By Rand Paul
Obama acts as though we no longer have a Constitution
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
As President Obama visited Israel to achieve some movement on the Israeli-Palestinian question, not so far away, another of the world's most intractable conflicts simmered, threatening to boil over outside of the media spotlight. This is the ongoing low-grade conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh.
He stumbled across the finish line, but Norway's young superstar Magnus Carlsen has earned a date against reigning world champion Viswanathan Anand of India in a title match later this year.
Human Rights Watch accused the government of Azerbaijan on Tuesday of intimidating a writer at the center of a public row over his depiction of violence between Azerbaijanis and Armenians.
Just as in the five-ring Olympics where athletes compete in track events and on the ski slopes, many of the competitors and countries that show up at the biennial chess Olympiad arrive knowing they have little hope of earning a medal. Men’s and women’s teams from more than 150 countries took part in the recent 40th Olympiad in Istanbul, which once again was dominated by the globe’s long-standing chess powerhouses: Russia, China, Armenia, Ukraine and the U.S.
The Little Country That Could did it again as tiny Armenia on Sunday won its third gold medal in the past four years, nipping mighty Russia on tiebreaks after the two chess powerhouses finished 9-1-1 at the 40th biennial Olympiad in Istanbul.
Congratulations to the U.S. Chess Center and its founder, David Mehler, who will be honored for their work with area youths at the U.S. Chess Federation 2012 annual awards next month in Vancouver, Wash.
Bombings and shootings around Iraq killed 22 people and wounded more than 50 on Thursday, authorities said, as a spike in violence made June Iraq's bloodiest month in almost a half a year.
For two weeks and two days starting late next month, the Rockville Hilton will be the chess epicenter of the country as Maryland Chess Association officials plan five major events in the space of 16 days, including a strong open tournament featuring former U.S. champion Gata Kamsky and Potomac-based former world senior champ GM Larry Kaufman.
President Obama inevitably reopened a bedeviling dispute when he nominated a senior diplomat to serve as ambassador to Azerbaijan, which is locked in a deadly conflict with neighboring Armenia.
Azerbaijan's hosting of the Eurovision Song contest last month exemplified just how far the predominantly Muslim former Soviet republic has come since the days of communism, the Azerbaijani ambassador to Washington says.
A protest demonstration by at least 20,000 people on the eve of Vladimir Putin's inauguration as president boiled into a battle with police after protesters tried to split off from the approved venue and march to the Kremlin.
Not far from the sprawling capital of this former Soviet republic lies one of the country's shantytowns, where survivors of a defining event in Azerbaijan's modern history — the Khojaly Massacre — live in poverty and despair.
Not far from the sprawling capital of this former Soviet republic lies one of the country's shantytowns, where survivors of a defining event in Azerbaijan's modern history — the Khojaly Massacre — live in poverty and despair.
Syria's government must take the first step toward settling the country's conflict by pulling troops from city streets, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday, raising pressure on an old ally.
Tens of thousands of Turks, waving Azeri flags, rallied Sunday to mark the anniversary of a notorious attack that Azerbaijanis say killed hundreds of people during the six-year war with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan.
