Europe

TeleSur | – – The neo Nazi Swedish Resistance Movement claims it was behind a wave of violence in Stockholm targeting homeless refugee children. Swedish police have made at least four arrests after a mob stormed the country’s capital Stockholm in a spree of anti-refugee violence. As many as 100 masked people marched through the city […]

Featured

Exasperated by Netanyahu, France Prepares to Recognize Palestinian State

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Even the staunchly pro-Israel French Socialist Party has had it with Israeli expansionism and aggression. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius announced Friday that France would make one last push to restart diplomatic negotiations between Israel and Palestine, but said that if the endeavor failed then France […]

Featured

Top 5 Ways Putin has won big in Syria and why Europe is embracing him

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Russia is so far winning big in Syria, and making Moscow’s projection of force in the Middle East a reality that the other great powers have to recognize. As Russia has emerged as a major combatant against Syrian al-Qaeda and against Daesh (ISIS, ISIL), it is […]

Crime

German lawmakers rush to respond to Cologne attacks as Vigilante Attacks Break Out

Juan Cole

by Dario Sarmadi (trans. by Samuel Morgan) | ( EurActiv.de) | – – After the attacks carried out on women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve, the German government wants to act quickly and tighten the asylum law. Meanwhile, verbal and physical violence against migrants has escalated. EurActiv Germany reports. The events that unfolded in […]

Russia

Putin: Syria’s Al-Assad welcome to Refuge in Russia

contributors

Vladimir Putin | (Der Bild) | – – Excerpt from part II of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s interview in the German publication, Der Bild, on Jan. 12, 2016, according to the Kremlin website. Highlight: Putin admits that Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad has made many errors, and says that if necessary he can have asylum in […]

Counter-Terrorism

Politics, not just Bombs, will defeat ISIL/ Daesh

contributors

By Frank-Walter Steinmeier | (Project Syndicate) | – – BERLIN – The November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris – which struck at the heart of France and of Europe as a whole – have brought the terrorist threat posed by the [so-called] Islamic State [group] (ISIS) to the forefront of the foreign-policy agenda. For me, […]

Featured

Russian Strike on al-Qaeda Lair kills 51 at Prison, as US hypocritically slams Moscow

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Russian air war against al-Qaeda in Syria (the Nusra Front or the Support Front) took a tragic turn on Saturday when a missile hit a downtown government building complex and prison in Maarat al-Numan. It left some 51 or more dead and 70 wounded. The […]

Counter-Terrorism

How his Syria Intervention brought Putin in from the Cold in 2015

contributors

By Carl Schreck | ( RFE/ RL | – – In December 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama fielded a question about Russia while addressing a group of American business leaders in Washington. President Vladimir Putin’s incursion into Ukraine and “backward-looking” policies, Obama said, are “isolating Russia completely internationally.” If it was Russian expansionism last year […]

European Union

Europol: 1% of 2014 European Terrorism by Muslims

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Europol* report on European terrorism for 2014 would obviously look different for the horrible year of 2015. So too was 2011 an outlier, when far right wing Islamophobe Anders Breivik killed 77 Norwegian leftists for being soft on Islam. But it is worthwhile considering it, […]