City of Killers The Battle for Tal Afar
ahmed sabirBy Patrick Cockburn Tal Afar is a small city notorious for sectarian hatred and slaughter, which may soon be engulfed by a final battle between Isis and its bitterest enemies.…
US-Russian relations are about to change what next for Syria and eastern Europe?
Short-term peace for PR purposes, long-term ego clashes Vadimir Putin was one of the first world leaders to congratulate Donald Trump on becoming the 45th President of the United States.…
US scraps plan to punish Syria for using chemical weapons
With an assist from Moscow, Damascus could dodge sanctions for gassing its own people By Colum L Ynch The Obama administration has throttled back its diplomatic push to make Syria…
It’s not Donald Trump who matters now in the Middle East it’s Putin
By Robert Fisk It is easy to say that the Arabs are appalled that an Islamophobe has won the White House. But did they think Obama or any of his…
All is not quiet on the Libyan front
By Osama Al Sharif Libya has not been much in the news lately but that does not mean that all is good. Five years after western powers intervened militarily in…
Vladimir of Arabia
By Emile Simpson In this masterful account Strategy: A History, Sir Lawrence Freedman defines strategy as “the art of creating power.” This is a useful lens through which to consider…
How Iran’s pet terrorists won Lebanon
By Benny Avni 'You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,” sang Bob Dylan. And this week, the winds of change in the Middle East kept…
India’s ‘hush-hush’ assets face a Chinese privacy invasion
By M. K. Bhadrakumar The decision by the Sri Lankan government to sell the deep sea port in Hambantota to a Chinese state-owned company should not have come as surprise…
Value of education
Provincial governments have been trying to get every child enrolled in school. Public education systems, across all provinces, have gone through a plethora of reforms in the last couple of…
TrumCp’s election triggers deep concern in Europe
Trump in the White House, Putin in the Kremlin and Erdogan in Ankara, not to mention right-wing populists at home: The EU is running out of international partners -- at…