Three weeks after four US special forces soldiers were killed in a firefight in the landlocked West African nation of Niger, information has surfaced indicating that the American troops and their Nigerien counterparts were involved in a “capture-kill” mission aimed at the leader of a local Islamist militia operating on the Niger-Mali border.
Italy’s non-performing loans (NPLs) then stood at €210bn, at a time when the ECB was buying €120bn per year of outstanding Italian government bonds as part of its QE program. The July 2016 Financial Times quoted Goldman’s Francesco Garzarelli, who said, “by the time QE is over – not sooner than end 2017, on our baseline scenario – around a fifth of Italy’s public debt will be sitting on the Bank of Italy’s balance sheet.”
Wading through the Clinton book, What Happened, is an unpleasant experience, like a stomach upset. Smears and tears. Threats and enemies. “They” (voters) were brainwashed and herded against her by the odious Donald Trump in cahoots with sinister Slavs sent from the great darkness known as Russia, assisted by an Australian “nihilist”, Julian Assange
The House Foreign Affairs Committee is preparing a new round of sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missile program. The Senate unanimously passed a Hezbollah sanctions bill less than two weeks ago. Earlier this year the House voted 419-3 and the Senate 98-2 to pass the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, post-JCPOA, also including North Korea and Russia (much to the ire of EU companies doing business with Russia).
“Double standards” have become synonymous with the United States, and the rise of Russia in the international system today is putting the final nail in the coffin of American unilateralism. This is what Russia’s policy depends on in its cumulative strategy, building on the shortcomings of the other, pointing to them and re-mentioning them whenever possible. While at the same time behaving differently from them, adhering to principles, values and norms in international relations.
President Trump’s confected indignation at Unesco, and his shrugging off of its vital global programmes, serve as a reminder that the US is not an “honest broker” of a Middle East peace. Rather it is the biggest obstacle to its realisation.
The so called “Global Coalition Forces” is a Washington invention that was never invited to fight in Syria and which violates Syria’s sovereignty. Also, the claim that the SDF will ‘lawfully defend’ itself against the forces of the sovereign government is not worthy of a comment. The SDF has no legal right to conduct military operations on Syrian territory.
The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria issued a report this September that reinforced the official narrative that the Syrian air force dropped a bomb containing nerve gas sarin on the insurgent-controlled town of Khan Sheikhoun, Syria on April 4. That conclusion comes several weeks after the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) issued a report that supported […]
The goal of a mass media propaganda campaign is to create the impression that ‘everybody knows’ that Saddam is a ‘threat’, Gaddafi is ‘about to commit mass murder’, Assad ‘has to go’, Corbyn is ‘destroying the Labour party’, and so on. The picture of the world presented must be clear-cut. The public must be made to feel certain that the ‘good guys’ are basically benevolent, and the ‘bad guys’ are absolutely appalling and must be removed.
Why is it that certain ‘regimes’ become ripe for imperial subversion or overthrow? What was it, in particular, that linked together the list of countries that retired general Wesley Clark shared in his famous 2007 interview as being next in the sights of the United States’ bellicose intentions and most of which since have indeed been plunged into horrendous wars?
The Venezuelan Foreign Minister defended Venezuela’s right to speak at the U.N. Human Rights Council against remarks made by the U.S. ambassador. The Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jorge Arreaza, defended Venezuela’s right to participate in the United Nations Human Rights Council against the attacks of the United States U.N. ambassador, Nikki Haley, and said that the United States is […]
The US continues to provoke North Korea with military exercises near its borders. It also fails to live up to diplomatic agreements. Western media continue to distort the chronology of cause and effect, inverting reality to claim that North Korea is provoking the West. John Pilger (The Coming War on China) talks to T.J. Coles about the situation. This interview contains material from our […]
