PBS: Escaping Eritrea … [Read More...] about ካብ ውሽጢ ቤት ማእሰርታት ኤርትራ
UPFRONT
Over a million migrants and refugees have reached Europe this year, says IOM
Patrick Kingsley, Migration correspondent | Tuesday 22 December 2015 | The Guardian International Organisation for Migration announces latest figures, with Greek island of Lesbos now the main refugee gateway More than a million people have now reached Europe through irregular means in 2015, the International Organisation for Migration has … [Read more...] about Over a million migrants and refugees have reached Europe this year, says IOM
From Gucci Grace to President Mugabe?
Erin Conway-Smith | 21 December 2015 | Foreign Policy Zimbabwe’s wildly unpopular first lady is making a play to succeed her husband as president. She might know something about his health that the rest of us don’t. JOHANNESBURG — Grace Mugabe wore her husband to the rally — literally: For the occasion she donned a ruffled dress made from fabric printed with the … [Read more...] about From Gucci Grace to President Mugabe?
Hagel: The White House Tried to ‘Destroy’ Me
Dan De Luce | 18 December 2015 | Foreign Policy In an exclusive interview, Chuck Hagel said the Obama administration micromanaged the Pentagon, stabbed him in the back on the way out — and still has no strategy for fixing Syria. Jet-lagged from a long overseas trip, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had just sat down with his wife for a quiet dinner at an upscale … [Read more...] about Hagel: The White House Tried to ‘Destroy’ Me
The Global Conflicts to Watch in 2016
Uri Friedman | 17 Dec 2015 | The Atlantic Concerns about the Middle East, and especially Syria, have displaced other threats. Center for Preventive Action / Council on Foreign Relations In the summer of 2012—around the time that the Islamic State’s inchoate plans for a caliphate merited a mere footnote in a U.S. congressional report on the year-old Syrian … [Read more...] about The Global Conflicts to Watch in 2016
How Britain and France laid the groundwork for Isis’s reign of terror in the Middle East
Kim Sengupta | 17 December 2015 | The Independent The anger and hatred sown by the Sykes Picot agreement continue to this day, as do the conflicts caused by the deal One hundred years ago this week, Sir Mark Sykes was at a meeting in Downing Street persuading Herbert Asquith’s War Cabinet to accept a plan he had drawn up with the French diplomat, François … [Read more...] about How Britain and France laid the groundwork for Isis’s reign of terror in the Middle East
E.U. launches $2 billion plan to keep Africans from migrating
Kevin Sieff | 16 December 2015 | The Washington Post NAIROBI — The European Union on Wednesday announced the start of a $2 billion initiative to curb illegal migration from Africa, an ambitious program that aims to tackle the root causes of a historic flight of Africans to Europe. The first $325 million in projects introduced Wednesday include efforts to increase … [Read more...] about E.U. launches $2 billion plan to keep Africans from migrating
A new book reveals the horrifying, and fascinating, details of daily life under Isis
Robert Fisk | Sunday 1 November 2015 | The Independent It details all of Isis’s cruelty, but places it in the context of a very bloody history Before Obama’s few dozen brave Spartans put their little bootees on the soil of the tiny bit of Syria that the Kurds hold, not far from Qamishli, they should learn a bit about Isis from the work of a Syrian historian. … [Read more...] about A new book reveals the horrifying, and fascinating, details of daily life under Isis
The Billion-Dollar Caliphate
Colum Lynch & David Francis, 15 December 2015, Foreign Policy The Islamic State has gotten rich from extortion, heists, and smuggling. But how long can the extremist group continue to bankroll jihad? Last month, U.S. fighter jets unleashed airstrikes against oil fields, refineries, and hundreds of tanker trucks near the Syrian city of Deir Ezzor. Dubbed Operation … [Read more...] about The Billion-Dollar Caliphate
The Syrian War and the return of great power politics
John Bew, 15 December 2015, New Statesman If the line between peace and war is being blurred, so is that between fact and fiction. Wars have a nasty habit of creeping up on you, especially when you are unprepared or disinclined to fight them. There was a time, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when the notion of a third world war seemed so fanciful as to belong to … [Read more...] about The Syrian War and the return of great power politics
Rise of the militias
Ned Parker, 14 Dec. 2015, Reuters Torture by Iraqi militias: the report Washington did not want you to see Two unpublished investigations show that the United States has consistently overlooked killings and torture by Iraqi government-sponsored Shi'ite militias. ERBIL, Iraq – It was one of the most shocking events in one of the most brutal periods in Iraq’s history. In … [Read more...] about Rise of the militias