“The de-escalation strategy with Moscow has failed,” warns Joachim Krause, Director of the Institute for Security Studies, concluding ominously that “A war between Russia and the West… is a real possibility.” As Handelsblatt reports, [6]Krause states “we should not deny this reality any longer.
Russian forces in two armored columns captured a key southeastern coastal town near the Russian border Thursday after Ukrainian forces retreated in the face of superior firepower, a Ukrainian military spokesman said. The two Russian columns, including tanks and armored fighting vehicles, entered the town of Novoazovsk on the Sea of Azov after a battle in which Ukrainian army positions came under fire from Grad rockets launched from Russian territory, according to the spokesman, Col. Andriy Lysenko.
Russian soldiers and Ukrainian soldiers are now shooting at each other in eastern Ukraine. Could this conflict ultimately lead us down the road to World War 3? This week, a very robust force of “tanks, artillery and infantry” has opened up a “third front” in the Ukrainian civil war in a part of southeastern Ukraine that had not seen much fighting yet.
Hamas’s true objective in Operation Protective Edge – and negotiations that may follow – is in “liberating” Jerusalem from the Jews, a Hamas spokesman stated earlier this week. “The time has come for us to say that the true war is not aimed at opening border crossings,” Sami Abu Zuhri said. “Our true war is aimed at the liberation of Jerusalem, Allah willing.
Ukraine and Western officials on Wednesday warned that Russian forces are opening up another, major front in the war, according to The New York Times. “This is what happened: they crossed the border, took up positions, and started shooting,” Sgt.
According to Russia’s RIA Novosti, citing business daily Kommersant, Gazprom Neft has agreed to export 80,000 tons of oil from Novoportovskoye field in the Arctic; it will accept payment in rubles, and will also deliver oil via the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline (ESPO), accepting payment in Chinese yuan for the transfers. Meaning Russia will export energy to either Europe or China, and receive payment in either Rubles or Yuan, in effect making the two currencies equivalent as far as the Eurasian axis is conerned, but most importantly, transact completely away from the US dollar thus, finally putin'(sic) in action the move for a Petrodollar-free world. More on this long awaited first nail in the petrodollar coffin from RIA:
IMF chief Christine Lagarde, one of the world’s most powerful women, announced Wednesday she had been charged with “negligence” over a multi-million-euro graft case relating to her time as French finance minister. The shock announcement came a day after she was grilled for more than 15 hours by a special court in Paris that probes ministerial misconduct, the fourth time she has been questioned in a case that has long weighed upon her position as managing director of the International Monetary Fund. “The investigating commission of the court of justice of the French Republic has decided to place me under formal investigation,” she said in exclusive comments to AFP.
Two polls released this week both ask a question that you would hope wouldn’t need asking: how many people support the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS)? Unfortunately, in all four countries surveyed, the answer is greater than zero, and by a lot.
The Islamic State wants more than $6 million to free an American woman the Muslim extremists kidnapped a year ago while she did humanitarian work in Syria, according to her family, U.S. officials and news reports.
A few days ago I had a conversation with the Chief Operating Officer for our agricultural fund in Chile. We were discussing water, and he told me that roughly 60% of California right now is suffering “extreme drought” conditions. 30% of the state is in “severe drought”.
A column of Russian tanks and armored vehicles has crossed into southeastern Ukraine, away from where most of the intense fighting has been taking place, a top Ukrainian official said Monday. Col. Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s National Security Council, told reporters that the column of 10 tanks, two armored vehicles and two trucks crossed the border near Shcherbak and that the nearby city of Novoazovsk was shelled during the night from Russia.
Palestinian officials have said that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is planning to ask the UN to set a timetable for the end of the Israeli occupation and the establishment of a Palestinian state along the 1967 lines, with its capital in East Jerusalem. The official told the Associated Press that Abbas would present his proposal as part of a “day after” plan following the end of the current war in the Gaza Strip. According to the Qatari News Agency, an agreement over the matter was reached in Abbas’ meeting with Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and Hamas’ political chief Khaled Meshal, in Doha on Friday.
Boko Haram’s leader said a town in the north east of Nigeria seized by the insurgents earlier this month has been placed under an Islamic caliphate, in a video obtained by AFP on Sunday. “Thanks be to Allah who gave victory to our brethren in (the town of) Gwoza and made it part of the Islamic caliphate,” Abubakar Shekau said in the 52-minute video. The military however rejected the claim, saying in a statement the “sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Nigerian state is still intact”.
ISIS fighters managed to loot SA-16 man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS), Sidewinder missiles, and even MiG-21B fighter jets. It is extremely unlikely that the militants have the manpower or the expertise to make use of the jets or the Sidewinder missiles. But the MANPADS pose dangers of their own.
Egyptian feminist Aliaa Magda Elmahdy, 23, challenges the strict nature of Islam on her blog and Facebook pages. She went a step further in her protest against the Islamic State (IS) with a photo of Elmahdy and a veiled woman pooping and menstruating on the black IS flag. Arab nations did not print the photo because the flag states “there is no God but Allah.
Tarek Fahmi, the head of the Israeli Unit at the Egyptian National Center for Middle East Studies, said that “the goal of the talks today is to neutralize the main crisis points, particularly [the question of] the Gaza airport and Israeli concessions regarding the sea, as well as the issue of the tunnels.” Fahmi said that the negotiating sessions that took place on Monday were “critical.” “Israel insists on demilitarizing the Gaza Strip from rockets and missiles, and the declaration of a cease-fire that would last between five and seven years,” he said.