Islamic State insurgents released a video on Tuesday purportedly showing the beheading of U.S. journalist James Foley, who had gone missing in Syria nearly two years ago, and images of another U.S. journalist whose life they said depended on U.S. action in Iraq. The video, titled “A Message To America,” was posted on social media sites. It was not immediately possible to verify its authenticity. Foley, who […]
|By Rashidul Bari| Palestine and Israel, once known as cradle of civilization, have become the hub of cemeteries in modern times. Their conflict has shed untold blood and produced graves as far as the eye can see. The countless tombstones are silent, but the sound of their outcry has carried from Middle-East to here at New York University’s Bobst Library—where I’m writing this article—and from which I’m […]
PARIS–French nationals are likely fighting alongside the self-proclaimed jihadist group Islamic State which has captured large swaths of Iraq, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said on Wednesday. “There are probably some of them in Iraq since the Islamic State, which has recruited these young nationals, takes them to all the areas where fighting is happening,” Mr. Cazeneuve said in an interview with radio station France Info. Nationals […]
Salwa Khalaf (right), 15 years old, was forced to flee her home and school in Sinjar after an advance by Islamic militants. Nour Malas/The Wall Street Journal Thousands of Yazidis have fled an Islamic insurgent attack on their hometowns in the Sinjar plain of northern Iraq. We spent a day meeting and interviewing families who escaped to the closest town over in the relative safety of the […]
President Barack Obama said on Saturday U.S. air strikes had destroyed arms that Islamic State militants could have used against Iraqi Kurds, but he warned there was no quick fix to a crisis that threatens to tear Iraq apart. Speaking before U.S. warplanes struck militant targets for the second straight day, Obama said it would take more than bombs to restore stability, and criticized Prime Minister Nuri […]
PARIS– France is “ready to play a full part” in actions to protect and help civilians in Iraq from attacks from the militant group that calls itself Islamic state, French President Francois Hollande‘s office said Friday in a statement. France will discuss possible actions in Iraq with the U.S. and its partners to end civilians’ sufferings, the statement said. Mr. Hollande welcomed U.S. President Barack Obama‘s decision to […]
New Delhi: Global defence equipment majors such as BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin could set up manufacturing units in India and bring in foreign direct investment (FDI) exceeding 49 per cent, provided the company’s chief executive officer (CEO) is Indian.
As the objective was to let only serious players enter the market, the defence FDI policy approved by the Cabinet on Wednesday categorically stated investee companies should be self-sufficient in product designing and have maintenance and life cycle support facilities for the products they manufactured here, said a senior department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP) official.
The Union Cabinet had approved an increase in the composite foreign investme
NEW DELHI: The Obama administration will push for the stalled mega deals for M-777 ultra-light howitzers and Javelin anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) when US defence secretary Chuck Hagel comes visiting from Thursday.
There will be talks on ways to further bolster the already expansive strategic partnership, ranging from sharing of intelligence and cooperation on counter-terrorism to joint combat exercises, but the cornerstone will remain the US offer to provide India with “ground-breaking” weapon technology on par with its closest allies.
Having bagged defence deals worth over $10 billion over the last decade, the US is obviously hungry for more. Of the different co-development and co-prod
Video | Cease-Fires of the Gaza-Israel Conflict With the Israeli Army now moving into defensive positions, a historical look at how the fighting could end. By MARK LANDLER August 4, 2014 WASHINGTON — When the State Department condemned Israel’s strike on a United Nations school in Gaza on Sunday, saying it was “appalled” by this “disgraceful” act, it gave full vent to what has been weeks of mounting American […]
Minutes after a partial cease-fire was to begin, the Israeli air force struck a refugee camp in Gaza City, killing an 8-year-old and wounding at least 29 others. (via NY Times)
Op-Ed Contributor Eight Days in Gaza: A Wartime Diary By ATEF ABU SAIF August 4, 2014 Sunday, July 27 For the last two hours we’ve heard nothing but sonic booms and the sound of rockets and mortars. Shells have fallen on our street a few hundred yards from my father-in-law’s house, where my wife and I, and our five kids, are staying, and on the street behind us. My wife, […]
By STEVEN ERLANGER and JODI RUDOREN August 3, 2014 JERUSALEM — The Israeli military continued its substantial military attacks around Rafah in southern Gaza on Sunday while defending its decision to announce the death of a missing Israeli soldier at 2 a.m., only hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went on national television to say that he had no new information about the case. Army spokesmen said on Sunday that the […]
