The Ukraine crisis has caused yet another standoff between the U.S. and Russia, and with talk of further sanctions against Russia abounding, a thaw in the relationship doesn’t seem to be on the horizon. How can the two sides rekindle a spirit of mutual understanding, and what’s needed to solve their grievances in a pragmatic way? Oksana is joined by former US Secretary of Commerce, Michael Kantor, and Dr Jerrold Green, the President of the Pacific Council on International Policy, to explore these issues.
Before clinching the deal, Iran required Meshaal to publicly endorse Iran’s policy in Syria and his support for Bashar Assad.
The Hamas politburo chief accordingly stated in Doha Thursday night that he “welcomed the position of Tehran toward Syria,” adding: “We will never forget Syrian President Bashar Al- Assad’s support for the Palestinian nation.”
The Palestinian Hamas terrorist group has been restored to the Iranian fold and won the promise of an annual allowance of $200 million per year, military assistance and advanced weapons on a par with the hardware supplied to Jihad Islami. DEBKAfile’s sources report that this deal was secretly sealed in Doha on Thursday, May 22, at a meeting between Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and Hamas’s politburo head Khaled Mashaal.
BEIRUT – A potentially important diplomatic development underway in the Middle East, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz Monday, is that Washington is “tending towards cooperating with the soon-to-be-formed Palestinian unity government, even if Hamas as an organization does not accept the conditions of the Mideast Quartet to recognize Israel, honor previous agreements and abandon violence.”
The 4th Summit of Heads of State of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (Cica) opened on May 21 in Shanghai. This organization, which was created after the demise of the Soviet Union, aims to stabilize Asia on the pattern of the OSCE in Europe. However, this forum never really functioned due to both the lack of regional leadership throughout the 1990s and 2000s, and the absence of a culture of dialogue between Member States. The organization remained dormant during the Turkish chairmanship which has been taken over by China.
All changes are now possible around Russia and China. After the accession of Qatar and Bangladesh, the number of CICA member states has been brought to 26. Yesterday, the Russian and Chinese presidents have decided to consolidate the payment of their bilateral trade in local currencies rather than in dollars. And it appears certain that the summit will issue a joint statement with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
“There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own,” she said. “Nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for.” It was all part of “the underlying social contract,” she said, a phrase politicians don’t typically use.
Elizabeth Warren is cast as many things: a populist, a left-winger, the paladin against the bankers and the rich, the Democrats’ alternative to Hillary Clinton, the policy wonk with a heart.
We’re three years from the next presidential election, and Hillary Clinton is, once again, the inevitable Democratic nominee. Congressional Republicans have spent months investigating her like she already resides in the White House. The New York Times has its own dedicated Clinton correspondent, whose job it is to chronicle everything from Hillary’s summer accommodations (“CLINTONS FIND A NEW PLACE TO VACATION IN THE HAMPTONS”) to her distinct style of buckraking (“IN CLINTON FUNDRAISING, EXPECT A FULL EMBRACE”). There is a feature-length Hillary biopic in the works, and a well-funded super PAC—“Ready for Hillary”—bent on easing her way into the race. And then there is Clinton herself, who sounds increasingly candidential. Since leaving the State Department, Clinton has already delivered meaty, headline-grabbing orations on voting rights and Syria.
EU and NATO should take a step back and make sure that Ukraine can have development outside both political entities and without their interference in its domestic affairs, Harry van Bommel, the Dutch Socialist Party MP told RT.
“Because political anticipation isn’t a crystal ball but a rational tool to help make a decision and thus “armageddonist” scenarios (3) whose purpose is to paralyse people by terrifying and crushing them will never be the basis of its business.”
The Ukrainian crisis gathers all the conditions together to give a saving jolt to Europe
After two deliberately alarmist issues, our team wants to get back on the path of positive anticipation. Not that Europe is yet out of trouble but Political Anticipation (1) as conceived by its inventor, Franck Biancheri, stating that man is the author of his own destiny provided that he arms himself with the means to have a good understanding of the trends at work, aims to envisage desirable and feasible futures and identify players, openings and choices to draw upon to build this desirable and feasible future. Political anticipation isn’t afraid of being wrong in its forecasts (2) provided that it has contributed to a better understanding of the dynamics at work, pick up the trends supporting a positive future and show how to capitalize on these future paths. Because political anticipation isn’t a crystal ball but a rational tool to help make a decision and thus “armageddonist” scenarios (3) whose purpose is to paralyse people by terrifying and crushing them will never be the basis of its business.
“Meanwhile, a discombobulated America seems to be aiding and abetting the deconstruction of its own unipolar world order, while offering the BRICS a genuine window of opportunity to try to change the rules of the game.”
A specter is haunting Washington, an unnerving vision of a Sino-Russian alliance wedded to an expansive symbiosis of trade and commerce across much of the Eurasian land mass – at the expense of the United States.
For the first time, a new study shows that birds exposed to AM waveband interference lose their way
Researchers at the University of Oldenburg in Germany published a study in the coming issue of Nature, proving that the magnetic compass of robins fail when exposed to even the slightest AM radio waveband electromagnetic interference that are found in all urban areas.
In These New Times 