The Phantom of the (tragic) Middle East Opera is back. A killer without a clue, he can't be blamed for not being consistent. His most recent opus speaks for itself; like a Kabuki mask high on Earl Grey tea, the Phantom is eviscerated by his own mighty pen, actually sword. The fact that the Phantom keeps getting away with his vast desert of convoluted lies – [...]
US Secretary of State John Kerry says that Washington is ready to use radical measures to halt the ISIS offensive in Iraq - including enlisting Iran's help and launching air strikes. "We're open to discussions if there is something constructive that can be contributed by Iran, if Iran is prepared to do something that is going to respect the integrity and sovereignty of Iraq," [...]
The Sunni militants fighting to make an Islamic state in Iraq have scored another victory in their move to control more territory. They captured Tal Afar, a city of 200,000 residents in north-west of the country. The city was taken just before dawn on Monday, Mayor Abdulal Abdoul confirmed to AP. [...]
Radical Sunni militants who have been capturing cities in northwest Iraq claimed on Twitter that they executed 1,700 Iraqi soldiers. The radicals posted graphic photos as evidence. The photographs, which were posted on the Twitter account associated with the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS/ISIL), came with captions that described their alleged massacre. [...]
Tony Blair's essay on how the Middle East should blame its own religious dynamics for its troubles - instead of Western attempts at intervention - has seen London Mayor Boris Johnson launch a scathing attack on the "unhinged" former PM. Johnson’s strong condemnation is a reaction to the arguments made in the former British Prime Minister’s piece entitled 'Iraq, Syria and the Mi [...]
Heavily-armed, Al-Qaeda-affiliated militants have seized the Iraqi city of Mosul, driving back government forces. Officials say the Iraqi Army's soldiers are demoralized and are no match for the attacking militant forces. “The city of Mosul is outside the control of the state and at the mercy of the militants,” an Interior Ministry official told AFP on Monday. [...]
The National Security Agency is collecting millions of images of people through its international surveillance network to be implemented in a number of other facial recognition programs, according to documents leaked by Edward Snowden. [...]
Bodies are piling up in Donetsk morgues after Kiev unleashed fighter jets and artillery on the country's southeast just hours after the presidential election. New leader-elect Petro Poroshenko is pushing for the crackdown to become even "more effective." [...]
The US House of Representatives approved an annual defense spending bill early Thursday after rejecting a proposed amendment that would have prevented the United States government from indefinitely detaining American citizens. [...]
The EU has blood on its hands after meddling in the Ukrainian crisis, once again revealing its imperial ambitions, Nigel Farage, leader of the euroskeptic UK Independence Party, said in a TV debate with Britain's deputy PM, Nick Clegg. [...]
Serious issues regarding constitutional law rose to the surface on Friday as a US federal judge dismissed a court case against the US government by families of three Americans killed in US drone strikes in Yemen. [...]
A Senate report found that CIA officials lied to the government and public about its post-9/11 torture program, most notably by distorting intelligence gleaned from traditional interrogations as that attained by far more brutal methods. [...]
A UN report hammers the United States' human rights record, denouncing vast surveillance, ongoing unaccountability for torture, deadly drone strikes, one of the world's highest death penalty counts, and mass incarceration, among other black marks. [...]
A bomb exploded in the major airport of Libya's capital, Tripoli, sparking further concerns about the widespread violence that has plunged the crisis-torn country into chaos. Unidentified people managed to get onto the runway at Tripoli International Airport, plant an explosive device at dawn and detonate it using a timer, said Transport Minister Abdelqader Mohammed Ahmed. [...]
Countries spying on their allies sow distrust that could result in less, rather than more security, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned. She particularly referred to the surveillance and spying activities by the US and the UK. [...]
An independent review board has labeled NSA hoarding of phone data "illegal", adding that while it poses a serious threat to civil liberties, it was unable to find a "single instance" of a threat to the US where the program made any difference. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) released an acerbic report stating that the statute upon which the NSA program was [...]
Out of 225 terrorism cases on the territory of the United States since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the NSA's PRISM program did little to protect the nation from terrorism, according to a new study. The bulk collection of metadata phone records by the National Security Agency “has had no discernible impact on preventing acts of terrorism,” according to a study by the New America Foundati [...]
No doubt 2013 will go down as Barack Obama's annus horribilis. The President of the United States (POTUS) currently faces a 55 percent disapproval rating on "the way he is handling his job," according to the latest Washington Post-ABC poll. [...]
"A total of 8,868 people, including 7,818 civilians, have been killed in violent attacks across Iraq in 2013, the United Nations reports " the highest annual death toll in the war-torn country in five years. In December alone, at least 759 Iraqis were killed and another 1,345 wounded in terrorist attacks and violence, reports the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNIRAQ), which monitors the impa [...]