The fate of the world: Two storms on collision course
GENEVA — With rising economic strains on one side and ever more environmental concerns on the other, the world could soon find itself in "the perfect global storm", the World Economic Forum warned in a report on Tuesday."The world is more at risk as persistent economic weakness saps our ability to tackle environmental challenges,"...Al Jazeera buys U.S. channel Current TV
Al Jazeera buys U.S. channel Current TVQatar-based network to launch Al Jazeera America, reaching 40 million US homes, up from 4.7 million before the dealDOHA — The Qatar-based network said on Thursday that with the acquisition it plans to create Al Jazeera America, a US-based news channel. Al Jazeera’s coverage will soon be...Developing world to overshadow the west by 2030, study says
WASHINGTON - A major new long-range report by the U.S. intelligence community suggests that the U.S. economy, currently the world’s largest, could be eclipsed by China’s by 2030.While the study, the result of four years of analysis by the U.S. National Intelligence Council (NIC), forecasts that the United States will remain a central...United Nations asks for control over the world’s Internet
Telecom companies across the world may be given the opportunity to dig through data passed across the Internet more easily following a move to allow the United Nations new authority to regulate the Web.At a conference in Dubai this week, Members of the United Nation’s International Telecommunications Union (ITU) agreed to work towards...UN Resolution calls for Israel to disclose nuclear arsenal
NEW YORK - The UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on Monday to approve a resolution calling on Israel to open up its nuclear weapons program to international inspectors and to end its refusal to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treary, or NPT.A vote by the United Nations general assembly has called on Israel to open its nuclear...Iran war on the ballot
A deal to resolve the Iranian nuclear dispute, based on face-to-face negotiations between Iranian and U.S. officials, could follow quickly upon President Barack Obama’s reelection on Nov. 6, but those bilateral relations would likely veer toward confrontation if Mitt Romney wins and his neocon advisers retake control of U.S. foreign...Israel strikes Sudan military facility
Sudan's information minister has accused Israel of striking a Sudanese military factory Wednesday causing it to explode and burst into flames.An AFP reporter several kilometres (miles) away saw two or three fires flaring across a wide area, with heavy smoke and intermittent flashes of white light bursting above the state-owned Yarmouk...
Report: French secret serviceman killed Gaddafi on Sarkozy’s orders
October 5th, 20120 LONDON - A French secret serviceman acting on the express orders of Nicolas Sarkozy is suspected of murdering Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, it was sensationally claimed this week. He is said to have infiltrated a violent mob mutilating the captured Libyan dictator last year and shot him in the head.The motive, according to well-placed...
Strained East-West relations dominate General Assembly opening
September 28th, 20120 UNITED NATIONS – Addressing the 67th General Assembly at the United Nations in New York Tuesday, U.S. President Barack Obama accused the Iranian government of propping up the dictatorship in Syria and supporting terrorist groups abroad. U.S. President Barack Obama addresses the 67th United Nations General Assembly at the U.N....Canada tightens alliance with Israel
TORONTO – Skepticism continues in Canada about why the national government abruptly cut off diplomatic relations with Iran earlier this month, although ties between the two states have been rocky since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. "Over the last few years Canada has increasingly gone to bat for the Israeli government. Canada's votes at...
Netanyahu’s verbal attack on U.S. shocks staunchest supporters
September 22nd, 20120 Maybe this time the Israeli prime minister has gone too far in his bullying and arrogance in dealing with the United States of America — so far as to undermine the habits and attitudes in the United States that have made such swagger possible in the first place. The harshness of Netanyahu's blast took aback even some American...
Pope visiting Lebanon in shadow of Syrian crisis engulfing the region
September 14th, 20120 BEIRUT - Pope Benedict makes a religiously delicate and potentially dangerous trip to Lebanon this weekend to appeal for peace and reconciliation in the Middle East as civil war rages next door in Syria. Pope Benedict XVI waves upon his arrival at Beirut International Airport as he is welcomed by Lebanon's President Michel Suleiman. The...
