Independent voices from the TWT Communities
Underlying the chaotic situation throughout the Middle East is the Obama administration's dysfunctional political strategy of switching sides in the Arab Spring revolutionary wars.
Syria's opposition called Russia "a partner in the murder of innocent civilians," as rebels in a besieged town near the border with Lebanon on Monday accused Syrian troops and their Lebanese Hezbollah allies of killing 300 and wounding 1,300.
The military commander of al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen is threatening new attacks against America, saying its people will never be safe until the U.S. government stops "attacking and oppressing" Muslim countries.
Hundreds of Syrian rebels have poured into a besieged town near the border with Lebanon in preparation for a "great battle" against President Bashar Assad's forces and their Lebanese Hezbollah militant allies, the Syrian opposition said Friday.
The Syrian rebels' top military commander says more than 12,000 Lebanese Hezbollah militants have infiltrated Syria and are fighting alongside President Bashar Assad's forces.
North Korea fired three short-range guided missiles into its eastern waters on Saturday, a South Korean official said. It routinely tests such missiles, but the latest launches came during a period of tentative diplomacy aimed at easing tensions.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye said Wednesday that her nation will respond "decisively" to North Korean provocations, and called for a unified international response to threats from Pyongyang.
China's biggest foreign exchange bank has stopped doing business with its North Korean counterpart, in the first public move Beijing has taken to contribute to international pressure following Pyongyang's illegal nuclear and missile tests.
Testimony from victims strongly suggests it was the rebels, not the Syrian government, that used Sarin nerve gas during a recent incident in the revolution-wracked nation, a senior U.N. diplomat said Monday.
Israeli warplanes struck areas in and around the Syrian capital of Damascus on Sunday, setting off a series of explosions as they targeted a shipment of highly accurate, Iranian-made guided missiles believed to be bound for Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group, officials and activists said.
China continues to do roaring business with North Korea despite U.N. sanctions designed to hamper Pyongyang's nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programs, and punish its reclusive, hereditary dictatorship.
U.N. peacekeeping has had its share of successes, but its failures are more memorable. Two have been memorialized in the movies: the Somali debacle in "Black Hawk Down" and the Rwandan genocide in "Hotel Rwanda." After these disasters, the United Nations concluded it had been too ambitious. Two recent decisions, however, could represent a reversal and should raise concerns in Washington and Turtle Bay.
The Pentagon's top general this week predicted that the U.S. pivot to Asia and increased support for alliances in the region will produce "friction" with China.
North Korea's outrageous and provocative threats to the United States and our allies Japan and South Korea have certainly had the intended effect of causing world attention to focus on the hermit kingdom and its new "dear leader," Kim Jong-un.
China is pulling its weight when it comes to enforcing U.N. sanctions imposed on North Korea after the crumbling and hermetic Communist dictatorship carried out its third nuclear test, according to South Korean officials.
