment motion against scandal-tainted President Park Geun-hye and were far apart from her conservative party on her offer to quit. Park on Tuesday asked parliament to decide how and when she should step down in a dramatic turn of events in the influence-peddling scandal, an offer that the main […]