Rebuffing Israel, U.N. chief heads to Iran for summit meeting
August 26th, 20120 UNITED NATIONS — Brushing aside a warning by the Israeli government and rebuffing a campaign by pro-Israeli lobbying groups in the United States, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has decided to visit Iran next week to participate in the summit meeting of the 120-member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), described as the world’s largest...
The human cost of war on Iran
August 26th, 20120 In late 2002, just prior to the launch of the U.S. “shock and awe” campaign against Iraq, I was invited to join a gathering of intelligence analysts at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to participate in an Iraq “war games” exercise. We were assigned specific roles and asked to “play out” various political...United Church members vote for boycott of products from Israeli settlements
Canada's largest Protestant church denomination, the United Church of Canada, voted on Wednesday to boycott goods produced in Israeli settlements on the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The decision came on Wednesday after nearly six hours of contentious debate according to a report in the Toronto Star. The group named the Israeli......
Can Iran help on Syrian crisis?
August 17th, 20120 This past week, Iran hosted an international conference on the conflict in Syria, a conference that is more important than most Western media coverage conveyed.The conflict in Syria is not just a civil war; it has become a highly militarized proxy war, involving major regional and international powers (including the United States). In...U.S. poll finds Muslims differ widely in religiosity
WASHINGTON - The global Muslim community of 1.6 billion people agree on the core principles of their faith, but differ widely in religiosity and religious tolerance, according to a poll published Thursday."Muslims are unified by core beliefs and in core practices" like faith in a single God, believe in the Prophet Mohammed and fasting......
New Israeli deputy PM undercuts strategy of pressure on Obama
WASHINGTON — By staking out a policy line on Iran reflecting the views of the Israeli national security leadership, Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz has undercut the Benjamin Netanyahu government's carefully planned strategy to get U.S. President Barack Obama to threaten war against Iran if it doesn't give up its nuclear program.It...
What Russia fears in Syrian conflict
June 30th, 20120 MOSCOW — Russia's unyielding support for Damascus throughout the 16 months of Syria's escalating crisis has earned Moscow strong condemnation from Washington and other Western governments, but the reasons for Russia's implacable position have never been fully explained by Moscow or its critics. Washington's latest tension with Russia...No rest for cyber activists
FLORENCE — One and a half years since the beginning of the Arab Spring, activists who guided their fellow citizens through the relatively uncharted terrain of social media activism feel their fight for human rights, democracy and transparency is only just beginning. Many of the leading social media activists in Tunisia, birthplace of...
U.S. , Israel military surveillance future: Drones now come in swarms?
June 22nd, 20120 A small insect or a mosquito over your ear may now be much more than simply annoying. They could easily be micro drones which now come in a swarm of bug-sized flying spies. An image from NetworkWorld.comIn an effort to create a hard-to-detect surveillance drone that will operate with little or no direct human supervision in out of the......
Report slams Israeli PM over deadly flotilla raid
The Israeli PM is under fire for the management of the deadly Turkish flotilla raid that occured in 2010. A new report released by State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss suggests that Benjamin Netanyahu failed to follow protocol that could have avoided the bloodshed.The report states that no official cabinet meeting was called during the...Attacking Iran likely counter-productive, think tank warns
WASHINGTON — While a nuclear-armed Iran would pose significant new challenges to the United States and Israel, a military attack by either country to prevent Tehran from developing a weapon could well prove counter-productive, according to a major new report released here Wednesday by a think tank close to the administration of......
Israel, not Iran, feels isolated
JERUSALEM — As a result of the diplomatic momentum geared to disarm international suspicions over the explosive issue of Iran’s nuclear program, the one country not directly party to the two-track negotiation process feels more isolated than Iran. Iran nuclear talks in Baghdad on May 23, 2012. Following the putative breakthrough...U.S. Iran hawks in Congress in some disarray
WASHINGTON — Hopes by Iran hawks here to get the U.S. Congress to wield the threat of a U.S. military attack on the Islamic Republic on the eve of next week's critical negotiations on Tehran's nuclear program appear to have fallen unexpectedly short.While the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Thursday to reject "any U.S.......
