Eastern Europe

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – BBC Monitoring reports on a statement in Russian at the site of its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, reacting to the Israeli air attacks on Syria and the shoot-down by the Syrians of one Israeli fighter-jet. The Foreign ministry expressed “serious concern” over the Israeli air strikes, […]

Climate Change

Cheap German Green Energy, Decarbonization Laws, Pressuring Dirty Polish Coal

contributors

By Bartłomiej Derski | Euractiv.com / WysokieNapiecie.pl | translated by Alexandra Brzozowski | – – Since 1990, the production of “green” electricity in Germany has increased by 1,000% and export rates, according to preliminary data for 2017, just smashed another record. EURACTIV Poland’s partner WysokieNapiecie.pl reports. When Germany was reunified, three electricity sources reigned supreme: […]

Featured

Russia-aided Syria shoots down Israeli F-16 after downing of Iranian Drone

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Syrian anti-aircraft batteries scored a rare shoot-down of an Israeli F-16 late Saturday morning local time. It is being alleged by a whole range of analysts that this shoot-down could not have happened without Russian help. It required that the anti-aircraft personnel break Israeli radar jamming. […]

Antisemitism

Right’s ban on phrase “Polish Death Camps” Backfires on Warsaw

Juan Cole

Sławomir Sierakowski | (Project Syndicate) | – – A new Polish law criminalizes blaming Poles for any wrongdoing against other nations. But the move only serves to highlight the fact that some Poles were complicit in crimes against Jews, while jeopardizing the country’s relationship with its three most important allies: the US, Germany, and Ukraine. […]

Featured

Russia Mounts intensive Syria Air Campaign in Response to Downed Jet

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Russian side of the story, presented in the Syrian press, is that an al-Qaeda-linked group in Idlib, a northwestern province of Syria, used a shoulder-mounted missile launcher to shoot down a Russian fighter jet. The pilot ejected and landed, but then was attacked by ground […]

Donald Trump

Chiefs Of Three Russian Intelligence Agencies Travel To Washington

contributors

Mike Eckel | ( RFE/RL) | – – WASHINGTON — The directors of Russia’s three main intelligence and espionage agencies all traveled to the U.S. capital in recent days, in what observers said was a highly unusual occurrence coming at a time of heightened U.S.-Russian tensions. Russia’s ambassador to the United States had earlier confirmed […]

Featured

Trump declines to Sanction Russia, Spurring Speculation about Putin Hold

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Trump administration has refused to implement new sanctions on the Russian defense sector, as mandated by Congress’s “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act,” or CAATSA. Congress passed the bill last year and it was reluctantly finally signed by Trump in August. It is vaguely worded […]

Featured

Russia accuses US of destabilizing Syria with Kurdish-Turkish Clash

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s angry threat to invade a Syrian Kurdish canton in response to the US announcement that it would train and arm a 30,000-man Syrian Kurdish border force produced anxiety in Moscow. Russia has made a big bet, worth billions of rubles and involving […]

Bashar al-Assad

Turkey threatens war against US/Kurdish Force in Syria

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The US announcement that it would form a 30,000 strong policing force in northeast Syria from the YPG leftist Kurdish militia has provoked unprecedently strong words from Turkey, and signs of an unusual convergence of Syrian and Turkish foreign policy objectives. In the cross-hairs are 2,000 […]