Europe

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 […]

Germany

German Anti-Muslim Party Member in Surprise Conversion to Islam

contributors

TeleSur | – – Arthur Wagner resigned from Alternative for Germany (AfD) on January 11 for “personal reasons” and “only afterwards was it known that he had converted to Islam.” Arthur Wagner, a former leading member of German far-right anti-Muslim party Alternative for Germany (AfD), based in Brandenburg, has announced his conversion to Islam in […]

Arms Sales

10,000 Deaths Later Germany Bars Arms Sales to Yemen Attackers

contributors

TeleSur | – – Only in the third financial quarter of 2017 German arms sale to Saudi Arabia accounted for US$550 million. Spokesperson for German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced Friday the country will “immediately” stop all arms exports to countries involved in the ongoing war in Yemen, which began in March 2015 and has so […]

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 […]

Donald Trump

Trumpist UK Thugs waving US Flags try to Apprehend London’s Muslim Mayor

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – London Mayor Sadiq Khan was about to begin a speech on gender equality to the leftist Fabian Society when he was interrupted by British Trumpist hooligans shouting that they intended to make a citizen’s arrest of the mayor. After a while, during which Khan leafed through […]