Medics at a field hospital in Rafah, Gaza Strip. More than 120 Palestinians were killed in Rafah alone on Friday and Saturday. By BEN HUBBARD and FARES AKRAM August 2, 2014 RAFAH, Gaza Strip — It was clear from the bodies laid out in the parking lot of the maternity hospital here that it had assumed new duties: No longer a place that welcomed new life, it was now a makeshift […]
Israeli soldiers watching Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speak on television at a coffee shop near the border with Gaza. By STEVEN ERLANGER and JODI RUDOREN August 2, 2014 JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said early Sunday morning that an officer thought to have been captured by Palestinian militants during a deadly clash Friday morning, which shattered a planned 72-hour cease-fire, was now considered to have been killed in battle. The announcement […]
Lila Faria, 19, at her home in Maplewood, N.J. Ms. Faria, a student at New York University, recently returned from a trip to the Middle East with the Taglit-Birthright Israel organization. By ELENA SCHNEIDER August 1, 2014 WASHINGTON — Lila Faria, 19, a student at New York University, heard the whine of a bomb siren for the first time last month in Jerusalem. Along with several dozen other Americans […]
By JODI RUDOREN and ISABEL KERSHNER August 1, 2014 JERUSALEM — Palestinian militants sprang from the ground and confronted Israeli soldiers Friday morning, as they have repeatedly in recent days. This time, Israeli officials said, one exploded a suicide belt while another unleashed machine-gun fire. This time, two Israeli soldiers were killed and the militants apparently escaped with a third. The attack, at the start of what was supposed to be […]
Video | Obama on Failed Cease-Fire in Gaza The president called for the release of an Israeli solider captured just moments after a cease-fire was reached in the Gaza conflict. By PETER BAKER August 1, 2014 WASHINGTON — President Obama on Friday demanded that Hamas release a captured Israeli soldier unconditionally and expressed pessimism that another cease-fire could be reached because of the deep reserves of mistrust between the […]
Thousands of Irish volunteers fought with the British Army in the First World War Photo: PA By Daniel Mulhall 7:30AM BST 01 Aug 2014 At Dublin’s Glasnevin Cemetery yesterday, a significant event took place: the unveiling of a Cross of Sacrifice erected in conjunction with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. In a cemetery associated with Ireland’s patriot dead, this new monument represents an important symbolic reflection of changed […]
Family members mourned on Thursday in Tel Aviv at the grave of Staff Sgt. Guy Algranati, 20, who was killed on Wednesday. By MICHAEL R. GORDON and MARK LANDLER July 31, 2014 NEW DELHI — A 72-hour humanitarian cease-fire in the Gaza conflict negotiated by the United States and the United Nations took effect Friday morning, a diplomatic bolt-from-the-blue that will suspend the bloody 24-day military campaign and set the stage for […]
By SOMINI SENGUPTA July 31, 2014 UNITED NATIONS — In the midst of Israel’s battle with militants in Gaza over the past three weeks, skirmishes opened on a second front in recent days: Its strikes on United Nations facilities and the steep civilian casualties brought a barrage of rebukes and warnings from senior United Nations officials around the world, reaching a fever pitch just before the announcement of a […]
By ISABEL KERSHNER and FARES AKRAM July 31, 2014 JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said on Thursday that he would not agree to any cease-fire proposal that does not allow the Israeli military to complete its mission of destroying Hamas’s tunnel network in Gaza. “So far we have neutralized tens of terror tunnels,” Mr. Netanyahu said in televised remarks at the start of a government meeting at military […]
Video | Behind the Escalations in Gaza A look at why Israel and Hamas have repeatedly chosen to intensify the violence at every stage of the continuing conflict. By JODI RUDOREN July 30, 2014 JERUSALEM — After years in which Israel’s prevailing approach to the Gaza Strip was a simple “quiet for quiet” demand, there is growing momentum around a new formula, “reconstruction for demilitarization.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu […]
A cease-fire proposal by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt met most of Israel’s demands; Hamas immediately rejected it. By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK July 30, 2014 CAIRO — Battling Palestinian militants in Gaza two years ago, Israel found itself pressed from all sides by unfriendly Arab neighbors to end the fighting. Not this time. After the military ouster of the Islamist government in Cairo last year, Egypt has led a […]
Three young rebels, their AK47s propped against wooden stools in the afternoon heat, guard the entrance to the giant Ndassima goldmine carved deep into a forested hilltop in Central African Republic. Sat in a thatched shack at the edge of a muddy shantytown, the gunmen keep the peace – for a price – among hundreds of illegal miners who swarm over the steep sides of the glittering […]
